Soldiers try to cope, find hope.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

Spc. Josiah "Joe" Sanders had a goal when he enlisted in the Oregon Army National Guard in the spring of 2000. The 19-year-old Creswell High School graduate wanted to go through Lane Community College's paramedic program and work saving lives.

"What better way to go to college than to enlist in the Guard and get it paid for?" he remembers thinking.

A year after returning from duty as a combat medic in Iraq, however, Sanders has abandoned those plans. After a young Arkansas soldier bled to death in his arms, he can no longer stand the thought of blood on his hands.

Just as the man's death is seared into his memory, his name is tattooed in a permanent, black bracelet around Sanders' right wrist.

"Spc. Lyle W. Rymer II," the wrapping message reads. "Iraqi Freedom, 28 Jan. 05. K.I.A."

Sanders said he functioned in Iraq only by accepting that he, too, would die there, "because if you focus on trying not to die, you're a liability."

A year after returning home, he's not found a similar trick for functioning in civilian life.

The Veteran's Administration has classified him as 30 percent disabled due to post-traumatic stress disorder and 10 percent disabled due to perpetual ringing in his ears - "like the humming of a refrigerator that never goes away" - from the roar of automatic weapons fired from inside his ambulance cab. He's still waiting to see a doctor for treatment of a noncombat leg injury suffered during his deployment. He's endured severe headaches ever since he was a passenger in a humvee that lost its brakes and smashed into an Iraqi car.

"My neck and back were pretty messed up," he said, "But I had to get my medic bag and go tend to the Iraqis we hit. Now I can't get compensation for that because I didn't get any X-rays at the time."

His marriage foundered during his deployment and ended in divorce this month. He returned to, then quit, his pre-war job at Jerry's Home Improvement Center because he's anxious around strangers. He dropped his classes at Oregon State University for the same reason.

"I don't trust people," he said.

The only work he feels comfortable doing is solitary jobs, such as his current position stocking supermarket shelves after hours.

Iraq vets suffer more distress

A year after the return of Oregon's largest troop deployment since World War II, Sanders is not alone in struggling with the transition from soldier to civilian. A study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed more than a third of returning Iraq War veterans using mental health services after returning home.

The survey of more than 300,000 soldiers found those who'd been in Iraq had more than twice the rate of reported mental health problems as troops previously posted elsewhere. Their rate was 70 percent higher even than that of soldiers returning in the same period from Afghanistan. And a U.S. Army report said Iraq War veterans were more likely to have witnessed casualties than those who served in other bloody conflicts such as Bosnia or Kosovo.

In Oregon, National Guard and Veteran's Affairs officials said they do not have statistics on the number of soldiers seeking help re-entering life at home. But a hotline operated by the Oregon Army National Guard gets an average of 30 calls per day from soldiers and their relatives, said Lt. Peter Wood, a Reintegration Team leader and Purple Heart recipient for injuries received in Iraq.

"PTSD and unemployment are probably our two major issues," Wood said.

They are certainly so for Sanders and two fellow medics who shared their stories with The Register-Guard, saying they hope it will encourage other soldiers to seek camaraderie and help.

Camaraderie has been a key survival strategy for Sanders, Spc. Danny Miller and Sgt. Eric Mongan, part of a tight-knit group of 25 combat medics deployed with the Oregon Army National Guard's Second Battalion, 162nd Infantry in spring 2004. All have also sought counseling and medication, but PTSD symptoms ranging from shaking and anxiety to nightmares and flashbacks continue to hamper their efforts to move on with their lives.

Sanders is most tormented by the memory of what happened after a single sniper bullet cut Rymer down so quietly, his fellow Arkansas soldiers didn't even realize he was hit. Sanders' platoon was providing security as Rymer's 39th Brigade Engineers installed temporary concrete dividers to control traffic on a major bridge in Baghdad.

"They were used to open desert," Sanders said. "Their job is to operate bulldozers."

It was about 2 p.m. when Sanders heard the lone shot. He turned and saw Rymer fall to the ground about 40 feet away. He estimates that only 20 seconds passed before he began removing the Arkansas man's gear to treat his injuries.

