At the height of the Iraq war, the Army routinely fired hundreds of soldiers for having a personality disorder when they were more likely suffering from the traumatic stresses of war, discharge data suggests.

Under pressure from Congress and the public, the Army later acknowledged the problem and drastically cut the number of soldiers given the designation. But advocates for veterans say an unknown number of troops still unfairly bear the stigma of a personality disorder, making them ineligible for military health care and other benefits.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/15/data-suggests-army-misdiagnosed-hundreds-soldiers-suffering-war-stress/

Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson / VII Network

Home to Fort Carson and many returning vets, Colorado Springs has endured a rash of murders committed by vets returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1939831,00.html#ixzz0wh8jJtTL

By Laura Fitzpatrick

Shiloh Morrison spent two months as a truck gunner in Iraq before transferring to Kuwait in 2007 to work at the mortuary that takes in every U.S. military casualty killed in theater. There were 423 on her watch. During her four months in the morgue, the Marine corporal went only one 24-hour period without helping prepare a body for autopsy. It was her job to give the commands to play taps and to salute those heading home for the last time. She calls them “fallen angels,” the troops whose caskets she draped with American flags before loading them onto a plane.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2000829,00.html

Photographs by Robyn Twomey for TIME

Veteran of Foreign Wars
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, June Moss, 39, served as a driver and mechanic. Though she did not engage directly in combat, she witnessed many of the war’s horrors firsthand: as the driver in a convoy, she had to maneuver around charred corpses. Says Moss: “There were firefights. Explosions were going off. You’re witnessing death all around you.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1991715_2142509,00.html#ixzz0wh4leEPK

By MARK THOMPSON

U.S. Army specialist Ethan McCord was one of the first on the scene when a group of suspected insurgents was blown up on a Baghdad street in 2007, hit by 30-mm bursts from an Apache helicopter. “The top of one guy’s head was completely off,” he recalls. “Another guy was ripped open from groin to neck. A third had lost a leg … Their insides were out and exposed. I’d never seen anything like this before.” Then McCord heard a child crying from a black minivan caught in the barrage. Inside, he found a frightened and wounded girl, perhaps 4. Next to her was a boy of 7 or so, soaked in blood. Their father, McCord says, “was slumped over on his side, like he was trying to protect the children, but he was just destroyed.” McCord couldn’t look away from the kids. “I started seeing images of my own two children back home in Kansas.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2008886,00.html#ixzz0wh0mNMio

Army Suicides in June Hit All-Time High
By JOSHUA MILLER

The number of army suicides hit an all-time high in June, with 32 servicemembers taking their own lives.

A startling 350-page U.S. Army report released last week was stark in its assessment of the growing tragedy: “Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”

“We have an army that’s, for almost a decade, has been going very, very hard with our operational tempo,” Army General Peter Chiarelli told Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on ‘This Week.’ “[It has] our soldiers deployed for 12 months, home anywhere from 12 to 16 months, and back for another 12- or 15-month deployment.”

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/army-general-chiarelli-tackles-issue-soldier-suicide/story?id=11351920

By Greg Jaffe

count of 32 is most since January 2009; stresses of war blamed

The U.S. Army suffered 32 suicides in June, the highest number for a single month since January 2009, when the suicide rate in the Army began to spike.

The boost in the number of suicides in June was likely driven by the “continued stresses on the force” caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said Col. Chris Philbrick, the director of the Army’s suicide prevention task force. The Army has poured money and other resources into getting a handle on the suicide rate and, until last month, had begun to see some tentative signs that the rate was trending downward among active-duty troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071605839.html

By Sig Christenson

WASHINGTON — So far this year, 12 Fort Hood soldiers have committed suicide. That’s one more than in all of 2009 and puts the post on course to shatter its all-time mark of 14 in a year.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/fort_hood_ties_2009_suicide_mark_98642244.html

http://www.health.mil/News_And_Multimedia/News/detail/10-07-13/VA_Simplifies_Access_to_Health_Care_and_Benefits_for_Veterans_with_PTSD.aspx

Findings indicate that parental combat deployment has a cumulative effect on children that remains even after the deployed parent returns home, and that is predicted by psychological distress of both the AD and AHC parent. Such data may be informative for screening, prevention, and intervention strategies.

http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(10)00077-8/abstract