Broken Warrior: One soldier's struggle (PTSD, 4 X suicide tries, now back to Iraq to court martial)

[uppityperson]

This is heartbreaking. Support the troops my ass Mrbush.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/311672_soldier14.html

Rob Withrow was a good soldier until he got back from combat duty in Iraq. Now by his own admission, he is no longer anyone's idea of a model fighting man. He screwed up, and he's screwed up -- an assessment the Army would agree with. But that's where their agreement ends.

Withrow wants mental health treatment. He has tried to commit suicide four times since returning from Iraq. He has been hospitalized in Madigan Army Medical Center's inpatient psychiatric unit on multiple occasions and is currently on a cocktail of antidepressants and psychoactive drugs. He is a month out of treatment for an addiction to narcotic pain pills that he began taking to "numb out" the month he returned from Iraq and he does not fit the Army's new criteria for deployment.

But now the Army wants to redeploy him to Iraq, and court- martial him over there. The charges stem from his pattern of not showing up on time, or sometimes at all....(much more@link)

[uppityperson]

1. 1 self kick.

[proud patriot]

2. just lovely

[uppityperson]

3. There is more in the Stl PI, paper copy. Words fail me.

[proud patriot]

5. when I think of the sacrifices our soldiers have to make

just to be treated so poorly it infuriates me .

[Maru Kitteh]

4. There's nothing I can say that touches this or gives it justice

Every synonym for UNACCEPTABLE EGREGIOUS OUTRAGE could be employed and it still wouldn't satisfy.


WWFD? (What would freepers do?)


I would love to know how the "gung ho" would support this soldier.

[Cabcere]

6. The sad thing is

that probably a lot of the "gung ho troop supporters" you mentioned are the kind of willfully ignorant jerks who don't believe any mental illnesses are real. :( Horrible.

[Bigmack]

7. Can you imagine....

how he and his fellow soldiers and Marines are going to be treated in twenty or thirty years? They'll just be homeless societal problems, and the Freepers of that time will be screaming to kick them off whatever welfare is left and get them the hell off the streets.

This country has no soul!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[uppityperson]

9. delete, thanks mods