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Last fall, Shaun Durfey and five other veterans sat in a circle and drew their family trees. Durfey, a 29-year-old former Marine, had served three tours in the Middle East. Upon his return to the States, he’d been given a host of medications for insomnia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and he had spent hours at a Veterans Affairs hospital talking about the wartime deaths of friends. Buthis doctors had never probed his family history, which included painful memories of childhood neglect. Now, Durfey was being asked to speak openly about these experiences. (Miller, 12/4)

Elenilson Franco, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, first sought mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs nearly four years ago. He is still waiting. The VA lost his original paperwork and hasn’t yet approved a new application, he said. “It’s frustrating,” lamented Franco, 46, who served in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. “I am a veteran. The VA is supposed to be there for me.” (Gorman, 12/5)