The Troubled Homecoming Of The Marlboro Marine

Since returning home from Iraq three years ago, Miller rarely sleeps more than once every few days. When he can get some sleep, he makes sure he's got a gun under his pillow. His entire life has been thrown into a strange and purposeless blend of chaos and inertia; though he doesn't do much these days besides smoke, drink beer and ride his Harley, he seems to teeter perpetually on the brink of a meltdown. Occasionally, and without provocation, Miller becomes so overwhelmed by blind rage that he imagines shooting a stranger in the kneecaps or beating a fellow bar patron to a bloody pulp. "I can be drinking a beer and get pissed off and think, 'I'm gonna break this bottle and cut that guy's throat over there,'" he says. "And then something hits me, and I snap out of it." Once an affable troublemaker eager to go out with friends his own age, the twenty-three-year-old Miller now spends most of his time alone or with an ill-reputed motorcycle club called the Kentucky Highwaymen, many of whom are Vietnam vets who also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Miller's nightmares, insomnia, heightened alertness, self-imposed isolation and persistent recollections of his seven months in Iraq are all classic symptoms of PTSD, an anxiety disorder that results from exposure to an event so psychically frightening that the aftershocks continue for months or even years. Studies estimate that as many as 500,000 troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan will suffer from some form of psychological injury, with PTSD being the most common. Miller hasn't been to a doctor in over a year, and, like so many vets, he seems to have fallen off the government's radar. He tried the abundance of medications — antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, mostly — that the Veterans Administration has sent him, but they only exacerbated his nightmares, jitters and apathy. And therapy is hard to get in places like Jonancy: For a while, he tried living in West Virginia to be near a PTSD specialist, but he missed his familiar surroundings and moved back home. Besides, the VA bureaucracy is hell for anyone to navigate, let alone a guy who feels like he could snap at any moment.

"The military makes it hard for these guys to get help," says Rep. Bob Filner, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "We're letting ticking time bombs out into society. Suicides are increasing among vets, and many of those with PTSD have felony convictions. The VA and the Department of Defense won't acknowledge the incredible size of the problem, and it's yet another indictment of the war we're fighting and how we deal with these fighters."

Like many disabled vets, Miller feels betrayed by the military, neglected by the VA and misunderstood by pretty much everyone else. "People hear 'PTSD' and they think that means you're crazy," he says. "My aunt tells her kids, 'Don't go around Blake. He might flip out and shoot you.'"