Battle-Weary, Clinically Stressed Soldiers Back into the Heat of Iraq

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0403-05.htm

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=507855&host=3&dir=70

Published on Saturday, April 3, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

Is America Sending Battle-Weary, Clinically Stressed Soldiers Back into the Heat of Iraq?

by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

Just ten days ago, Jason Gunn didn't think he was in any shape to be sent back to active duty in Iraq.

That's what the 24-year-old tank driver told his family, and what he told the commanders at his US military base in Germany. It is also what he told a team of psychiatrists at Heidelberg Hospital, who not only agreed with his assessment but issued a formal recommendation that he be kept with them for further treatment.

Back in November, Specialist Gunn had suffered devastating injuries up and down the left side of his body when a roadside bomb obliterated the Humvee he was driving on the north side of Baghdad. Over and above his physical wounds, he also had to deal with the trauma of the sergeant in the seat behind his being ripped to shreds in the explosion.

Soon he was displaying classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) - anxiety, insomnia interspersed with recurring nightmares, and extreme agitation. Army doctors put him on two different medications to lift his mood and suppress his bad dreams. But the gung-ho, happy-go-lucky, overtly fearless soldier who had existed before last November obstinately refused to resurface.

It used to be accepted practice in the US military not to return a soldier to active duty unless he was fully fit - not just out of consideration for his own needs, but also to protect other members of his unit. In Iraq, however, growing anecdotal evidence suggests that a new policy is emerging - to patch up the wounded as quickly as possible and ship them straight back, threatening them with disciplinary action or even court martial if they show the slightest reluctance.

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has been railing to the media about this, and working her butt off to fight this.
support her cause. She is being ignored by a lot of major media in the USA and she has helped me get thru a lot with Michael over there.
http://www.mfso.org
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com
http://www.vaiw.org
http://www.calltoconscience.net
http://www.motherspeak.org
http://www.bushdraft.com

If Bush gets in again, the draft is coming.

unless he decides to bring troops home from other places and decrease US military presence around the globe. From what I understand he wants to increase the number of troops abroad.

then by God we need to change his mind on that. Bring the troops home I say!

but there doesn't seem to be enough troops to go around......

spreading them around.