"I'm not a soldier. I'm a prisoner-by my own people-I felt like a caged animal in that room."

[kpete]

The US Army TORTURED An INJURED US Soldier
by Chacounne
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/14/857294/-The-US-Army-TORTURED-An-INJURED-US-Soldier
Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 12:54:19 PM PDT

.......................

Instead of treating Sgt. Luther's injuries, the doctors at Camp Taji told him that he was faking his medical problems and diagnosed him with a "personality disorder." This inspite of the fact that the personality disorder that they said Sgt. Luther had was a dignosis that comes in childhood, the Sgt. was 36 years old, and had passed eight psychological evaluations.

But how, you ask, was he tortured? When Sgt. Luther tried to get the Army doctors to understand the severe pain he was in he told them that his pain was so severe at times that he wished he was dead, so they confined him to an eight foot by six foot isolation chamber for over a month, while depriving him of sleep many nights on end. They kept the lights on 24 hours a day, and many nights they blasted heavy metal music, including Megadeath, Saliva, and Disturbed, into his cell. Sleep deprivation, especially of this duration, is torture. As Sgt. Luther says "Now suddenly I'm not a soldier. I'm a prisoner, by my own people. I felt like a caged animal in that room. That's when I started to lose it."

After being treat like an animal, and being tortured for over a month, being denied treatment for his injuries, and being subjected to relentless pressure to sign papers admitting that he had a personality disorder, Sgt. Luther snapped, and in an altercation bit one of his guards and spit in the face of the aid station chaplain. He was then sedated and taken back to his isolation chamber.

.........................

Sgt. Luther signed the papers admitting to having a personality disorder. He was discharged. As a result of signing the papers, he is inelligible for any Army medical benefits, his ongoing injuries will not be treated, and he owes the Army $1,500 back from his re-enlistment bonus. Sgt. Luther had been in the Army since 1988.

This man's case is but one of many. All of the quotations from Sgt. Luther are from an article in "The Nation" by Joshua Kors. There is much more information in the article. Here is the link:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/kors/single
http://www.thenation.com/...

[chill_wind]

1. How many ruined lives over these years? This is so foul. Just criminal.

eom

[indepat]

2. Seems too few care a whit about the lives of those ground into and used as cannon fodder?

:shrug:

[G_j]

3. ruined lives....exactly nt

[TexasObserver]

4. This is the result of allowing torture and maltreatment of POWs.

The military has lost its way. The morality that it once had is not present, after the horrific changes under the Bush-Cheney regime. This was nothing but thugs in white coats abusing their power because they wanted to make this guy heel.

[MadMaddie]

16. That's exactly it

Once the path down the slippery slope begins there is no way to stop it. I am sure there is much more we don't know.

[Gman2]

5. This is how republicans save a buck.;

[kenny blankenship]

6. WARNING: "harsh" measures like torture, fake elections, assassinations & ruthless suppressive force

used against foreign populations of the imperial periphery eventually get used on the "homeland" population to keep it in line. These things start out as crimes, abuses, forbidden practices, that "this country absolutely does not engage in!", then they become "sadly necessary" in "extreme cases" to get results in the overarching national project of empire war against the forces of Evil, and then they become routine.

And finally they come home to roost, along with the personnel and officers who've been rendered desensitized to their use.

[Gman2]

9. And they dont give a fuck who is pres.

[defendandprotect]

14. Agree . . .

and evidently this is the most brutal and cruel army ever raised .... !!!

And much of it will and has come home to America!

[Quantess]

7. I am going to read this tonight.

[Jefferson23]

8. I am speechless. K&R

[Mojeoux]

10. cost cutting torture.

The guy was reduced to this horror.
How does this get so EVIL?

[Jefferson23]

15. I wish I had an answer. n/t

[inna]

11. OMG, this is absolutely horrifying. I admit, I didn't believe this was POSSIBLE

until I read the Nation link:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/kors/single


It's a must read IMO.

K&R, this needs more exposure.


