I recently had a long discussion with 2 military active duty men. We left politics out of the discussion and both were very candid in saying that 1. they compare the death toll to Viet Nam[meaning it's not there yet in numbers]and some how that gives them will to forge ahead.[which is sad] 2. I most likely am the age of their own mothers, and one of them told me he feels the hatred toward him from the anti-war groups and all he wants is to be told thank you. 3.the other young man [told me I was too old to enlist, cap being 42 shows how young the average soldier is]told me that "not to forget when you hear the death tolls, that these men and women signed up to do this job, and are proud of it."

We expect so much from these young men and women. Politics aside, and ant-war sediment aside--they are doing a job they chose and either dying or coming back home as Philip describes here, with needs that often go unmet. I'm not so sure people are calling them heroes any more. Not from what these 2 young men were brave enough to tell me.

They deserve dignity and respect from beginning to end. Especially if they need medical help when they come home.

I have a now passed relative who was a war vet. He came back a changed man, and refused to speak about what he lived through. He died a very bitter man as a result of his [PTSD, no doubt and bearing witness to death isn't exactly easy.]experience.
As a person who works with teens, I have had several enlist the last few years, and I worry every single day, one of those young men ends up killed.

When we were finished talking, I thanked these young men. Not one of us knows that kind of courage to understand they could lose their lives defending our country. The least our country can do in return is take care of them during and after.

My brother has a military Honorable Discharge, as a result of mental stress his job caused him. He is one of the bravest people I know, and it broke him, which says a lot. There was not any follow up to an obvious need for psychological intervention and it wasn't there. It changed him forever.

RE:"...woman who was raped by fellow soldiers in Iraq. (I cannot even wrap my mind around that"
I think all perpetrators do not percieve a crime happening, so thats why they can, and do perform heinous acts. A child molester or a rapist thinks that their victim deserves or enjoys the action performed.
Thats why perpetrators have to be put in jail for a very long time, they do not and can not perceive their actions as wrong.

Historically, given the prevalence of combat trauma in its various incarnations (shell shock, combat neurosis, PTSD...) and the diminishing effect it has on military numbers/strength, military psychiatrists, whose allegiance is primarily to the top brass, not to the soldiers who are most likely to neeed their help, have been obliged to 'treat' it in a way that ensures that as many soldiers are kept in active service as possible. They can do this either by denying the existence of combat trauma altogether (as was the case in the bad old days) or by letting traumatised soldiers have a couple of days rest before packing them off back to the front, as they might have done in WWII or Korea. These days, public understanding of combat trauma is such that they wouldn't get away with implementing policies like these, but that doesn't alter the fact that military psychiatry's primary goal is to get as many people back out in the field (or off their books) as possible, even at the expense of their mental health.