Psychologists have long known that new wars can reopen old wounds for veterans. When U.S. troops fought in Iraq in 1991, clinics of the government’s Veterans Affairs (VA) administration were flooded with calls from distressed former soldiers. But some researchers now believe the current Iraq war is particularly vexing for Vietnam veterans because of the ways it is similar to the conflict they fought 40 years ago: the grinding guerrilla warfare, the constant brush with civilians and the political debate back home. Max Cleland, the former senator and Vietnam War veteran, gave the phenomenon a public face when he disclosed last month that scenes from Iraq had made him depressed. His chief of staff told NEWSWEEK that Cleland has been getting trauma counseling at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington since the start of the war. He’s clearly not alone. In a small study conducted at Cleveland State University earlier this year, half of the Vietnam veterans surveyed said they felt emotional distress over Iraq. And figures put out by the VA show a 36 percent rise since 2003 in the number of Vietnam vets seeking help for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Veterans and their therapists say watching coverage of Iraq or reading about it can make some former soldiers feel like they’re back in battle, and can trigger some of the old sensations–the deep anxiety and the hypervigilance. Jim Doyle, of Fresno, Calif., says his anxieties are set off by news of the casualties in Iraq. “When I see a headline–two Marines killed, three soldiers wounded–I see the faces of the guys I was with 36 years ago.”
Some therapists have been coaching veterans to tune out. Thomas Bennett, who counsels former soldiers at a VA center on Martha’s Vineyard, says watching TV “becomes over-stimulating for them and then they have trouble sleeping.” Bennett says some of his patients have required more medication to cope with Iraq-related stress. The VA has also adopted the switch-it-off treatment. Earlier this summer the VA explicitly told veterans suffering from PTSD not to watch “Baghdad ER,” a documentary that follows the wrenching events in an American combat-support hospital in Iraq.
Kanke, the Duluth veteran, had been a Marine photographer, which meant he was regularly taking shots of bodies and battle zones. After the war, doctors diagnosed him as 100 percent disabled due to PTSD. His widow, Carol, says her husband suffered from depression long before Iraq but had been improving. The war put him off course. He grew distant from loved ones, including his chil-dren and grandchildren, and he dropped weight, she says. On the night of his suicide, after talking by phone to Cameron, Kanke roused Carol and pushed her out of the house before setting himself on fire. She says she watched the fire from the outside, then tried to douse her husband with a garden hose. “We had a wonderful life. But when the war started, he just got more and more depressed. He didn’t handle things’ going wrong very well,” she says. Now she’s hoping her husband’s story will help other veterans spot the symptoms and avoid his fate.
