Aftershocks of war: soldiers returning from Iraq are likely to need HR's help in coping with delayed emotional trauma

HR Magazine, April, 2004 by Linda Wasmer Andrews

Dan is a true hero of the war in Iraq, and he has the Bronze Star to prove it. A staff sergeant in the Army Reserve, Dan is part of a psychological operations unit that helped lead the way to places most of us know only as exotic names from the evening news: Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Tikrit.

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It was near Nasiriyah that Dan earned the Bronze Star for meritorious service. He and his team were shepherding about 30 Iraqi civilians to safety while U.S. Marines were setting off explosives nearby. Suddenly, Dan's group came under enemy fire. Refusing to leave the civilians defenseless, Dan climbed onto the hood of a slow-moving Humvee and started firing back, shielding the civilians as they moved up the road to the safe area controlled by the Marines.

It was only after Dan returned home to Maryland that things began to fall apart. The company where he had worked as director of sales and marketing was gone, so he had to find a new job. He also had to adjust to married life since, in the long tradition of soldiers shipping out, he had married his girlfriend just four days before leaving for Iraq.

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On top of that, there was the emotional residue of war. One of his unit's missions had involved broadcasting surrender appeals over loudspeakers, which led to many harrowing moments. "As soon as we cranked that thing up, we were immediately a target," Dan recalls. In a place where the days were punctuated by gunfire and grenades, a constant state of vigilance served him well. Back home, though, it was hard to let his guard down again. Something as innocuous as the banging noise of a trash truck was enough to set off alarm bells in his brain.

Dan went through a series of jobs in his first months back. He had trouble concentrating, and he showed up late for work. To make matters worse, he was plagued by back pain from an injury he sustained in a Humvee accident. Fortunately, Dan has since found a half-day sales job with an understanding employer. But he has yet to seek counseling, and he still seems to be struggling to grasp how his life could have changed so dramatically in such a short time.

To Iraq and Back

Dan's struggle is far from unique, and stories such as his are apt to be repeated many times over this spring, as the military completes a massive rotation of troops into and out of Iraq. Of course, not everyone goes through a difficult readjustment period when they return. Dan himself had an easier time after coming home from an earlier deployment to Bosnia. For some, though, the stress of wartime service continues to exact a harsh toll long after the last shot has been fired.

For HR professionals, this presents a two-fold challenge: first, to understand what returning war veterans have been through--and may still be experiencing--and second, to be alert for signs that a little outside help might ease their transition back into their civilian jobs. Fortunately, we now know more than we ever did about how to spot war-related problems early and how to provide people with the emotional and practical support they need to heal.

Making use of that information will be particularly important in the coming months because many experts expect the war in Iraq to lead to more postwar psychological fallout than other recent conflicts. For one thing, there is the magnitude and duration of the war. "To put it in perspective, this has been the largest and longest-lasting mobilization [of the reserve and National Guard] since the Korean War," says Col. John O'Shea, U.S. Army (ret.), director of education for the Reserve Officers Association.

Then there is the high-anxiety nature of the combat. "This has been a much more difficult operation than the first Gulf War," notes John Thompson Jr., a former military psychiatrist who now teaches at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. This time around, our forces have had to contend with more exposure to traditional warfare as well as the injuries and fatalities that go with it. Add to that the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks and the unpredictable risk of conducting door-to-door searches, factor in difficult living conditions, and you have a recipe for fatigue, stress and possible trauma.

Among troops still in the field, this stress has manifested itself in a suicide rate that appears to be higher than peacetime military rates. (As of February, there were at least 18 suicides among service members in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Department of Defense. The actual number may be higher and is a source of some controversy. As of this writing, additional information from the Defense Department is expected shortly.) In veterans who have returned home, such stress may lead to a host of adjustment problems.

At times, it may turn into full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--an anxiety disorder that can develop in survivors of any terrifying ordeal in which there was a threat of serious bodily harm. In general, about 30 percent of individuals who spend time in a war zone go on to develop PTSD, according to data from the National Institute of Mental Health. Among those who spend extended periods of time in a high-risk situation, however, the odds of developing at least a few PTSD-like symptoms may rise to between 50 percent and 70 percent, says Thompson.