Returning diplomats with PTSD?

It's not just our troops. According to USATODAY our diplomats are coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder. The State Department has ordered a mental health survey of 1400 employees who have completed assignments in Iraq.

State Department employees in Iraq seldom leave the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone. Even there, rocket and mortar attacks are frequent, and the sound of gunfire is constant. Suicide bombers have penetrated the zone on rare occasions, most recently on April 12.

The department was prodded to act by the American Foreign Service Association. It reported that some diplomats had difficulty adjusting after leaving.

[Larry Brown, the State Department's director of medical services] said the State Department is considering forming support groups "for alumni of high-stress or unaccompanied posts" — jobs in countries where the threat is so high or schools and medical facilities so poor that diplomats cannot bring family members.

The number of jobs classified by the department as unaccompanied posts has more than tripled since 2001 to about 700.....

Although U.S. diplomats have served in violent places before, they have "never been put into an active war zone in this way," Brown said.

I guess Brown didn't get the memo about how well things are going in Iraq.

So the situation in Iraq remains so bleak that out diplomats are developing PTSD and are still forbidden to bring their families. And yet, the WH is still critical because the media only reports 'the bad news'.