Wednesday, May 27, 2009

PTSD's Toll on our Soldiers

'Support our troops' rings hollow when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder

My brother, Jim, was a soldier once, but when he died, at age 53, he was long past the time when anyone called him a hero. He died alone, in poverty, alienated from family and friends, his life and death complicated by war wounds that penetrated far deeper than the pieces of shrapnel that won him his Purple Heart. Jim was a Vietnam combat engineer who survived the war but later became another kind of statistic -- a lost soul, a veteran who never recovered from his experiences.......Read Rest Here


Catherine Whitney is the author of "Soldiers Once: My Brother and the Lost Dreams of America's Veterans"

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