Trauma of Iraq too real for vets

The Vietnam War ended with a pen stroke on Jan. 27, 1973.

Not everyone got the message. Many of the men and women who fought there, and who saw Americans die -- by the end, that figure climbed to 58,000 -- never quite left it behind.

"It's there every day," said Robert Johnson, who worked a door gun on a Marine Corps helicopter. "It's always been there. It's been there every day for a lot of years."

And now, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, even more of it comes back. The number of disability cases related to post-traumatic stress disorder has doubled since 2000, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The biggest spike came in 2003, when the Army's 3rd Infantry Division charged into Baghdad.

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