The Army dropped legal actions against Staff Sergeant Georg-Andreas Pogany who was arrested and charged with cowardice in Iraq last year when he had a panic attack upon seeing a dead body. The charges were apparently dropped because an Army malaria drug made Pogany sick. This according to a report by UPI. He is one of 11 service members diagnosed in the past few weeks with damage to the brainstem and vestibular, or balance, system after being given mefloquine while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. A number of soldiers from Pogany's base in Fort Carson, Colorado say the drug caused severe mental and physical problems -- including suicidal feelings and homicidal rage. The Army developed mefloquine, also known as Lariam, in the 1970s and it was cleared for use in the United States in 1989. It has been taken by 5 million Americans.
I looked into this a bit when I prepared to go to Mali in 2000. The incidence of severe side effects is higher in women, by something like 3 or 4 to one, if memory serves.
I noted that the cowardice charge can be punishable by death, which reminded me of the actual focus of the New Yorker article to which I linked yesterday:
"In 1947, in a slim volume entitled 'Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War,' S.L.A. Marshall took the military by surprise. Throughout the war, he declared, only about fifteen per cent of American riflemen in combat had fired at the enemy. One lieutenant colonel complained to Marshall that four days after the desperate struggle on Omaha Beach he couldn't get one man in 25 to voluntarily fire his rifle. 'I walked up and down the line yelling, "God damn it! Start shooting!" But it did little good.'
"These men weren't cowards. They would hold their positions and willingly perform such tasks as delivering ammunition to machine guns. They simply couldn't bring themselves to aim a rifle at another human being -- even an armed foe -- and pull the trigger. 'Fear of killing, rather than fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure in the individual,' Marshall wrote. 'At the vital point, he becomes a conscientious objector.'"
Post a Comment