Hundreds of our troops have come home from the Iraq war, left the military, and committed suicide.

That is the finding of preliminary Veterans Affairs Department research that provides the first quantitative look at the suicide toll on today's combat veterans. The ongoing research reveals that at least 283 combat veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005 took their own lives.

And today's home front suicide tally is running at least double the number of troop suicides in the war zones as thousands of men and women return with disabling injuries and mental health disorders that put them at higher risk.

A total of 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.

 Add the number of returning veterans and the finding is that at least 430 of the 1.5 million troops who have fought in the two wars have killed themselves over the past six years. And that doesn't include those who committed suicide after their combat tour ended and while still in the military - a number the Pentagon says it doesn't track.

That compares with at least 4,229 U.S. military deaths overall since the wars started - 3,842 in Iraq and 387 in and around Afghanistan.

In response, the Department of Veterans Affairs says it is ramping up suicide prevention programs.

Research suggests that combat trauma increases the risk of suicide, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Difficulty dealing with failed relationships, financial and legal troubles, and substance abuse also are risk factors among troops, said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Families of our veterans see the devastating effects first hand.

"None of them come back without being touched a little," said a mother of three whose husband, a Marine Gunnery Sgt., took his own life in 2006 inside their home.

He was proud of his Iraq service, but she wonders whether he was bothered by the death of his captain in Iraq or an incident in which he helped rescue a soldier who was in a fire and later died. Shortly before his death, her husband was distraught over an assignment change he saw as an insult, she said.

"His death contradicts the very person he was. It's very confusing and difficult to understand," she said.

The family of another Iraq veteran who committed suicide, filed suit against the former VA secretary, alleging that bad care at the VA was to blame.

Suicides in Iraq have occurred since the early days of the wars, but awareness was heightened when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops - the highest level in 26 years of record-keeping.

At the VA's national suicide hot line center based in Canandaigua, N.Y., counselors have taken more than 9,000 calls since July. Some callers are just looking for someone to talk to. Others are concerned family members. Callers who choose to give their names can opt to be met at a local VA center by a suicide prevention counselor; more than 120 callers have been rescued by emergency personnel - some after swallowing pills or with a gun nearby, according to the center.

One government study of Army veterans from Vietnam found they were more likely to die from suicide than other veterans in the first five years after leaving the military, although the study found the likelihood dissipated over time. There is still heated debate, however, over the total number of suicides by Vietnam veterans; the extent to which it continues even today is unknown.

In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon found veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as male nonveterans. High gun ownership rates, along with debilitating injuries and mental health disorders, were all risk factors that seemed to put the veterans at greater risk, said Mark Kaplan, one of the researchers.

While veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were not included in the study, Kaplan said that given the nature of the injuries of the recent wars and the strain of long and repeated deployments, the newer generation of veterans could be at risk for suicide.

Kaplan said primary care physicians should ask patients whether they are veterans, and if the answer is yes, inquire about their mental health.

"This is war unlike other wars and we don't know the long-term implications and the hidden injuries of war," Kaplan said.

Dr. Dan Blazer, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center who served this year on the military's mental health task force, said improvements in care will likely help some veterans, but he's concerned about this generation. He said he treats World War II veterans still struggling mentally with their military experience.

"There's still going to be individuals that just totally slip through all of these safety nets that we construct to try to help things in the aftermath," Blazer said.

Suicide, Blazer said, "is a cost of war. It's a big one."

Suicide Hot Line:

The toll-free Veterans Affairs Department suicide hot line number is (800) 273-TALK (8255).