Suspect in post office shooting, Iraq Veteran needs mental care

Mother: Suspect in post office shooting needs mental care
12:34 AM, Dec. 7, 2011

Written by
Scott Johnson

"He served tours in Kosovo and Bosnia in addition to his tour in Iraq"

The mother of a man ac­cused of opening fire at Mont­gomery's main post office Thursday evening said her son belongs in psychiatric care, not in the county jail.

Willa L. Darby said her son, Arthur Lee Darby Jr., spent a year serving in Iraq and has since re- ceived regular treat­ment for post- traumatic stress disorder.

Willa Darby said her son was diagnosed with the condition shortly after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005.

Arthur Darby, 29, is charged with two counts of attempted murder and is being held on $1 million bond after being ar­rested Thursday at the post of­fice on Winton Blount Boule­vard.
read more here

Remains of WWII vet being repatriated from Bosnia

Remains of WWII vet being repatriated from Bosnia
By JOHN VANDIVER
Stars and Stripes
Published: September 26, 2011

STUTTGART, Germany — For 67 years, the only people who knew about the presence of the American were the residents of the village in western Bosnia-Herzegovina where he was buried.

In 1944, a resident of the hamlet of Stubica buried Staff Sgt. Meceslaus T. Miaskiewicz, a Massachusetts native who was shot down over the former Yugoslavia, according to U.S. military officials who interviewed local residents.

It had long been assumed that Miaskiewicz’s remains had been collected by the military along with the crash’s other seven victims soon after the war, but U.S. military members learned this summer that was not the case. Somehow, Miaskiewicz was left behind.

On Tuesday, Miaskiewicz’s flag-draped coffin will be loaded onto a U.S. C-130 in Sarajevo, the first leg of a journey home to relatives in Massachusetts. After a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, his coffin will be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where he will receive the same honor guard reception as troops killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
read more here

For A Navy SEAL, Balance Between 'Heart' And 'Fist'

For A Navy SEAL, Balance Between 'Heart' And 'Fist'
by NPR STAFF

June 11, 2011
Eric Greitens was a gifted young college student when a question from a Bosnian woman changed his life. It was the summer of 1994, and he had gone to the Balkans to work in refugee camps. He was on a train when he met her, and she asked him, "Why isn't America doing anything to stop the ethnic cleansings, rapes and murders?" Greitens thought he was.

"I felt like I was really making a difference," Greitens tells NPR's Scott Simon, "but when I got to Bosnia, it was clear that her question was a question that was on everybody's mind. I remember there was a guy in one of the camps who told me, 'Don't misunderstand me. We appreciate the shelter that's here for my family and I appreciate that there's food available and there's a kindergarten that's here, but if people really cared about us, they would be willing to protect us.' And I realized later that what he said was true. Whenever we love or care for anything in our lives we're willing to respond with care and with compassion, but if something that we love or someone we love is threatened, we're also willing to respond with courage."

Since that encounter, Greitens has gone on to do humanitarian work in Rwanda and Gaza, among other locations, and earned a doctorate as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. After his studies, Greitens became a U.S. Navy SEAL, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and founded a group called The Mission Continues, which works with wounded or disabled war veterans to contribute to their communities at home. In a new book, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, Greitens makes the case that humanitarianism and military missions need each other.
read more here

Balance Between Heart And Fist

UK War hero sues police force after they wrongly brand him a paedophile

There can't be enough money to make up for what this additional stress did to this man when he already had PTSD from serving his country in Bosnia.

War hero sues police force after they wrongly brand him a paedophile
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
A war hero with post-traumatic stress disorder is suing a police force for tens of thousands of pounds after they wrongly branded him a paedophile.

Devastated Michael Bennett, 35, suffered vigilante attacks and was banned from seeing his girlfriend's three young children.

Mr Bennett, a Royal Artillery gunner and soldier for nine years, suffered a breakdown after witnessing horrific atrocities while serving in Bosnia.

