YORK, Pa. (WHTM) -
Victoria Miller does her best to try and describe what it feels like to return home from a military deployment.
"Being able to sleep in your own bed is so different from sleeping in a military bunk," she said.
Knowing well, that most of us will never understand. So those who can keep each other close, she says, a bond that was broken in August of 2010.
"My friend Jason was on the other end of the phone, I thought he was just calling to talk," Miller said.
Jason wasn't calling to talk. He called to tell Victoria that their friend Keith had taken his own life.
This summer marked the highest number of suicides the U.S. military has ever seen. It's the reason why family, friends and York Mayor Kim Bracey, a veteran herself, gathered at Prospect Hill Cemetery Thursday evening for a vigil.
"We really preach to soldiers, just to know each other and look for a general change," said First Lieutenant Sarah Lambert, manager of the Pennsylvania National Guard's suicide prevention program.
Lambert says the demographics of those most at risk makes the question of "Why?" even harder to answer.
"Male soldiers under the age of 30 that have never deployed," Lambert noted.
Victoria's friend Keith was 29. She is now a board member at York County's Suicide Prevention Coalition.
"You still feel 'What could I have done? What did I miss? What should I have asked that I didn't?' You still feel that," she said.
"Two years later, and I still feel that," she said.
