BTTT
I remember this story.
Attached to 10th Special Forces? I could understand a regular army person sufferring from something like that, but the Forces are some damn mentally strong people. Seems odd.
How is he a coward if he had a reaction to the drug?
Severe reactions to anti-malaria drugs is not exactly a twinkie defense.
I'm willing to cut him some slack, and also understand why the military wishes to make it all 'go away'.
These powerful drugs are needed for deployment, and in most cases are relatively safe - but also can be physically life altering in certain individuals.
What a horrible headline!
I disagree with your title!
Oh yeah, the devil made me do it. I was beaten as a child. I grew up poor. blah blah blah blah....Just someone else who doesnt want to take responsibility for their own actions.
A non-SF interrogator attached to an ODA in 10th SFG freaks out, after being in country for three days, and seeing one dead Iraqi.
Not exactly Silver Star material.
I had the opportunity to work with some 10th Group guys a few months ago, and jokingly asked my collegues about 'their boy Pogany'. A few of them refered to him as 'he who shall not be named', and didn't care to elaborate. I did meet one guy who had to babysit Pogany after his breakdown, but before they shipped him home, and he had nothing good to say. I distinctly got the impression that he wasn't thought highly of before his episode, and his actions weren't out of character (except in intensity).
As a support guy, I'm used to the Green Berets not taking anyone without the tab seriously. At first, that is. If you prove competent at your job, motivated, tough and at least moderately skilled with a weapon, you'll become the ODAs lost kid brother. If you're incompetent, lazy, risk averse, or seriously lacking in weapons handling skill, you'll not fit in, and in their eyes ruin the reputation of your self, detachment, MOS, and possibly your entire branch.
So, I understand Pogany's position of having to work with a pack of snake eating killers that will initially treat you like a red headed step child with leprosy. The first time is pretty intimidating.
Now, it is possible that the drug (which God knows how many hundreds of thousands of people take on a weekly basis) did affect him. Given the already thin line of trust that existed, the ODA could have just assumed that he was a dirtbag, and cast him off.
Still, I can't shake the impression that this guy is a dirtbag, and is looking for an out. I mainly think that because of his actions after he returned home and came off the meds. An SF Group does not lack for medical personnel, so it strikes me as odd that this wouldn't have been noticed or thought of until now. If he only just now decided to go with 'the meds made me do it' angle, what was his reason for denying the cowardice charge before.
His actions, under what I would basically call negligible stress levels, are inexcusable. He simply did not see or experience enough for a person in his line of work to suffer the kind of breakdown he claims. Period. Yet he ran to the press to cry foul. Without any mitigating circumstances, there's no story: he's a coward. Now, months later, he seems to have found an excuse, but that doesn't explain why he thought he was innocent before.
So, maybe the meds did make him do it. I suppose it is possible. I still suspect that he's just another intel guy who probably didn't belong in the Army, much less in Group, and who failed badly when confronted with reality.