Come on people get a grip

AP/NCT:

When his kid brother went off to war, a depressed Christian Dingethal went to bed.

The junior at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., says he also for weeks stopped going to classes, doing laundry and contacting his parents.

"I didn't know if I was saying goodbye to him for the rest of my life," said Dingethal, 21. "I didn't know how to deal with that. I turned cold."

Soon after Dingethal's brother, Joseph, arrived in Afghanistan early this year, the Army shipped him home after he hurt his eye in an accident. Christian Dingethal has gotten counseling and is returning to classes.

However, a national poll of college students conducted for The Associated Press and mtvU shows the stress he suffered -- while extreme -- is hardly unusual.

Half of the students surveyed said they personally know someone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan or who had been deployed there. Of that group, just over half said they had experienced stress because of the person's service, including nearly one in six who said it had caused them a lot of anxiety.

Women are more likely than men to say the problem has been intense.

The Pentagon says nearly 1.7 million U.S. troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the years, some putting in more than one tour.

The poll underscores that even though the economy has surpassed Iraq in many polls as the country's top problem, war continues to have a big personal impact on students -- many of whom are stressed out for other reasons as well.

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Speaking from personal experience, being a student was not nearly as stressful as being in combat. It is nice to know that people care, but it says something about our modern society that these people are not involved in the numerous support groups who are actively trying to do things to improve the situation for the troops and their families.

Wives and husbands of the troops do have support groups that they work with routinely and these stressed out kids in college should contact some of these groups and see how they can help. They will find that actively doing something to support the effort will also improve their morale and attitude.

Mail is an important morale booster for the troops and it goes both ways. Contact your loved ones and let them know you care and what you are doing to help.