Box full of medals, head full of horrors in Georgia

Effects of Iraq war felt in Georgia

Updated: Nov 8, 2007 05:11 PM EST


Albany -- The U.S. House could vote on an Iraq war-spending bill as soon as tomorrow. It would finance another four months of combat, at $50 billion.

As this war approaches its 5th year, thousands of veterans are back home, and now facing a different battle.

When Joseph Drennen talks about his service in the National Guard, he doesn't speak of it as though it were a burden, but more of an honor. "I got an opportunity in December of 2003 to be redeployed with Alpha company 115 signal battalion as a medic."

While deployed to Iraq, his knee was injured when his team was fired upon. He returned after 10 months in Iraq, but he brought home much more than a knee injury.

"I have a box here that I keep all my medals, ribbons and all that and that's what the American public sees."

But Drennen says there are invisible wounds that veterans like himself carry around. "What they don't see are the sleepless nights, the drugs we have to take to keep us functioning on a daily basis, the trauma that we go through. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the problems we have just getting by day to day."
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