A Pentagon official says there have been 21 suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq. 18 were in the army and the other three were in the navy and marine corps.

A total of 496 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the war began last March, 343 of them in combat and 153 in non-hostile incidents ranging from accidents to suicide, according to the Pentagon.

The 21 suicides represent nearly 14 percent of non-hostile deaths reported by the military, an increase over the proportion of 11 percent as of three months ago when the suicide number totaled 13....nearly 400 troops had been evacuated from Iraq for stress-related problems. The United States has about 123,000 troops in Iraq.

Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder told the media that the military is taking steps to prevent suicides, including establishing a toll free hotline and increasing the availability of military psychiatric specialists in Iraq.

We can't help but remember one soldier who didn't receive help when he complained about being over-stressed--instead he was sent home and charged with a military crime:

Georg-Andreas Pogany is the special forces soldier who was sent home from Iraq and charged with cowardice after asking to speak a counselor when images of a body blown apart kept resurfacing in his mind to the point where he thought he was having a nervous breakdown. The charge has been reduced to derelection of duty.

Read Pogany's recollection of events, as reported in the Denver Post: