But the cheers soon turned hollow, the music flat.

Joblessness and the threat of homelessness awaited them almost as soon as they had slipped back into civilian life.

"Life was hard in Iraq, and it didn't get much better when I got home," says DuBois, a U.S. Army reservist who drove the kind of convoy fuel trucks that Iraqi insurgents target for ambush.

DuBois and Berger - both 24, Cincinnatians and fathers of young children - are among the first of hundreds of Iraq veterans expected to need serious help finding permanent homes and jobs. Veterans officials say the returnees will test the nation's readiness to help a new generation of servicemen and women once their tours of duty end.

BEDS FOR VETS

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs helps fund hundreds of community shelters and social service agencies around the country to provide temporary housing and other services for homeless veterans. But the program reaches relatively few. Ohio •VA-funded beds: 230 •Homeless veteran population: 10,604 Kentucky •VA-funded beds: 153 •Homeless veteran population: 2,254 Indiana •VA-funded beds: 114 •Homeless veteran population: 1,600 Sources: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

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• Agencies fill veterans' needs for shelter, meals, skills, pride

"This summer, when we had three Iraq veterans walk in the door, it blew my mind," says Charlie Blythe, a Vietnam veteran who runs Goodwill Industries' programs for homeless veterans, which includes a 24-bed shelter in Woodlawn.

"Before long, we're going to have to struggle to keep up with the demand," he says.

The pattern is well-established from other wars: Away from everything they know and fighting a constant panic of being killed, some military personnel come home to abuse alcohol and drugs, eventually losing their families, jobs and homes. Others are pushed over the brink by wartime pressures.

At the Cincinnati VA Medical Center in Corryville, Iraq veterans already are seeking psychiatric treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, an illness that is often the first stop on the downward cycle that leads to homelessness.

"There are going to be a lot of young men and women just like David and Mike coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and face the possibility of being dead-cold homeless," says John Briggs, a Vietnam veteran who works for Goodwill Industries' homeless veterans program and who counseled DuBois and Berger.

"We'd better be ready for them."

Who will help them?

Some experts think veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will become homeless because of a tight job market when they return. Others say the all-volunteer military attracts more recruits with potential for social problems when their military duty ends.

"Who knows what will happen with this generation?" says Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbies the government for homeless veterans. "Some are bound to fall through the cracks."

Her organization is surveying hundreds of shelters and community homeless programs to learn how many have encountered Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

The question of who will help future veterans is not clear. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is overburdened and unable to reach most homeless veterans now.

Steve Gilligan runs the therapeutic work program at the VA Domiciliary for Homeless Veterans in Fort Thomas, where 60 homeless veterans get shelter, job training and substance-abuse rehab. He expects many Iraq veterans will face the same problems some members of their fathers' generation faced with they came home from Vietnam - chronic joblessness, mental illnesses and substance abuse.

"It could be a year from now, two years from now," Gilligan says. "It is going to be a nightmare."

'I felt worthless'

DuBois and Berger, who do not know each other, never had to sleep under a bridge or wait in soup lines, but they might have.

"They could have gone either way," says Briggs, the Goodwill counselor.

DuBois grew up in Over-the-Rhine, raised by his father, a Vietnam veteran. Before the war in Iraq, he had a steady job in a nursing home and was paying support for two sons from a previous relationship. His wife, Teresa, worked as a licensed practical nurse.

In January 2003, the 705th Transportation Company, DuBois' Army Reserve unit headquartered in Dayton, was called to active duty. Three months later, DuBois was on the ground in Iraq, where he would stay for a full year.

There were frequent mortar attacks on the base camps, and soldiers hauled fuel and supplies over roads that bore blast holes made by roadside bombs.

"There were times I thought I would not make it home," DuBois says.

He did come home in April 2004, to a parade along Dayton streets lined with flag-waving supporters.

But because his state certification had expired while he was in Iraq, DuBois lost his nursing home job. He and Teresa spent two months living with a variety of relatives because they couldn't afford a place of their own.

"I was dealing with some anger issues, part of it because of what I went through in Iraq and part of it because I felt worthless that I couldn't support myself and my kids," DuBois says. "My father thought I had post-traumatic stress disorder, and I wanted to get counseling for it, but I decided I had to put that on the back burner. The first thing I needed was a job."

The couple's relationship was strained almost to breaking.

"It was difficult when he came back," Teresa DuBois says. "I didn't know how to approach him. I was afraid to say something that might upset him."

During the summer, Teresa was working, and the couple found an apartment in North College Hill. With only one income, however, they fell behind on rent payments and were on the verge of eviction.

"My life had crumpled way too fast; I didn't know what to do," DuBois says. "I started looking for someone who could help me."

He heard about Goodwill Industries' program for homeless veterans, and Briggs arranged with the DuBois' landlord to keep them in their apartment. Briggs also got DuBois into the Napier Truck Driving School in West Chester to learn over-the-road trucking, which was not a new skill for DuBois.

"I drove fuel trucks 150,000 miles all over Iraq," DuBois says. "It seemed a little strange that I would have to go to school to learn to drive a truck. But I was determined to do whatever it took."

DuBois finished the course in October; today, he's working for a local trucking firm. He and Teresa still live in North College Hill.

A broken family

Berger grew up in Price Hill and got married his senior year at Western Hills High School when his girlfriend became pregnant.

Going to college or vocational school was not an option. Berger had to take whatever job he could find to support his young family.

"My job life was like a revolving door, going from one job that didn't pay enough to another," he says.

Then a second son came along.

Frustrated at bouncing from one job to the next, he joined the Ohio National Guard in 2002 and was transferred to the 1477th Transportation Company, headquartered in Dover, Ohio, about a week before that unit was deployed for Iraq.

In Iraq, Berger's company faced danger each day when it went out on convoy carrying fuel and supplies. It also endured constant mortar rounds hitting the base camp.

"You got so that you stopped caring," Berger says. "The attitude was, 'If I'm going to get hit, I'm going to get hit and there's nothing I can do about it.' "

The fact that he had not received one letter from his wife told him something was wrong. His fears were confirmed in November 2003, when he returned home for a two-week leave. He found that she had moved out of their Price Hill apartment and that his mother was caring for their two young sons.

Berger came back to Cincinnati with no home, no job and a divorce under way. He lived with relatives while he fought to gain custody of his two boys. Then he started a relationship with a woman he had known for years. He and his sons now live in South Fairmount with her and her son.

"My biggest problem was finding steady work," Berger says. "I figured that a just-home veteran wouldn't have a hard time, with everybody talking about how much they support the troops.

"I was wrong."

He won custody of his kids, but the only work he could find didn't pay enough to support a family - a $6.50-an-hour job at an oil change business that didn't last long. Another job as a tow-truck driver ended because he didn't have the right kind of commercial driver's license and his employer had to pay too much insurance to keep him.

Berger was referred by a job placement agency to Goodwill's program. Since then, Briggs has worked with him on getting his car fixed and lining up job interviews.

"I really love driving a truck," Berger says. "I don't want to do it over-the-road, because I don't want to be away from my kids. All I want is to support my family."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com