FROM ARMY TIMES...
Brannan Pedersen was 16, attending a young activists meeting in Alabama when she first spotted Caleb Vines, then 19, an enthusiastic organizer who wanted to change the world.
She fell hard: Three years after their first date, they married. Later, when they watched the World Trade Center fall, Caleb pledged to join the fight: He enlisted in the Army infantry.
He deployed twice to Iraq - a 15-month stint extended by the Battle of Fallujah, then a year filled with bomb blasts and small-arms fire. At one point, a rocket-propelled grenade blasted him through the door of a Humvee.
The military's Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress is developing information and tools to help military health care providers and couples deal with intimacy issues. Find out more atwww.cstsonline.org/tag/intimacy/
But he came home seemingly unscathed. During their first reunion, Brannan recalled, Caleb was distant but affectionate. The couple conceived a child.
After his second deployment, however, Caleb changed from easygoing and enthusiastic to withdrawn, angry and forgetful.
Diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder and, later, traumatic brain injury followed. It provided an explanation for his symptoms, but that didn't ease the emotional - and physical - gulf between the couple, Brannan said.
"Guys with PTSD have a much harder time being physically close, let alone emotionally close. And from a woman's perspective, you almost require that closeness to be invested in a sexual relationship," Brannan said.