It’s a chilling statistic: Twenty-two United States veterans commit suicide a day, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. One recent victim: Thirty-year-old Air Force Reserve Capt. Jamie Brunette.

Capt. Brunette, the youngest of five children from Milwaukee, had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan during her 11-year Air Force career. On Feb. 9, police in Tampa, Fla., found her dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her family and friends came together this week to honor Brunette’s memory and raise awareness about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something Brunette’s friends say was hard for her to talk about.

“Our whole friendship was based on conversations,” says Brunette’s friend Jessica Aguiar. “She never really opened up about her professional life. She’s actually extremely humble about it and all of her achievements.”

Brunette’s friends say they were shocked and in disbelief that a friend who they say was so full of vitality and spirit would take her own life.

“I found out through Facebook,” Aguiar says. “My best friend, Nicole, reached out to me because she saw a status indicating that Jamie had passed, and she screen-shotted it and said, ‘Is this serious?’ And I hadn’t been on Facebook all day, so I was stunned and was, like, I have no idea.”

Brunette’s roommate, Heather Milner, says she had just seen Capt. Brunette the night before she died.