With his trim runner's build, tight flattop and thin, muscular arms, Stephen DeGuire does not seem like a man who is unable to empty the dishwasher, mow the lawn or throw baseballs to his young sons.

He forgets the names of neighbors he has known for years and grimaces as he pushes himself into a standing position. His torso tilts forward as he walks stiffly through his Mequon home. A wooden cane hangs on a chair in the living room. It is one of a collection that DeGuire keeps around. He frequently forgets where he puts them.

Disability linked to reaction from the anthrax vaccine is deemed non-combat-related, meaning veterans like DeGuire are taxed on their disability payments. The anthrax vaccine is also not part of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which allows people who suffered vaccine reactions to collect money for their disability.

Shortly after midnight, Roberts called a friend, who came over. The friend later described Roberts' condition as "inebriated more than I was."

They drank wine together and watched military videos on his laptop computer, the friend told police. He said Roberts was alternately upset and intense.

"He started crying at times and saying that some of these people had fallen and I held him while he cried and tried to console him," he told police. Roberts told him he was afraid he might hurt someone. The friend talked Roberts into going out for coffee.

Police, who had surrounded the building, saw Roberts and his friend leave and ordered them to the ground at gunpoint.

McKinney [the girlfriend] later told police that Roberts has issues with civilian society and experiences flashbacks from Iraq. He recently told her he doesn't trust himself. She said he needs professional help for mental health issues but refuses to see anyone.

Over the past few weeks we've started to hear one of the more disturbing stories concerning Veterans Administration troubles. An investigation was recently launched into the deaths of 9 patients at the VA facility in Marion, Illinois, within a 6-month period. According to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin was briefed on the deaths by VA officials:

"In a private meeting, top VA officials told [Sen.] Durbin...that nine patients died at the Marion VA between October 2006 and March 2007, a number considerably higher than the two deaths they would have expected to see during the time period."

A key figure in the inquiry is Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, who, according to Durbin, VA officials say had at least some connection to each of the dead patients. According to the Boston Globe, Veizaga-Mendez surrendered his Massachusetts medical license last year after "accusations of 'grossly' substandard care in the state." He later began working at Marion VA hospital, without telling Illinois licensing officials about his prior troubles in Massachusetts.

Now Durbin and Barack Obama are getting into the mix. On October 18th they sent a letter to the VA pressing for information and a suitable response on the matter. The letter was addressed to Gordon H. Mansfield, Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs (that's right, still no replacement for former-VA Secretary Nicholson).

The letter prods deeper into mortality statistics at the Marion VA hospital and the background of Dr. Veizaga-Mendez, but here's the most striking paragraph:

"Underscoring this concern is the account from the veteran’s mother that one health professional at the Marion VAMC went so far as to warn her to take her son elsewhere for care, suggesting that concerns over the quality of health care were well known among at least some of the hospital’s staff."

Durbin has also released a video message on his Website addressing the matter:

"I have been asking many agencies at the state and local level why previous incidents in the doctor's practice were not well known to the Veterans Administration before he was hired at the Marion VA hospital.  It's not clear to me that there was the kind of exchange of information from states like Massachusetts to the Veterans Administration, so that the VA would know about shortcomings in Dr. Mendez's past."

Dr. Veizaga-Mendez may have had his license suspended indefinitely in Illinois--but now he's trying to practice in North Dakota.

I wait for emails from my former Iraqi translator to appear in my Inbox—too long a wait, and I assume he’s dead. I fear mentioning any part of his name that might identify him to the wrong people.

Sitting on the steps of my platoon’s HQ in southern Iraq some time in 2003, I asked our translator what he had done while his city was being bombed by Americans during the invasion. 

He started into an impassioned 5-minute monologue. A 20-year-old student, he told of how Saddam’s Fedayeen guerrillas tried to recruit his university’s English class to defend the city as Marines closed in. He described days of remaining in his home as the fighting began, the fervent praying in a cramped room with his sister’s annoying children.

In subsequent conversations he would speak of life under Saddam’s regime, the murder of his anti-government uncle and the torture of a friend whose fingernails had been ripped out after emailing the United States.  

He still tells stories.

In November 2003 he wrote to my unit (then recently returned from Iraq) about the bombing of our former HQ, where he was working Italian soldiers.

"im okky my friend god help me from this explosion i was in petrol with my friend italian it was every thing horrible thanks for god because he saved me"

He wrote that he feared being killed and how he hated Iraq and wanted to leave it.

"just tell me what ican do if when i walk in the street one day terrerist man will kill me in front of all people in the markit or in any where."

Another email, sent on April 10, 2004:

Thomas G. Kelley, Massachusetts Secretary of Veterans' Services, reflected on the meaning of the Medal of Honor yesterday, saying he was bothered by how few Iraq/Afghanistan soldiers have received the award (there are now three). 

Kelley himself received the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, and was asked by the Boston Herald to comment on yesterday's posthumous award to U.S. Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy.

“I don’t want to put myself in the same league with Lt. Murphy, or Sgt. Smith, or Cpl. Dunham,” Kelley said with a customary humility, “but it does seem to me, as well as many of my colleagues in the (Medal of Honor) society, that the criteria now being used to award the medal has been set extraordinarily high. Much higher, I believe, than it was back in my day.”

Kelley says he’s aware of “extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice” worthy of the award, made by soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who barely survived. “There is nothing in the criteria for the medal that states you have to be dead to receive it,” Kelley said. “And frankly, that’s what bothers me as well as the other 108 living members of our society.”

Kelley went on to offer his own idea of why there's been a shortage in recent Medal of Honor recipients.

