Soldier's invisible war: Iraq vet charged with attempted murder

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CNN

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- Army Spc. Thomas Delgado saved lives as a combat medic on the front lines in Iraq, earning a Purple Heart when a bomb rocked his vehicle during his nearly yearlong tour. Back home, he was sometimes assigned the role of insurgent during combat training at a mock Iraqi village in California.

"He told me he felt like he never left" Iraq, said his wife, Shayla.

Soon after his return in December 2005, Delgado realized something many war veterans fail to recognize. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress and needed help. He complained of "fear of losing self control," "feelings of hopelessness" and "paranoia," medical records show.

The 25-year-old soldier is now at the center of a controversial attempted murder case, charged with trying to kill his wife in September 2008. She says prosecutors have it all wrong. Her husband of five years needs medical help, not prison. And, she says, he never tried to kill her.

Delgado's case may become one of the first to be heard at a soon-to-be-opened special veterans' trauma court in Colorado, if the family gets its way. The court was created to get professional medical care for military veterans suffering from trauma-related disorders who are accused of crimes. An estimated 20 percent of Iraq war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/06/accused.soldier.ptsd/index.html

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

1. Good post. Hope he gets the help he needs.

[winyanstaz]

2. I am sure they are feeling the same as a lot of vietnam vets when they came home

to find out they had been lied to by their government and some now look at them as the "bad guys" when all they were trying to do was serve their country, just like it happened to the vets of nam.
To top it off, there are no jobs for many and no foreseeable future for a lot of Americans and vets now.
Not only all that stress but the terrible mind numbing stress of dealing with the crap of the daily news that has us all on edge.
They are also dealing with a lack of prompt medical care, their families falling apart because they cannot provide for them and no one wanting to talk about what went on in Iraq.
These men and women need help and they need someone to listen.
I have some help for them and this is the fact of how things really are.
Please take this to heart America's soldiers and think long and hard on this. We DO need you. We need you desperately here at home and we need you now.
We need your skills and your courage and we need you to come home and help us restore our nation and the constitution. We need you to help us keep martial law out of our cities and homes. We need you to defend us here at home.
We cant pay you except with respect..but we sure as hell can follow you.
You are our sons and daughters, our fathers and mothers, our aunts and uncles and we need you and we love you. Come home.

[BB1]

3. Somebody needs to take care of these people.

They deserve help for being fucked up in Iraq. PTSS is not like the flu; it doesn't go away after a couple of days in bed with some aspirin.
I don't know about Vietnam veterans, but here we have Libanon vets from the early 80's. They were told about PTSS with American war veterans, so Europeans couldn't get that - it was an American disease.
In an interview I did with one of those guys, he told me he had been patrolling the streets of his city for over six years (out of bed at one, back in bed by five) before anyone noticed! The first time he attended a shrink he tried to throw him out of a three story window.
Now he lives in a trailerpark, not able to work. What stings most, he says, is the lack of a single apology by the government. "Just one single letter, saying 'We fucked up, we're sorry,' that would be enough. I'd frame it and hang it over the tv."