War Vets Chewed Up by Iraq Are Going Back!?

Veterans of the Gulf War II are being treated shabbily by the DOD. They are in tough psychological condition after multiple tours of Iraq and are being forced to go back. A few have anonymously spoken out. Thanks to Thomas Leavitt of Seeing the Forest for the link.
Coalition for free thought in media

The truth is all I am worried about right now. No one seems to be willing to listen to us soldiers who have been over there and then come home. We want to tell them to send someone else, but we can't say that in public or where anyone might hear it and report us.


I am redeploying for my second tour in Iraq and I am not real happy about it. In fact I'm quite angry that they are sending me back. I have been away from my family for almost three of the last five years, and I've had enough. Even though I'm fed up with it I can't refuse to go back. No way am I becoming a C.O. (conscientious objector) and doing time in Leavenworth. That's even worse than going back to Iraq.


You wanted some details about troops with PTSD. Okay, I can answer some questions for you.


I have PTSD that would probably qualify for at least 50% disability and maybe as much as 100%. They won't let me get through all the steps to get into the system and qualify me as having PTSD significant enough to be unable to perform my duty. I know I have it real bad, but they keep giving me the run around.


I feel I am unfit for combat. If I have to be completely honest I would be a danger to anyone serving with me. I am in no way capable of going back to Iraq and conducting operations for another year. There is no possible way I could do my duty in a normal manner, I am just having too many problems that will diminish my capacity in the field.


I am all messed up in the head and I am suffering from depression and other mental problems. I don't think I am fit to serve combat duty, but I could manage to do a non-combat job, because I have been doing all right for the last year. I can do my job as long as I am not involved with combat or high-risk operations. I think it would be a mistake on the part of the Army to expect other men to serve with me when they know I have reported my problems too many times to count. They hear it but they don't really want to listen to it.


[...]I was in one of the 1043s that got hit and even the supplemental armor was not going to stop that 155mm round. We got hit bad and our driver was killed instantly. The guy riding shotgun lost his eye and parts of his hands and feet, and got torso wounds that almost killed him right there. I got a few chunks of shrapnel in my face and hands, but I was real lucky to be behind the doorpost, which absorbed most of the blast. The other two guys in the vehicle didn't get hurt at all just shaken up.
AIRBORNE!

I would like to know what is the written policy about repeated tours of duty. Are wounded men routinely sent back to battle? Are men with significant PTSD symptoms routinely sent back? This man clearly has experienced the kind of trauma that will scar him for life. And they send him back?

I can't get the Army to admit that I have a disabling amount of PTSD and it has been very hard to get counseling or any treatment for it.


I am not to sure about writing to you, but I'll take a chance. What can they do, send me back to Iraq? I am going again so there's nothing they can really do to me. It's just my family I am worried about. I can deal with the heat if they find out about me, but my family can't get hurt. I need the housing benefits and the family benefits we get because I am serving this country.


The problem is those who speak up are harshly punished for it and pay the price for speaking up. We get in trouble while the ones who made us this way carry on as if nothing ever happened. I have seen that first hand and have been in trouble already for criticizing Bush and the Pentagon's civilian assholes. I know of some guys who wrote home and told the truth. They got so much sh_t that I don't think they wrote anything else the whole time in Iraq.


I can't relate to anyone that isn't in the military. Everything I think about brings back the horrors of Iraq. Things were so much clearer there; you didn't have to think about it, you just did what needed to be done. Now I have to think about things all the time, and it is simple stuff but I can't do it. My thought patterns are all f__ked up.


I am scared because I have a three month old daughter, and I don't know if I'll be coming back to see her. I have two sons and they are both under 10. My sons watched me leave once, now they will have to go through another year or more separated from their dad. My wife was almost ready to divorce me before I knew I had to redeploy.


This is hurting my family because I have to leave again and they worry about me all the time. I haven't been able to talk to my kids the right way. I have pushed them away so that they didn't see all the pain and sh_t I was going though. I didn't think I was going back, so I just knew I had plenty of time to get my sh_t straight, and then deal with my kids.


Now I don't have that chance because I just didn't get things accomplished like I thought I would. If I die over there then all this shit will be unresolved and be forever part of what they remember about their daddy. I don't want them to remember me as the f__ked up man who came home for a year and was yelling and freaking out all the time. I don't want them to remember me that way, as just coming home and then leaving again and not coming back.


When I was over there I was always waiting for the next I.E.D or attack. I still expect to be attacked every time I walk outside or drive around in the car. I am always ready to jump out and take cover or to react with evasive moves with the car. I scared the sh_t out of my wife so much that I don't drive unless I am going somewhere alone.


I am drinking heavily and taking enough pills to kill Elvis. I just can't sleep unless I have passed out, and even then I wake up most of the time screaming and yelling or jumping out of bed and trying to hide under it.


[...]When I was in Iraq the attacks and expectation of dying were what I probably had the most trouble with. I was in several attacks and survived a few roadside bombs and IEDs. I almost died in one attack I have to tell you about.


I was in a cargo truck that got attacked by insurgents. We were in a supply convoy and were almost to our FOB when they jumped us. We never saw it coming and I can't remember all the details even now. They hit the back of my truck with an RPG and then opened fire on us with AKs.


When the RPG hit us it knocked me out for a few minutes. I was half awake and going in and out of consciousness but I was still aware of all the shit going on around me. I heard the bullets hitting the cab of the truck and felt the shrapnel and fragments hitting all over my body. Before I fully awoke, I heard another couple gunshots and figured that he got my driver as well. I came to and saw the f__kers shooting my driver, who had tried to pull himself out of the cab and return fire.


They killed three of us that day and wounded four more. I still wake up screaming and covered in sweat when I have that dream. I saw several more soldiers get killed after that, but it wasn't the same because I was able to shoot back at the assholes. That one attack was the hardest thing I went through over there because I was helpless the whole time they were attacking us.


Wish me luck and pray for me to come home safe,
WAR SUCKS WHEN IT HAS NO CAUSE OR ENDING!


GOD BLESS AMERICA
OOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! AIRBORNE!!!!!!!!

This man has all the symptoms of PTSD. Neither one of these soldiers are fit for duty. This is the reason Murtha and van Creveld have called for withdrawl. The Bush Administration is destroying our Army and Marine Corps for a political boondoggle.