Iraq War Vet Talks Fort Hood Shooting, PTSD

War Vet: Military Violence Caused In Part By Recruiting From 'Predisposed Trauma Demographic'

In the wake of the Fort Hood shooting Wednesday, war veterans joined HuffPost Live to discuss the mental health issues, namely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, plaguing their community.

Travis Bickford, an Iraq War veteran and District Director of Veteran Services of City Colleges Chicago, suggested that soldiers might be more susceptible to mental illness depending on their upbringing.

"If you look at the demographic for which the population pool that the military recruits from, especially on the enlisted side, you're recruiting from a demographic that's already possibly predisposed to trauma given it's typically low-income areas that we're pulling from, so you're dealing with that," he told HuffPost Live's Ricky Camilleri in an interview on Thursday.

"We hyper-focus on the PTSD that's related to battlefield trauma when, in actuality, we need to start looking at both of those, and looking at how the battlefield trauma could be exasperating and compounding some other traumas that they've experienced," he added.

Both Wednesday's Fort Hood shooting, as well as 2009's, were reportedly carried out by soldiers suffering from PTSD. In addition, a 2012 study showed that suicides amounted for more fatalities in the military than combat deaths.

Watch HuffPost Live's full conversation with war veterans on the Fort Hood shooting below:

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