Trauma of Iraq too real for vets

That could be a good thing. Every veteran who is treated at the hospital is now screened for PTSD, said Kathy Shaffer Mahood, a program leader in the hospital's behavioral-health department.

"We've gotten a lot better at catching them," Mahood said.

Trauma of Iraq too real for vets
BY ROBB FREDERICK robb.frederick@timesnews.com

The Vietnam War ended with a pen stroke on Jan. 27, 1973.

Not everyone got the message.

Many of the men and women who fought there, and who saw Americans die -- by the end, that figure climbed to 58,000 -- never quite left it behind."It's there every day," said Robert Johnson, who worked a door gun on a Marine Corps helicopter. "It's always been there. It's been there every day for a lot of years."And now, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, even more of it comes back. The number of disability cases related to post-traumatic stress disorder has doubled since 2000, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The biggest spike came in 2003, when the Army's 3rd Infantry Division charged into Baghdad."It's always in the air," said Robert Martin, a team leader at the Veterans Affairs Readjustment Counseling Service in Erie. "There's so much media coverage. And some of our Vietnam veterans can't help but watch it. They have kids in the reserves, or in the active service. They need to know what's going on. They need to know where we stand with this conflict.

click post title for the rest

O'Reilly's stance on homeless vets poses questions

O'Reilly's stance on homeless vets poses questions
Tom Hennessy, Staff columnist
Article Launched: 01/26/2008 10:07:45 PM PST


O Reilly Critics of radio and TV commentator Bill O'Reilly find him brash, full of himself and, at times, given to outlandish statements.

Fans see him as super patriotic, unerringly correct, and a champion of the average American.

Whichever view you have of O'Reilly, if either, you may concede he is a flamboyant opinion-molder who does not shy away from publicity, which is precisely what he got earlier this month when he took on one of his current villains, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. The former North Carolina senator had said this:

"Tonight, 200,000 men and women who wore our uniform proudly and served this country courageously as veterans will go to sleep under bridges and on grates."
go here for the rest
http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_8090131

O'Reilly has made his living shooting off his mouth on his radio show and on FOX Cable "No Spin Zone" as well as several books, coming off as if he gave a damn about "the little guy" he began "fighting" for. He missed the point that the "little guy" he should have been fighting for should have included our veterans.

You've read stories about homeless veterans here and on line for years. Face it, if you read this blog, you are aware of the huge problem the veterans have been dealing with and are very informed. If you managed to find me since I'm so low below the radar, you have invested a lot of time researching what's going on. I applaud you! You are dedicated to seeking truth and thus will insure changes will be made in the system designed to help the wounded veterans.

As a reader I'm sure you read the comment that broke my heart from the wife of a National Guardsman, wounded and provided with zero disability rating. They are in fact homeless. They lost everything. You must have read about Sonny Iovino who died of hypothermia.

IOWA CITY - Two days before Sonny Iovino died of exposure, he was released by a Veterans Affairs Medical Center doctor and turned away from the Johnson County Jail after police repeatedly found him behaving erratically and shedding his clothes.
You also know there are two hundred thousand other stories just like their's. What you don't know is that there are many, many more. Families like the National Guard family won't be counted as homeless because they found room in a relatives house.

When O'Reilly had the chance to actually fight for the "little guy" he opted to defend Bush and the GOP. God forbid he say anything against what anyone in the GOP was doing. What O'Reilly missed was the fact this goes beyond politics and gets to the heart of what America is becoming. Homeless veterans, wounded veterans with wounds but zero disability or low ratings, are not new and they were not caused by Bush. They began long ago. After Vietnam there were over 300,000 of them. What happened to over 100,000 of them between then and now is a mystery. There are not enough beds, not enough programs and it's doubtful that they all died in a couple of years. This means that O'Reilly attacked the wrong people even from the standpoint of a "loyal Bushie" which Bush himself coined remarking on his supporters.

