According to an Army report, 26 active-duty soldiers and 12 Army National Guard or Army Reserve members were suspected of or confirmed to have died by suicide.

The soldiers included a 21-year-old air traffic controller who shot himself in his Fort Wainright, Alaska, barracks; a 26-year-old captain who died at an indoor firing range in Virginia, and a 29-year-old sergeant who had deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three soldiers died at their own hands on deployment, and 13 had deployed at least once. But nine had never seen combat, according to the Army.

The deaths bring the total number of suspected suicides by soldiers to 187 for the year: 116 on active duty and 71 nonmobilized Guard or Reserve members. The previous record for a single month was 33 in July 2011.

The Army statistics for 2012 exceed those for the first seven months of 2009 through 2011, when the service suffered an average 160 suicides per year during the same time period.

The Army’s suicide rate has risen from 19.1 per 100,000 in 2008 to roughly 24 per 100,000 in 2011.

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