BILLINGS - One family was selected for a private audience with Barack Obama before the presidential candidate's listening session at Riverfront Park this morning.

Matt Kuntz, a former Marine, became a champion for diagnosing and treating post traumatic stress disorder in service members shortly after the suicide of his step-brother, Spec. Chris Dana, in March 2007.

Kuntz, along with his wife and child, were picked by the campaign for some one-on-one time with Obama.

Dana, a Helena soldier, committed suicide several months after returning from Iraq. Kuntz publicly criticized the way the Montana National Guard and the State of Montana treated its soldiers after deployment.

"There is no excuse for the State of Montana's failure to provide its service members and their families with an effective treatment program for this common and devastating injury," Kuntz wrote in a letter that appeared in the Helena Independent Record a week after Dana's suicide. "Nothing more clearly demonstrates the failure of the current system and the fact that Chris had to die for the State of Montana to recognize him as an injured hero."

Shortly after Kuntz went public with his criticism, Gov. Brian Schweitzer pressed leaders of the Montana National Guard to explore its treatment of combat veterans and implement necessary changes.

The Guard responded by forming a PTSD task force. Just last week, after more than a year of study and exploration, the Guard announced it had implemented more than a dozen changes to its system in an effort to address PTSD and traumatic brain injury in returning soldiers.

Related

• Table of honor