You'd think they'd be a bit more anxious to 'support the troops' and get them out of there before they experience the same symptoms, wouldn't ya. :eyes: :puke:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/19/AR2007061901907.html?nav=rss_worldStress Taking Toll on Foreign Service
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 20, 2007; Page A17
At least 40 percent of State Department diplomats who have served in danger zones suffer some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Steven Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, said in congressional testimony yesterday.
Troubling medical and psychiatric symptoms have become a growing problem for Foreign Service personnel in recent years, particularly among those exposed to deadly violence in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where diplomats often work and live among U.S. troops, Kashkett told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.
Unlike members of the military, however, diplomats are not well equipped for war environments. Most get only a two-week anti-terrorism course as preparation.
"Foreign Service officers, while accustomed to serving their country overseas under extremely difficult conditions, are not soldiers and are not trained for combat," Kashkett told the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. "Yet in Iraq, they are often directly exposed to conditions of war
which they may not always be well adapted to cope." Some 2,000 diplomats have volunteered to serve in Iraq since 2003, he said.
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