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This Newstip edited by Curtis Black
Contact:
312-369-7783
| fax 312-369-6404
| curtis@newstips.org
Court-Martial For Soldier With PTSD
Newstip Date: 05-22-2007
Army Specialist Eugene Cherry of Chicago faces an unprecedented court martial on charges of being absent without leave, despite a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression which his supporters say accounts for his absence.
The real issue is the military’s failure to provide sufficient mental health services for troops returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cherry’s supporters say.
Cherry, 24, a graduate of South Side College Preparatory High School, enlisted in the Army in 2002 with hopes of attending college. He served as a medic with a bomb squad in Iraq from June 2004 to June 2005.
When he returned he got “nothing but postponements” over a two month period when he repeatedly sought help for anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness, Cherry said. Sent home on leave, he didn’t return.
He eventually connected with the military counseling service of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Counselor Ray Parrish arranged for Cherry to enter therapy with Dr. Hannah Frisch, and there he started addressing his mental health issues for the first time. Working with Cherry and the GI support group Citizen Soldier, Frisch has made her evaluation of Cherry's case available to the media.
After a year in therapy, Cherry turned himself in at the personnel control facility at Fort Knox in March, but rather than a routine discharge he was returned to his base at Fort Drum in New York, where he was told he would face court martial.
“It’s the first court martial I’m aware of where someone has a diagnosis of PTSD from a medical authority and is not charged with anything else” other than being AWOL, said Tod Ensign of Citizen Soldier, which operates the Different Drummer Cafe in Watertown, N.Y., down the road from Fort Drum.
“They’re clearly doing this because they’re not able to manage the influx of people with serious PTSD,” Ensign said. Fort Drum has a handful of mental health staff for 17,000 soldiers and their families, and 3,500 soldiers are returning there from Iraq in June, many of them completing their second combat tour, he said.
The presence of PTSD “should trump any kind of petty misconduct like being AWOL,” Parrish said. “Eugene is being punished for the fact that they don’t have enough treatment available,” Parrish said. “If he’d gotten sufficient medical treatment he wouldn’t have gone AWOL.”
The court-martial is set for June 25 at Fort Drum. Cherry could be sentenced to a year in confinement and receive a bad conduct discharge, which would leave him ineligible for health care and other veterans benefits.
MEMORIAL DAY, May 28, 11 a.m., Vietnam Memorial at Wacker and Wabash
The mother of a Chicago soldier now facing court martial after going AWOL and seeking treatment for combat stress [see above] will join veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and members of Military Families Speak Out at the annual Memorial Day commemoration held by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Afterwards veterans and families will head down Michigan Avenue to Grant Park (Jackson and Columbus) where a 12 noon ceremony will mark the handoff of the American Friends Service Committee's Eyes Wide Open exhibit, featuring a pair of boots for each U.S. service member killed in the Iraq war. Since opening in Chicago's Federal Plaza in January 2004 with 504 pairs of boots - each tagged with a service member's name, age, rank, and home state - the exhibit has traveled around the country; now numbering 3,400 pairs of boots, it will be divided into 50 state exhibits.
The ceremony concludes four days of events including a commemoration at 12 noon on Saturday, May 26, with Gold Star and military families speaking and adding new boots to represent the most recent casualties.
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