Iraq battle stress worse than WWII – Sunday Times – Times Online Kind of a depressing story in the Sunday London Times.
SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.
The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.
The revelations follow the collapse last week of the court martial of seven paratroopers accused of murdering an Iraqi who died near al- Amarah just after the war and amid signs of a dramatic drop in morale among frontline infantry soldiers.
DUH! The main function of a soldier is to kill the enemy, all those other functions are just ornaments to justify the expenses.
Is that a testiment to the importance of psychological affirmation by those important to one, or a statement about how both sides are similarly bruital?
Hey- shooting someone is ok as long as it ‘s the right someone.
i would have thought battle stress would have been much worse in vietnam than ww2. reason being that when soldiers realise that the war they’re fighting is nothing, their morale faulters. i’m not suprised that the soldiers have so much stress from this war
go here for the joke by george carlin that deals with the changing of a simple phrase “SHELL SHOCK”
http://www.iceboxman.com/carlin/pael.php#track14
second paragraph down
Beautiful. A modern day Catch 22 without Heller’s input.
This is why it is even more important to let the troops know we care about them and that they’re important. Even if you disagree with the war ( I do) you can’t fault the sacrifice of the men who are forced to fight it.
Second – its a even better reason to end this farce and bring ’em home.
Next time we need to fight a war let’s just nuke the place… and save soldiers the stress of it all.
There’s some logic the extremes of both wings can agree on.
Instead of Nukes can’t we just not elect anymore Idiots to the White House?