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“We are, as a country, going to be overwhelmed, totally overwhelmed,” said Charles Figley, director of the Florida State University Traumatology Institute and an expert on war-related mental stress.

Post-traumatic stress disorder has been a concern of the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs since studies last year found about 18 percent of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and 11 percent of those returning from Afghanistan are reporting mental health problems.

This is higher than PTSD levels reported among Vietnam War veterans.

At a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, the government received praise for the counseling and treatment being provided to service members and veterans but was faulted for not being prepared to help families.

Treating PTSD as a family problem, not just a disability for the veteran or service member, was the main purpose of the Dec. 8 briefing, as Democrats try to get bipartisan support for a bill that would increase access to family therapists for veterans and their families.

The bill, HR 1588, has 102 co-sponsors, but only three are Republicans.

“We commit a serious disservice to veterans and their families if we only focus on the veteran with PTSD,” said Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., who sponsored the briefing and is a sponsor of the bill. “We would be remiss to ignore that often it is a spouse or family member who encourages a service member or veteran with PTSD or other readjustment problems to seek counseling and treatment.”

Surveys of U.S. troops in Iraq highlight some of the problems ahead. Evans’ staff says that one year after returning from deployment, 15 percent of service members plan to get divorced and 20 percent say they recognize a need to reduce their alcohol use, both signs of potentially serious family problems.

Among Vietnam veterans, 38 percent who were married got divorced within six months of returning home, and veterans with PTSD were three to six times more likely to divorce than those without the illness, Evans’ staff said. VA also has found that 22 percent of veterans with PTSD had drug or alcohol addictions.

The need to help families is real, according to family policy experts.

“Families want to know what are normal behaviors associated with a deployment to a war zone and what are warning signs for something more serious,” said Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association. “They want to know how long it should take before the service member gets back to normal. Families understand that the service member may be angry, but what happens when the anger continues and you’re tired of walking on eggshells?”

Counseling programs, when available, are helpful, especially for families of members who have made multiple deployments, she said. But obtaining counseling remains a problem for those in rural areas and for the parents and siblings who see post-combat problems in single troops.

Counseling also can be difficult to find in communities in which mental health counselors themselves have deployed.

The bottom line, Raezer said, is that “wounded service members have wounded families.”

Much of the current PTSD treatment program is based on the Vietnam-era experience. But Figley said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing “a more challenging group of people to deal with.”