"As soon as I got to his chest, I could see that there was an exit wound, from the cartilage and bone trapped against his Kevlar vest. I felt his back side and put my finger in an entrance wound. I can still feel the blood."

The sniper's shot had threaded a needle, entering and exiting through tiny gaps in protective panels inside Rymer's vest. Sanders couldn't stop the bleeding.

"He couldn't say anything but he was looking up at me," Sanders recalled. "He was just really, really young. ... I'm sure in his head he was trying to figure out what had happened. The look on his face was of shock and amazement.

"I definitely saw him die. I'd seen plenty of people already dead, but this was the first time I witnessed someone go from perfectly healthy to dead in three minutes." Sanders has tried to confront some of the issues that torment him. He called Rymer's sister and talked to her about the Arkansas soldier and his death.

"He was 24," Sanders said. "He had two kids. It was a pretty tough phone call, but I think it definitely helped."

He's also living with a woman, Deseree Gonzales, who helps him talk though his pain. But he still has a long way to go.

"Some days I have to check and see that my gun's where it's supposed to be," he said. "Honestly, it makes me more comfortable. But I'm getting better. For a long time I wanted to kill myself. I'm not as depressed as I used to be. I want to do something to contribute to society."

Iraqi deaths also haunting

Miller, classified by the Veterans Administration as 50 percent disabled due to PTSD, is plagued by memories of Iraqi casualties.

He remembers learning the identity of a badly injured driver after members of Miller's infantry platoon fired on the man's car, fearing it carried a bomb, when it failed to stop at a roadblock.

As Miller worked to stop the man's bleeding on a dark sidewalk, his fellow soldiers tore apart the vehicle. They found no weapons of any kind, just medical supplies, and the wounded driver's passenger called him "tabib" - "doctor."

"We never found out why they ran that roadblock, if they received further treatment, whether they lived or died," Miller said.

A recurring nightmare involves an Iraqi soldier injured during an ambush on a Baghdad bridge.

"By the time I got over to him, his eyes were rolled back," Miller recalled quietly. "He was probably I9. His only real injury was a large hole in his femoral artery, which wasn't bleeding anymore. His skin was ... he was a ghost. I was checking his pulse and his breathing, when one of the guys in my platoon looked at me and asked if I was going to do CPR."

Miller did not, moving instead to other casualties.

"I wonder now if I didn't because he was an Iraqi, or because I knew he was already gone," he said.

"But in my dreams now, he's not an Iraqi - he's one of my own Joes."

Miller said he continues to suffer anxiety attacks: "I get real jittery, confused, and can't stop shaking." He hasn't found counseling very effective, but "the medication does help." He also struggles with "feeling like a pawn" in a war he felt top U.S. officials misrepresented.

"I feel like my government played me," he said. "When we were training as medics, we were told we'd be providing community medical care for the locals, giving shots. That never happened. We were told that once we got rid of Saddam, everything would calm down. But it never felt like we were gaining ground. When you don't believe anything that's going on in terms of why we're there, it's hard to keep from asking yourself, `Is this really worth it? We're killing a lot of civilians - why am I allowing myself to stay here?' '

The only thing that kept him there, he said, was his fellow soldiers.

"I know those guys in my platoon," he said. "I could tell who a guy was by his cough. Now I hang out with Joe and Eric quite a bit. You will never have the same kind of relationship with anybody as with these guys."

The 5-foot-2-inch medic also battles chronic back and shoulder pain, probably from moving patients while wearing up to 60 pounds of body armor, ammunition and medical gear.

"I lifted some heavy people," he said with a shrug. "When the situation arises, you've just got to do it."

But he's moving ahead with plans to enroll in the Lane Community College nursing program, and he's got a work-study job at the Eugene Veteran's Administration mental health clinic.

"They told me it would be helpful for other guys to see somebody like me behind the counter," Miller said.

CAPTION(S):

Combat medics Spc. Josiah Sanders (left), Spc. Danny Miller and Sgt. Eric Mongan are part of a tight-knit group of 25 combat medics deployed with the Oregon Army National Guard's Second Battalion, 162nd Infantry. Eric Mongan