The Invisible Wounds of War: Coming Home from Iraq and Afghanistan

Invisible in their suffering, an estimated 4,300 Iraq and Afghanistan vets have returned with crippling post-traumatic stress disorder, writes Guzman Bouvard (The Path Through Grief). A resident scholar at Brandeis’s Women’s Studies Research Center, she calls for Americans to recognize the plight of male and female soldiers, unveiling the heavy psychological cost vets and their families continue to pay. One RAND study found as many as 19% of soldiers may experience traumatic brain injury, possibly overlapping with PTSD and depression. Yet 57% never got an evaluation, much less treatment, from a doctor. Along with the lack of health care, Guzman Bouvard also reports on the loss of those vets whose pain became so unbearable that they took their own lives—men like Noah Pierce, who “succumbed to the hidden wounds of PTSD,” his mother plaintively wrote. Still, programs are beginning to publicly acknowledge the isolation and pain, including an exhibit of photos in Wisconsin called Always Lost: A Meditation on War and a Home Base Program in Massachusetts that addresses the needs of vets and their families. Guzman Bouvard reminds us to properly honor the sacrifices of our war vets while providing care for them and their families. (July)