Frontline Care for 'At Risk' Soldiers

.....Psychologists here attribute what they call a relatively small number of persistent psychological issues to an unprecedented program of battlefield therapy and follow-up care, including having mental health experts assigned to most brigades and combat stress experts deployed for the first time to frontline bases throughout Iraq.

Composed of soldiers who are also trained therapists, the combat stress teams are often sent immediately to debrief soldiers in the hours after a patrol, firefight or bomb attack. They seek to identify those who may need treatment months before they return home, pulling some out of their units for two to seven days of group therapy sessions, video games and sitting by the pool at a cushy compound in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
...
Among the symptoms of PTSD, Hansen said, are irritability, insomnia, occasional flashbacks to traumatic incidents, anxiety and depression. But violence, including battlefield retaliations, rarely result from stress, he and other experts on the condition said.

"People don't kill other people because they are stressed," Hansen said. "Can it make them cranky or impulsive? Sure. But pinning these things on PTSD is simply not scientific. This condition does not cause otherwise normal people to commit crimes."

"Combat stress is not an excuse," said Col. Dan Kessler, 45, of Latrobe, Pa., the 3rd Brigade's deputy commander. "Discipline and leadership are the bedrock of any organization, and that should overcome whatever these guys go through."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060702390.html

Intervention at the front lines could have saved a lot of grief after 'Nam and WW2. Hope its adequately funded, and psychs can follow-up cases when the troops come home.

Paid for with your tax dollars (until they decide its too expensive)

The motto after Nam

Used Up Thrown away

If history is any guide. I hope they can do something right in this war. They owe it to my T.P.I father and all his mates. And to you.

They owe it to everyone who was recruited to fight this immoral, illegal War

The reason cited for the killings, "It's stress, fear, isolation, and in some cases, they're just upset," . I wonder, how many thousands more feel all that, but have their emotions in check, at a threadbare level? They may be able to stop themselves from hurting themselves or others, yet they will still be wounded inside, for many years.

These are young men and women, still somewhat emotionally tender, and many are easily psychologically scarred.