Iraq war's accidental coward

[Spencer]

Iraq war's accidental coward

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydispl...eportid=562588

If Jessica Lynch, the fresh-faced West Virginia teenager turned international media icon, could be described as the accidental hero of the Iraq war, then Georg-Andreas Pogany is most certainly the accidental coward.

Like Private Lynch, who became an international celebrity largely through the manipulation of the Pentagon's propaganda machine rather than anything she did or did not do on the battlefield, Staff Sergeant Pogany, hired as a translator and interrogator with United States Special Forces, did nothing to seek out his poster-child status and almost certainly does not deserve the notoriety that has come his way.

Unlike Lynch, though, he has no million-dollar book deals or exclusive television interviews lined up. Instead, he is back at his home base in Fort Carson, Colorado, treated as a pariah by his fellow soldiers and former colleagues in the Green Berets, his legal status in limbo and his reputation in tatters.

His story, on the surface, seems unremarkable.

Last September, after just two days on active duty in Iraq, he caught sight of the mangled body of a dead Iraqi soldier inside a white body bag. The body was ripped almost in two, with a large hole and strips of ripped flesh where the man's chest should have been.

Although a gun battle was in progress - he was stationed in the tense city of Samarra, within the so-called "Sunni Triangle" of central Iraq - Pogany was not involved in the combat. Initially, he pushed the image of the dead Iraqi to the back of his mind and continued puffing on a cigarette.

But a few hours later the image returned and began to haunt him. He started shaking and vomiting and could not sleep. By the next morning, he thought he might be having a nervous breakdown.

One might conclude that this was a relatively routine case of combat stress. That was the opinion of an Army chaplain Pogany consulted, and also that of an Army psychologist who suggested he transfer to other, less stressful duties until the panic attack subsided. His, they concluded, was a normal reaction to the brutality of war.

But Pogany's misfortune was to have an unsympathetic commanding officer, whose first reaction was to tell him to "get your head out of your ass". It only deteriorated from there.

In short order, Pogany was stripped of his weapons and sent home to face a charge of cowardice before a court martial - a very serious, and very rarely prosecuted, offence punishable by death.

According to an account Pogany gave to the Denver Post newspaper, he had begun to implement the Army psychologist's advice and was feeling much better when his commanding officer branded him a coward. In front of a group of lower-ranking soldiers, the commander told him "what a **** bag I am and what a ******* coward I am".

Soon Pogany was being vilified in the US media. One television station put his picture alongside Lynch's in a split-screen montage. Lynch's image was emblazoned with the word "hero", while his carried the tag "coward".

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Disgusting!

[86Dude]

The real coward is Pvt Lynch. **** her. She shouldn't have even been there, she didn't do crap and she gets a Bronze Star. I hate the U.S. government and the crap it allows to happen to good people.

[Dreamscapist]

I guess the policy of Patton-slapping soldiers who demonstrate traces of humanity is still in effect. No wonder they're having a suicide problem over there.