Sending mentally ill soldiers back to Iraq!

[AGENDA21]

As the US military has difficulties recruiting and retaining soldiers for its never-ending war of occupation in Iraq, the armed services are resorting to increasingly desperate means of coping. The Stop-Loss option in soldiers’ contracts has allowed soldiers to be kept in uniform months or years after their term of service has expired. The National Guard has been sent overseas to a previously unprecedented extent. And military standards have been lowered, so that drug or alcohol abuse, pregnancy, and poor fitness no longer necessarily lead to dismissal of new recruits.

Now word comes that “mentally ill” troops are being sent back to Iraq. This article refers to “a little-discussed truth fraught with implications,” but the implications discussed all have to do with the effects on the soldiers being returned, and these soldiers’ “effectiveness in combat.” In many instances, being returned to combat, and to a state of constant tension, will exacerbate the soldier’s problems, the article -- correctly -- suggests.

The article indicates that the military is putting pressure on mental health professionals treating these soldiers to minimize the extent of their problems and to declare them fit for return to Iraq and combat. For example, some Army doctors are reporting that they are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of the more serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Further, the article reports that professionals treating emotionally disturbed soldiers “are under pressure” to approve their redeployment to Iraq. I have written about the moral issues involved in mental health treatment of soldiers in Iraq . The issues are similar for those treating the soldiers when they return if the professionals play any role in deciding whether or not the soldiers should return to combat. The mental health professionals are not in a position to make unbiased judgments as to a soldier’s readiness to return to combat when their own status and advancement in the military may depend upon how they exercise that judgment.

One “implication” not even mentioned in the article is that sending “mentally ill” soldiers back into combat puts not only the soldiers’ own mental health at risk, but endangers Iraqis as well. What is the quality of decision-making by highly stressed soldiers, whether they suffer from “PTSD” or only from “combat-stress reaction”? These soldiers are armed with lethal weapons and are often in a position to make split-second life-or-death decisions. After all, “stress” is often used as a defense when other armed authorities, such as police, are caught engaging in abusive or even murderous behavior. Surely the effects of stress can only be magnified on soldiers who spend a year or more being assigned to a country where they can never feel entirely safe.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12517.htm

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1. That is strange

Because you can get a medical discharge for taking anti-depressants.

[theoldman]

2. It would be interesting to see a body count back home ten

years from now. Many murders are committed by ex service men.