MIDDLEBURG -- Two combat tours in Iraq have left John Fromille partially blind in his left eye and deaf in his left ear. He has been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. He is the recipient of two Purple Hearts. He missed the birth of both of his daughters and was separated from his wife for 18 months.

Fromille is only one of the 75,033 service men and women diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and one of the one-third total who has returned and been diagnosed with TBI.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 837,458 service men and women have left active duty and are eligible for health care since the fiscal year of 2002. Of that number, only 324,846 have sought help from a Veterans Affairs clinic.

Fromille is only 23 years old, and he does not regret a thing.

In fact, he said he would go back to Iraq in a heartbeat if he could.

Now, he finds himself trapped in a world where he can't relate to those around him, is unable to find a full-time job and suffers from the aftermath of war that seems to engulf his life.

The beginning

Fromille joined the Marine Corps in 2003, the culmination of a lifelong dream. He hoped to make it his full-time career.

"I planned on joining since I was a little kid," he said last week at his Middleburg home. "Especially since Sept. 11 happened. I wasn't 18, but if I could have joined on the spot I would have."

At 18, he enlisted and was stationed with 3/8 Lima Company 3rd Platoon out of North Carolina. He married his high school girlfriend, Amanda, and was shipped to Haiti from February 2004 to June 2004 for a tour as an infantry rifleman and infantry machine gunner. He served two more combat tours, in Iraq, from January 2005 to August 2005 and from March 2006 to October 2006.

It was there that Fromille received his two Purple Hearts.

Attacked

On July 23, 2005, Fromille was outside Fallujah when the back of the humvee he was riding in was hit by an improvised explosive device, or IED. He was knocked out for two or three minutes.

Shrapnel blew out his ear drums.

Another day, a suicide bomber detonated a dump truck on his base. Bedding from the truck hit his left eye and blew out his ear drums. Fromille said he was knocked out for about 20 or 25 minutes.