A War the World Overlooked - Page 3

I, personally, did not move to what was called a “primary” as opposed to “high” school. Before very long I gave up teaching altogether, but I continue to keep in touch with many of my former students, and it still distresses me when, among them, I find those Angolan vets who cannot stick to a job for very long...many with a string of broken marriages behind them...some alcoholic, or addicted to drugs; and among them, some of those who have emigrated from the country of their birth, hoping to find solace elsewhere.

What hurts most is that some of them have been described as “crazy” or “mentally ill,” and this is why I have put Canadian Senator, Lieutenant-General the Hon. Roméo A. Dallaire, O.C., C.M.M., G.O.Q., M.S.C., C.D. (Ret’d), on a pedestal. I have paid tribute to him, the author of the book Shake Hands with the Devil, on the flyleaf of my own book.

He writes graphically of how, as a result of an operational stress injury in Rwanda in 1994, he developed a condition identified as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and was subsequently medically released from the Canadian Forces in April 2002. He used his own dreadul experience to make the world aware of PTSD.

How pleased I was, then, to read an article by the Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, on Sun. Aug 15, 2:22 pm ET, under the heading "Advocates see trouble for misdiagnosed soldiers." She writes from Washington, “At the height of the Iraq war, the Army routinely dismissed hundreds of soldiers for having a personality disorder when they were more likely suffering from the traumatic stresses of war, discharge data suggests."

Article Author: Marie Warder

Born in Ficksburg, South Africa, trained to be a journalist, fell in love - for keeps - at 16, married at 19, wrote novels, played the piano in my husband's dance band for 35 years, had two children, studied to be a teacher, started my own school and …

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