O'Reilly keeps proving he doesn't care but this is not the most troubling part to me right now. Over and over again the media proves they are behind the times. This piece just came out and a lot has happened between the "they're all drunks" comment he made. He ended up twisting this all around to being about "he's putting his muscle behind the problem" as Col. Hunt decided he would try to shove it down the throats of O'Reilly flocks. There should be other editorials in a week or so about this, so plan on a lot more reading on O'Reilly. He's trying to cover his ass but it's too late.

Homeless veterans had my heart and still do because my own husband almost became one of them. It was during a time when living with a PTSD veteran out of control we too much to take. It was before he began to get help for PTSD even after being diagnosed with it. The only help he received was from a Vet's Center in Boston. Hopelessness drained me of every rational thought and I wanted the suffering over.

I couldn't live with him at that point in our marriage and I wanted him to live someplace else. I tried to get him into a shelter because we couldn't afford anything and were barely able to support what we had. The shelter was full and there was a waiting list. This was in the early 90's! Today I thank God that shelter was full because a few days later, God hit me over the head with a frying pan and changed my mind on ending it. I give God full credit for my marriage surviving all these years. He gave me the strength and patience to get through the worst times in our life together. He began to be helped by the VA and years later, he was living a life again instead of just existing.

I thought, and still do, about the families out there without the knowledge to support them through this. I knew what PTSD was and what came with it and it was nearly impossible to deal with. Their chances of coping are just about zero if they don't have a clue what it is. This is how at least half of the homeless veterans become homeless.

PTSD marriages are no longer marriages and you end up feeling like you are living with a total stranger who can explode at any minute. You live on a roller coaster ride of emotions never knowing what will cause them to respond with unacceptable behavior or take off for days at a time. If you have kids, you become a single parent, feeling as if your kids were just joined by an adopted child who used to be your spouse. Extreme financial problems come when you are usually missing their income because they can't hold down a job. They add to it when they self-medicate drinking and doing drugs, which adds to the stress level. You're sure every time they walk out the door will be their last and you pray to God they don't hurt anyone else. You know you are helpless to stop them. You try to figure out what you could do differently or what you did wrong to cause all of this. Questions evaporate and you replace them with wondering how to end it.

You watch them die inside on a daily basis, weighing the human compassion you have, the love you used to feel for them, against wanting to just get rid of them.

I went through all of this even knowing what I knew. I didn't go through any of this blindly and it was still hell. You'd think it would have been easier since by this time I was an expert on it, but living with it is a total different story.

Families of PTSD veterans and even regular citizens with it, need all the help they can get to become aware of what this is. They need the tools to help them cope. Will it end the homeless veterans or homeless people living on the streets or in shelters? No but it will cut it all down to a level where it will not be impossible to handle. Knowledge will eliminate a good portion of them. Changes in the system will help with the rest.

The wounds of PTSD begin to heal with treatment. They get worse if you don't treat it just as an infection untreated spreads and causes more damage. Treat the wound and save the family. Get them into treatment even if their claim is tied up. Set up support groups for families so that they can have some tools to cope and finally understand they are not alone.

Next is to get rid of the backlog of claims so that the wounded veterans receive some income to keep a roof over their heads and food in their belly. Added financial stress will only add to PTSD. Stop the nonsense of awarding zero disability or low balling it for veterans who cannot work.

Reevaluate the veterans who were discharged under "personality disorders" and given dishonorable discharges. If they are found to be suffering from PTSD then give them the money they should have had if they had been diagnosed properly in the first place. Never mind the BS of claims not being filed on time. The government knows when PTSD problems surfaced because they were discharged from duty for it. If they were really diagnosed properly as having a personality disorder, then the DOD has a bigger problem with the mental health screening they do before they give them weapons.

Educate the public so that no one ever again slaps a stigma like O'Reilly did out of ignorance. They are nothing to be ashamed of. We have only ourselves to be ashamed of for turning our backs on them when they needed us.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

A blog comment that will break your heart about National Guard Family

Post a Comment On: Wounded Times"Veterans in rural areas of nation suffer needlessly"3 Comments - Show Original Post


Comment
Thank you for your blog; it was eloquently put. I thought I was alone dealing with getting help for my husband, medically retired National Guardsman, who is not only suffering with depression but severe pain and unimaginable disability. He has undergone five (5) spinal surgeries over a few years, one of which resulted in his spinal cord being damaged. He was on Active Duty-Title 10.