ETA:

For three years The Nation has been reporting on military doctors' fraudulent use of personality disorder to discharge wounded soldiers . PD is a severe mental illness that emerges during childhood and is listed in military regulations as a pre-existing condition, not a result of combat. Thus those who are discharged with PD are denied a lifetime of disability benefits, which the military is required to provide to soldiers wounded during service. Soldiers discharged with PD are also denied long-term medical care. And they have to give back a slice of their re-enlistment bonus. That amount is often larger than the soldier's final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars.

According to figures from the Pentagon and a Harvard University study, the military is saving billions by discharging soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan with personality disorder.

Unbelievable.

[chill_wind]

35. Thank for posting that! What a f**#ing racket!!

eom

[defendandprotect]

12. k -

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. No words

[pitohui]

17. torn by this story, the teller has little credibility

once you bite another human being AND sign a statement acknowledging you have personality disorder -- a disorder that causes the victim to lie like a dog on a rug -- it's hard to believe the rest of this wild tale -- the army torturing you by megadeath to get back $1,500 after almost 20 yrs of service? oh rilly? -- but i also know that if you've been cruelly victimized it's terribly difficult to sound sane

i don't know what to think or believe

if this man was truly tortured to save the army a few bucks, then it needs to be exposed

but if he's just making wild stories because of his illness we need to grant him privacy and let it blow over

honestly don't know what to think

[EFerrari]

18. What about the army that claimed torture was not a policy?

Their credibility was last seen circling the bowl.

[pitohui]

20. well nobody in this story has covered themselves in glory, that's for sure

as i said, i'm just torn and have no idea who or what to believe

i will be interested in further discussion, esp. if anyone has further information or insight because i am completely puzzled

[EFerrari]

21. This whole business of disallowing treatment for personality disorders

is a scam to begin with, imo. Why don't they screen for them on the front end instead of when people try to get benefits?

[Cid_B]

24. I also smell BS...

Biting is a good sign that something is wrong (especially the f'ing Chaplain). Most Soldiers I know would get a bit antsy but would spend most of their time trying to bum smokes off the orderlies.

Also, 22 years of service and an E-5? Enlistment bonuses? Confusing article with an obvious slant. I'd read the docs reports if they were there.

[EFerrari]

32. He didn't bite the chaplain but a guard. And there is no personality disorder

that makes you behave like a dog.

I smell bs, too, but it's not his.

ETA: I forgot the caveat that a person in a psychotic episode might not recognize a chaplain from an attacker.

[Drops_not_Dope]

33. I believe this soldier

and I don't believe the torture was to save the army a few bucks.

I'll even go further, just because somewhere along the line someone diagnosed this man with a personality disorder does not mean his story is delusional or he is/was having a psychotic episode and is not to be believed.

This govt. treats people like property if you are unfortunate enough to be under their control. Whether that is incarcerated, enlisted, or even too poor. They need no reason to take advantage of their situation. Your Soul belongs to them is how they feel, and step out of line like this soldier did, you will find out how the jailer/govt authorities/surveillance team/MP's feel about you.

I'm sure the Army doesn't even consider this loud music and sleep deprivation torture. They'd call it training.



...but haven't you answered your own question with this statement?
but i also know that if you've been cruelly victimized it's terribly difficult to sound sane.

[JHB]

37. Perhaps you should read other articles on this subject...

The article said The Nation had been covering this for three years, which I can verify since I posted links to the first article back in 2007. Here it is again:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/kors
How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits By Joshua Kors
This article appeared in the April 9, 2007 edition of The Nation.

March 29, 2007

Jon Town has spent the last few years fighting two battles, one against his body, the other against the US Army. Both began in October 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. He was standing in the doorway of his battalion's headquarters when a 107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among the rubble.

"The next thing I remember is waking up on the ground." Men from his unit had gathered around his body and were screaming his name. "They started shaking me. But I was numb all over," he says. "And it's weird because... because for a few minutes you feel like you're not really there. I could see them, but I couldn't hear them. I couldn't hear anything. I started shaking because I thought I was dead." Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits. Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.
****
How the Army determined then that Town's behavioral problems existed before his military service is unclear. Wexler, the Fort Carson psychologist who made the diagnosis, didn't interview any of Town's family or friends. It's unclear whether he even questioned Town's fellow soldiers in 2-17 Field Artillery, men like Fields, Murray and Michael Forbus, who could have testified to his stability and award-winning performance before the October 2004 rocket attack. As Forbus puts it, before the attack Town was "one of the best in our unit"; after, "the son of a gun was deaf in one ear. He seemed lost and disoriented. It just took the life out of him."

