Gregory Roberts: Move on? The war refuses.

"Stop thinking," Lyla commanded.

"Uh ... what?" I attempted to play the dumb card.

"I see that vacant look on your face," my girlfriend said. "You're thinking about Iraq. Whenever something reminds you of Iraq, it's like someone flipped a switch and poof -- you're gone."

She was right. I was 6,000 miles away, patrolling desert roads.

I feel the same knot well up in my gut two years later. My stomach feels empty yet full. Ill but not sick. I had slipped away into my unpleasant place where the air feels like a blow dryer and heat radiates off the pavement, cooking you as you keep a watchful eye.

When other people space out, maybe they think of the good possibilities life has to offer. I think of the bad. What could have happened. What did happen. Why did it happen?

"Oh, yeah, that. It happens," I say, shrugging off Lyla's concern. Then I slip back into the sand.

Two years ago I returned from the desert to a seemingly normal life. Two years, and all it takes is one of several triggers to draw me away to never-never land.

It has in fact been tougher. In part that's because I expected things to magically be better when I came home. I figured a month or two to get back in the groove of civilian life at most. I was wrong.

It took me six months before I realized I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It took another year before I saw that if I didn't get help I would follow the rabbit down its hole and there would be no wonderland at the bottom.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I know a Vietnam veteran who took 20 years to seek the help he needed. It took him that long to recognize it in himself. I feel lucky to have friends and family who weren't afraid to tell me I wasn't acting right.

They did their part, as they are supposed to.

The VA also did what it is supposed to. In the case of PTSD, that is surprisingly little. I received a letter from the VA that outlined my diagnosis and stated how I would receive a monthly check because of my disabled status. That was it. I was surprised -- but elated. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of Iraq. The last thing I wanted was some counselor trying to get me to talk about it.

And the VA obliged. There was no call from a counselor to see if I was sucking on the wrong end of a shotgun. There was no follow-up appointment a few months later. There was a letter, a check conveniently direct-deposited in my account and a photocopy of a photocopy of an electronic rendition of the Veteran's Service Center Manager's signature.

Don't get me wrong -- the VA has done an excellent job for me. The VA system has worked for me. But for this one small detail -- its lack of follow-up with PTSD diagnosed veterans -- I say it has been doing everything a government program can do to take care of a person.

For me this detail didn't matter. For another it could be life or death.

The nature of PTSD and the stigma often associated with it prevents many from even understanding that they suffer from it. Remove the stigma from the equation and you still have avoidance -- the No. 1 symptom of PTSD and perhaps the deadliest because it prevents people from seeking the help they need.

J suffered from PTSD from his first tour in the sandbox. His second tour -- the tour on which I am proud to say I served alongside him -- certainly didn't help him any.

It didn't show until it was too late for J. His platoonmates were left sitting around the maintenance bay in the Bemidji Armory, looking at their feet, blurting out their last experience with a fine soldier.

The aftermath of suicide is like aerial photography -- it's difficult to see what is going on when you're on the ground, but when you get up and outside the restrictions of your frame of reference, you feel stupid for not seeing the whole picture.

Stupid and guilty.

Each of us held a piece of the puzzle -- pieces that were clues that J was going to take his own life. But after Iraq the platoon had scattered like cockroaches in the light. Old friendships were tossed aside because sometimes being around your old army buddies reminds you a little too much. It took a funeral for many of us to get together for the first time since our war.

In war a sergeant is accountable for his troops' well-being. I've learned that this responsibility extends beyond the war zone and into the life that follows when you come home. J taught me that.

J taught me that the casualties do not stop when you've left the war zone. That friends are a veteran's only lifeline.

That it is OK to admit you can't handle the hurt alone.

Gregory Roberts was an infantry staff sergeant with A Company 2/136 Infantry 1st Brigade Combat Team 34th Infantry Division. He served in Iraq from March 2006 to July 2007 and in Bosnia from September 2003 to April 2004. He lives in Bemidji.