Soldier's trial has broader implications for military's treatment of mental health

[unhappycamper]

Army Pfc. David Lawrence takes a break from an Article 32 hearing at Fort Carson last month. He is accused of killing a Taliban prisoner.


Soldier's trial has broader implications for military's treatment of mental health
By Kevin Vaughan The Denver Post
Posted: 12/05/2010 12:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 12/05/2010 01:15:57 AM MST

The questions raised in the case against Army Pfc. David Lawrence go far beyond whether he killed a shackled Taliban commander, or even whether he knew what he was doing when he pulled the trigger.

They stretch to the military itself, and how commanders deal with service members who have mental-health problems during a time that the United States is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a time when military men and women are repeatedly deployed in combat zones. During a time when, a recent investigation found, one in six members of the armed forces is taking psychiatric drugs.

Lawrence, who is 20 but looks younger, faces the possibility of the death sentence if convicted of murdering prisoner Mullah Mohebullah ata military compound in Arghandab, Afghanistan.

At a preliminary hearing in the case last week, it was clear that Lawrence's lawyers will try to establish that he was unable to tell right from wrong in the shooting. To do that, they may well put the Army's treatment of the mentally ill on trial.

When he was happy, the grin stretched all the way across David Lawrence's face. Someone called him "Smiley," and it stuck.