The Harford Courant is running a series on how the armed services are treating soldiers with serious psychological problems. The short answer is not very well; we have sent some with these problems to Iraq for the first time and also re-deployed others there. Some have been sent into combat after taking their antidepressants. Twenty percent of our non-combat deaths in Iraq in 2005 were soldiers who committed suicide.
The comment of Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, the Army's top mental health specialist, do not fill one with confidence that the situation will improve soon. She said, "And, as you know, recruiting has been a challenge. And so we have to weigh the needs of the Army, the needs of the mission, with the soldiers' personal needs." What about weighing the culpability of our leaders?
1 comment:
Those reports make compelling reading. It's a shame they are not splashed all over the national media rather than just a provincial newspaper, even one of such an apparently high journalistic standard.
This is Rumsfeld's department again, of course.
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