Changes need to be made to identify and deal with military personnel and veterans suffering from mental health problems, veterans said Tuesday.

About 15 people attended a discussion at Bill Reed Middle School with Rand Beers, president and founder of the National Security Network.

The network, founded in 2006, is made up of about 2,000 members who work on policy development and analysis, challenging the Bush administration’s handling of military issues.

Beers, a former senior White House national security staffer and Vietnam-era Marine, said that of the 1.6 million people who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 of them are dealing with post-combat mental problems.

“That’s not a small number,” he said.

Soldiers are being deploy-ed more often with less time between tours and going into combat with more lethal explosives and suicide bombers, he said.

“That’s the environment you have to understand,” he said.

Beers said that more mental health workers are needed and that the stigma about mental health problems in the military needs to be changed.

People who want to make a military career are more reluctant to step forward when they’re suffering, he said.

“You just suck it up and drive on; that’s what you do,” said Robb Smith, commander of the American Legion Post 15.

Smith, who served in the Army for more than 20 years, said he was glad to see these issues discussed in a public forum rather than just between veterans.

“You don’t hear this,” he said.