Town finds his diagnosis especially strange because the Diagnostic Manual appears to preclude cases like his. It says that a pattern of erratic behavior cannot be labeled a "personality disorder" if it's from a head injury. The specialist asserts that his hearing loss, headaches and anger all began with the rocket attack that knocked him unconscious.

----full article at link-----

One guy's story may not be everything it's cracked up to be, but it's not just one guy claiming a "we wash our hands of you" diagnosis.

[crazyjoe]

39. Sorry folks, I smell BS

[obxhead]

42. Well, there is a lot more at stake besides the $1500

There is the retirement and future medical care costs, which would possibly be a significant amount.

[autorank]

19. Personality disorders are rarely diagnosed in childhood...

...and they're NOT missed with eight trips to the plate. This is nonsense.

I'm reading the article right now.

Over the years, few large-scale prospective studies have targeted the causes of personality disorders (PDs). But recently, a new body of research has begun to explore the potential influences of several factors, from genetics and parenting to peer influences, and even the randomness of life events.

Indeed, says Patricia Hoffman Judd, PhD, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, research into the origins of PDs is just beginning to take off. "I think for years people thought, 'It's just personality--you can't do anything about it,'" she explains. "There's also been moralism are evil, that they are lazy," adds Judd, author of "A Developmental Model of Borderline Personality Disorder" (American Psychiatric Publishing, 2003).

But research is helping to turn such misconceptions around. Genetics researchers, for example, are closer to identifying some of the biological underpinnings that may influence PDs. Last year, for example, a team located--and described in Molecular Psychiatry (Vol, 8. No. 11)--a malfunctioning gene they believe may be a factor in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Other researchers are investigating genetic links to aggression, anxiety and fear--traits that could be influential in the later development of a personality disorder. http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar04/awry.aspx

[EFerrari]

22. The onset is typically in late teens and young adults.

And am I right that the army didn't test him at any point?

They decided this out of their infinite wisdom or did I miss it?

[autorank]

30. This is a really strange one

Why the blasting music etc. I thought they saved that for terra ist

[EFerrari]

31. They treated him like a political prisoner, didn't they? n/t

[BeFree]

23. oh Gawd

Why does the cruelty have to be?
Haven't we learned any lessons on how to treat people?
I guess it is a bit much to expect that the military treats people correctly, but this kinda crap needs to end.

[bertman]

25. Somebody PLEASE tell me that this is NOT what our military has come to.

[Yeahyeah]

26. Declare the Pentagon an insane asylum and wall it off.

[riderinthestorm]

27. I believe this. That's pretty bad in and of itself.

Because I'm a skeptic.

I don't think the Obama Admin is any different in veterans' care than the Bush Admin. It's just not politically ($$$$) feasible. Wars for the industrial military complex MUST go on as usual, and casualties are to be economically managed just like any business model.....

Has anyone else dealt with a workmen's comp claim? Boy, when I have, the insurance company always wants YOU to find them an out. In my case, the woman on the other end was goading me into trying to say my barn manager (who fell on an icy patch in a paddock trying to catch a crazy 2 yr old TB, and broke her two front teeth), was just trying to get "cosmetic dentristy" at my expense. That insurance rep tried to get me to find an "out" for me :eyes: for several calls.

Ridiculous stuff, asking me if she had children at home and maybe fell while she was caretaking them.... (no, she fell right in front of me and scared me to death when she came up with a mouthful of blood!), or perhaps her dental issues were pre-existing conditions....

It costs to have an employee injured while they work for you. It costs a lot. And stays on your WC for years afterwards. But if you are are a responsible employer, you know that shit happens. And when shit happens, it's time for the buck to stop with you and suck up, and take responsibility for it. Which means cash. Sometimes lots of it.

