By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
March 2, 2010

The first day Kristine Wise returned from eight months military service in Iraq, she knew something was wrong. Driving from San Diego to Bakersfield to see her brother, the road signs triggered flashbacks. “One said ‘railroad,’ but instead I saw ‘roadside’ and in my mind a roadside bomb,” said Wise, who supplied parts to combat vehicles in the first wave of the war. “I would see ‘beware’ and my mind would see ‘Baghdad.’ I couldn’t explain it.”   The depression and panic attacks began long before her honorable discharge in 2004, but the battle to get the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to take her symptoms seriously was just as difficult.

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