1-in-10 US Iraq veterans have stress disorder

[kpete]

1-in-10 US Iraq veterans have stress disorder: study
Tue Feb 28, 2006 04:12 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nearly one in 10 American soldiers who served in Iraq were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, most after witnessing death or participating in combat, a study said on Tuesday.
Mental health screening of veterans showed 21,620 out of 222,620 returning from Iraq and assessed over the year ending April 30, 2004, suffered from post-traumatic stress -- a disorder that can lead to nightmares, flashbacks and delusional thinking.

Overall, 19.1 percent of soldiers and Marines who returned from Iraq met the military's "risk criteria for a mental health concern" such as post-traumatic stress or depression, compared to 11.3 percent among veterans who served in Afghanistan and 8.5 percent from deployments elsewhere, the report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association said.

The survey covered 222,620 returning veterans from Iraq, 16,318 from Afghanistan and 64,967 from other deployments.

"A higher percentage of those soldiers (returning from Iraq) report mental health concerns and use mental health services when they get home ... compared to soldiers who are returning from deployment to Afghanistan or other locations," said study author Col. Charles Hoge of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=11370693&src=rss/domesticNews

[skylarmae]

1. just wait until they come home in large numbers and the troubles

manifest themselves en mass

[pocket]

2. how many were crazy in the first place?

volunteering for that sort of thing doesn't speak well of one's mental capacity, imho.