Just One Of Many

The psychotherapist remembers the strapping young soldier, slouched in a chair in her office one morning last month, asking if God could be punishing him because he had once thought it would be exciting to fight in a war.

By then, the soldier, Sgt. Brad Gaskins, had been absent without leave for 14 months from his post at Fort Drum in northern New York State, waging a lonely battle against an enemy inside his head - memories of death and destruction that he said had besieged him since February 2006, when he returned from a second tour of combat in Iraq.

"I asked Sergeant Gaskins whether he thought about death," the psychotherapist, Rosemary Masters, said in an interview on Thursday. "He said that death seemed like a good alternative to the way he was existing."

On Tuesday, Sergeant Gaskins, 25, traveled almost 300 miles from his home here to the Different Drummer Internet Cafe near Fort Drum. He planned to surrender to military authorities, and his lawyer had notified commanders at the base. But before he could turn himself in, two officials from Fort Drum, accompanied by a pair of police officers from Watertown, showed up at the cafe and placed him under arrest.

Sergeant Gaskins has been hospitalized for his psychiatric problems and could be discharged from the Army for medical reasons. He could be court-martialed, which could land him in prison and prevent him from receiving veterans' benefits.

"I just put faith in God that everything is going to work out according to his plan," he said during a telephone interview on Thursday from a veterans' hospital in Syracuse, where he was taken after his arrest. (On Friday, he was transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, said Benjamin Abel, a civilian spokesman at Fort Drum.) Further showing his mental incompitentness.

"I just want it all to go away, and I want to get my life back," Sergeant Gaskins said.

He had always spoken with pride about his military service, his relatives said. He enlisted in the Army at 17, while still a senior at Orange High School, where he was starting quarterback for the Orange Tornadoes. He used to wear his olive-green dress uniform, lock arms with his paternal grandmother, Bernice Murray, and strut inside New Hope Baptist Church in Newark for Sunday services.

"He joined the military because he wanted to improve his life, to have a career," said Mrs. Murray. "He wanted to help his family and to serve his country, and we were all supportive."

No one knows for sure when Sergeant Gaskins's troubles started. He is, by all accounts, tough and reserved, and he said that he was reluctant to share his emotional distress because he feared his superiors would label him as weak - or, worse, as crazy. But after he returned home on leave in August 2006 and decided he would not go back to Fort Drum, his relatives began to notice signs that something was seriously wrong.

He started biting his nails compulsively, a new habit, one of his aunts said. He slept little, and often woke up screaming and drenched in sweat. He became reclusive, locking himself in a darkened room at his grandmother's apartment in Newark whenever her friends stopped by. His legs trembled as he watched images from Iraq on television. He yelled at his 2-year-old son for no apparent reason, his wife, Amber Gaskins, said. And once, she said, he placed a knife at her throat, as if he did not know who she was.

Even before Sergeant Gaskins came home, there were hints of distress. In a letter from Iraq in September 2005 to Sonia Murray, an aunt who helped raise him, Sergeant Gaskins asked, "Will God forgive me for the people I've killed?"

Sergeant Gaskins, who first went to Iraq in 2003, transferred to Fort Drum, home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, after his second deployment, and he said he sought help at the base for his problems. He stayed for two weeks at a psychiatric ward at Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, and was prescribed a cocktail of drugs - Zoloft and trazodone for depression, and Ambien to help him sleep. But he said he received no psychotherapy or follow-up care.

He was discharged from Samaritan and returned to the base, but he said the nightmares and flashbacks about Iraq would not go away. At Fort Drum, the tanks, marching soldiers and gunfire became too much to bear. So when he came home on a two-week leave in August 2006, he decided not to go back.

Ms. Masters, the Manhattan psychotherapist who evaluated Sergeant Gaskins on Oct. 18, said his symptoms were consistent with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. The sergeant said he did not receive a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder at the Watertown hospital, and the Army would not discuss his medical history.

An Army report released on Tuesday found that soldiers suffer more mental distress in the transition to life at home than they show upon leaving Iraq. The report also estimated that one in five active duty soldiers and as many as 40 percent of reservists are in need of treatment.

The Army has said that it employs about 200 mental health workers in the field. There are 31 mental health workers at Fort Drum, and there are plans to add 17 more, Mr. Abel said. The base is home to 17,000 troops.

For years, researchers have debated the definition and extent of post-traumatic stress. Many of the experts believe that the frequency of the disorder reported among Vietnam veterans has been inflated.

"I don't know what Brad had when he came home," Mrs. Gaskins said. "All I know is that he had changed. I didn't recognize it; nobody recognized it as post-traumatic stress disorder. He just needed help."

Sergeant Gaskins and his wife had been classmates since the seventh grade, she said, but it was not until their senior year in high school, after she asked him to be her date at a Sadie Hawkins dance, that they started dating.

After graduation, she went to college and he joined the military. They married at Fort Stewart, Ga., on May 9, 2002.

Sergeant Gaskins went to Iraq as a member of the Third Infantry Division. At the end of his first tour, he re-enlisted and transferred to Fort Irwin, Calif., where he was deployed again to Iraq, this time with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. His son, Brandon, was just a month old when Sergeant Gaskins left.

"The first time, he was excited," said Mrs. Gaskins, 25. "He'd say, 'I swear, baby, I'm going to fight hard and get a medal.' But when he came back after the second time, I asked him how it was, and he told me he didn't want to ever talk about it, so I didn't ask anymore."

Last year, after Sergeant Gaskins decided not to return to duty, he sought work in construction and at a warehouse, but could not hold jobs for long, Mrs. Gaskins said. One night, she said, she woke up to find her husband holding a kitchen knife against her throat. She soothed him, and eventually he let go of the knife, but she was scared. She said that she called Fort Drum, and that a victim's advocate at the base advised her to contact the police and get a restraining order against her husband. She acted on the advice that same day.

Sergeant Gaskins was arrested and spent almost two weeks in the Essex County jail, until his grandmother cobbled together $3,000 for his bail. He went to live with a cousin and then disappeared for several months.

"He went into hiding," said Sonia Murray, his aunt. "No one really knows where he was or what he did."

In September, Sergeant Gaskins called his aunt and asked her for help. "He reached a breaking point," she said.

Sergeant Gaskins started going to church again, and he also approached Tod Ensign, director of Citizen Soldier, a veterans' advocacy group, for advice. Mr. Ensign persuaded him to see Ms. Masters for a psychological evaluation and encouraged him to turn himself in.

"I'm not a deserter. I've served my country, but now I need help," Sergeant Gaskins said on Thursday. "I don't know what the Army is going to do to me. I'm just hoping to get treated, to get better, to be back to who I was before the war."