US army soldiers suffering from PTSD are being housed in barracks beside an active firing range
ARMY SGT Jonathan Strickland sits in his room at noon with the blinds drawn, seeking the sleep that has eluded him since he was knocked out by the blast of a Baghdad car bomb.
Like many of the wounded soldiers living in the newly built "warrior transition" barracks here, the soft-spoken 25 year old suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
But even as Strickland and his comrades struggle with nightmares, anxiety and flashbacks from their wartime experiences, the sounds of gunfire have followed them here, just outside their windows.
Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the army infantry's main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland's building.
The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month.
The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, according to the soldiers living there.
"You hear a lot of shots, it puts you in a defensive mode," says Strickland, who spent a year with an infantry platoon in Baghdad and has since received a diagnosis of PTSD from the military. He now takes medicine for anxiety and insomnia.
"My heart starts racing and I get all excited and irritable," he says, adding that the adrenaline surge "puts me back in that mind frame that I am actually there".
Soldiers interviewed say complaints to medical personnel at Fort Benning's Martin Army Community Hospital and officers in their chain of command have brought no relief.
Fort Benning officials say that they are unaware of specific complaints but that decisions about housing and treatment for soldiers with PTSD depend on the severity of each case. They say day and night training must continue as new soldiers arrive and the army grows.
"Fort Benning is a training unit, so there is gunfire around us all the time," says Elaine Kelley, a behavioural health supervisor at the base hospital. If a soldier has a severe problem, it would have been identified, she says.
Lieut Col Sean Mulcahey, who recently took command of the Warrior Transition Battalion, where wounded soldiers are assigned, says: "No soldier has talked with me about the ranges." If it is an issue, "we will address it", he says, stressing that the battalion's mission is "getting those soldiers to heal".
Under army rules, commanders of warrior transition units are supposed to enforce "quiet hours".
Officials say that the location of the barracks for wounded soldiers, along with a $1.2 million (€770,000) Soldier and Family Assistance Center, was chosen for its proximity to central facilities such as the hospital.
About 350 soldiers are assigned to the battalion - including 176 who live in the barracks near the ranges - where they stay an average of eight months, Mulcahey says. An estimated 10-15 per cent of the soldiers have PTSD.
The soldiers are part of a growing contingent of an estimated 150,000 combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have PTSD symptoms. The mental disorder has been diagnosed in nearly 40,000 of them.
PTSD symptoms include flashbacks and anxiety, and noises such as fireworks or a car backfiring can make them feel as though they are back in combat. Health experts say that housing soldiers near a firing range subjects them to a continual trigger.
"It would definitely traumatise them," says Harold McRae, a psychotherapist in Columbus, who counsels dozens of soldiers with PTSD who are stationed at Fort Benning. "It would be like you having a major car wreck on the interstate" and then living in a home overlooking the freeway, he says. "Every time you hear a wreck or the brakes lock up, you are traumatised."
Fort Benning, which covers more than 180,000 acres, is one of the army's main training bases, with 67 live-fire ranges. The base has thousands of housing and barracks units.
"There is no excuse" for the housing situation, says Paul Ragan, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who treats veterans with PTSD. "It's untherapeutic."
Brig Gen Gary Cheek, director of the Army's Warrior Care and Transition Office, which oversees 12,000 wounded soldiers, says: "I can see how that would be a problem. It's something we haven't considered.
"We have alternatives for housing the soldiers who have issues" with the ranges, he says, adding that the barracks for wounded troops at Fort Benning are an interim facility.
The gunfire "makes me crazy", says a soldier who lives in the barracks and has PTSD and traumatic brain injury from a roadside explosion in Iraq. "It makes me jump and I get flashbacks." He speaks on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the army.
Soldiers living at the barracks say their rooms are in good condition and have recently been outfitted with flat-screen TVs, laptop computers and free internet service.
They say the cadre of the battalion inspect their rooms frequently for cleanliness, even keeping records of soap scum on a sink or sunflower seeds left on a counter.
But the soldiers say they have received no explanation for why they must live so close to the firing ranges, even though they say at least one soldier raised the question at a town hall meeting with battalion leaders several weeks ago. "It . . . freaks me out," says Sgt Jonathon Redding, 27, of Little Rock. He says the gunfire has required him to increase his sleep medication.
"I was under the impression I would get help here," he says. Instead, he says, he "got considerably worse". - ( LA Times/Washington Post)