30 Iraq War Veterans Sue Over War Trauma

[chlamor]

Iraq veterans sue over war trauma

ARTHUR MACMILLAN

THIRTY Iraq War veterans are taking legal action against the British Army, claiming they were thrown out of the ranks after ruining their mental and physical health in the battle to oust Saddam Hussein.

Two years after the conflict began, the former soldiers accuse the army of neglect for failing to help with the physical and psychological trauma they suffered, and then dismissing them from the service.

The veterans - who include two Scots - are demanding compensation from the Ministry of Defence in the first legal action of its kind to stem from the 2003 conflict. The case is a severe embarrassment for the military, following years of argument and negative publicity over Gulf War syndrome and allegations that troops were poorly equipped for the Iraq War.


<snip>

Asked what he hoped legal action would achieve, Craddock, who has been prescribed antidepressants, painkillers and sedatives to control his behaviour, replied: "I want the Army to be held accountable. I wouldn’t accept treatment from them now anyway but, people need to know that soldiers have suffered because of their service in Iraq."

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=299062005

[The Straight Story]

1. Ya know, this saddens me as someone not always in best mental

state :)

My mom dying has tore me up terribly at times, I can only imagine what some of these people have been through.

It is sad that the people who declare wars, start them, engineer them, and profit from them are not the ones who go and do the work. If they were the ones to do it, we would have no more wars.

Maybe someday the soldiers of the world will tell such leaders, en masse the world over, to go fuck themselves.

The leaders lie, whip up the soldiers, tell the people we are in danger, and then sit in their ivory towers while others go to die.

Fuck em all.

[chlamor]

2. The failure is then put on the individual

and the 'disease' is treated-medicated. Sure are alot of individuals with 'mental problems' in our "society". What crap by these war-mongering junkies. Now we can turn away from the larger ills of our culture which trouble us all. We can make it happen- Got to.

Peace

[stillcool]

3. my dad was in WW11, and came home....

all fu*ked up, and then my mom died. He lived for 15 more years, but barely. No job, no home, no life. My sister and i were farmed out to family members and we both ended up 'different'. The whitewashing in this country has been going on for a long time, and i am just beginning to undo my own lies.

[ninkasi]

5. Stillcool47, I hope your wounds heal

Your father's story is but one of many tragedies endured by men who fought in WWII. That war, though, was more universally considered necessary. We use people as though they were toilet paper...let them clean up unpleasant business, then flush them out of the system.

You must have endured some very painful experiences, and I only hope that you are able to come to some terms with what you've endured. My father, also, served in WWII, but he was on a ship bound to Japan for what would have been an invasion, when the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I know that his experiences in Nagasaki as part of the Army of Occupation led him to admire the ordinary Japanese people immensely.

He still talked about some of the Japanese people he had become close to when he died in his early 70's. One night, after a rare night of drinking with my younger brother, some of the things he said led us to speculate, after my father died, that we might have a half Japanese sibling somewhere.

If that were the case, I would love to know, but my father died in 1987, and it is highly unlikely that I would be able to find such an individual. In any event, the sacrifices were, and are, often lauded by politicians; what they do NOT do is to compensate the ones they claim to honor for their service. This is the injustice, and the shame.

[stillcool]

6. Thank you for the kind words....

the concerted effort to deny the truth has to be the most debilitating issue of my life, but then it is the source of an innate compassion for all things wounded.

[ninkasi]

7. My feeling is this...

The intense pain of your experiences has led you to be a source of comfort, compassion, and healing to others. While these are admirable qualities, and we need more people like you, please give yourself permission to mourn your own lost happiness.

Although I do not know you, your pain, and your compassion, come through quite clearly; be at peace. Know that if nothing else, someone else, if only a stranger like me...feels compassion and sorrow for your unhappy youth, and the hardships you endured.

Perhaps those experiences are what lead you now to protest this dreadful war, and your desire to bring our troops home before more families are damaged. I wish you happiness in the remaining years of your life.

[jedr]

4. although this is from the U.K. it holds true for our troops;

no one can do two or three back to back tours in a war zone and come out sane...what saddens me the most,is how the V.F.W touts bush and does nothing for the vets.