AMBER JAMIESON Crikey journalist  

It was the year 2000 when Australian psychologists started getting worried about the younger veterans that had begun trickling through their clinics with post-traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol problems and other anxiety issues. The PTSD programs had been written for Vietnam veterans. But when younger veterans -- who had been deployed on difficult peacekeeping missions in East Timor or to fight the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq -- went through these programs, they weren't exiting them with the same outcomes and increased quality of life.

Like adults, children and teens may feel intense sadness and loss, or “grief,” when a person close to them dies. And like adults, children and teens express their grief in how they behave, what they think and say, and how they feel emotionally and physically. Each child and parent grieves differently, and there is no right or wrong way or length of time to grieve. PDF: Military Grief

PDF: A 2009 overview of Australian Military Families

PDF: Further support for families of Australian Veterans 

PDF: Problems in families of male Vietnam Veterans with PTSD