PTSD and redeployed:Whittier Family's story

Whittier family's wounds of war compounded by multiple deployments
By Bethania Palma Markus, Staff Writer
Posted: 12/06/2009 06:01:54 AM PST
WHITTIER - Rossana Cambran choked back tears as she recalled watching her son, Arturo Cambron Jr., suffer a flashback.

The now-26-year-old Army soldier was at home on leave in between combat tours in Iraq. He had just returned from a night out with friends when something triggered a memory from a not-so-distant but traumatic past.

Suddenly, she said, her third of four children lost touch with reality and thought he was back in a war zone thousands of miles away.

"He was on the ground outside acting like he was on a walkie talkie, giving coordinates to his buddies," the 53-year-old Whittier woman said. "He was yelling really loud."

The next day, she said, Arturo Jr. told her flashbacks are commonplace on his military base, and some experts believe the Cambron family's experience could be a harbinger of things to come.

The current wars in the Middle East have stretched on past the eight-year mark, making them the longest major conflicts in recent U.S. history to be fought without a draft.

With a limited number of soldiers doing all the fighting, an increasing number have been deployed multiple times into combat. But now that the war in Iraq is winding down and President Obama has set a timetable for a looming 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan, some experts said the country is not prepared to cope

Rossana Cambron holds a childhood picture of her son Arturo Jr., Thursday night, December 3, 2009 in her Whittier home. Mrs. Cambron says her son, who is on his second tour of combat duty in Iraq, was already showing signs of PTSD with flashback episodes after his first tour. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz)when soldiers battling post traumatic stress disorder compounded by multiple combat tours start returning en masse.
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