[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9946]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AWARENESS

  (Mr. COSTA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about posttraumatic 
stress disorder, otherwise referred to as PTSD. Roughly, 5.2 million 
adults in the United States have been diagnosed in a given year with 
posttraumatic stress disorder.
  Many of these individuals are men and women who have bravely served 
our Nation's military.
  The Department of Veterans Affairs indicates that between 15 and 30 
percent of Vietnam veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime; about 12 
percent of Desert Storm veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD in a 
given year; and between 11 and 20 percent of those serving in 
Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have also been diagnosed 
with PTSD in a given year.
  So today, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day, I call on all 
of us to do more to help our fellow Americans. We can do more, and we 
must do more.
  We must be able to look at those Americans with PTSD in their eyes 
and say: You are not alone, and we are with you, and we are going to 
continue to give you the same service that you have given our country.

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