Trauma of Iraq too real for vets

That could be a good thing. Every veteran who is treated at the hospital is now screened for PTSD, said Kathy Shaffer Mahood, a program leader in the hospital's behavioral-health department.

"We've gotten a lot better at catching them," Mahood said.

Trauma of Iraq too real for vets
BY ROBB FREDERICK robb.frederick@timesnews.com

The Vietnam War ended with a pen stroke on Jan. 27, 1973.

Not everyone got the message.

Many of the men and women who fought there, and who saw Americans die -- by the end, that figure climbed to 58,000 -- never quite left it behind."It's there every day," said Robert Johnson, who worked a door gun on a Marine Corps helicopter. "It's always been there. It's been there every day for a lot of years."And now, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, even more of it comes back. The number of disability cases related to post-traumatic stress disorder has doubled since 2000, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The biggest spike came in 2003, when the Army's 3rd Infantry Division charged into Baghdad."It's always in the air," said Robert Martin, a team leader at the Veterans Affairs Readjustment Counseling Service in Erie. "There's so much media coverage. And some of our Vietnam veterans can't help but watch it. They have kids in the reserves, or in the active service. They need to know what's going on. They need to know where we stand with this conflict.

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