This is Really Sad

[Geek_Girl]

and I'm afraid we're going to see more of it in the coming years.

_____________________________________________________________
Four nights before Christmas, former Army specialist Herold Noel huddled for warmth in front of a fire he built for himself in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as temperatures slid toward the single digits. Plagued by nightmares and unable to hold a steady job or get the assistance he needed, he was on the verge of losing his wife and three young children. It wasn't the homecoming he'd expected after serving in Iraq last year.

"There was one time," he recalled, "when me and my battle buddies made a fire and we were sittin' out there in Iraq and talking about when we get home we're gonna be looked at as heroes. We're gonna be in the history books. Man, half the guys I came back with are going through the same thing I'm going through."

According to the Pentagon, 955,000 U.S. troops have already served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The experiences of Noel and others like him have many observers worried that the country will be inundated by a wave of returning veterans with no place to go and reeling from psychological trauma, as happened toward the end of the Vietnam War. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, up to 17 percent of troops returning from Iraq "met the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD ."

Full Story

[unpossibles]

1. I'm sure it's

...all the fault of us liberal dissidents... </sarcasm>

[katinmn]

2. I agree. Very sad. And no plans in place, as usual.

A million have served already. OMG

[xultar]

4. I know 1 million have served, that is a lot and they have no plans for

helping them survive when they get home.

[fryguy]

3. so sad....

.....prospect park used to be such a nice place to visit <<<sarcasm>>>

[sam sarrha]

5. I was in the Peace Corps in 73 in an Islamic Republic the Arabs drove some

Volunteers insane, we had 24 hr suicide watches 2 people with eyes on the person at all times. these people were totally gone, .. they were consumed with an overwhelming hate for the Arabs. and they weren't shooting at us..

I have never recovered from the culture shock.

when Bu$h went into Iraq i went crazy with fear.. that was the stupidest thing anyone could do.. there is no way to start a democracy there.. Islam has no signs of ever being anything but totalaterian.

Ossama attacked the towers because we invaded Lebanon with Israel. i have a Panic Attack when i think of the consequences of invading Iraq and killing over 100,000 mostly women and children. we killed 500,000 in Bush War #1. BW2 could be the end of civilization as we know it.. maybe not for several decades or a hundred years but they will get even.. these guys hold grudges about the smallest assumed slight from all the way back to the days of the prophet. they will never forget.

they will quietly move here and over populate us like they are doing in Europe and when the time comes when they are a majority we will get what is coming to us.

[neuvocat]

6. Just for my own curiosity...

when you said this:

"(...drove some) volunteers insane, we had 24 hr suicide watches 2 people with eyes on the person at all times. these people were totally gone, .. they were consumed with an overwhelming hate for the Arabs. and they weren't shooting at us.."

What exactly was it about the environment that made them snap like that? Is it possible there are conditions that are aggrivating the war-time environment there? Thanks.

[pa28]

7. This was part of the "Vietnam Syndrome".

Alienation, poverty, stress disorder. They expected a heroes welcome but instead got stepped on by society.

I'd like to know about all the flag wavers who pushed these people off into a "patriotic" war. Where are the ticker tape parades? Did they really ever care about the troops?

Supporting the troops means after the war as well as before. We should all be willing to help but the people who forced this war down our throats without discussion are the true owners of this problem. If anybody should be blamed years down the road by a generation of angry veterans it should be them.