New Generation of Vets with Post Traumatic Stress

We are seeing frightening numbers coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan compared to Vietnam. The suicide and attempted suicide numbers went up too fast but that should not be a shocker to anyone paying attention since the Army study in 2006 said that redeployments increased the risk but they did it anyway.

CIA: A New Generation of Vets with Post Traumatic Stress
KION News
By Jon K. Brent
May 22, 2013

Monterey, Calif. - A new generation of Americans, bout 2.4 million, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan are now coming home, thousands to the central coast. Estimates are showing 20 to 30 percent of those are being diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. This is the first in a three part Center For Investigative action series on what these young soldiers are facing as they come home and how it will impact the central coast.

Former Combat Photographer Efren Lopez shares his experience documenting war on a camera, "Watching these soldiers die in front of you as I'm documenting as they're treating them at the medical facility there..the smell is still there, you hear what they're saying and that's the part that they tell you not to talk about..because that's where the symptoms of PTSD come." Lopez saw and felt it all in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in so doing, the trauma of it all is implanted in his mind's eye as well.

Vietnam Veteran and retired County Veterans Service Officer Tom Griffin has been in psychology and counseling for 30 years, "the very definition of post traumatic stress is that you've been pushed through your personal boundaries without your permission or control."

A Pew research study of nearly 2000 vets, showed a third had a traumatic military related experience, the number swells to half for post 9/11 vets studied.
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