Moving beyond PTSD

Moving beyond PTSD: help is available!
Holloman Air Force Base Public Affairs Office
Story by Staff Sgt. Carolyn Herrick
May 8, 2013

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. - An estimated 11 to 20 percent of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 10 percent of veterans of the Gulf War, and 30 percent of Vietnam veterans suffer from PTSD, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Those percentages represent hundreds of thousands of military service members like Master Sgt. James Haskell, a former aerial gunner now stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., who was diagnosed with the disorder in October 2012.

"Different people respond to trauma different ways, so some things that may not be traumatic to one person, for someone else may be traumatic - it depends upon the person," said Maj. Phillip Howell, clinical psychologist and 49th Medical Operations Squadron mental health flight commander.

The basic indicators of PTSD, according to Howell, include a traumatic event and then either re-experiencing that event, avoiding things which remind them of the event, or hyper arousal. If they meet a certain number of criteria for those three symptoms, they are diagnosed with PTSD.

"The sooner you come in and get treated, the better the chances of you recovering," he said.
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