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Please read this article and send prayers for Josh. He was in the worst of the worst fighting for two tours of duty. Please Army, apply your "No Soldier left behind" policy to your wounded soldiers and help them heal. "The parents of Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer say their son thought he was shooting at Afghan insurgents when he fired on police and firefighters." " a nurse in the intensive care unit at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital told Josh's father that when his son regained some mental awareness, he mumbled "whose got the roof." When asked what he thought had...

A former IDF soldier is in a legal battle to be recognized as having been handicapped in battle. The ex-soldier says he is mentally ill due to trauma suffered in war, specifically due to terrorist groups’ use of child soldiers. The man says that during his service in the First Lebanon War, he and fellow soldiers were attacked by child terrorists carrying RPGs more than 10 times. Each time he was forced to open fire, a move that saved his life, but – he says – caused lasting mental trauma. The young attackers now haunt his dreams, he says. The...

The father of a Fort Bragg soldier charged with shooting at Fayetteville police and firefighters from his apartment in January says his son suffered from war-induced mental problems and thought he was firing at Afghan insurgents. Staff Sgt. Joshua "Ike" Eisenhauer, 30, was wounded by police, who returned fire in the four-hour standoff at Austin Creek apartments. His father, Mark Eisenhauer, says that although he and his wife are uncertain of the events of Jan. 13, their son told them he was alone in his apartment about 10 p.m. when he awoke to the sound of people running up the...

A Medal of Honor recipient who lost part of his right arm in a firefight in Afghanistan says society doesn’t fully understand the mental injury that today’s veterans suffer. Speaking Friday at the Warrior Resilience Conference in Washington, D.C., Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry said service members with internal injuries and psychological damage suffer the most, not necessarily those with external wounds. Troops with visible injuries receive accolades, but those with unseen wounds are ignored, Sgt. Petry said, adding that whenever someone thanks him for his sacrifice, he makes sure those near him who have served also are thanked....

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Capt. Susan Carlson was not a typical recruit when she volunteered for the Army in 2006 at the age of 50. But the Army desperately needed behavioral health professionals like her, so it signed her up. Captain Carlson went to Afghanistan in 2011, seeking “to experience what soldiers experience.” Though she was, by her own account, “not a strong soldier,” she received excellent job reviews at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where she counseled prisoners. But last year, Captain Carlson, a social worker, was deployed to Afghanistan with the Colorado National Guard and everything fell apart. After a soldier complained that she...

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is probing the weekend shooting death of an Iraq war veteran in an armed standoff near Appling County’s Surrency community, Appling Sheriff Bennie DeLoach said. Neighbors of James M. Dixon III, 31, called the Sheriff’s Office about 3:50 a.m. Sunday to say someone had fired a shot through their house, DeLoach said in a release. Deputies went to Dixon’s house but decided for safety reasons to wait until daylight before confronting whoever fired the shot, DeLoach said. As they waited, Dixon left the house and drove to his parents’ house about a half mile away...

DALLAS—The night Katie Brickman met Ian Welch at the bar, she knew right away the Iraq war veteran was the man she wanted to marry. That made it all the more jarring when he asked a favor as they said goodbye in the parking lot: "When you see me again, just say, 'Hi, Ian, you remember me,' so I'll know that we've met before." So began the wartime love triangle of Ms. Brickman, Mr. Welch and his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Karachi is one of the largest cities in the world, home to 17-million people, give or take a million. It is the economic engine of Pakistan, responsible for three-quarters of its economy. It is the bellwether for a precarious nation -- as Karachi goes, so goes Pakistan, they like to say here. It's also, according to a recent report from global human resources consulting firm Mercer, South Asia's lowest-ranking city for personal safety and the sixth most dangerous city in the world. It has had no elected government for more than 18 months, after the last one dissolved in bickering...

The call came into the behavior specialists here from a doctor in Afghanistan. His patient had just been through a firefight and now was cowering under a cot, refusing to come out. Apparently even the chew toys hadn’t worked. Post-traumatic stress disorder, thought Dr. Walter F. Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base. Specifically, canine PTSD. If anyone needed evidence of the frontline role played by dogs in war these days, here is the latest: the four-legged, wet-nosed troops used to sniff out mines, track down enemy...

