One day after Michael DeVlieger was released from an Army hospital in Kentucky for acute stress disorder, he got the redeployment order. Now he's on the front lines.

"The closer that it got, he kept saying 'Mom I'm going to die, I'm not coming back this time. I'm feeling it, I'm dreaming it. I'm not coming back,'" said Sue DeVlieger, his mother.

Critics say there's a contradiction between military policy and its practices. The official policy of the Department of Defense states that soldiers with serious psychiatric problems could only be sent back to the war zone if they were stable for at least three months.

But the national guard told Team 5 its policy "is based on the severity of their PTSD diagnosis...that may limit their ability to deploy."

The Army says it's "individualized" and that they "do not want to stigmatize the soldiers by saying they cannot deploy with their unit because they have symptoms."

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. The psychotropic drugs are a bow to a little-discussed truth fraught with implications: Mentally ill service members are being returned to combat.

The redeployments are legal, and the service members are often eager to go. But veterans groups, lawmakers and mental-health professionals fear that the practice lacks adequate civilian oversight. They also worry that such redeployments are becoming more frequent as multiple combat tours become the norm and traumatized service members are retained out of loyalty or wartime pressures to maintain troop numbers.

During this past weekend we saw Veterans Day parades around the country marked by a number of incidents that underscore the deep divisions within the veterans community.  In Boston 18 members of the anti-war veterans group, Veterans for Peace, were arrested as they sought inclusion in the city's Veterans Day parade.

From the Boston Globe:

Some protesters wore gags, which they later said symbolized the fact that, while they were permitted to march in the parade, they were prevented from carrying signs opposing the war in Iraq...When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused. As the Boston Firemen's Band played The Marine Hymn, several protesters were placed in plastic handcuffs and led away.

In Denver an 11th-hour agreement last Friday ended up allowing anti-war veterans to march in the city's parade after being told a month ago they were banned.

Members of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War marched at the end of Saturday's parade Nov. 10 holding signs protesting the war and President Bush. Some people along the parade route turned their backs on those veterans while others applauded.

When one a sign belonging to one of the protesters fell on the ground, Florence Sebern stood on it and refused to move in a protest of her own.
"Today is a day of patriotism, not politicism. Period. End of statement," she said.

Air Force veteran Jim Hill said the groups should be allowed to march in the parade.
"They put in their time, they lost their buddies too, their friends," he said.

A writer for the Long Beach Press-Telegram received some critical messages after he defended veterans wishing to protest in that area's  parade.  Unlike in Denver, no agreement was reached and protesters were absent from the event.  One message read:

"If anti-war vets want to march to get their message out, all they simply have to do is file with the city and have a march. They don't approach it that way because they know no one would show up. Instead, they target a long-time tradition of honoring our fallen heroes and attempt to hijack the event for themselves with a captive audience."

In the Santa Barbara Independent, anti-war Vietnam veterans stated their own reasons for condoning protests at these types of parades:

We will be joining with like-minded citizens to petition our representatives for legislation that will meet the just needs of veterans. We will be striving to end our government’s pursuit of senseless military adventures.

Often the military is portrayed as being of a single mindset.  These events show views among the ranks are as diverse as those of the general American public.

Though we talk a lot about the term "PTSD," rarely is it personified in the way it is in this incredible series of audio slide shows in the Los Angeles Times focusing on Marine James Blaker Miller.  Miller's face became an iconic image of the Iraq war when he was photographed during the battle of Fallujah, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.  Since then, he's struggled deeply with what he experienced during that time, contemplating suicide and going through a divorce.

In a highly personal and moving article the photographer, Luis Sinco, recently wrote of his own efforts to help Miller.  I urge you to take the time to watch the slide shows and read Sinco's words.