MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) — As dawn broke over Baghdad in the early hours of March 20, 2003, U.S. Army Pvt. Daniel Nichols was on the outskirts of the city, driving a Humvee in a 3rd Infantry division convoy, on his way to war.

It was 5:34 a.m. Baghdad time. Overhead the skies exploded with bombs, mortar shells and rockets raining down on the enemy as the enemy returned fire.

"It was just like something out of a movie," Nichols says.

Back home in the United States, where it was still 9:34 p.m. EST March 19, President Bush announced to the American people that U.S. forces had just invaded Iraq.

"The first couple of hours, everything was being blown up. We could hardly catch our breath. Everything was ringing," Nichols remembers.

Nichols, then a 21-year-old kid from Muskegon, had joined the Army out of a sense of patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. "I woke up that day and thought: What can I do to help? What if Muskegon got attacked?" he says.

The first night of combat, after dodging incoming mortar shells and being on high alert for deadly land mines on the roads he traveled, Nichols says, "I dug my foxhole really, really deep.

"I told the guys I was with: 'This is not a game. This is real,'" he says.

Three weeks into combat, Nichols' commanding officer and four other soldiers were killed after being ambushed by insurgents. Nichols was "blown" off the roof of a two-story building while on sniper watch in Baghdad. For seven months, Nichols fought in Iraq, driving a Humvee through dangerous territory, never sure when or where he'd be under attack.

"Everybody I knew over there was blown up or shot," he says.

Although Nichols, 26, was not physically wounded, the husband and father of two is a casualty of the Iraq war.

At night, he is haunted by nightmares and images of war. During the day, he has panic attacks and can't concentrate.

"Do I regret having gone?" he asks, just days before the fifth anniversary of the war. "No, not really. I regret my commander being blown up. I regret what's happened to me."

Nichols has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is being treated by doctors at the Veterans Affairs clinic in Muskegon. Doctors also suspect he suffers from a mild to moderate case of Traumatic Brain Injury — caused from an explosion while he was driving and the effects of being under constant mortar attack. Nichols planned to undergo special testing in Ann Arbor.

But in many ways, those are only superficial wounds.

Nichols tells a story of "thousands" of vets returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan, says David Eling, director of the Muskegon County Department of Veteran Affairs. Nichols is unemployed. Since coming home from war, he's held a series of temporary jobs but none that has lasted past short-term assignments.

His family is homeless.

For the past three months, Nichols and his family have lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Veterans Service Center's transitional housing. On April 5, Nichols and his wife, Ardis, 25, and their two children, Mason, 3, and Jasmine, 1, will have to leave the premises. Their allotted time is up — and there is a waiting list of veterans and their families who need the space, too.

"I don't know where we're going," Nichols says. Eling calls Nichols' social and medical ailments "invisible wounds" of the Iraq War. "I don't know how we get across to the public about the sacrifices these guys have made," Eling says.

Guys like Alan Holden.

Holden, 32, of Muskegon already had served eight years of active duty in the U.S. Army when he heard the call to serve again after Sept. 11.

A corrections officer at the time, he joined the Michigan National Guard 1st Battalion, 126th Armored Regiment, Company B in Manistee, out of a sense of patriotism and service.

"I thought I had something to offer," he says.

While on active duty, Holden was deployed to Korea, Panama, Turkey, Israel and Kuwait with the 101st Airborne division before being discharged in 2001.

In June 2004, Holden's company was ordered to Iraq. The company supplied security to convoys traveling routes laced with land mines and threatened by suicide bombers. They trained Iraqi police candidates. They worked as military police officers. Their duty came with great sacrifice.

Ten of Holden's comrades were killed in the year the company served in Iraq. "And a bunch went home wounded," he says.

He was one of them. He also has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For the first year he was back in the States, Holden showed no signs of problems. Then depression "and all that stuff" began interrupting his sleep, his social interactions and focus.

Holden is "haunted" by the memory of a 19-year-old female soldier bleeding to death before she could get medical care. He can't shake the vision of a Humvee and its driver being "incinerated" after being attacked by a suicide bomber. He watched friends being picked off by snipers, another "blown up, pieces of him all over, everywhere."

"There were so many ... people dying over there," he says.

Like Nichols, Holden is being treated by doctors, psychologists and social workers at Muskegon's VA Clinic. Veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are given priority treatment "and put on the fast track" to help, Eling says.

Despite that, Holden's life has been inalterably changed.

He now works for B&B Beer Merchandisers, a job that lets him work flexible hours, alone, because it's difficult for him to be in crowds.

He and his wife, Nicole, 25, have a son, Ethan, 2½, and a new baby on the way. Holden worries about his family's future — and the effect of war on them.

"I'm not the same person I was when I went over there," he says, "and I know I'm not the only one. There's people a lot worse than I am."

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Information from: The Muskegon Chronicle, http://www.mlive.com/chronicle