WASHINGTON — Suicides across the U.S. military have dropped by more than 22 percent this year, defense officials said, amid an array of new programs targeting what the Defense Department calls an epidemic that took more service members’ lives last year than the war in Afghanistan did during that same period.

Military officials, however, were reluctant to pin the decline on the broad swath of detection and prevention efforts, acknowledging that they still don’t fully understand why troops take their own lives. And since many of those who have committed suicide in recent years had never served on the warfront, officials also do not attribute the decrease to the end of the Iraq war and the drawdown in Afghanistan.

Still, they offered some hope that after several years of studies, the escalating emphasis on prevention across all the services may finally be taking hold.

With two months to go in this calendar year, defense officials say there have been 245 suicides by active-duty service members as of Oct. 27. At the same time last year there had already been 316. Each of the military services has seen the total go down this year, ranging from an 11 percent dip in the Marine Corps to a 28 percent drop for the Navy. The Air Force had a 21 percent decline, while Army totals fell by 24 percent.

The officials provided the data to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose it publicly.

Last year the number of suicides in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines spiked to 349 for the full 12-month period, the highest since the Pentagon began closely tracking the numbers in 2001, and up from the 2011 total of 301. There were 295 Americans killed in Afghanistan last year, by the AP’s count.

Military suicides began rising in 2006 and soared to a then-record 310 in 2009 before leveling off for two years. Alarmed defense officials launched an intensified campaign to isolate the causes that lead to suicide, and develop programs to eliminate the stigma associated with seeking help and encourage troops to act when their comrades appeared troubled.

It was a rare moment of unanimity last winter when Virginia's General Assembly passed a law spelling out how the state's war dead are to be honored at a state-funded memorial in Richmond.

The votes on the measure -- 38-0 in the state Senate and 100-0 in the House of Delegates -- seemingly put an end to five years of bickering. Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell affixed his signature. The bill's sponsor, Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News, was elated.

Nine months later, Veterans Day has come and gone, but the law has not been implemented. And Miller is crying foul.

The Shrine of Memory at the Virginia War Memorial, a glass-and-marble monument on a picturesque hillside with a panoramic view of the James River, contains the names of almost 12,000 Virginians killed in conflicts from World War II through the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Almost 300 Virginians have died on the battlefields of the "war on terror" since then, but none of those names has been added -- even though a 14-by-32-foot blank slab of marble appears large enough to accommodate some 700 names.

The inaction is attributable, at least in part, to a long-running disagreement over the criteria for inclusion.

For several years, the memorial's governing board took the position that only service members killed in hostile action should be memorialized -- a standard that excludes those killed in accidents and other noncombat circumstances.

After chewing on the matter for five straight legislative sessions, the 2013 Assembly agreed with Miller that a more inclusive standard was needed.

Miller's law dictates that the Shrine of Memory include all Virginians who die while serving on active duty in a designated combat zone under honorable conditions, or are declared missing in action and presumed dead.

Last week, on the eve of Veterans Day, Miller sent a letter to McDonnell to ask why the law has not been carried out.

"The time has long passed to honor these brave men and women," he wrote. "Today, I call on you to order those names be inscribed so family members and loved ones can properly pay their respects to those who sacrificed for our liberty."

Miller's efforts have been spurred by one of his constituents, Rick Schumann of Newport News, whose son, Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann, was one of 31 Marines killed when their helicopter crashed in a sandstorm in Iraq in 2005.

It is "unconscionable," Miller wrote McDonnell, that the names of Schumann and Virginians who died in similar circumstances have not been added to the shrine.

Schumann is among 294 "war on terror" casualties included in a temporary indoor exhibit at the memorial consisting of printed placards with photographs.

In his letter, Miller described two unannounced visits he made to the temporary exhibit over the past two months.

"On my first trip," he wrote, "the room where the plaques are kept was closed, the light was out and the room was filled with tables and chairs. It resembled a break room -- not a place to honor fallen heroes.

"On my second visit, the tables and chairs still filled the room and some of the lettering on the exhibit had fallen off."

Miller also noted that the indoor exhibit, unlike the Shrine of Memory, is not accessible after hours.

Taylor Keeney, a McDonnell spokeswoman, said there isn't enough space to engrave the additional names on the existing shrine, nor has money been appropriated to add them. Instead, she said, the temporary exhibit will be replaced by a new indoor Wall of Honor, part of a $17.6 million expansion of the memorial funded by the 2013 Assembly.

"The groundbreaking is expected to occur in the spring or summer of 2014 and all 294 heroes will have their names properly inscribed and memorialized on the new wall," Keeney said by email.

That's an unacceptable response, Miller said.

The remains of an accused murderer, Afghanistan veteran Michael L. Anderson, would be removed from a Michigan veterans’ cemetery under a bill passed Monday night by the Senate.

Anderson, an Army veteran, was buried in 2012 at the Fort Custer National Cemetery just days after a shooting spree at an Indianapolis apartment complex where Anderson allegedly murdered a woman and shot three others before killing himself.

When Anderson was buried, VA officials knew nothing of his alleged involvement in shooting. If they had, there are procedures in law that could have prevented the burial. There is no process, however, to remove remains once buried, which the Senate-passed bill, S 1471, would change.

The Alicia Dawn Koehl Respect for National Cemeteries Act, named for the victim, would create a process to reconsider interment decisions if federal officials are presented with “clear and convincing evidence” that a veteran was convicted of a capital crime or committed a capital crime but was not convicted because they were not tried as a result of death or flight from prosecution.

The rule would apply at veterans’ national cemeteries and at Arlington National Cemetery, and could lead to removal of remains as well as memorial headstones or markers.

The bill passed by voice vote.

The possible cancellation of the new combat rescue helicopter the Air Force needs for search and rescue has prompted a group of former pilots and advocates to create a website to build support for the service keeping the mission.

The group’s savecombatrescue.org website is intended to help connect supporters with Congress and Air Force leadership and encourage them to back the replacement of the Pave Hawk.

The Air Force’s planned replacement for the Pave Hawk, expected in 2014, could be canceled because of sequestration.

“This is just not right. What else can guys outside the fence do but try to influence the Congress,” said Henry Mason, a retired Air Force colonel who flew rescue helicopters and worked in logistics. Mason leads a group of former pilots who are organizing the effort.

The grassroots effort does not include any funding or oversight from contractors or others affiliated with the procurement process, Mason said.

Mason said that since the website launched in late October, about 400 people have used it to contact Congress and the Air Force.

“Feedback has been very positive to date,” he said. “People were unaware that the issue wasn’t going to be resolved. I guess it was a surprise that the Air Force wasn’t going to be able to buy a new helicopter.”