War Veterans face ongoing battle with PTSD

Anthony Torres, 26, a Marine who served tours of duty in Iraq and in Africa, says coming home was more difficult than he expected.

Appearing weak or ill is an image Iraq veteran Rick Brannan combats every day. Brannan, 55, was deployed with a Navy customs team to Operation Iraqi Freedom in June of 2005. There he provided armed escorts to troops headed home. Brannan also was assigned the task of inspecting coffins for contraband, a memory that still grieves him.

SPECIAL REPORT: The front lines shift ... Military veterans face varying battles
Alysa Landry The Daily Times
Article Launched: 03/31/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT
Editor's note: Today's story is the second of a three-part series that began Sunday and ends Tuesday.

FARMINGTON — Anthony Torres was looking forward to life as a civilian. The 26-year-old Marine spent seven months atop a Humvee manning an anti-tank missile in wartorn Iraq, and he was anxious to be home.

When he returned, however, he found a life so chaotic it rivaled his experiences overseas. Torres served in a security convoy during the 2004 U.S. assault on Fallujah, and he relives some of that terror every day.

A smell, a sound or a simple argument can send Torres back to Iraq.

"During my third week of the assault, the engineers assigned to clean up all the dead people hadn't come through yet," he said. "I remember that smell. It's like barbecuing with diesel."

A similar odor permeates the local oil fields, Torres said, and a whiff of that rewinds the clock.

"It sets me off and brings back memories," he said. "I have to logically figure out what's causing the smell and bring myself back to reality.



Coming Tuesday: The search for solutions.
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PTSD: Symptoms are varied, complex
By Alysa Landry The Daily Times
Article Launched: 04/01/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT


Flashbacks, nightmares and exaggerated startle responses all are typical symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, but the condition is more complex.
Seventeen symptoms are used to diagnose the disorder, and a person must meet the minimum criteria for a positive diagnosis. The following are guidelines to understand the disorder. Only a trained psychologist can make a diagnosis.

Source: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The person must have been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:


Actual or threatened death, serious injury, or threat to physical integrity.

Response to the event involved intense fear, helplessness or horror.
The traumatic event is re-experienced persistently in at least one of the following ways:


Recurrent and intrusive thoughts about the event.

Recurrent distressing dreams of the event.

Flashbacks or hallucinations.

Intense distress at exposure to triggers that symbolize the event.


Physiological reactivity to triggers, such as pounding heart or sweaty palms.

The person must persistently avoid stimuli associated with trauma in at least three of the following ways:


Avoiding thoughts, feelings or conversations about the event.

Avoiding activities, people or places that remind a person about the event.

Inability to recall an important aspect of the event.

Diminished interest or participation in significant activities.

Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others.

Restricted range of emotions.

Sense of foreshortened future, such as loss of expectation of having a career, marriage, children or normal life span.

The person must experience persistent symptoms of arousal in at least two of the following ways:


Difficulty falling or staying asleep.

Irritability or outbursts of anger.

Difficulty concentrating.

Hyper-vigilance.

Exaggerated startle response.

Symptoms must last for at least one month.


Disturbance causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
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