Anti-Bush squaddie gasses himself

[Nambe]

Independent News & Media

Peter Mahoney found it hard to settle into normal life after returning from the war in Iraq. Two weeks ago he put on his army uniform for the last time, his head freshly shaved, and returned to the home that he had, until five weeks earlier, shared with his wife and four children.

Attaching a hosepipe to the exhaust of the family car, parked in the garage of their home on the outskirts of Carlisle near the Scottish border, he started the engine.

His experiences as a soldier attached to the Royal Logistics Corps, ferrying medical supplies and injured soldiers between the front line and the British Army field hospitals near the Kuwait border, had left him deeply scarred and suffering from depression.

He had never believed in the war and had been a vocal critic within his local community of the British government's decision to invade Iraq. He had publicly accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of being President George Bush's "puppet". ..

[Downtown Hound]

1. Heartbreaking

May he find peace somewhere.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. How terribly, terribly sad...what a fucking waste.

I agree with his sentiments, but I wish he'd have found a better outlet for his pain and anger.

[Ghetto_Boy]

3. I have suicide in my family....It is the ultimate self absorption...

exernal stimuli ae nonexistant

[okasha]

5. Suicide

The pain blocks everything and everyone else out.

Poor guy. Peace be upon him.

Okasha

[Cha]

4. Why can't these People be Helped...we know it;'s

gonna happen..it's bound to. This is so tragic and imv could be headed off at the pass.

My heart goes out to his children and widow.

[Stew225]

7. That's right. The children and widow

are the ones to feel/pray for.War is hell beyond the battlefields.

[genius]

6. I knew someone who did the same thing after Vietnam

[SemperEadem]

8. that is so sad

these young people answered their call to duty, and when they return, their governments, whether it's ours or another, don't seem to want to believe that the adjustment can be very, very hard on those returning and some can cope and others can't... but there should be a program in place when they've been discharged, especially after a war tour, to have counselling made available to them so they can have an outlet for the horrors they've witnessed while in war.

I think it's pretty safe to say that 90% of the young people who go to war have never in their life witnessed first hand the destruction to another human that war can render. If they've never had an experience with mutilated bodies as result of rolling or walking on a mine, then how can the government turn its back with the attitude of "war is hell, s0n" and ignore the soldier who met the challenged when asked? Shouldn't the military have to answer some kind of duty to its fighting men? And if not, then why in the hell should they serve?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. There are many unreported suicides this war

When a soldier suicides in Iraq, the family sometimes is not told the reasone behind the proximate cause of death. If they die by rifle fire or grenade, it might be self-inflicted ....

[koopie57]

10. On Friday

I went to a funeral for my uncle who took his own life. As his daughter screamed in my ear as I hugged her "It hurts so damn bad".

My question is, was suicide a problem after WWI or WWII? If not, what would be the difference in why not?

[Voltaire99]

11. "Suicide in the Trenches" by Siegfried Sassoon

I KNEW a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
. . . .

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

(1918)

RIP, Mr. Mahoney.