Though expert reports continue to pile up – forecasting a gloomy and expensive post-war for America’s newest generation of veterans – few people have signed on to a daylong summit Saturday joining national experts, local veterans, their families and cou nselors.

“You’d think it would really resonate,” said Dud Hendrick, president of the local Veterans for Peace chapter, which is sponsoring the symposium. “I don’t understand it.”

The Portland gathering has drawn about half the registrations as each of the past two years, when more than 100 people had signed up.

“We’ve worked very hard,” Hendrick said. “We know it’s an important event.”

The Saturday session, aimed specifically at post-traumatic stress, comes on the heels of sobering information from think tanks and the Army’s own researchers.

Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, the Associated Press reported last week. At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year.

The efforts to curb the problem include more training and education programs for troops and their families. Officials also have hired more mental health workers, increased screening to measure the psychological health of soldiers and worked to reduce any stigma that keeps them from going for treatment when they have symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and other emotional problems, the wire service reported.

In Maine, the Veterans Administration has added 26 mental health workers to its payroll in the past two years, said James Doherty, spokesman for the VA hospital at Togus.

“A lot of things have been enhanced,” Doherty said. “We’re fighting post-traumatic stress disorder and a wide range of mental health issues, such as anxiety attacks and depression.”

Nationally, the cost may be huge.

An April analysis released by the Rand Corporation found that one in five of of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans – about 300,000 in all – suffers from symptoms of post-traumatic stress or depression.

The nonprofit think tank predicted that the cost of treatment could range from $6,000 to $25,000 per veteran, depending on the severity of problems. The nationwide impact could top $6.2 billion, said Rand researchers.

Speakers at the Portland summit plan to talk about the problem of post-traumatic stress as a political and legal issue, its effect on families and as an illness treated with psychotherapy.

Penny Coleman, an author and a widow of a Vietnam veteran, is slated to lead the discussion, followed by veterans rights advocate Tod Ensign and psychotherapist Rosemary Masters, director of the Trauma Studies Center of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City.