- It is the unseen injuries that are worrying the Pentagon
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- They are getting restless at Fort Hood. The flight from
Iraq should have arrived mid-afternoon, but there is a delay and it is
now getting dark.
-
- But they have already waited for a year - they can stretch
it out for another few hours.
-
- Then the moment that every soldier, and every family
dreams of - the return from war unharmed.
-
- Traumatized soldiers suffer from intense nightmares
-
- But it is the injuries you cannot see that are beginning
to worry the Pentagon.
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- "My nightmares are so intense I woke up one night
with my hands round my fiancee's throat," says Lt Julian Goodrum.
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- "Another night she woke me up. I was really kicking
and really getting violent in my sleep.
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- "So now I sleep on the couch until I can get my
sleep, my nightmares, more under control."
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- 'A suicidal wreck'
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- Lt Goodrum is a veteran of two Gulf wars. He returned
from the first a hero, from the second a suicidal wreck.
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- He suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD)
and he is not alone.
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- More than 10,000 returnees from the Iraq war have sought
help for a condition in which the mundane becomes a menace.
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- Unseen consequences
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- "The smell of diesel takes me back to Iraq,"
Lt Goodrum says.
-
- "I am getting better with crowds, but still if it
is a very confined space and I am totally surrounded I have issues with
that.
-
- "When I am in crowds I tend to watch people's hands."
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- It is the nature of Iraq's insurgency of unseen snipers
and roadside bombers that has fuelled the trauma.
-
- And so the Pentagon has gone to an unlikely source for
help: video games, designed in Atlanta to recall the streets of Falluja
and thus exorcise the ghost of war.
-
- Ken Grapp, CEO of Virtually Better - a company that creates
virtual reality environments to help treat anxiety disorders, says: "It
can be totally debilitating to where a person would rather choose suicide
than choose to live.
-
- "Persons with PTSD may go back to the streets of
Falluja every day in their own minds.
-
- "We are just providing a shared experience where
therapists can work with the person and have a better understanding of
where they were, and help them process that information."
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- The Pentagon says it is taking PTSD seriously.
-
- But Lt Goodrum and many other veterans disagree bitterly.
It is the epidemic that dare not speak its name.
-
- "For the majority of people - especially military
- it is easier to accept and understand a physical injury than a psychological
one," Lt Goodrum said.
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- These are the unseen consequences of a war that will
change lives long after the last bullet has been fired and the last soldier
has returned home.
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- http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk
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