Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return

[Bravo Zulu]

Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return
Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Wade Malcolm, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It started about a month after he came home, innocently enough. Staff Sgt. Frederick Johnson missed his fellow soldiers.
During a year stationed at Anaconda base in Iraq -- nicknamed "Mortaritaville" -- he says he looked after them like a father, eyes always focused on the horizon, scanning for danger.
And at night, he clutched a half-gallon bottle of any liquor he could find, emptying two or three a week.
After he returned home in December 2005, his dangerous coping methods progressed to crack cocaine. Already depressed by separating from the Ohio-based 373rd Medical Company -- the only people, he said, who could understand his war experience -- he grappled with his emerging fear of crowds, his aversion to loud noises and the horror of his nightmares. They often ended with him leaping out of bed into a low crawl position.

After a year battling addiction and the lingering effects of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which the Army initially failed to diagnose, Sgt. Johnson, 38, is starting his life over at the VA Pittsburgh's Highland Drive Division.
He is among thousands of soldiers overlooked by previous mental health screening methods that, according to a new Army study released earlier this month, "substantially underestimate the mental health burden" of Iraq War veterans.
Sgt. Johnson's story may represent another problem soldiers experience in dealing with mental illness.

Some psychiatrists who study PTSD, like retired Brig. Gen. Stephen N. Xenakis, worry that military commanders are using drug abuse and other PTSD symptoms as reasons to discharge troubled troops slowing down their units.

"That needs to be reexamined really carefully," Dr. Xenakis said. "We're seeing that a number of soldiers are getting discharged for behavior reasons or personality disorders when they are, in fact, suffering from PTSD or blast concussions. ... We need to revisit our policies and procedures on that."

Soldiers discharged for misconduct lose their disability benefits even though "that behavior was a sign or a symptom of their underlying mental health issue," Dr. Xenakis said.

Sgt. Johnson said he's received encouragement to appeal the Army's initial decision to discharge him for misconduct. He may try to fight for his disability benefits, but he has no interest in preserving his military career.

"I don't have any fight left in me when it comes to the Army," he said. "Besides, if I fought to stay in, I would just get sent to Iraq again anyway."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07329/836618-85.stm