After Iraq ( a six part series about returning vets) xpost from GD

This is a really good series by World-Herald special projects about what our vets are facing after they return - PTSD and traumatic brain injuries are but the tip of the iceberg headed our way.


Snipers, mortar attacks, roadside bombings. The soldiers from the Nebraska Army National Guard's Troop A, 1st Squadron, 167th Cavalry survived it all during a year in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, Iraq. Last summer, the soldiers came home. After a quick round of medical exams and paperwork, they were back with families, back to regular jobs. But scars remain as some soldiers struggle with problems afflicting thousands of Iraq vets. They fight post-traumatic stress and lingering brain injuries. Some abuse alcohol. Others seek out danger to revive the excitement of combat. For the past year, The World-Herald has chronicled seven soldiers' return to civilian life. Here, we sharing seven soldiers' stories.



• Part 1: Guardsman finds it hard to put horrors behind him


Police Officer Joel Hestermann searches for shell casings in an alley after a drive-by shooting in Grand Island. Though it has been more than a year since he and his fellow Nebraska Army National Guard troops returned from Iraq, the physical and emotional effects of the war continue to dog him.

• Part 2: Nebraska guardsman volunteers to go back


Spc. Dustin Seidler's medals include the Army Commendation Medal and the Combat Action Badge. During the year he served in Iraq, Seidler pined to get back to Nebraska's Sand Hills.

• Part 3: Iraq vets get in trouble trying to replicate the adrenaline rush of war


Spc. David Munoz deftly multitasked at National Guard drills last year in Hastings, Neb., text-messaging at lunch with one hand while wielding a utensil with the other. With him was Spc. Justin Saner.

• Part 4: Soldiers can have troubles lurking under the surface


Then-Pfc. Timothy Verbeek's Kevlar helmet, above, helped protect him when an improvised explosive device sent shrapnel slicing between the windshield glass and armored frame of his Humvee in Iraq in September 2005. A fragment from the IED was just one of Verbeek's "souvenirs" from that attack. The other, which didn't surface until after he had returned home to Nebraska, was doctors' diagnosis that Verbeek had suffered traumatic brain injury.

• Part 5: Officer eases back into life as banker, husband and dad


Lt. Jacques Smith's medals include the Bronze Star; 2 Army Commendation Medals, one for valor; and the Combat Action Badge.

• Part 6: Iraq war vet hit bottom before reaching out for help


Tyler Schik went for a spin on the dance floor with Megan Walker of Sterling, Kan., last month at the Lutheran Valley Retreat. Schik was a counselor at the Christian summer camp in Colorado after serving with the Nebraska Army National Guard in Iraq.