I wrote to the Governor about fixing the problem. I got a call back from someone at Magigan Army Hospital at Ft. Lewis, WA who gave me a number to call. Well, needless to say this led to about a dozen long distance calls which all led to a string of dead-ends and no mental health care for my husband. Glad that fella at Madigan feels he 'fixed' our problem.

Oh, just in case you were wondering what you get at the end of waiting years for the VA to process your claim (even with LOD form).... it's a 0% rating; collections for thousands of dollars; car repossession; $80,000 owed in back child support; living with your mother-in-law because you can't afford a place; suspended driver's license; AND an ex-wife that doesn't let you talk to your children because you 'have to be lying about being disabled or you would be getting a check... Get a job!'

Oh and so many other perks to being an unrecognized (0% rating) disabled veteran of this war.

Yep... it's an 'Army of One'.

January 26, 2008 7:11 PM


Kathie Costos said...
My profound apologies for what you and your family is going through, especially your husband. I wish I could say you were alone but you have way too much company. This is happening all over the country, and the rest of the world. You'd think we would just be better at dealing with all of it but we are as lousy as the rest of the nations when it comes to taking care of those who defend their nations.

The fact is, we were never very good at it. My husband came back in 1971 from Vietnam with mild PTSD he thought he'd get over. Back then they didn't even really know what it was. It took until 1990 to have him diagnosed, and that was when I already fully understood what was wrong with him, another three years to get him to go to a veterans center, followed by the VA. They tied up his claim for 6 years, taking our tax refund every year to pay for his treatment because our health insurance wouldn't cover it once the VA diagnosed it as combat related PTSD. We almost lost everything as well, but you already did. Things have only gotten worse because now there are a lot more needing care and no one was ready for it. That's the part that pisses me off the most. They knew this was coming but took no action to prepare for any of it. There are now less doctors and nurses than there were after the Gulf War. The VA cut staff and their budget in 2005. The list goes on and so does the suffering. Families like your's are known to people who have been staying on top of it, but to the rest of the country, they haven't a single clue.

I have a suggestion. A few weeks ago, Ed Schultz on Air America was ranting about Bill O'Reilly claiming there were no homeless veterans. A Marine called in saying he was a homeless veteran. This caused a woman in Florida to make some calls within minutes to a chain of her friends, all Marine Moms and they ended up getting help for him all the way in Colorado. This was only the first good part of this story.

It brought to light the suffering the men and women who were willing to serve are going through. I don't know if you're a Democrat or Republican or vote at all, but you are a military wife with a wounded husband and suffering family. Call in his show on Monday and tell him your story as well. The point is, you and your family are homeless. Not as bad off as some families who are in fact sleeping in shelters but without your family standing behind you, you would be one of them sleeping under overpasses. You need to get your story out so that people will be just as outraged as I have been all these years. People care but they only do when they know what's happening. The entire country is united behind those who serve no matter how they feel about Iraq and they will stand behind you. Just tell them you need help and you'll get it. They will put the pressure on your congressman to get you some help or they will step up all by themselves if not. Trust the heart of this nation for you and your family and put this into their hands.

If you need to vent in private email me anytime.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com

January 26, 2008 7:28 PM

Senator Akaka to DOD, nice try but not good enough

Akaka raps military on assessing injuries
The Associated PressPosted : Saturday Jan 26, 2008 14:10:01 EST

HONOLULU — Sen. Daniel Akaka says the military isn’t doing a good job of assessing the health problems of National Guard and Reserve troops suffering “invisible wounds” from service in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Akaka says the Veterans Affairs Committee he chairs hopes to work to ensure that returning troops with either physical or mental problems get the care they need.
Akaka was responding to a Government Accountability Office report on Pentagon post-deployment health assessments of National Guard and Reserve servicemembers.
He pointed to the report’s finding that fewer than half the returning troops examined for either physical or mental health concerns are referred to VA facilities.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/ap_akaka_080126/

TBI It only hurts when you don't look

When you have a cut, often it doesn't hurt until you see the blood. With TBI it hurts until you find out where the pain came from. If you were near a bomb blast, go and get checked out. You have nothing to lose if you were not wounded by it and a lot of lose if you were but did nothing about it.

