Fort Hood gunman struggled with mental health issues

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Military officials named Ivan A. Lopez as the gunman in yesterday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas that left four dead, including the shooter. Lopez had documented psychiatric issues and was undergoing evaluation for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder before the shooting. 

Valvincent Reyes is a retired Lieutenant Colonel turned social worker who works with veterans. He was deployed to Fort Hood to manage trauma management teams after the first shootings in 2009. 

"Thirty percent of war fighters coming back have disability ratings, whether it's from injury or from psychological injury. That's the highest it's ever been," Reyes said. He thinks that post-combat psychological issues are underrported because returning soldiers just want to go straight home to see their families. 

"The problem is that the survey is self-reported. No one wants to say they have family problems because they want to be with their families. So they will underreport," he said.

Reyes says that without proper psychoeducation, returning soldiers sometimes react to tense situations the way they would react to threats on the battlefield. He recommends that the military adopt a two-week program to educate and assess soldiers.