South Florida warriors team up to fight PTSD, war's invisible wound

South Florida warriors team up to fight PTSD, war's invisible wound
By Mike Clary, Sun Sentinel
5:39 p.m. EDT, March 14, 2012

Combat veterans James Nelson and Andrew Snow are of different generations. They fought in different wars. And when they first met, they appeared to have little in common.

"He stuck out his hand and said, 'I'm Andrew and I'll show you around,' and I was thinking, what can you show me?" recalled Nelson, 63, a Plantation grandfather and ex-Marine Corps sergeant whose battlefield was Vietnam.

Yet from that shaky start, Nelson went on to form an unlikely friendship with Snow, 26, a Boca Raton resident who did two tours in Iraq as an Army infantryman. That bond is helping each cope with what they do share: post-traumatic stress disorder, one of war's invisible wounds.

After Nelson graduates from treatment next month, he and Snow plan to team up and speak to other veterans about what they have learned.

"I don't think I ever met somebody from the Vietnam War," said Snow. "But I found myself saying things to him that I never would have said to someone else."

With the war in Iraq officially over, and the Obama administration reportedly weighing a decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan more quickly than planned, the next battlefront for returning veterans may be at home.

As many as one in three servicemen and women returning from those conflicts suffers from PTSD, traumatic brain injury or a combination of both, according to a Rand Corp. study. The Journal of Traumatic Stress found those veterans are four times more likely than non-veterans to have suicidal thoughts.
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