TBI task force identifies shortfalls in care

Mild injuries need more attention, experts say
By Gina Cavallaro - gcavallaro@militarytimes.com
Posted : Saturday Jan 26, 2008 7:18:53 EST

An Army report on the cause, diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injuries among soldiers and Marines who have been in combat cited a number of gaps in services and care for those suffering TBI.

One in five soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may have suffered mild TBI, the task force estimated, and some may not be aware they need treatment.

“Many of the mild cases are overlooked,” Brig. Gen. Donald Bradshaw, commander of the Southeast Regional Medical Command and chairman of the TBI Task Force, said Jan. 17 at a press conference to release the report.

The task force of 17 medical professionals, writers and researchers from the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force conducted a review of policies governing TBI patient care, including diagnosis, education, research and case management.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/army_TBI.report_080126w/

More than 240,000 deployed received counseling at veterans centers

72,000 American casualties: toll of war on terror
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent January 25 2008

A second request to the Veterans' Administration, the government-funded body responsible for taking care of ex-servicemen and women, showed 263,909 soldiers with experience of the two 21st-century wars have so far received treatment for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the aftermath of amputated limbs.

It also showed 52,375 veterans had been diagnosed with PTSD and 34,138 have received approval for disability claims for the psychological disorder. As of October 31 last year, 1.6 million Americans have been deployed overseas since 2001.

Harvard University estimates the cost of caring for Iraq and Afghan veterans over the next 40 years will amount to between £125bn and £350bn, depending on the long-term effects of trauma.

More than 240,000 of those deployed have received some form of counselling at veterans' centres.

click post title for the rest


What happened to the other 18,237 veterans diagnosed with PTSD but not granted disability? What happens to all the 240,000 other veterans with their claims still tied up in the system like the veterans who had to go to veterans centers for help? You have to assume that none of them are included in on the figure released. It is bad enough there hundreds of thousands of claims tied up in the backlog but when you understand these are not just claims, they are for the most part, wounded veterans waiting for care and for compensation.

Whenever the government releases information, it's usually a good thing to follow up and ask them what happened to the others. The next point to appreciate is that with 240,000 of them going to the veterans centers for help, it is more beneficial to them to ramp up veterans centers all over the country because this is where they want to be.

We need to look back at the data from Vietnam because these are the same numbers that came back from what was considered "combat zones" all through the years. It produced 500,000 diagnosed cases of PTSD by 1978, 300,000 homeless veterans and between 150,000 and 200,000 suicides, Agent Orange illnesses, and that was just the beginning. We are still seeing Gulf War veterans, Vietnam veterans, Korean War veterans along with WWII veterans seeking treatment for PTSD today.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Not Your Average College Students At University of Southern Florida

The Reality of Readjustment
Military.com Christine Gibson, January 25, 2008
Iraq veterans return to civilian life as students at University of South Florida, but find their combat days influencing their college experience

Chaddrick Faison can't watch the news. Watching the news reminds the veteran of his 2004 deployment in Iraq.


Sophomore Sheena Cooper guarded a base camp while in Iraq. With permission from the Oracle.


"I don't want to see stories of soldiers dying," he said.

Faison, along with 776 other students at USF, attends college using Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits, as the Montgomery GI Bill gives veterans grants for their education. Faison, along with other soldiers who have returned from combat abroad, faces challenges adjusting to civilian life, especially life as a college student, and USF offers various services to help them adjust.


http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160767,00.html
Remember what it was like when your kid went off to college. All the problems of being away from home for the first time that went with it, from finding out where the classes were to sleeping with a roommate for the first time in a dorm; navigating laundry from one floor to another only to find their patience needing to be put into use because someone left their clothes to go get a Frappuccino. Most of them have never even done laundry before. The pressures of getting the grades are just part of it.

