> By Jill Carroll, Christian Science Monitor. Posted July 16, 2008.

> When veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bring their troubles
> home, police and judges often are the first to deal with them.

> During 21 years in the Marine Corps, Jeff Johnson saw young adults
> walk into his recruiting office and newly minted marines walk out of
> boot camp just a few months later. Now working at the other end of
> that pipeline at the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, he sees
> far different, troubling changes in those coming back from Iraq and
> Afghanistan.

> "The changes were dramatic. I'd never seen these kinds of changes in
> people," says Mr. Johnson of those wrestling with the mental and
> physical trauma of war.

> The once upstanding service members were getting arrested for domestic
> violence and bar fights, and being pursued by police as they raced
> along streets at 100 miles per hour -- often with drugs or alcohol
> involved -- seeking to replicate the adrenaline rush of combat or to
> commit suicide by motorcycle or police bullets.

> He was moved to action, creating a presentation about the mental
> injuries of war for police and other first responders, usually the
> ones called when a veteran hits bottom.

> A year later, he's delivered his message more times than he can count
> and he's been in demand from police departments across the country,
> hungry to prepare for what they worry is a coming surge of mentally
> injured veterans.

> "A lot of them were getting in trouble with police. If [the police]
> know what resources are out there then they can funnel them into
> that," says Johnson, who has one son who is an Iraq veteran and
> another entering the service.

> Police departments, veterans groups, and individuals from California
> to Colorado to Massachusetts are taking similar steps. At the other
> end of the criminal justice system, a "treatment court" in Buffalo,
> N.Y., dedicated to veterans opened this year.

> The flurry of action is spurred by numbers like these: Some 40,000
> cases of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were diagnosed by the
> military among troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to
> 2007. The Rand Corp. estimates 300,000 troops are suffering from PTSD
> from those wars. Many mental-health experts expect those trends to
> continue, or even worsen, as the wars go on.

> Police Sgt. George Masson in Riverside, Calif. -- home to many
> military families and near several bases -- shares those concerns.
> When he began his career in 1980, he encountered many troubled Vietnam
> War veterans. Almost 30 years later, those early experiences weigh on
> him.

> "This is just the tip of the iceberg," says Sergeant Masson. "We're
> going to be paying for this for a while."

> He helped organize a large, multi-agency training session this year
> focused on handling troubled veterans. Marines from nearby Camp
> Pendleton role-played such scenarios as hostage taking and suicide
> attempts. They invited mental health experts and combat veterans who
> suffered from traumatic stress to lecture.

> Meanwhile, the San Francisco Police Department's crisis intervention
> team has added a segment on veterans to its training, says public
> information officer Sgt. Wilfred Williams.

> Updated statistics are few, but a 2004 US Department of Justice report
> found 10 percent of all state and federal prisoners had served in the
> military, mainly during the Vietnam era. But about 4 percent were Iraq
> and Afghanistan veterans.

> In Colorado Springs, which neighbors the Army's Fort Carson, police
> have attended town hall meetings with military and community members
> to discuss how to help returning soldiers. The urgency was underscored
> last year when a suicidal soldier led police on a manhunt.

> Police pursued the man in a long car chase after he violated a
> restraining order, tracking him by his cellphone as he fled, says
> community relations officer Sgt. Creighton Brandt. Finally, a police
> detective called the man's cellphone and convinced him to pull over
> and surrender.

> "The suspect admitted he was suicidal and had contemplated suicide by
> cop several times that day and suffered from PTSD from serving in
> Iraq," said Sergeant Brandt reading from an incident report.

> Across the country, Norfolk County Massachusetts District Attorney
> William Keating held a 2005 summit with police departments, veterans
> groups, and clergy to discuss support for returning veterans. The
> result was a video for first responders, describing traumatic stress
> and how it might affect veterans in their communities. In the three
> years since, it has racked up some 8,500 hits on YouTube, and Mr.
> Keating's office has had requests for copies from across the country.

> Presiding over "treatment courts" in Buffalo for mental illness and
> drug addiction, Judge Robert Russell began seeing lots of veterans
> recently -- some 300 last year. So he created a treatment court just
> for them that opened this year, the first of its kind.

> Treatment courts first appeared in 1989 to address causes of crime
> rather than just punishing a particular incident. The courts have a
> therapeutic feel and the focus is on keeping defendants on track with
> treatments and medication.

> Nationwide, nearly 70 percent of prisoners will end up back in jail,
> according to Judge Russell. But defendants in drug abuse treatment
> courts have a recidivism rate ranging from 13 to 25 percent
> nationally, says Russell. Of the over 40 cases he has seen since the
> veterans court began in January, he struggled to think of one that has
> returned to crime.

> Most of the veterans that come before him are charged with nonviolent
> offenses or, occasionally, domestic violence or a bar fight. As his
> court gains more attention, Russell says he's gotten calls from judges
> across the country.

> The goal is to avoid cases like Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs,
> deployed to Iraq four times. He was already unusually irritable and
> unable to sleep after his second deployment, according to an article
> he wrote of his struggles with PTSD in a January issue of the Marine
> Corps Gazette.

> After losing two marines from his platoon during his third deployment,
> his symptoms worsened and he began a long battle to get better. The
> article detailed his struggle to heal, overcoming fears he was a "weak
> Marine," imploring others to seek help as he had. But just five months
> later, police were chasing him and his brother as they sped through
> the Arizona desert in a stolen car. He finally halted the car then
> killed his brother and himself.

> In his article he had written: "We have got to make our Marines and
> sailors more aware of PTSD before they end up like me and others."