i was asked by someone

who just happens to be married to a disabled (in iraq) vet to link to this story:

Once called ‘coward,’ he fights for PTSD victims

Army tried to prosecute him after he had a breakdown in Iraq

By PAULINE ARRILLAGA

AP National Writer

as you can see, it's an ap article, so i can't even print a line or two from the story. HOWEVER, i did find an npr article as well

Former Soldier Helps Others Fight Army for Help

by Daniel Zwerdling

When Jason Harvey came back from Iraq to Fort Carson, Colo., two years ago, he started having screaming nightmares. His records show he told the medical unit he thought about killing himself.

Doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. But instead of sending him to intensive therapy, his Army commanders kept punishing him, saying he was messing up on the job. Harvey's mother, Amy Harvey, says she called officials at Fort Carson and begged them to help.

"No one at Fort Carson was there for Jason," she recalls. "They take children and they send them to war. And then they don't take care of them."

One night last year, Harvey slashed his arms and wrists and was rushed to the hospital. Today, both he and his mother will tell you there's one main reason he's still alive: Andrew Pogany.

The 36-year-old former soldier has become a driving force behind efforts to force the Army to revise its response to soldiers suffering from PTSD. Pogany's saga shows how an advocate can overcome enormous obstacles and battle a powerful institution — and help shine the national spotlight on what had largely been a hidden problem.

As NPR reported last year, numerous soldiers from Fort Carson who have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious mental health problems have been kicked out of the Army with few or no benefits. Those reports prompted a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, as well as officials at the Pentagon, to investigate Fort Carson. In turn, the public attention pressured commanders to pledge that returning soldiers would get better treatment..................

if i've said it once, i've said it hundreds of times. we all know how i personally feel about war (especially UNJUST, IMMORAL AND ILLEGAL ONES) but that is neither here nor there. we all know how i feel about the brave and true women and men who serve our great nation in the military. they are heroes and at times, we treat them like dirt. it is not only our responsibility to honor and care for them, it is our MORAL DUTY to do so. we cannot train them to do goddess only knows what, send them into a strange and foreign land AND cultures and expect them to come back (if they do at all that is) unscathed. WE OWE THEM. end of story oh and here's a link to a story i posted in dec of 2007 regarding sgt darren mischke (i am told he "was given a full medical retirement from the Army, at 100% permanent disability" BUT NOT WITHOUT A THREE YEAR FIGHT)
you should all be so effing ashamed

i just found this comprehensive article as well:

The Good Soldier
By Joel Warner
Do you like green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham!

It was September 28, 2003, Andrew Pogany's second day in Iraq, and he was steering a Land Rover through the night toward Samarra with another Special Forces soldier on board and an M4 rifle in his lap. This stretch of road, which ran through the especially nasty enclave of insurgent strongholds called the Sunni Triangle, was known for ambushes of Army convoys just like his. "This is Indian country down here," a Green Beret had told him earlier in the day. "You'll be lucky to make it out alive." Pogany should have been completely focused on the road, scanning the surroundings for signs of trouble, but he was a little distracted.

Would you like them in a house?

Would you like them with a mouse?

A 32-year-old staff sergeant stationed at Fort Carson, Pogany been assigned to fill a vacancy in a highly trained, twelve-man Special Forces A Team just two weeks before they shipped out to fight in the still-young war. And now he was learning something about one of them. Sitting next to Pogany, gripping his own rifle, medic Ken Lehman had decided it was the perfect time to recite lines from Dr. Seuss. Over and over again..................

................

It's a beautiful day," Teresa Mischke tells Pogany as he pulls into her driveway, greeting him like an old war buddy. They've been through a lot together.

Her husband Darren's story is so long, so convoluted, it's sometimes hard for her to know where to begin. There was his first deployment to Iraq in 2003, before he met Teresa, when his soft-skin Humvee was rammed by an Iraqi truck. There was no blood, no obvious damage, so he went right back to work. Sure, when he got home and met Teresa, there were some headaches, but nothing to be concerned about. Then, during his second deployment in 2005, a mortar hit his vehicle, blowing a hole in the turret right by his head. At the time, Darren considered himself lucky to be alive. But back in Colorado Springs in December 2006, right around the time the two got married, he stopped acting like himself. He'd get real quiet, lash out at unexpected moments and forget the most basic things. Training simulators became impossibly mystifying, his hands and mind rebelling against him, and bright flashes plagued his vision................

pic: Daniel Zwerdling, NPR

Former soldier Andrew Pogany, shown in his home basement office, gets dozens of calls a day from soldiers with serious mental health problems who need help dealing with the Army.

and a special shout out to teresa for STAYING STRONG