Combat stress unit at center of Iraq slaying trial

The trial of Pfc. Steven Green may end up explaining part of what was behind Sgt. Russell's action at Camp Liberty's Stress Clinic. If doctors are under pressure to return soldiers back to duty, they are not getting the kind of care the doctors are trying to give them. What good do stress clinics do if the commanders are more interested in getting them back into action instead of being healed enough first before sending them back?

Combat stress unit at center of Iraq slaying trial
By BRETT BARROUQUERE Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press
May 16, 2009, 2:42PM
PADUCAH, Ky. — Pfc. Steven Dale Green held on to his sergeant on the hood of a Humvee as it sped down a road in a doomed effort to save the life of his leader.

Staff Sgt. Phillip Miller, who served in Iraq with Green, has testified the incident pushed the soldier over the edge.

"I call it his breaking point," Miller said.

Eleven days after Sgt. Kenith Casica's death on Dec. 10, 2005, near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, Green sought help from combat stress counselors. Army nurse practitioner Lt. Col. Karen Marrs listened to Green talk about wanting to kill Iraqi civilians, gave him a prescription for sleep medication and sent him back to his unit.

The combat stress unit's actions with Green have become central as defense lawyers try to persaude jurors not to condemn him to death for rape and murder in Iraq. Green was convicted May 7 for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the shooting deaths of her family — an attack that took place three months after Green visited the stress unit.

Dr. Pablo Stewart, a psychiatrist at the University of California-San Francisco, told jurors Marrs and other combat stress teams are in a tough situation, charged with treating soldiers but also mindful of pleasing commanders, who wanted soldiers to stay in the field with their units.

"She's trying to please her command and at the same time treat her patients," Stewart said. "I see that as an almost impossible job."

That impossible job left some of Green's fellow soldiers with little confidence in combat stress units.
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