Now add in coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan. They are used to wearing what everyone else is wearing, eating what everyone else does and being told when to go to sleep and when to wake up. While most of their classmates were transitioning from high school to college life, they were dodging bombs in Baghdad. Carrying books instead of a machine gun and putting on a T-shirt instead of body armor were the furthest thing on their minds but it was what they intended to do once they made it home.

Colleges all across America need to understand they are not your average college student facing the same problems every other student has to adjust to. Some will come back needing not only to adjust to being in strange surroundings but to adjust to being in a place where their life is no longer in danger as well.

It's too late for O'Reilly. He already proved he's a schmuck

Bernie and Jane on Edwards and Letterman Trashing O'Reilly
Friday, January 25, 2008

This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," January 24, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the "Radio Factor!"

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Weekdays with Bernie and Jane" segment tonight, two hot topics. First, the Associated Press and various other news agencies reported yesterday that the Bush administration has lied or had lied hundreds of times in the run-up to the Iraq war. One problem with that: The information came from an organization funded by far-left enthusiastic, George Soros. I'm being nice tonight. But the AP and the other news agency failed to mention that fact.

Also, a couple of nights ago David Letterman and John Edwards pretty much trashed me over the contention that the economy has caused some veterans great harm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN EDWARDS: The core of the feud is that I've been talking about homeless veterans, and the fact that we have a couple hundred thousand homeless veterans that have no place to sleep at night.


It's embarrassing, horribly embarrassing, incredibly embarrassing for America, a huge moral issue facing the country. And he kind of went on the show and said that I was exaggerating, making it up. And I think he got a lot of correspondence, and a lot of homeless veterans have been calling in.

DAVID LETTERMAN: You know what I've noticed about Bill O'Reilly — and he's a marvelous communicator — but he's not — he doesn't really care much about telling the truth.

EDWARDS: Yes, I've noticed that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: Now as we demonstrated last night here on "The Factor," we have the stats to back up that we of course told the truth. But John Edwards did not, and David Letterman doesn't know what it is.

Joining us now from Washington, Jane Hall and from Miami, Bernie Goldberg. Both are FOX News analysts.

All right, Bernie, now does Letterman owe it to his audience to, when he sides with a guy like Edwards and calls me a liar and I don't know what I'm talking about and all of that. And then we produce the evidence that says 150,000 beds available to homeless veterans every night, $37 billion, a record amount of spending, on veteran health care. And the V.A. guy comes on the program and says, "If you're a homeless vet, we will come to you, anywhere, anytime, and help you." That's the truth. So does Letterman owe it to his audience to come on the next night and say, "Gee, you know, I was really unfair to Bill O'Reilly"? Does he owe it?
go here for the rest if you can stand it
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325569,00.html

First the son of a bitch attacks homeless veterans, claiming there aren't any, then he spins it to they're all drunks, drug addicts and mental cases, then he says the "government can't do anything about it" followed by Hunt's claim "he's putting his muscle" to work for the homeless veterans. Bullshit! It's too late for O'Reilly when he's already proven he's a schmuck! He doesn't give a crap about the truth anymore than he cares about our veterans. He doesn't care about facts or where they came from and either he's too uninformed on what information our own government finally admits to, or he's too stupid to understand any of it. Now he has the balls to claim he is the victim of any of this! I still say gather up all the Marines, soldiers, National Guardsmen, Reservists brave enough to do what he wouldn't dare dream of doing and show up at his studio to tell him it's too late to cover his huge ass. It's all on tape!

As for the crap about 150,000 beds, that's bull too.

