A three-month investigation by a team of Medill student reporters has found significant gaps between the health care and support for the 665,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and their active-duty counterparts.
The project, called Hidden Surge, found that many have been hastily channeled through a post-deployment process that has been plagued with difficulties, including reliance on self-reporting to identify health problems.
These service members face unique challenges and report higher rates of some mental health problems and related ills than active-duty troops.
Work by the team of 10 students in Medill’s graduate journalism program was published The Washington Post and is available on the Hidden Surge web site. Students interviewed more than 80 current and former military and health officials and experts, and National Guard and Reserve troops and their families, and reviewed scores of official documents and reports. They traveled to military bases, National Guard installations and medical centers in nine states to do on-the-ground reporting.
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