Man, and I thought I had problems dealing with my onset of Diabetes, Ulcers in my feet and legs, and nerve damage... makes me glad I never saw any combat. I'm a cold war veteran. During my second tour, I had a roommate who had spent 3 years stationed in West Germany on the Chek Border. Day after day he had to deal with the real possibility of 3000 Soviet T-80 Main Battle Tanks rolling across No Man's Land and driving right through his position. He told me about skirmishes that were always taking place between the GI's and the Commie guards. He said they would occasionally take pot shots at each other during alerts, and sometimes people got hit, and some even died.
My friend would sleep with a loaded Browning 9mm High Power under his pillow, and he drew it on me several times when he would wake up from a nightmare, shouting about incoming fire from the gun towers. This was in 1982, and unfortunately for him, PTSD didn't officially exsist. My CO eventually found out about the gun through a third party, and Kerry was put out on a medical discharge. The sad thing is, the Army acted like it was his fault.
This past year, our congress passed legislation that strips any American Veteran diagnosed with PTSD of his 2nd Amendment Rights, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Some pencilpusher in Washington decided that after a soldier has lived through several tours of combat and is having nightmares about the sh*t he/she experienced while defending our freedoms, that he/she now poses a danger to himself/herself and to the general public as well. Therefore, their 2nd Amendment Rights, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America, have been removed!! Defending themselves and their families is no longer an option for soldiers who report their symptoms to a doctor in an attempt to get help.
The American Legion, a veterans organization of which I am an active member, has been fighting to get that bill overturned. The Veterans of Foreign Wars organization is also taking action, as well as the National Rifle Association( of which I am also a Life Member), the Handgun Owners of America, and the entire Republican Party. So don't feel that you're all alone in this. There are good people out there trying to right the wrongs done to Veterans of ALL the armed forces.