But his life went from bad to worse when blundering cops got him mixed up with another genuine sex offender living near his home in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

Warwickshire Police reported him to social services after they received a malicious phone call from a man who claimed Mr Bennett was a paedophile.

Shockingly, officers did not carry out any checks before reporting the innocent man, who now works as a lorry driver, to the authorities last summer.


Read more:
War hero sues police force

North Wales man tells of post traumatic stress from warzone

North Wales man tells of post traumatic stress from warzone
Sep 21 2009 by Eryl Crump, Daily Post


THE horrors of war are a recurring nightmare for Thomas Rowlands

The 37-year-old from Anglesey saw active service in Northern Ireland and Bosnia during his seven-year spell with the First battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Medically discharged from the Army he says he is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and has had no help at all to cope with the condition. But now he is one of the first to receive support he needs from a new Gwynedd-based organisation called Pathways.

He told the Daily Post: “It was Bosnia which ended my Army days. I saw children blown up while I looked on helpless to do anything.

“Youngsters of three and four years old begging me and my mates for food from our ration packs.

“Then we return from the war zone and the Army says there is nothing wrong with me.”

He says since returning to Wales he has had difficulty coping with normal, everyday life.

“I can’t sleep and can’t hold a job down. I’ve had more than 25 jobs in all.
read more here
North Wales man tells of post traumatic stress from warzone

'Forgive me' begged Iraq War veteran

'Forgive me' begged Iraq War veteran, Brandon Connelly, arrested in fatal FDR DWI wreck
BY Melissa Grace
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, June 6th 2009, 4:00 AM

An Iraq War veteran busted on manslaughter and drunken driving charges begged for forgiveness after the tragic three-car pile up on the FDR, it was revealed Friday.

"I did that. Oh, my God, I did that," Brandon Connelly, 32, cried as a cop told him at Bellevue Hospital shortly after the May 30 crash that he'd killed Jamil Aljabal, prosecutors said.

The former Marine, who served in Bosnia and did two tours in Iraq, faces up to 15 years in prison, if convicted.
go here for more
Forgive me begged Iraq War veteran

PTSD On Trial:Former Army Captain Sargentt Binkley

A couple of things to think about when reading more and watching the video.

Binkley is a West Point Grad. No small task.
He's a combat veteran having served in Bosnia and Honduras, decorated for his service and came home at a time when no one was talking about PTSD. (Ok, aside from a very few that have been at this all along.) The military did not diagnose PTSD. They had him on painkillers. That is what he decided to take from the pharmacy, painkillers. He should not go free or have a get out of jail free card, but there needs to be every aspect taken into account. Does he really have PTSD? Then that needs to be discovered and what level it is because that does change the way people think. Next, if he does have PTSD, then he should be put into treatment programs and have to help accountable for going to them. That's what they do in Veteran's Count. Jail for a man who was not only willing to lay down his life for his country, decorated for doing what he did, becoming wounded on top of that, is not the kind of person to toss into jail. There has to be accountability for the victims, as with all of these cases, because they were innocent bystanders paying the price for yet one more veteran we did not take care of. That's my two cents on this.

Former Army Captain charged with robbery
Former Army Captain charged with robbery
Monday, December 08, 2008 7:24 PM
By Vic Lee
SAN JOSE, CA (KGO) -- A West Point graduate who became a decorated Army Captain is now on trial in San Jose.

He's charged with armed robbery, but his lawyer says his client suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and should not be held responsible for his actions.

Former Army Captain Sargentt Binkley looked fit and healthy on the opening day of his trial for armed robbery. He has been in a court-approved rehab program for a year.
click link above for more

DYING DOESN'T STOP AFTER WAR

DYING DOESN'T STOP AFTER WAR

Many of the troops in Iraq have been drawn from the TA
History recounts the awful cost of war - the dead, the maimed and the destruction. But we are now learning more of a hidden cost that often only shows itself when soldiers return home. Battlefield trauma can come with a heavy price.

