J esus Bocanegra left Iraq more than a year ago, but the war never left him.

The 24-year-old cavalry scout spent a year in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, beating down doors, raiding homes, searching for the enemy.

When his tour was up in 2004, Bocanegra returned home to South Texas. He began to have head-splitting flashbacks, paralyzing panic attacks and painfully vivid nightmares.

He enrolled at the local community college, eager to transition into civilian life. He dropped out after two months. He spent a couple of months as a produce inspector but had to quit, irritable and unable to concentrate.

A door would shut, he’d jump. A stranger would approach, he’d panic.

“When I was in Iraq, if a stranger walked up to me, he was either going to blow up himself or throw a bomb at me,” he says. That, he believes, explains his hyper-alertness and why he prefers to be at home in his “bunker,” his cocoon.

In the combat zone, his mind and heart raced. Back home, people seem more preoccupied with washing their cars than some war half a world away.

The Department of Veterans Affairs deemed Bocanegra completely disabled upon diagnosing his post-traumatic stress disorder.

He fears life will never be the same. Not all soldiers end up on the front lines, but for those who do, the ones who witness the horrific reality of war, how can life ever be the same? Especially those from Iraq, where there is no real safe zone and the constant threat is from bombers who think nothing of taking their own lives.

Americans return with bodies intact but scarred minds and hearts.

Across the country, VA hospitals and clinics – already facing budget crunches and backlogs – report increases in veterans suffering PTSD. Ironically, many are Vietnam vets only now seeking help, but the VA is hardly prepared for the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine study found that 17 percent of soldiers who returned from Iraq suffered PTSD, a 2 percent increase from that reported by Vietnam veterans.

The tangled web of bureaucracy and overstretched staffs at home only delays the help they need. For some, it comes too late. Capt. Michael Pelkey, an Iraq veteran from Spring, Texas, was diagnosed with PTSD in 2004. A week later, he killed himself with a shot to the chest.

Long after the war is but a memory, Capt. Pelkey’s widow will still be describing him to the son he barely met, and Bocanegra and thousands of other former soldiers will still be struggling with the consequences of war. That goes for the ones who are back home, trying to piece their lives back together, and the ones still at the front, numb to the realities of war.

Today, Bocanegra feels abandoned. He sees a psychiatrist for about 10 minutes every three months. He takes one pill for anxiety and another for depression.

The doctor, he says, “just tells me, ‘Take your medication.’ “

After nearly five years in the military, he feels like someone else’s problem now. If he needs an eye exam or a dental visit, he must drive the four hours to San Antonio to the nearest VA hospital.

Supporting our troops means more than sticking a yellow-ribbon decal on our cars, a standing ovation at the airport or an American flag flying on Veterans Day. We can talk of patriotism, but until we demand that our soldiers get the treatment they need, our words are empty. Thousands of them and their families have been torn apart by war, while the rest of us sacrificed nothing.

“Stay the course” or “Pull out now,” few of our leaders are concerned about making sure these soldiers have the health care they need once they return.

Congress must calculate the total cost of this war, which includes caring for Bocanegra and other vets long after the last gunshot or explosion. If not, they will continue to feel as if they’re begging for handouts, and our leaders will have failed them.

Today, Bocanegra can still hear children’s screams and see the fear in the faces of the women he sighted down the barrel of his weapon.

“You see these horrible things in war. You just killed people,” he says. “A lot of my friends that came back say they would have preferred to die out there.”