In Baltimore and across the nation, officials are bracing for new waves of war veterans to return home - amid worries that federal and state budget cuts will threaten programs that offer a lifeline for those facing health and career problems.
Demand for jobs and mental health services among veterans is swelling as public and nonprofit organizations struggle to build and maintain a support network to address issues that might not emerge for months or even years.
More than 1.8 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a need for veterans' services not seen since the World War II generation came home six decades ago.
There are 480,000 veterans in Maryland, and their ranks are growing as troops return from the two battlegrounds.
Yet after several boom years for veterans, there are just barely enough services to care for their needs. And trouble is brewing.
"I anticipate we are going to have difficult times," said James A. Adkins, Maryland's secretary of veterans affairs.
At first caught unprepared, federal and state veterans departments have responded in recent years with a smorgasbord of new and expanded programs for tuition assistance and financial aid, employment counseling, and physical and mental health programs.
The demand for mental health services is especially troublesome, and officials are warily awaiting what might be a tidal wave of new claims.
According to a Defense Department Mental Health Advisory Team study released earlier this year, as many as one in three of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to blasts from roadside bombs, rockets, mortars or suicide bombers.
About 590,000 such soldiers reported outright injury, short-term memory loss or being in a dazed or confused state that prevented them from completing their mission.
One of them was Aliyah Hunter, 27, who grew up in Baltimore before she joined the Army. Her base in northern Iraq in 2004 was hit almost daily with mortars and rockets. Car bombs exploded outside the walls. She was terrified, with reason. One day, a suicide bomber got into the mess tent and detonated his charge.
Her world turned orange. She was flung away through a jumble of bodies and smoking wreckage. Friends and tent-mates were killed outright. Their bodies were set aside while the wounded were taken away. Hunter staggered out with perforated eardrums, a concussion and back injuries.
