- Veterans keep theirfrontline experiences

close to themselves, hidingthem from friends and family.

Firsthand experience and research suggests

sharing is the quickest route to healing

and by doing so, you could save

the lives of others secretly suffering.

- One of my soldiers andanother soldier from my team

was very, very badly injured.

He lost his right leg, almostat the height of his groin.

And I had to stop the bleeding

and I had to help him save hislife and help him stay alive.

And that was traumatizing.

- [Brody] Yotam Dagan, aformer Israeli Navy Seal

is one of the select few specializing

in underwater sabotage of enemy ships.

Dagan first encountereddeath at the young age of 11.

- The coastal road massacre, 1978.

- [Brody] The terror attackkilled 38 and injured 70 more

during an invasion ledby Palestinian terrorists

operating in Southern Lebanon.

He survived by hiding ina bush on a local beach.

- They later hijacked thebus on the coastal road

and started driving it towards Tel Aviv

shooting at other cars.

- [Brody] Hiding thosememories and emotional wounds,

Dagan and eventuallytrained to be a warrior,

one who never missed a target.

- At the time I didn'teven think about it.

It was kind of repressed,not thought about,

and it took years forthe story to come out.

- [Brody] Advancingswiftly through the ranks,

Dagan became a Navy specialwarfare team leader,

diving into darkness,destroying enemy ships.

That valor, however,comes at extreme costs.

- The lives of those who are dealing

with post-traumatic stressdisorder, it's a mess

because you don't always know about it,

especially men, masculine, whojust want to get things done.

So, when the going getstough, the tough gets going.

- [Brody] One in 11people will be diagnosed

with post-traumaticstress in their lifetime,

roughly three and a halfpercent of the population

each year, and it's notlimited to the battlefield.

- It could be a car accident,

or God forbid a rape or sexualassault or being at war.

- [Brody] And the costs are steep.

Statistics showed 20 US veteranscommit suicide each day,

totaling some 6,000 each year.

- Then my way of healingwas to heal others.

- [Brody] Dagan is sharinghow he turned his scars

into what he callspost-traumatic progress,

the details in his new book,

"A Time to Kill, and a Time to Heal,

"an Israeli Navy SEAL's Journey".

His lessons now helping others overcome

the invisible wounds of warand tap into the true power

of the healing hands of God.

- This inner beliefthat there's something,

there's someone, there's the divine entity

that drives this home is something

that drives me in the work that I do.

- We want to help veterans.

And we want to provideresources to veterans.

And many times we find inthese tragic veterans suicides

that they have not beenconnected to the VA

or to the resources that were available.

- [Brody] VirginiaRepresentative Elaine Luria

served in the Navy for 20 years.

She's building on theUS-Israeli partnership

by sponsoring legislation that calls

for greater diagnosis and research.

- I want to be able toprovide those resources

through grants andcollaborative research work

between the US and Israel

to make sure that we can address

those most cutting-edge procedures,

technologies, medications.

- This exchange without a therapist,

without a psychiatrist,without medication,

just this kind of talk,

I find it to be the most meaningful way

of helping people deal with the hardships

that they've gone through.

- Representative Lauria'sbill has bipartisan support

in both the House and Senate.

It's headed to the armedservices committee for acceptance

in the National Defense Authorization Act.

I'm Brody Carter, CBS News.