The U.S. Army recently awarded a contracting firm a nearly half a million dollar contract to support its “Power Dreaming Project.” Wired Danger Room reports the following scenario that the Army hopes to begin testing next here to help soldiers suffering with PSTD: A soldier tries to sleep. But he is not safe in his dreams. Jolted awake by a nightmare, the combat veteran fumbles in the dark for his 3-D glasses. He puts them on. Around him are the faces of people whom he trusts. They fight the darkness with him. The soldier’s re-lived this scene in his head...

Despite an instant, commanding lead in the polls, newly-minted GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry is already being viewed as “unelectable.” The panel of reporters on Sunday’s The Chris Matthews Show reached a general consensus that Perry’s loose talk and extreme views will eventually lead the Republican establishment to choose the more moderate, more electable Mitt Romney to challenge President Obama in the general election. Barely a week into his campaign, the Texas Governor has talked himself into trouble, and not just with liberals and Democrats. While John Heilemann sees Perry’s smashmouth certitude as an advantage over Mitt Romney, The...

There were 32 Army suicides in July, the highest monthly toll ever recorded. The grim figure underscores the military’s continuing inability to find ways of preventing troubled soldiers from taking their own lives. Military officials said 22 active-duty soldiers were thought to have taken their own lives last month, along with 10 reservists. The incidents are under investigation, and it'll be several weeks before the Army definitively rules on each case. If the numbers hold up, July will be the worst month for Army suicide in two years, since the Army first began releasing monthly suicide data. The previous record...

Drugs widely prescribed to treat severe post-traumatic stress symptoms for veterans are no more effective than placebos and come with serious side effects, including weight gain and fatigue, researchers reported on Tuesday. The surprising finding, from the largest study of its kind in veterans, challenges current treatment standards so directly that it could alter practice soon, some experts said. Ten percent to 20 percent of those who see heavy combat develop lasting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and about a fifth of those who get treatment receive a prescription for a so-called antipsychotic medication, according to government numbers. The new...

A class action settlement announced Friday between the federal government and a group of disabled veterans will award lifetime health-care benefits to more than 1,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were discharged from the service because of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a motion filed Thursday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the National Veterans Legal Service Program and the government jointly asked the court to approve lifetime disability retirement benefits to 1,029 veterans with PTSD who were denied those benefits upon discharge from the military following their wartime service. “It’s getting your dignity back,” said...

WASHINGTON – The PTSD Coach smartphone application (app), launched in April by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), has already helped more than 5,000 users connect with important mental health information and resources. “This new tool is about helping Veterans and Servicemembers when and where they need it,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “We are encouraged so many have already downloaded this resource and hope many more will utilize this convenient tool to access VA services.” Since its launch, the PTSD Coach app has been downloaded by thousands of individuals. While...

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled VA's mental health care system and disability claims system remain badly broken, and veterans face long delays to see doctors and obtain benefits. The Court of Appeals ordered VA to fix what it descrbed "egregious problems." VCS believes now is the time for our President, VA Secretary, and Congress to fix VA. The lengthy bureaucratic delays our veterans face must end now. The Court of Appeals concluded, "VA's unchecked incompetence has gone on long enough; no more veterans should be compelled to agonize or perish while the government fails...

"When vets seek therapy, they want a professional who can relate to soldiers in combat, and that usually means a therapist who has military experience. Without such empathy, therapy often is doomed, vets say. Because most psychologists and mental health care professionals don't have a military background, there's a void in the safety net for vets. Some veterans' organizations have stepped up, training members to help their peers, and the Soldiers Project provides free counseling from licensed professionals and veterans by phone to newly returned vets."

WASHINGTON, DC – This morning at a hearing of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) heard testimony and demanded answers from government officials about lackluster and delayed mental health care treatment from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA).

Military doctors struggling to treat post-traumatic stress disorder are quietly adding a new tool to their arsenal: A controversial brain-wave therapy they say can heal troubled veterans and even send once-broken troops back into combat. Staff Sgt. Justin Roberts is one of hundreds of service members finding relief with the experimental remedy. While working at a combat hospital in Iraq for more than two years, Roberts, now 32, was exposed to the grisliest of war’s suffering. Every day he helped treat troops, captives and Iraqi civilians who suffered devastating wounds from gunfights, bombings and IED attacks. Click above to play...