Post-traumatic futility disorder

Post-traumatic futility disorder
Disillusionment with war is an overlooked psychological liability on the battlefield, experts say -- and could lead to higher rates of PTSD among U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
By Mark Benjamin

Corey Davis, a machine gunner with the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, has a simple description of what was expected of him during his yearlong tour of duty in Iraq.

"Pretty much," said Davis, who was assigned to protect a road used as a supply route, "our job was to get fired at or have IEDs {improvised explosive devices} blow up on us."

Davis left the Army in October and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Since he returned to the States in August 2006, he has been troubled by thoughts about the futility of day-to-day tactics in Iraq, where several of his friends died. "This was just for us to make the route secure. You would think a human being would be more valuable than a supply route ... What the hell did we do all that for?"

A lot more soldiers may soon be asking similar questions. This week, even as former Secretary of State Colin Powell lamented that "the active Army is about broken" from repeated combat tours, President Bush announced that he is thinking about sending as many as 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Nearly simultaneously, the Army released a study that suggests that those troops who have served more than one tour of duty -- true of a large percentage of all military personnel -- are 50 percent more likely to suffer from acute combat stress, a possible precursor to PTSD.

According to experts contacted by Salon, however, there is another overlooked risk factor likely to lead to a high rate of PTSD among those troops already in Iraq or yet to be "surged" there. As the U.S. mission in Iraq has morphed from overthrowing Saddam into a vague cross between nation building and refereeing a civil war, returning soldiers like Davis express a growing disenchantment with that mission. Questioning the mission is a psychological liability on the battlefield -- and such disillusionment means that American soldiers in Iraq are at greater risk of developing PTSD.

Continued @ http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/12/21/ptsd/