+- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora)
+-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: War is a Racket (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-31.html)
+--- Thread: A human being suffering from a conscience quits MoD (/thread-1934.html)
A human being suffering from a conscience quits MoD - Magda Hassan - 07-08-2009
Lying about Iraq made me quit, press officer claims
By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Having to peddle "government lies" about the safety of soldiers in Iraq led to a Ministry of Defence press officer suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, an employment tribunal will hear.
John Salisbury-Baker will claim that he suffered "intolerable stress" through having to "defend the morally indefensible" when responding to media inquiries about the ability of army vehicles such as the "Snatch" Land Rover to protect soldiers.
Mr Salisbury-Baker, 62, says he found it impossible to support the official line on deaths and injuries after seeing the suffering of soldiers' families. After 11 years of service at Imphal Barracks near York, he could no longer keep working and is taking legal action against the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The case takes place amid accusations over the government's attempts to claw back compensation from two injured soldiers, as well as a rising toll of casualties from improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.
Mr Salisbury-Baker's partner, Christine Brook, said: "John is an honest, sensitive and moral person, and having to peddle government lies that soldiers in vehicles such as the Snatch Land Rovers were safe from roadside bombs made him stressed.
"He was particularly plagued by the thought that some of the bereaved families he was visiting might have previously believed their loved ones were safe, because of what he himself had said to the media.
"He felt responsible. He has been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by his doctor and is pursuing a claim for disability discrimination, on the grounds that the stress of what he was being asked to do effectively made him disabled."
Mr Salisbury-Baker will say that about 30 per cent of soldiers killed in Iraq came from the area in which he was working. Ms Brook said his job "was to visit families just hours after an officer had called to tell them the news that their loved ones were dead." He provided a "media shield" to help them deal with the press interest.
"He helped more than a dozen families through this traumatic time, whereas I believe the officers deployed to give the bad news to families only had this duty once, with the role passed on to someone else the next time," she said. "He sometimes attended funerals at the same church on more than one occasion."
Ms Brook claimed that the MoD had failed to give her partner training on how to cope with the stress of dealing with the bereaved and this had contributed to his illness.
An MoD spokesman said it would be inappropriate to comment when tribunal proceedings were pending."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lying-about-iraq-made-me-quit-press-officer-claims-1767353.html
A human being suffering from a conscience quits MoD - Jan Klimkowski - 07-08-2009
Hmmmm...... That rare thing - an apparatchik with a conscience and a willingness to take on the system he's lived and breathed for more than a decade.
The precise details of the "government lies" Salisbury-Baker was asked to peddle should be most interesting. I hope they get reported somewhere.
A human being suffering from a conscience quits MoD - Keith Millea - 07-08-2009
Well,this guy is maybe suffering from a conscience,but he is not suffering from ptsd.It's guys like this that make it harder for real combat stressed soldiers to be taken seriously.
Here is a two part story about soldiers from Fort Carson,and the horrific problems that ptsd had on their unit.It's not pretty...........
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23154.htm
Part 2: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23155.htm
Quote:July 29, 2009 "The Gazette" July 28, 2009 -- - After coming home from Iraq, 21-year-old medic Bruce Bastien was driving with his Army buddy Louis Bressler, 24, when they spotted a woman walking to work on a Colorado Springs street.
Bressler swerved and hit the woman with the car, according to police, then Bastien jumped out and stabbed her over and over.
(A word of caution about the language and content of this story: Please see Editor's Note)
It was October 2007. A fellow soldier, Kenneth Eastridge, 24, watched it all from the passenger seat.
At that moment, he said, it was clear that however messed up some of the soldiers in the unit had been after their first Iraq deployment, it was about to get much worse.