Saying all that, it takes a certain level of shittiness to screw a vet this way, Its utterly despicable and completely outrageous.

[MetaTrope]

28. Paging Dr. Mengele...

[Mike K]

29. I read and hear a lot of very strange things -

- about today's military and I really don't know what to think because it seems so different from the military I knew in the fifties. First, it's all volunteer and people join for bonuses and/or education allowances and the pay scale is much higher than what it was back then. Instead of having GIs doing the cooking, serving on mess duty and cleaning their barracks, I understand there are civilian employees who do that now. Simply stated, it seems like today's military service is more like a job than a patriotic obligation.

I see women serving in combat line companies, which I regard as perverse. Our Army and Marine Corps has been deployed in what is nothing more or less than an unlawful, immoral, pre-emptive invasion of a defenseless nation -- an egregious war crime. I read and hear about tortures being performed by our troops which rival things we executed SS troops for at Nuremberg. I see a gay Army lieutenant chaining himself to the White House fence. I hear about an epidemic of soldiers killing themselves and other soldiers. Now I read what this fellow has to say and I'm wondering just how insane this nation has become.

These are signs of serious mental sickness on a grand scale and we can't go on like this much longer. America has become weird.

[Angry Dragon]

34. This is a nation that is out of control

[lonestarnot]

36. pigliCON HCR.

[disillusioned73]

38. Maybe their intent....

was to drive him to end his own life so they would not have to deal with his medical issues. I hate to imply this about our own military but the suicide rate under these two wars has skyrocketed.... where theres smoke?

[Javaman]

40. Don't see the movie, but read the book, "men who stair at goats".

it will give you a massive insight on the fucked up wars we are waging.

[femrap]

49. The book

was serious? I loved the movie....laughed and laughed in a black comedy way, of course.

We did have a chance for Peace....but TPTB killed all of the leaders of the movement.

And here we are with Israel ready to fire away. I am not hopeful.

But I will continue to try to laugh.

[femrap]

41. Show this to the kids

who are thinking of enlisting.

[Echo In Light]

46. +1

[DRex]

43. FTA

[RedCappedBandit]

44. I really do not understand why it would even matter if he did have a personality disorder.

What the fuck is this garbage?


It is infuriating to know that my tax dollars are going to this shit.

And I'm REALLY disappointed that there are *DUers* who would discredit any person for being mentally ill.

[pitohui]

45. it's an unfortunate reality that some mental illnesses cause a person to confabulate

bipolar disorder, some personality disorders...if you've ever had to deal with a person dx'd w. one of these, you've prob. heard some AMAZING stories that are simply not true

if by "discredit a person for being mentally ill" you mean that i don't accept every crazy story i hear from a dx'd mentally ill person at face value -- this is true, i need evidence, not just stories

there are some mental illnesses, such as depression, where the person's perception of reality is actually heightened and the person can give v. accurate accounts -- if the man had tried to hurt himsel (instead of attacking another) and signed a paper saying he suffered from clinical depression, i wouldn't be sitting here wondering if he'd let his imagination running away from him

but a personality disorder is something else, and we all know somebody who has a personality disorder who simply can't help telling wild stories and where lying seems to be unavoidable symptom of the disease

do you really believe the army is torturing soldiers with 22 yrs of experience by megadeath music? does that sound real to you? if it really happened, by all means, it needs to be stopped...but i've also been told a wild story of a friend being kidnapped and taken to florida by female satanists, trust me, it simply didn't happen, much as i may pity my friend for thinking it did -- when he's on the right meds, i'm pretty sure he knows himself it didn't happen...

mental illness impacts the brain, and a damaged brain can't always make an accurate report

that's why it matters if he has a personality disorder, it speaks to his credibility

[RedCappedBandit]

48. And he needs to be credible in order to recieve benefits why?

[Rex]

47. Why the fuck did they torture him?

And then they fuck him over, after serving for 20 plus years? Something smells stinky; either his mental disorder made all that up or we have some really fucked up military personnel who need to stand in front of a court martial.