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Strain in the ranks is leading directly to a tragic suicide epidemic in our military. A Senate hearing is slated for today on the subject. It’s an epidemic and a disturbing problem that this nation must solve. It has the attention of the top civilian in the US Army. We hope the Army’s plan to help our troops cope with the stresses of war works — but we’re sure that reducing the continuous load of deployments on our troops would be very helpful.  War-related trauma doesn’t just plague our veterans — it also haunts our military children, too. Is there a technique for weakening traumatic memories? The fact is, our troops are also dying at home. Add Nevada to the list of states considering special courts for our veterans suffering PTSD — as war has injured them, not that criminality has overcome them. Add Texas to the list of states looking to boost the mental health of military families. Because the most pervasive combat injury is invisible. Sexual assaults in the military are on the rise — but a glimmer of a silver lining is that such assaults are now being more readily reported than swept under the rug. Even a Navy Chaplain stands accused of sex-related crimes.

Advocates for veterans report an increase in the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans facing charges such as domestic violence, firearms violations, breach of peace and drunken driving.A Connecticut lawmaker says the court system should be able to identify troubled veterans and refer them to mental health specialists, the same way family courts and drug courts work."Our troubled veterans may not need to be locked up if their combat experience has led to psychological wounds," said Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat who has introduced legislation to create a separate criminal docket for veterans.This mirrors actions elsewhere in the country. Some states are setting up veterans' courts or enacting laws to deal with veteran offenders. In 2008, Buffalo, N.Y., created the first Veterans Treatment Court after a judge noticed that hundreds of veterans were showing up in his courtroom facing minor charges. California and Minnesotahavepassed legislation to allow nonviolent veterans to forgo jail time if they can prove that their combat experience played a role in the criminal behavior.Looney said he introduced his bill after hearing stories about returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in Connecticut and across the nation ending up in jail. Connecticut also is using a $2 million grant from the federal Center for Mental Health Services to devise a program that will keep veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder out of jail.

Reluctant To Report SymptomsPeople with experience in overseas conflicts, or who work with those who have recently returned, often refer to one overriding symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder in recent veterans."Anger is a really big problem," said Jay White, an Iraq veteran and counselor at the Hartford Vet Center in Rocky Hill. It's one aftermath of the "high-octane environment" veterans experience in war, he said.According to the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs, 16,500 state residents have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That number includes soldiers in the Connecticut Guard, the reserves and active duty personnel. The high number of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder presents a large challenge for the criminal justice system. And given that President Barack Obama last week authorized an additional 17,000 troops to go to Afghanistan this year, the number of people who could eventually experience PTSD is likely to increase.PTSD, triggered by an event or events so extreme that they cause trauma, can shatter a soldier's sense of safety and trust and cause a constellation of reactions, in addition to anger.

Tom Berger, former chairman of the PTSD committee of the Maryland-based Vietnam Veterans of America, said post-traumatic stress can easily manifest itself in criminal behavior. "It interferes with your thinking process. You have high anxiety. You do strange things like taking U-turns, or carrying loaded weapons in your car," said Berger, who has worked to change the criminal justice system for veterans. James Campbell's experience may typify that of many veterans. The 28-year-old Middletown resident now works as a veterans' employment representative for the state Department of Veterans Affairs. He said he returned home in a hyper-vigilant, ready-for-battle state of mind. Road rage and driving drunk were problems."When I got back, I felt I was indestructible, especially when I was drinking. I didn't care whether I would get into a car and drive drunk," he said. Berger said jail diversion programs should include treatment and recovery and a mentoring component. He said some Vietnam veterans incarcerated when they returned home from war remain in jail. Jim Tackett, director of veterans' services for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, said the state's jail diversion program will work closely with mental health officials, the veterans administration and the criminal justice system to identify veterans who need help. "Some veterans who commit minor crimes that are the direct result of traumatic wartime experiences need treatment, not incarceration," Tackett said.

It was during his first deployment in Iraq that Marine Cpl. David Tracy, 23, of Peekskill earned his Purple Heart."I was up top behind the gun when we stopped at a checkpoint and a roadside bomb exploded on the other side of the barrier," said Tracy, an infantryman who served as a machine gunner in Baghdad and Fallujah.

Legislation introduced recently by Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, would lift the burden of proof from veterans who served in combat zones and have a diagnosis of PTSD, allowing them to receive disability benefits without having to prove that a specific incident caused the disorder.In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone, more than 100,000 veterans have been found to have PTSD, but only 42,000 have been granted service-connected disability for their condition, said Hall, chairman of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.The disability claims backlog at the VA tops 800,000. A large percentage of that number are Vietnam veterans seeking compensation for PTSD, Hall said.

Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of the VA's Mental Health Services, said members of the current generation of veterans are being encouraged to come in sooner so they can get treatment, even if they are not eligible for benefits. State-of-the-art treatment should now be available without delays, she said.But PTSD is not the whole story, said Zeiss, a clinical psychologist. There are 442,862 veterans enrolled with the VA who have a diagnosis of PTSD out of a total 1,662,375 with some mental-health diagnosis, she said.Continuing conflicts mean those numbers will grow. Up to 17 percent of veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD, major depression or other mental-health problems, Dr. Joseph T. English told Congress last year. He is chairman of psychiatry at New York Medical College in Valhalla, which is affiliated with the VA hospitals at Montrose and Castle Point.

Baker had planned to ride his bicycle from Norman to Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg, Pa., to Marseilles, Ill., to support a new flag designed to honor fallen members of the military, the Norman Transcript reported March 8. He planned to fly the Honor and Remember Flag from his bike and encourage people along the way to sign a petition urging Congress to adopt the flag as a new national symbol by passing HR Bill 1034.

Baker was injured while serving as a firefighter in Kuwait in the 1990s when a Scud missile struck his barracks. Diane Zellner said he had seemed healthy enough to undertake the bike trip. "He was doing well, so this kind of took us by surprise," she said. Baker struggled with his health, but what people admired about him was how he moved forward despite his health problems and disabilities, she said. "He struggled every day, but he lived, he was going to do what he wanted to do," she said. Before he died, Baker made several blog posts from the road that can be read at www.honorandremember.org/kevin.html. His last post was Wednesday near Sherman, Texas. He said the weather was raining and 34 degrees, so he said the Honor Guard from Louisiana would pick him up and take him somewhere warmer. "He was doing something he loved," Diane Zellner said. "This was something he was passionate about."