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03/02/2005: ""Some of you may die, or get injured... but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make" George W -"

Please remember God speaks through George .. although you may be injured or even killed, please mute your criticizisms soldiers.. it's very unpatriotic.. and is very unbecomming.. Could even say your ingrates... for all He (W) has given you. This article below is insulting to Him (W)... we all appreciate what you did... BUT GET OVER IT Already.. ingrates!

Trauma of Iraq war haunting thousands returning home


By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

Jeremy Harrison sees the warning signs in the Iraq (news - web sites) war veterans who walk through his office door every day - flashbacks, inability to relax or relate, restless nights and more.




He recognizes them as symptoms of combat stress because he's trained to, as a counselor at the small storefront Vet Center here run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites). He recognizes them as well because he, too, has faced readjustment in the year since he returned from Iraq, where he served as a sergeant in an engineering company that helped capture Baghdad in 2003.


"Sometimes these sessions are helpful to me," Harrison says, taking a break from counseling some of the nation's newest combat veterans. "Because I deal with a lot of the same problems."


As the United States nears the two-year mark in its military presence in Iraq still fighting a violent insurgency, it is also coming to grips with one of the products of war at home: a new generation of veterans, some of them scarred in ways seen and unseen. While military hospitals mend the physical wounds, the VA is attempting to focus its massive health and benefits bureaucracy on the long-term needs of combat veterans after they leave military service. Some suffer from wounds of flesh and bone, others of emotions and psyche.


These injured and disabled men and women represent the most grievously wounded group of returning combat veterans since the Vietnam War, which officially ended in 1975. Of more than 5 million veterans treated at VA facilities last year, from counseling centers like this one to big hospitals, 48,733 were from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites).


Many of the most common wounds aren't seen until soldiers return home. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is an often-debilitating mental condition that can produce a range of unwanted emotional responses to the trauma of combat. It can emerge weeks, months or years later. If left untreated, it can severely affect the lives not only of veterans, but their families as well.


Of the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged from service, 12,422 have been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with PTSD. etc.