Invisible Soldier

Four nights before Christmas, former Army specialist Herold Noel huddled for warmth in front of a fire he built for himself in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as temperatures slid toward the single digits. Plagued by nightmares and unable to hold a steady job or get the assistance he needed, he was on the verge of losing his wife and three young children. It wasn't the homecoming he'd expected after serving in Iraq last year.

"There was one time," he recalled, "when me and my battle buddies made a fire and we were sittin' out there in Iraq and talking about when we get home we're gonna be looked at as heroes. We're gonna be in the history books. Man, half the guys I came back with are going through the same thing I'm going through."

According to the Pentagon, 955,000 U.S. troops have already served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The experiences of Noel and others like him have many observers worried that the country will be inundated by a wave of returning veterans with no place to go and reeling from psychological trauma, as happened toward the end of the Vietnam War. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, up to 17 percent of troops returning from Iraq "met the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]."

"The Bush administration didn't plan going into the war," says Paul Reickhoff, Executive Director of Operation Truth, a growing online organization of Iraq veterans. "And they haven't planned for the back end of the war and the social services that will be needed. It's an extension of a flawed plan." Ricky Singh, of the Brooklyn-based Black Veterans for Social Justice, is also alarmed. His group was helping three Iraq vets a year ago. Now, he says it's assisting 30 Iraq vets, 18 of whom are homeless, including Noel and his family and a pregnant woman who is expected to give birth this month.

"We know this is the tip of the iceberg, because vets tend to be a group that doesn't seek out help," Singh told The Indypendent. The New England Journal study found that of the veterans who met the criteria for a mental disorder, less than 40 percent reported receiving professional help in the past year.

Nationally, there are signs of the same problem. In Cincinnati, Ohio, Charles Blythe, director of the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, says his group is already assisting three homeless Iraq and Afghanistan vets, and he expects many more to come. "Once they start bringing them home, we're going to be flooded with them, just like with Vietnam," says Blythe, a Vietnam-era veteran.

According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and almost half of those are Vietnam vets.

A Soldier's Story

Noel, 25, was born and raised in Flatbush. He was attending New York City Technical College and working as a medical-claims processor when he enlisted in the Army in September 2000. He was attracted by both the promised benefits and the chance to "see some new scenery." Noel served in the 3rd Infantry Division 7th Cavalry as part of the original invasion force, working in fuel resupply. He witnessed the human carnage wreaked by U.S. bombs soon after he crossed into southern Iraq. He also watched friends lose life and limb as his unit was repeatedly ambushed by rebels near Falluja. He left Iraq in August 2003.

Combat experiences such as Noel's have a strong bearing on whether a veteran develops PTSD. The New England Journal study found that among troops who engaged in more than five firefights while deployed in Iraq, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder was more than 19 percent. In contrast, the rate of PTSD among Vietnam veterans is currently 15 percent. "It was about that oil that was spilling from the streets. If you saw the way we slaughtered those people, it was disgusting," Noel said of the war's beginning. "There would be little kids laying down on the floor. Two- or three-year-olds caught in the crossfire. It was sickening."