State
Funded Beds
Homeless Veterans
AK
0
600
AL
42
824
AR
40
850
AZ
199
3,970
CA
1,875
49,724
CO
102
1,203
CT
103
5,000
DC
43
2,500
DE
15
550
FL
430
18,910
GA
165
3,297
HI
118
800
IA
56
547
ID
10
500
IL
136
2,197
IN
108
1,200
KS
47
601
KY
115
425
LA
150
9,950
MA
378
1,700
MD
241
3,300
ME
0
100
MI
139
3,513
MN
23
523
MO
82
3,325
MS
60
1,579
MT
17
232
NC
182
1,659
ND
0
1,000
NE
12
770
NH
36
257
NJ
142
6,500
NM
30
860
NV
201
4,715
NY
274
21,147
OH
261
1,710
OK
27
500
OR
159
5,891
PA
332
2,784
RI
23
175
SC
110
1,375
SD
42
170
TN
241
2,844
TX
233
15,967
UT
145
530
VA
86
870
VT
10
30
WA
167
6,800
WI
209
828
WV
41
347
WY
31
98
PR
12
80
TOTAL
7,700 beds provided!
195,827

http://www.nchv.org/page.cfm?id=81

Iraq war veteran Jeremy Shields Pleads Not Guilty in Hart County Court

Man Pleads Not Guilty in Hart County Court

Posted: 8:36 PM Jan 25, 2008

The father of the man charged in a Hart County murder case says his son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Iraq war veteran Jeremy Shields pleaded not guilty to killing his co-worker 34-year-old Wendy Sue Logsdon Jan. 24 in Hart County District Court.


Police say Shields bludgeoned Logsdon with a hammer at his parents home in Radcliff, then set her body on fire and dumped it along a gravel road in rural Hart County.

Her remains were found Jan. 21 by a hunter.

Police say it appears the pair had little connection aside from working together at a large shoe distribution center in Shepherdsville.

Shields' father says his son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of his tours of duty in Iraq as a convoy escort.
http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/14444487.html

Before you judge there are some things you need to know. First, we should feel terrible for Wendy Sue Logsdon and her family. She didn't deserve a death like this anymore than anyone does. She is a victim and we need to remember that. There are a lot of victims paying the price for having ties to Iraq. Families falling apart because one of their own went to Iraq or Afghanistan only to return with PTSD, drug dependency or abusing alcohol. Drunk driving and causing fatalities. Angry outbursts out of control causing beatings and attacks on friends and strangers. They are all prices of war we never seem to take into account.

When we fail the soldiers coming back, taking care of their wounds, they are not the only ones to suffer. They take a lot of other people into the darkness with them.

When they have a flashback it comes for many reasons. It could be an image they see on TV, a story they read, a certain smell, the sound of a helicopter, stress along with a host of other fire starters. In moments of a flashback, it's like an awake nightmare, virtually not much different than the ones they experience while asleep when they are physically returned to the carnage. By this it is their senses are returned from smelling it again, feeling it again, seeing it as real as when it happened again and again, body on hyper alert and they feel their life is in danger all over again. Anger pumps through them and if a person is so unlucky to be near them at the time, react badly without knowledge, they too become the enemy the warrior once fought. While this type of reaction does not happen all the time, there have been many cases when it does. We need to understand this and provide the right justice in each case.

What we cannot dismiss or ignore is that when we do not take care of all the wounded, they will keep fighting the enemy they see in their mind and that enemy sometimes becomes us.

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Woman found guilty of sex attack on soldier

Woman found guilty of sex attack on soldier
Posted Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:14pm AEDT

Map: Perth 6000
A 21-year-old Perth woman has been found guilty of three charges relating to a sex attack on an Australian soldier two years ago.

A Perth District Court jury deliberated for six hours before finding Nicola Jane Clunies-Ross guilty of depravation of liberty, attempted sexual penetration and assault.

Her trial was told the soldier was assaulted with an object at her East Perth home with the help of another soldier who later killed himself.

Clunies-Ross maintained that she was forced to take part in the assault because the second soldier threatened to kill her.

She is yet to be sentenced.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/25/2147061.htm