Women veterans cope with emotional wounds

[deadparrot]

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The nightmares didn't start until months after Alicia Flores returned home. The images were stark and disturbing: In one dream, a dying Iraqi man desperately grabbed her arm. In another, she was lost in a blinding sandstorm.

Sometimes, Flores awakened to discover her mouth was dust-dry -- as if she were really stumbling through the scorching, 120-degree desert.

The nightmares bring Flores back to Iraq, and her service in the Army's 92nd Chemical Company. She was just 19 when her unit arrived there. Now 23, she's left with memories of women and children being killed, of hauling bodies, of shooting a teenage Iraqi fighter. "It was him or me," she says.

"I'm fine with what I did over there ...," Flores says. "In my eyes, I did a good thing. It really doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me is I just want to sleep more."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/03/women.in.war.ap/index.html?eref=yahoo

[sarge43]

1. Nothing new there.

The many of the nurses who served in Nam had an awful time dealing with post trauma. For many years VA wouldn't even 'fess up to the problem.

[catnhatnh]

2. They are all "emotional wounds".....

....If you are raised better than that.And most of us are.

[Skittles]

3. wow

"It really doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me is I just want to sleep more" - HELLO GIRL - IT IS BOTHERING YOU