Adam Lieberman tried to kill himself when he returned from Iraq. Only then did the Army take his mental health seriously. “I FACED THE ENEMY AND LIVED!” Lieberman painted on the wall in big, black letters. “IT WAS THE DEATH DEALERS THAT TOOK MY LIFE!”

[..]

The U.S. soldier was gagging, drowning in blood without a mouth or nose. A medic performed an emergency tracheotomy. The soldier died anyway.

Adam didn’t even bother to inspect the nearby Humvee that took a direct hit. He could see through the windows that inside the vehicle, “It was blood soup.”

During another engagement a gunner atop Adam’s Humvee suddenly collapsed in Adam’s lap. Only a thin flap of skin attached the gunner’s head and torso. Beheaded. Adam vomited.

He once saw the lower half of a friend’s body sheared off by a roadside bomb. In the seconds that followed before he died, his friend still moved his right arm and tried to talk. He looked at Adam. Adam described the look in his eyes as “terror.”

[…]

“Nobody is willing to help anybody,” he said about his experience at Fort Carson after returning from Iraq. “You have to understand. We are just pieces of equipment.”

Special over de slechte nazorg in de VS van soldaten die terugkomen uit Irak. En dan maar afvragen waarom die mensen psychische problemen hebben.