Peter Mahoney was a long distance lorry driver. He enjoyed his job, his family and friends.

He was, as his wife Donna says, "a loving father and a loving husband".

But he was also dedicated in his commitment to the Territorial Army (TA) as a specialist truck driver.

With the TA comprising a quarter of the British Army, he was always on the call-up list to join front-line actions with his regular army colleagues.

In 2003, his call up came for action in Iraq.

He already had experience of active service with the TA in Bosnia, so his family and he were aware of the implications.

But in August 2004, he died.

He was immaculately turned out in his army uniform - smart as he always was.

But he didn't die on the front line in Iraq. He died in his car, in his garage.
go here for more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northeast/series6/ptsd.shtml

PTSD Netherlands, After the Battle

After the battle
Radio Netherlands - Netherlands
After the battle
Soldiers dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
by Chris Chambers
25-07-2008
Ex-sergeant marine Peter Bercx's life is improving. He has a stable job and is studying for a qualification in business management. But it hasn't always been like that. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) came close to destroying him. He tells his story of guns, drugs and psychiatrists.

Peter Bercx Peter Bercx is a big man. You wouldn't want to mess with his hundred-kilo frame. In his current job as a conflict trouble-shooter for a bus company you can easily imagine that he can stop a fight just with his stare. Peter was one of the elite in the Dutch army, a marine with commando training and the right to wear the prestigious green beret. His military career began in 1981 and he was sent as part of a peacekeeping force to Cambodia and Bosnia. The mental problems started then and have continued ever since.
Black-outs
His career ended after one of his ‘black-outs'. He went berserk after seeing one of his colleagues as a potential enemy, slashing his own chest and slamming the knife into the barrack door. The next morning he remembered nothing but he was chucked out of the military. Then began the meetings with psychiatrists and the long road towards stability."Now that I control [PTSD] with medication and think about what I'm doing, I avoid certain people and alcohol. It's a way of life, because I'm getting almost close to accepting that I'm sick. When you step on a mine you loose your leg or your arm.
It's harsh, but with a mental illness people don't see that and when you're a marine you're meant to be a tough person and it's very difficult to live up to that." People started to avoid me. They saw a different Peter. Only my closest friends are still present. People didn't understand, which was also my failure because I didn't talk about it. But why should I talk to civilians, why would they have to understand my problems?"
click above to listen

Canada:Suicidal veterans on own if they leave military

Suicidal veterans on own if they leave military
Published Monday July 14th, 2008

OTTAWA - In the five years Fred Doucette has worked in the military's peer support program in New Brunswick, he has known 10 soldiers who have been admitted to hospital in Fredericton or Charlottetown after becoming suicidal.

Some tried to kill themselves. Others talked about doing it. They all survived.

But only two of them would have shown up in statistics kept by the Department of National Defence.

The other eight were no longer with the Canadian Forces by the time their mental health deteriorated that badly.

Earlier this spring, DND issued a background document on suicide in the Forces.

It highlighted the fact that suicide rates among Forces personnel have been declining for the past 12 years and are lower than those among the overall Canadian population.

That's accurate, said Doucette, "but they don't track the guys once they're out.

"When I think of my guys, some were only out of the military a couple of months before they tried."

Doucette is a former infantry captain who was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing atrocities in Bosnia in the 1990s.

He left the military on a medical release in 2002 after 32 years in uniform.
go here for more
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/353366

PTSD:A soldier's story: Fred Doucette

A soldier's story: Fred Doucette's Bosnian war experience helped him to help others
By Kate Malloy
Fred Doucette runs a DND peer support group for soldiers with PTSD.

When Canadian soldier Fred Doucette returned from Bosnia where he had served as a UN peacekeeper in 1995, he was so full of rage that when he finally tried to get some psychiatric help, he felt like ripping out the heart of a military social worker and "shitting in the hole."

A seasoned soldier, Mr. Doucette had been with the UN peacekeeping forces in Cyprus in the 1970s and 1980s. But as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia he was on a "transition mission" and one he says was so horrible he could never have imagined it. As a member of the UN Protection Force, he was under narrow UN orders to help maintain a peace between the warring Bosnian Serb forces from the army of the former Yugoslavia and Bosnia's Muslims and Croats.

But mostly, he says members of the force felt helpless or like "eunuchs in a whorehouse."

"There were things going on there that hadn't been seen since the Second World War, the ethnic cleansing, the atrocities, the rape camps, the concentration camps, it looked like Auschwitz. There were things that were going on and it was just overwhelming to see how they were treating each other," says Mr. Doucette in a recent interview with The Hill Times.

In 2001, Mr. Doucette was diagnosed with severe, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, and told he could be treated with medical help and psychotherapy after his years of buried rage, nightmares, flashbacks of violence and trauma. He was medically released from the military in 2002.

Today, he works with the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs Operational Stress Injury Social Support program. He runs peer support groups in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and helps members of the Canadian Forces who have operational stress injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to Veterans Affairs Canada's numbers, reported by The Canadian Press, the number of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress has more than tripled since Canada first deployed troops to Afghanistan, and of the 10,252 relatively young male and female veterans with a psychiatric condition, 63 per cent have a post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Operational Stress Injury Social Support group indicates 80 per cent of the operational stress injury casualties are in the Army and 80 per cent of those are from the war in Bosnia. It's estimated 20 per cent of the Canadian Forces have post-traumatic stress disorder today, but the Department of National Defence has not officially released its numbers.
click post title for more

UK Veteran loses post-traumatic stress disorder claim

Ex-soldier loses post-traumatic stress disorder claim
A former soldier from Kidderminster who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Northern Ireland and Bosnia has lost his battle for damages.


Stephen Hibbert, now 40, had sued the Ministry of Defence for "substantial" compensation in a contested action at the High Court in London over an alleged failure to diagnose his condition in the early 1990s until it was too late to treat.

But on Wednesday Mr Justice Owen, the judge who heard the case, dismissed his claim and said: "One cannot but have the greatest sympathy for the claimant who loyally served his country, earning respect for his determination, enthusiasm and leadership on operational tours of duty in Northern Ireland and Bosnia.

"He is now suffering from a severely disabling psychiatric condition for which the prognosis is very poor. But sadly he is the victim of the stresses to which serving soldiers on operational tours of duty can be exposed, not to any culpable want of care on the part of the defendant (MoD). His claim must be dismissed."

Mr Hibbert's case was that in May 1994 an Army consultant psychiatrist failed to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition deteriorated and became "entrenched", said Mr Mansfield, so that by the time he was diagnosed in the autumn of 1996 he was "beyond treatment".
click above for more

UK PTSD: David Bradly 4 life sentences for killing family

Gulf War veteran gets life for executing family

Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom

By Paul Stokes
Last Updated: 7:43pm BST 09/04/2008



A former soldier who executed four members of his family with a smuggled handgun has been jailed for at least 15 years.

David Bradley, 43, shot his uncle, aunt and two cousins with the silenced 7.65mm pistol he obtained from a Croat in return for a pack of cigarettes while serving in Bosnia.


Bradley was taken in by his victims at 17

He was said to have been left mentally ill as a result of serving during the troubles in Northern Ireland.

Bradley, who became a cannabis-smoking loner, will only be transferred to prison once doctors deem him sane enough to leave a top security mental hospital.

A judge imposed four life sentences today before the Home Secretary ordered Bradley be detained at Rampton for indefinite treatment.

The severity of his illness means it may never be safe for him to be released.

Bradley, a bachelor, was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder when carried out the five-hour killing spree at the family home 21 months ago.

He was said to have been plagued by nightmares and flashbacks of atrocities he witnessed while serving as a private with a Royal Artillery unit in Ulster.

Paul Sloan QC told Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court, he was exposed to then common-place shootings and bombings during a tour of duty.



He said: “He was the target of bricks and stones thrown by rioters. On one occasion a grenade was thrown at his squad but failed to explode.

"He witnessed the gruesome mutilation of a rioter when a bomb exploded in hand before it was thrown. And later in Bosnia he came under fire.”

Bradley never told military authorities about his problems but found himself living in constant fear, unable to sleep and resorting to solo binge-drinking and smoking cannabis to relax.

He was discharged from the Army in 1995 with an exemplary record but was unable to find a job.

He sought medical help but failed to take prescribed drugs.

Christian McEachern crashing through PTSD walls

Former city soldier plans wilderness centre to battle PTSD
By GLENN KAUTH, Sun Media


Christian McEachern, a former member of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry who left the military in 2001. (Supplied photo)

A former Edmonton soldier – once so distressed he crashed an SUV into a garrison building – is the driving force behind plans for a new wilderness centre dedicated to helping fellow post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers battle their demons.

“It’s going to be geared towards using an adventure-therapy concept with the veterans,” said Christian McEachern, a former member of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry who left the military in 2001.

Earlier that year, McEachern drew attention to the issue of PTSD when he crashed the vehicle through the Edmonton Garrison headquarters. At the time, he lashed out at the military for doing too little to help soldiers with the disorder, which he had suffered from for years following service in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Since leaving the military, McEachern, 37, has been living in his hometown of Calgary. Now, after finishing a degree in ecotourism and outdoor leadership, his goal is to apply that knowledge to help his successors in the army by setting up an adventure centre in the mountains nearby.
go here for the rest
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2008/03/24/5090881.html

PTSD:Service in Bosnia took a toll

Service in Bosnia took a toll
Now, Fred Doucette helps others with stress disorder
PAUL GESSELL, Freelance; Ottawa Citizen Published

The first disturbing flashback came in the King of Donair restaurant on King St. in Fredericton. Capt. Fred Doucette was feeling tired and miserable, just as he had most every day since returning home July 7, 1996, from a year-long tour of duty as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia. He closed his eyes for a moment. Suddenly, Doucette was no longer in the fast-food outlet, but back in time many months, in the doorway of a building in the UN Protected Area of Gorazde, "a small island of humanity" surrounded by the Bosnian-Serb Republic of Srpska.

"I can smell the wood smoke, the burning garbage and the sour, overpowering smell of urine and excrement," Doucette would write later of his hallucination on King St.

"My body contracts, my muscles tense in fear of being in a very dangerous place." Doucette was not aware he was experiencing a flashback. He truly believed, while in the grip of the hallucination, that he was back in war-ravaged Bosnia.

"There is the burnt-out tank, the pharmacy with its front covered by logs and a dirty Red Cross flag draped over them in an attempt to play on the humanity of the Serbs who have surrounded the town. I am afraid and terrified. What am I doing here?"

Suddenly, someone entered the King of Donair and banged the door. Doucette snapped out of the flashback. He staggered onto King St., dazed and confused about what had just happened to him.

"The only thing I know for certain is that I will tell no one," he thought at the time. "Only crazy people can travel into the past." Doucette did not know it then, but he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was not diagnosed and treated for this mental illness until 2001. The disorder was simply a taboo subject in many military circles. Today, Doucette is no longer in the Forces and no longer shy about discussing his illness. In fact, he has written a book about his experiences, Empty Casing: A Soldier's Memoir of Sarajevo Under Siege. Retired general Roméo Dallaire, Canada's most famous soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder, wrote the foreword. Doucette has become experienced discussing what used to be called "battle fatigue," "shell shock" or other, far more pejorative terms. Now, based at Lincoln, N.B., near CFB Gagetown, he has spent the past five years working with the government-funded Operational Stress Injury

go here for the rest
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/books/story.html?id=7dd1f5a7-8a88-45e5-846b-1a7f7c3131e6

When I did the video, Wounded And Waiting, I used the same terms about what they go through during combat and what comes after with a flashback when it all comes back to life. If you want to know what it' like, go to the side bar in the video section and watch Wounded And Waiting.

Empty Casing, Testament of a soldier with PTSD

Testament of 'an honest man and a soldier'
PATRICK RENGGER

March 1, 2008

EMPTY CASING

By Fred Doucette

Douglas & McIntyre,

256 pages, $34.95

It has been said with some truth that in war there are no unwounded soldiers. Yet the nature of those wounds, particularly the psychological ones, and their effect on the lives of the men (and increasingly, the women) involved are as different and multitudinous as the individuals.

Whether you call it battle fatigue, shell shock, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) or OSI (operational stress injury), the mental trauma that can occur in conflict areas is still barely understood. It is often governed, particularly in the military, by ignorance and hidden by a culture of macho denial. Why some are affected, while others remain apparently uninjured, by the same circumstances remains largely a mystery. In Empty Casing, Fred Doucette tells the story of one soldier, Doucette himself, who rises through the ranks of the Canadian army until, faced with the extraordinary stresses and particular viciousness of the Bosnian conflict, he finally succumbs to mental injury and is ultimately medically discharged from the army.

The story Doucette tells is, in many ways, a quite ordinary soldier's tale, filled with the small struggles and triumphs of life in the military and family life, and the business and boredom of professional soldiering. And yet, its very ordinariness is partly what makes it compelling. When Doucette is finally posted to Bosnia as a United Nations Monitoring Officer, everything changes. In Bosnia, Doucette is sent to Sarajevo in the midst of the siege, a posting that Doucette, whose previous UN tours of Cyprus were his only experience of war, didn't really want. He comforts himself with the thought that it couldn't be that bad, adding, "I could not figure out why all the military observers who had been 'in country' kept wishing me luck."
go here for the rest

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4742487410373715914

6 Tours in Northern Ireland and 2 in Bosnia Vet and family suffer

Ex-soldier assaulted wife
Feb 7 2008 by Andrew Pugh, Neath Guardian

A FORMER soldier used as a human shield after being taken hostage by Bosnian troops has pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife and police.

It is the second time that 41-year-old David Storey has pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife in the last five months.

He is also being investigated over allegations he assaulted his daughter last year.

His wife, Helen, of Moorland Road, has now started divorce proceedings.

In a statement read to the court she said: “The last few years have been hell for me and my daughter. I just want a quiet life.”

Storey, now residing at his brother’s home in Port Talbot, received two commendations for bravery during his 23 years of Army service.

He has served six tours in Northern Ireland and two in Bosnia.

The court heard that he began displaying classic symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and was diagnosed with the illness toward the end of last year.

In August, Storey pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife at their home, leaving her with cuts and bruises around one eye.

In the latest incident at 1.20pm on January 29, police were called to Moorland Road.

They arrived to find Ms Storey standing in the street outside her home.

The couple were arguing when she opened the door and demanded he leave – but he instead threw her out and locked the door.

After they arrived police could hear banging from inside the house and found Storey had barricaded himself in.

They eventually got inside the house and a struggle broke out.

Storey wrestled one of the officers to the ground and threw a punch which didn’t connect.

At this point neighbours had began gathering outside before he was eventually arrested.

Stephen Harrett, defending, said, : “If you look at the defendant’s record you can see has not committed an offence until 2007.

“Quite clearly there’s a difficulty causing him to offend”.

Mr Harrett went on to describe how Storey was diagnoed with post traumatic stress disorder towards the end of last year.

Magistrates adjourned the case until February to allow an all-options report to be prepared.
click post title for link