Mental casualties of Vietnam War persist

More than 30 years after the end of the war in Vietnam, the effect of lingering stress on Americans who fought there continues to cause stress among researchers.

A new study finds that almost 19 percent of the more than three million U.S. troops who served in Vietnam returned with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It's a condition that left them with invasive memories, nightmares, loss of concentration, feelings of guilt, irritability and, in some cases, major depression. More than ten years after the war, 10 percent of them still could not leave the war behind.

As bad as these numbers sound, however, they are significantly lower than those produced by an earlier study. In 1990, a national survey concluded that almost one in three (30.9 percent) of those who served in Vietnam came home with PTSD, and 15 percent of them still suffered with it.

However, the new study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University and the Harvard School of Public Health, came up with numbers similar to those of a 2004 report that major depression and anxiety dogged about 16 percent of soldiers and Marines who served in combat units in Iraq.

"What has been, and still can be, learned about PTSD and Vietnam veterans should be applicable to understanding the psychological risks to U.S. veterans of the war in Iraq," says Karestan Koenen of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Determining how many veterans will return from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health problems, and how many will still be plagued by them decades later, will impact decisions about who will receive long treatment and counseling and how long it should be maintained. Underscoring this is a recent skyrocketing of claims for disability payments by Vietnam vets.