Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
[<< "Holy Crap."] [Archive Index] [>>"More unintended circumstances"]
11/06/2003 Archived Entry: "This is how we treat people with conscience."
This is how we treat people with conscience.
This sucks.
Not since the Vietnam War has the Army punished a soldier for being too scared to do his duty.But on Friday, Sgt. Georg Andreas Pogany will appear in front of military court here to face charges he was a coward.
The Army says he is guilty of "cowardly conduct as a result of fear" and not performing his duties as an interrogator for a squad of Green Berets in Samarra, Iraq.
But Sergeant Pogany says he did not run from the enemy or disobey orders. The only thing he is guilty of, he says, is asking for help for a panic attack.
On his second night in Iraq, one month ago, Sergeant Pogany, 32, saw an Iraqi cut in half by a machine gun. The sight disturbed him so much, he said, he threw up and shook for hours. His head pounded and his chest hurt.
"I couldn't function," Sergeant Pogany said in an interview on Tuesday in his lawyer's office in Colorado Springs, not far from Fort Carson. "I had this overwhelming sense of my own mortality. I kept looking at that body thinking that could be me two seconds from now."
When he informed his superior that he was having a panic attack and needed to see someone, Sergeant Pogany said he was given two sleeping pills and told to go away. A few days later, Sergeant Pogany was put on a plane and sent home.
Now he faces a possible court-martial. If convicted, the punishment could range from a dock in pay to death. The last cowardice conviction was in 1968 in Vietnam.
Replies: 5 people speak up
Yes, that's what we need to win those hearts and minds in Iraq - armed men with untreated PTSD (sorry, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, AKA shellshock or "cowardice").
The funny thing about PTSD, though, is it isn't political. Someone who's suffering from it and who doesn't go for treatment is just as likely to decide that the enemy is the guy who sells him his groceries or someone who was rude to him.
Brilliant. Fucking briliant.
Posted by julia @ 11/06/2003 09:29 AM NY
Miserable coward! Weakness...in one of our warriors? Sir, I'll have none of it!
Thank the Lord for the Achilles-like martial courage of our warrior elite: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowtiz, Perle, Feith, Fox News, and those fine, fierce, young, double-chinned, soft-skinned "analysts" of the AEI and the Heritage Foundation. This is the stuff of which Homeric legends are forged.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 11/06/2003 09:49 AM NY
Bravo, Metro. Bravo. :)
Posted by Mixer @ 11/06/2003 10:38 AM NY
He could be put to death for his humanity... We can't have our soldiers being human,you know. Whatever happened to the Army psychologist? Do you remember Dr. Sidney on MASH who would always be there when Hawkeye would crack up? How come this guy doesn't at least get a visit from a shrink? He didn't go all red badge of courage and leave his fellow soldiers in a fix. He simply asked for a little counseling to deal with a serious issue. I guess the new army doesn't fix a flat tire on a humvee, they just torch the thing, right?
Posted by MercuryX23 @ 11/06/2003 01:30 PM NY
Folks, this is par for the course in the military. Take it from me. I have seen people ask for help for everything from finances to alcoholism and get treated like shit in return. Most of the time one just learns to shut up and cope, however badly...rather than end up with a page 13 or worse, as this poor guy has discovered.
Posted by Yasmin @ 11/07/2003 12:57 AM NY