“There’s a reluctance to remind the country that we happen to be engaged in a war where only a small amount of the population is being asked to pay the price. Truly amazing and valiant things are being done,” Kelley said, “but it’s only the brother soldiers or the families who are truly aware.”

As of July 3, 2007 there are 109 living Medal of Honor Recipients: 34 from WWII; 14 from Korea; and 61 from Vietnam.

Moss was nearly dead as the Black Hawk landed at the battalion aid station at Orgun-E, about 20 miles from the site of the ambush.

Collier signaled wildly over the roar of the helicopter’s engines to alert the aid-station staff that this was no ordinary patient.

Oh recalled that it wasn’t apparent just how delicate the situation was until they began cutting away Moss’s combat uniform and unraveling all the gauze bandages.

When he saw the tail fin of the RPG round, he yelled, “everybody get out!”

“I had never even seen an RPG before, but I figured anything with a rod and fins on it had to be a rocket of some kind.”

Oh asked for volunteers to stay in the operating room and help him save Moss’s life. Several soldiers raised their hands.

As the Iraq war continues towards the half-decade mark, the New York Times looks at children of fallen soldiers who were barely old enough to remember their fathers' deaths.  Now they're growing up and asking questions. [NYT]

“As 3-year-olds, they have a pragmatic, concrete concept,” said Joanne M. Steen, co-author of “Military Widow: A Survival Guide.” “They’ll say matter-of-factly, ‘My daddy died.’ But at significant points in their lives, they go back and revisit this, and it’s really hard on the surviving spouse. They end up telling the story over and over again of how Daddy died at each stage.”

"He doesn't want detainees killed or bones broken, but 'if we can put a little pain on one of them and get the information that we need that maybe might save lives, we need to do that.'"

"As of May, 21,521 noncitizens were on active duty in the military, according to data from the Department of Defense. The number peaked at 37,000 in 2003, months after President Bush signed an executive order in 2002 calling for the military to expedite the citizenship process for military personnel. It cut the average waiting period to six months, down from an average of five years."

“I feel I’ve done all I can,” Bruhns said. “I can’t continue to attack members of Congress to pass legislation that isn’t going to get passed.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a well-documented issue, but now a study is asking if doctors really know how to treat it. According to the Institute of Medicine, which carried out at study of PTSD treatments at the VA's request, flaws lay in the way the treatments were assessed:

"Most studies included in the committee’s review were characterized by methodologic limitations, some serious enough to affect confidence in the studies’ results. The committee reached a strong consensus that additional high quality research is essential for every treatment modality."

The study comes as the VA seeks to help treat the 12.6% of Iraq vets, and 6.2% of Afghanistan vets who've experienced PTSD.  Despite the sober findings, doctors did point to the one proven treatment:

“...exposure therapies,” where PTSD patients are gradually exposed to sights and sounds that essentially simulate their trauma to help them learn to cope."

While doctors debate how to treat PTSD, some in the military are working to counteract any stigmas associated with the disorder.

"Marine Col. Keith Pankhurst...said it wasn’t very long ago that he believed Marines who had PTSD just didn’t have what it takes to serve.  "I would have been the first to say, ‘What kind of weakness is that?’” He said. “It took a lot of education to overcome that attitude.”

At the same time, a group of "elder Combat Veterans" is taking PTSD matters into its own hands, and looking after those now returning from war.

"We older veterans have come to realize that if PTSD issues are not dealt with early on, after many years these disabilities simply become our way of life and we learn to live and deal with them - or not. Our younger Brothers & Sisters deserve better than this and need some kind of effective help now."

Still, PTSD doesn't happen to everyone undergoing the same situations:

"Certain factors predispose individuals to getting PTSD. For the military, the nature of the war itself is a factor. If the war is being fought in guerrillalike conditions—increasing the sense of danger and of being out of control—the disorder is more likely."

"Other factors include a history of previous losses, previous mental-health problems and not having a social support system."

"The American war on Saddam Hussein exploded tonight in a ferocious display of precision bombing and cruise missile strikes that blasted the heart of the Iraqi ruler's power with a spectacular opening bulls-eye on his most forbidding palace and continued with at least 100 more devastating volleys in the first two hours."

Earlier in the week I interviewed Erica, the wife of Jim, a fellow Marine from my old unit. I asked about her experiences being in a relationship with Jim while he was deployed to Iraq in 2003. Today we have my interview with Jim. Among the things he talks about is leaving her a knife to keep at home, family drama, and a surge of anger while eating at a diner. 

President Bush had this to say about veterans care at today's presidential press conference:

"I've called in--I asked Bob Dole and Donna Shalala to lead an important commission, a commission to make sure our veterans get the benefits they deserve.

I was concerned about bureaucratic delay and, you know, I was concerned about a system that had been in place for years, but just didn't recognize
this different nature, a different kind of war that we're fighting.

I don't like it when I meet wives who are sitting beside their husband's bed in Walter Reed and not being supported by its government, not being helped
to provide care.

I'm concerned about PTSD. And I want people to focus on PTSD.

And so we sent up a bill. And I hope they move on it quickly.

There's place where we could find common ground."

"Are Americans tired of hearing about the war in Iraq? I have been hearing such comments lately. I suspect they may be right. The other day I heard about a television executive who said that movies about Iraq are failing because people just don't want to see them....Here we are, perhaps only halfway through the war, and people are turning it off, even as Americans and Iraqis continue to die in Iraq. What does that mean -- for the war, for our politics, and for us as a people?"

The Los Angeles Time has a rundown of eight new bills recently signed by Governor Schwarzenegger to benefit veterans.  The article also mentions "big-ticket items," including college tuition benefits to National Guard members, that were not signed into law.

“Sometimes, military families don’t want to go to an installation because they hear things through the military grapevine about the school system.”