The New York Times-20080127-Mental Health Care Is Essential for Our Iraq Veterans- -Letter-

Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080127

Mental Health Care Is Essential for Our Iraq Veterans; [Letter]

Full Text (225  words)

To the Editor:

Re An Iraq Veteran's Descent; a Prosecutor's Hard Choice (War Torn series, front page, Jan. 20), your incisive and sensitive article about Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith's decline into mental illness after his tour of duty in Iraq:

The article touches on what many of us in the mental health professions have known for a very long time: mental illness needs to be promptly diagnosed and comprehensively treated not only to avoid a tragedy like this but also to allow people with post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems brought on by severe traumatic events to move forward with their lives.

Although Mr. Smith's friend said of the Marine Corps' attitude, We're not here to help you, you're here to help us, we hope the article serves to turn that around. Help is essential and effective.

Prudence L. GourguechonChicago, Jan. 21, 2008

The writer, a psychiatrist, is president-elect of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

To the Editor:

It's Vietnam again. The sociopolitical environment is different, but war never brings anything but tragedy to everyone -- both sides of the war, families of those overseas, and the nation's self-image and economic balance.

Anyone who thinks that when we bring the troops home again things will just go back to being normal never understood what America was getting into.

Larry Louie Plano, Tex., Jan. 20, 2008