It's a pretty emotional issue to number-crunch about, but that's the way the boffins get a handle on it. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of the worst psychological complaints you can get after serving in war. I fished around Hansard, the official record of Parliament, looking for numbers of troops affected who'd served in Iraq.
Nick Paton Walsh found John Reid, the defence secretary back in May last year, saying 208 cases had been diagnosed in 2003 to the end of 2005.
By September this year, a minister admitted, the total had risen to 328. The ministry of defence, to their credit, told me when I contacted then that the total figure was 363 for all of last year.
It's not that much, they said - only 0.3 per cent of the total UK troops who've been through Iraq.
But dig a little further, and a less comforting picture emerges. A total of 363 is the number of servicemen and women who were diagnosed with PTSD while they were in the military. Read the rest here
© Mack (RG) The thoughts of a Falklands War Veteran.
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