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Sweat poured down my face as I heard the cracking of bullets over my head. My platoon was making its way back to our remote outpost in the middle of a Taliban controlled district in Kandahar when machine-gun fire rang out from the east. My soldiers dove behind trees and compounds to take cover and return fire. I slid feverishly into a ditch and called up to headquarters, rolling my eyes at a day that just would not end. As I finished my radio transmission, I saw a little girl about 7 years old kneeling ten yards down from me. She wore a red shawl over her head with her fingernails digging into her lips, crying frantically. With my left hand on my radio, I took my right hand out of my trigger well, and held the girl’s shoulder gently. The fight ended, and I motioned I motioned for the girl to run home while she had soldiers out to protect her.

When I read about Staff Sergeant Robert Bales’ alleged massacre in Panjwai, just a few kilometers from that firefight, I thought about that little girl. I wonder how any grown man—an American soldier nonetheless—could stare down eleven children and even consider pulling a trigger. It pains me to think that, perhaps even some of the children I helped in Kandahar would have been among the victims. My heart fills with hate toward this man, as do most Americans’.

But our generation of fighters is lucky enough to live in a society that is at least tolerant of our servicemembers, if not passionately enthusiastic about us. Our military has had several soldiers engage in inhumane acts in combat over the past decade. But for the most part, our culture understands that these isolated incidents don’t represent the 99% of soldiers who are good-hearted people that have served honorably. And if we solely analyze this as an issue of character, then of course I wholeheartedly agree. But the problem is that this incident, and the ones that may occur in the future, are not simply issues of character, but of post-traumatic stress. And through this lens, I fear the “isolated incident” argument may leave several soldiers neglected.

Since I came home from Afghanistan, I’ve personally struggled through life altering post-traumatic stress. I went through phases of nightmares, severe temper problems, and anti-social behavior. I distanced myself from my parents, and neglected my health. My outlook on life became cynical and toxic. I was an angry person to be around. And I only did one tour. More importantly, I’ve had plenty of time to realign my life, and I’m finally taking better care of myself. Had I stayed on the traditional Army career path, I would have been back on a plane to Afghanistan a few months ago, undoing months of progress, and deepening the crevices in my emotional life.

Robert Bales was on his fourth tour in combat. I know the gravity of this commitment does not register with most people. It’s not simply a “one year on, one year off” arrangement. When you come home, some units get 30 days leave; some units in 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Bales’ unit) received only two weeks when they came home in 2010 according to a colleague who served in Iraq with them. When work starts again, NCOs like Bales show up to their American posts between 5:30-6:00 a.m. Then come the Battalion field exercises and Brigade field exercises which each require weeks of training away from home. Then most units will spend a month at Fort Irwin, California or Fort Polk, Louisiana for a final pre-deployment exercise. That whole “one-year off” is not much of a break for any soldier, nor their families. With so much time away from home and focused on war, spouses leave, children suffer, and mental health deteriorates.

Is it possible for a man or woman to endure a decade’s worth of deployment cycles and not commit such terrible crimes? Of course, plenty have. But can we say the same of the hundreds of thousands Iraq and Afghanistan veterans coming home over the next five years? Our service members are not machines. They are a cross section of American society; a cross-section of humanity. The question is, what are we as American society going to do to care for our veterans’ mental health to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again? What will we do to channel the anger inside the hearts and souls of our veterans through healthy outlets, so their rage is not directed at civilians in theater, nor their friends and families back home?

If there is any good that can come from this horrible tragedy, I hope that it is a reinvigorated debate on the mental health screening our soldiers undergo upon return. During my first week back from combat, I sat through a dozen powerpoint lectures on substance abuse, aggressive driving, and services on post. I’m confident most of my soldiers and I were playing with our new smartphones and texting our families during most of the briefings as our attention spans were still in combat- mode. I took about eight different surveys asking me questions like, “Did you experience lethal fire in theater? Did you see fellow service members or local nationals injured or killed in combat?” On my fourth day back, I sat down for fifteen minutes of actual counseling. It was the first time a real human being had asked me how I was feeling. and I said whatever I needed to get back to my unit. I had slipped through the cracks, as did many of my peers and soldiers.

Had my girlfriend and mother not stepped in, I’d still be in a dark place in my life. You cannot screen for mental health with a surveys or powerpoint briefs alone, but need not just a personal but a local touch. This means getting trained mental health specialists at the company or even platoon level, so a trusting relationship can grow between the counselor and the soldier over time. This also means empowering friends and family to encourage their service members into seeking help. It means fighting against the alpha-male currents of traditional combat, and having junior officers and senior NCOs allow and encourage their soldiers to get the treatment they need.

But at the end of the day, there is only so much the military can do. There are already hundreds of thousands of veterans who are discharged, spread out across the country. Although these vets have no commanding officer to influence them, their families and communities can still make a change in their lives. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought with our institutions; but the fight for veteran welfare will be won at home. http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/23/a-vets-perspective-on-the-afghan-mass
acre/?iid=op-main-lede said, and he's right on, but I still say the military has a responsibility to these soldiers in many ways they're dodging. As he mentioned, longer time between tours would help. But I think the usual military mentality of soldiers as pawns continues to get in the way:

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The Army diagnosed 76,176 soldiers with PTSD between 2000 and 2011. Of those 65,236 soldiers were diagnosed at some stage of their deployment.

Many returned to the battlefield after mental health providers determined their treatment worked and their symptoms had gone into remission, Army officials and mental health professionals who treat troops say. The Army does not track the exact number in combat diagnosed with PTSD nor those who are in combat and taking medicine for PTSD.
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Military officials say they have to rely on their mental health experts to decide whether someone is mentally fit to go back into war, and they cannot make a blanket policy of not redeploying troops diagnosed with PTSD. The provider makes a recommendation, but the ultimate decision to deploy a soldier rests with the unit commander.

Army Secretary John McHugh told Congress this week that "we have in the military writ large over 50,000 folks in uniform who have had at least four deployments." Some have served double-digit deployments, where they witnessed traumatic events.
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It also depends on the severity of the PTSD, which can last anywhere from months to years.

Some troops treated for PTSD yearn to return to the battlefield where they feel more comfortable surrounded by their fellow troops and on a mission than in the unsettling quiet of their home life, mental health professionals say.
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Critics say the Army has a history of bandaging the problem and rushing troops back into combat by loading them up on prescription drugs. Military courts also do not recognize PTSD as a legitimate defense, said attorney Geoffrey Nathan who has represented a number of court martialed troops.

"They're still in a state of denial as to what combat soldiers go through in the field of battle," Nathan said.
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Treatment can result in cure for some patients with PTSD, but more often results in improvement in symptoms and functioning, not a complete cure, according to the Army. PTSD can recur after treatment on exposure to other traumatic events or stressors. According to some studies, up to 80 percent of people with PTSD also suffer from another psychiatric disorder, making it challenging to make an accurate diagnosis. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/03/23/army-ptsd-treatable-some-diag
nosed-return-to-war/ the military still isn't trying as hard as it could, by far, to take care of it's veterans with PTSD.

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Anyone paying attention to veterans’ issues has heard horror stories from veterans who attempted to gain service connection for PTSD despite possessing medals and records showing their unit came under hostile fire in Iraq and Afghanistan. My friend Jim is one of these. Once denied, many of these veterans give up on the appeals process because it forces them to revisit the trauma every time the issue is revisited. http://militaryadvantage.military.com/2011/06/fear-based-ptsd-criteria
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It used to be FAR worse, with the military in complete denial. But we've still got a ways to go if we want our soldiers to have the teh same rights and treatment as regular citizens, in my opoinion.