By ERIC NEWHOUSE • Tribune Projects Editor and The Associated Press

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised Wednesday to expand Montana’s pilot program to assess the mental health of combat vets nationwide, if elected.
The Montana National Guard has developed a program to check its soldiers and airmen for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder every six months for the first two years after returning from combat, then once a year thereafter. The program exceeds national standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The pilot program was created in response to the suicide of former Army Spc. Chris Dana of Helena, who shot himself on March 4, 2007, days after being given a less-than-honorable discharge because he could no longer handle attending drills following a tour in Iraq.
“He (Obama) told me he understood why we need to have additional screenings for PTSD,” said Matt Kuntz, Dana’s stepbrother, who was among a small group invited to meet with Obama on Wednesday in Billings. “And he told me when he is elected president, he will implement Montana’s pilot program nationwide.”
Kuntz, who recently gave up his job as a lawyer in Helena to advocate for the mentally ill and their families, said he was invited to brief Obama on how Montana had become a national model for assessing the mental health of its combat vets.
Besides the additional screenings, the Montana National Guard has developed crisis response teams that include a chaplain to investigate behavioral problems among its troops, and TriWest Healthcare pays to have four part-time counselors on hand to talk with soldiers and airmen during weekend drills.
After the briefing, Obama spent about 20 minutes telling several hundred veterans and their families that, if elected as president, he will be committed to meeting their needs.
He told the largely partisan crowd that his Republican rival, John McCain, deserves gratitude, but not votes, for his years of military service.
McCain is a former Navy pilot who served two decades in the military, including more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his plane was shot down during a bombing mission.
McCain spokesman Tom Steward said “Obama’s rhetoric does not match his record,” and pointed out the Democrat voted last year against a bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama said, at the time, that he did not want to give a “blank check” to continue the war in Iraq without a timeline for troop withdrawals.
Steward said he was confident McCain’s record would be enough to maintain GOP loyalty among veterans. He added that some of the Arizona senator’s fellow POWs would appear with him at next week’s Republican convention in Minneapolis.
“No one knows better than Sen. McCain what veterans have put on the line for our country,” Steward said.
Obama’s speech to Montana veterans on Wednesday came a day before Obama is scheduled to accept his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
If elected, the Illinois senator has pledged to secure more funding for veterans’ health programs, improve mental health treatment for soldiers returning from war and end the war in Iraq. By reaching out to the nation’s 25 million veterans, the Obama campaign is hoping to make inroads on a constituency that traditionally leans Republican.
Montana has the second highest concentration of veterans in the country — 16 percent of its voting-age population.
“(Obama) took a lot of questions from the audience,” Kuntz said of the Billings event. “And he didn’t have to look at any notes. He had it all there in his head.
“Perhaps the thing that blew me away the most is that he gets it — he understands what we’re doing here and why it’s important,” Kuntz said. “I was blown away. After it was all over, I teared up – couldn’t even talk.”