Quick Picks: Army Under Fire for PTSD Care and Troop Chemical Exposure in Iraq — ProPublica

Quick Picks: Army Under Fire for PTSD Care and Troop Chemical Exposure in Iraq

by Alexandra Andrews

Feb. 12, 2009, 12:12 p.m. EST

Quick Picks focuses on a select few of the day's stories from "Breaking on the Web."

Salon found more lapses in the Army's approach to mental health care in the latest installment of its series on suicide at Fort Carson. After John Needham's failed suicide attempt in Iraq in 2007, he says the Army locked him up with no food or water and threatened him with military prison for illegal discharge of a weapon. When his father told his commander he thought his son had PTSD, he says he was told to "[Bleep] off." Needham is now facing murder charges for beating and killing a woman; his father says he never had access to proper psychiatric treatment.
The Oregon National Guard has told 433 soldiers that they may have been exposed to a toxic, cancer-causing chemical at a water plant in Iraq in 2003. The troops were escorting KBR employees inspecting the plant. KBR is already facing a lawsuit from members of the Indiana National Guard who say KBR knew about the chemical and its health risks yet failed to alert them. According to the AP, "KBR has denied it knowingly harmed troops or was responsible for an unsafe condition."

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