Quoting from a book she's reading on the issue, Chris Evans described PTSD as a normal response to an abnormal circumstance.

Her husband experienced that abnormal circumstance as a soldier in Iraq. Now that he's home, Evans and other wives are working to make sure their husbands get the help they need.

"We were told in the reunion training that we should wait a little while and let them adjust," Evans said. "So we sort of hung out and dealt with the issues as they happened."

Evans began observing some initial anger problems in her husband. She noted his troubles getting to sleep, or staying asleep. There were nightmares, too.

Yet Evans followed the advice and stood back, thinking things might change. When they didn't, she approached her husband, recalling what he told her before he left for Iraq -- that if she observed any problems, to let him know.

"I left it up to him to go get help," Evans said. "He was pretty proactive about it. We had good communication."

Evans said the counseling her husband has received is helping. It helps having a place to go and someone else to talk to. The wives have established something similar.

"A lot of the wives and I still get together," she said. "When it's just the wives, we'll all kind of compare notes to see if we're experiencing the same thing."

Most of them are, Evans said. The men who they said goodbye to in 2004 changed in Iraq. Some couples have gotten divorced for problems related to the war. Evans knows of three off hand.

"The last 18 months have been just as hard as the deployment," Evans said. "It's that roller coaster. As they work back into life, you keep running into things that have changed."