Iraq: 60 British soldiers a month suffer mental illness

The number of soldiers diagnosed with psychiatric problems brought on by the stress of service in Iraq has dramatically escalated since the beginning of the war, according to new figures from the Ministry of Defence.

In 2005, the military authorities were notified of 727 cases of troops with psychiatric disorders brought on by their period in Iraq - an average of 60 each month, or two every day.

The figure is nearly 10 per cent of the total British military presence in Iraq. It includes 66 troops who developed such serious mental problems that they had to be airlifted out for treatment back home.

It is also a sharp increase on official statistics released four months ago, which revealed that 1,333 servicemen had needed treatment in the first two and a half years after the outbreak of the Iraq war, an average of around 40 a month.

These can be added to the total of at least 6,700 British casualties in Iraq, including 113 killed and 4,000 who injured or ill enough to need to be flown out for treatment.


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1018575.ece

The Dug-Out

WHY do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head...
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

Siegfried Sassoon, July 1918.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon