Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army’s surgeon general, reports that a survey of 1,000 US soldiers returning to their home bases in Italy from combat in Iraq indicates that 30 % experience mental health problems including anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and inattentiveness after three to four months.
These are in addition to 4 to 5 % who develop the serious mental illness known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist on Kiley’s staff, noted that, while the military usually screens soldiers when they leave combat, the Army has recently begun following up three to six months later.
Military medical officials claim that stress reactions are normal after combat and say mental health is improving based on a drop in suicides in Iraq and Kuwait from 24 in 2003 to nine in 2004.