Industry Figure Tom Chappell

Today’s Los Angeles Times has the results of a Walter Reed Army Institute of Research study, which found that “15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain’s chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.”

And there’s every reason to expect this rate to run dramatically higher (in Vietnam, it eventually exceeded 30%): “The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.”

Full article:
“These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep”
By Esther Schrader
The Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2004