Military injustice (Army wreaks vengeance on whistleblower)

[kskiska]

Iraq vet Jullian Goodrum blasted his superiors for misdeeds that he says cost a soldier his life. His reward: The Army he once loved refused to treat his psychological wounds, then charged him with desertion.

Groucho Marx once said that military justice is to justice what military music is to music. Lt. Jullian Goodrum laughs at that quote. "It's crazy," the 35-year-old Army reservist and Iraq vet says about his knock-down, drag-out fight with the Army. It pushed him to the edge, physically, emotionally and financially. "I have to laugh. Otherwise I'd go crazy," he says.

It has been a year and a half since Goodrum, back from Iraq and haunted by suicidal thoughts and flashbacks related to his time there, checked himself into a civilian psychiatric hospital in Knoxville, Tenn., after being turned away from a military hospital. The Army subsequently accused him of desertion, which can mean six years in the military's Fort Leavenworth, Kan., prison. Goodrum fought back, but he had no idea then what he was up against.

On April 1, after he'd been fighting the desertion case for 18 months, the Army found Goodrum innocent of being absent without leave, or AWOL. But the ordeal took a toll. Goodrum's 16-year career in the military is over -- he wants out. "Why would I serve a military that betrayed me?" he asks. He is $40,000 in debt from legal fees, and his relationship with his fiancée has suffered under the stress. The cause of his original hospitalization was post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his war experiences -- a diagnosis confirmed four times, three times by military doctors. But instead of improving, some of his symptoms have worsened as a result of his protracted legal battle.

"Call me anytime, even late at night," Goodrum told me on the phone from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington as I was working on this story. "I don't sleep."

(snip)

His trust in the military has been shattered to the point where he will not let the Army fix a dental filling that has fallen out, operate on painful kidney stones, or conduct a needed liver biopsy. "I will not let them touch me," he says, and that includes the Army's doctors.

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/07/whistleblower/