Veteran's suicide reveals hidden casualties of war

WASHINGTON - By his own admission Douglas Barber, a former Army reservist, was struggling. For two years since returning from the chaos and violence of Iraq, the 35-year-old had battled with his memories - the things he had seen and the fear he had experienced.

Recently, he seemed to have turned a corner, securing medical help and counselling. But last week, at his home in Alabama, the National Guardsman emailed some of his friends and then changed the message on his answering machine.

Anyone who called was told: "If you're looking for Doug, I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side."

Barber phoned police, stepped on to the porch with his shotgun and - after a brief stand-off with officers - shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The death of Barber is one of numerous instances of Iraqi veterans who have taken their own lives since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Concern is such that the Pentagon has recently instigated a new scheme for monitoring the mental health of veterans.

Barber's story would not have been told but for a group of activists and a British journalism student among the handful of people he emailed before killing himself.

Craig Evans, 19, a student at Bournemouth University, was working on a project about post-traumatic stress disorder and had been in regular contact with Barber. But the email he received on Monday, January 16, told him something was terribly wrong with the former soldier. It read: "I have nothing to live for any more - I am going to be checking out of this world."

Evans said he immediately tried to contact the US embassy as well as some of Barber's friends in the US to alert them to what he suspected was about to happen.

But within an hour of Evans receiving the message, Barber had ended his torment.

"I emailed him back and wrote, 'I am going to ring you. Don't do anything stupid'.

"He said he wasn't the same when he got back [from Iraq] - he was paranoid, he had lost his social skills, his marriage was over, he couldn't walk down the street without worrying something was going to blow up.

"I made a promise that I would do everything I could to get his story out there."

Barber was a called up to the 1485th Transport Company of the Ohio National Guard on February 11, 2003. He arrived in Iraq just as the insurgency was gathering.

He spent seven months in Iraq, driving trucks while trying to avoid the perils that confronted him and his colleagues every day. He was haunted by the deaths of his fellow soldiers and by the fear and desperation he saw in the faces of Iraqis.

Like many other reservists pushed into the front line, Barber complained that he was not properly trained.

"It was really bad - death was all around you, all the time. You couldn't escape it," he said in an interview with the Coalition for Free Thought in Media.

"Everybody in Iraq was going through suicide counselling because the stress was so high. It was at such a magnitude, such a high level, that it was unthinkable for anyone to imagine. You cannot imagine it."

Barber said he was strongly opposed to the war but felt obliged to go because he believed that without the experience his opinion would be considered invalid.

Friends said that when Barber returned to the US things started to fall apart and he split from his wife of 11 years. He had been prescribed clonazepam, an anti-anxiety drug that can cause depression.

One friend of more than 13 years, Rick Hays, a minister from Indiana, said: "He was a really good guy, pretty level-headed ... he liked to have fun. But when he came back the difference in him was so sad."

Charlie Anderson, of campaign group Iraq Veterans Against the War, said the federal Veterans Administration relied too heavily on the use of drugs for dealing with returning soldiers suffering from stress.

"[We think] that up to 30 per cent of Iraq war veterans are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder," he said.

Barber's sister, Connie Bingham, said his funeral would be held on Saturday.

 

Torment of a war veteran

Doug Barber wrote this internet article just days before he died:

"The Bush Administration wants to run the war like a business, and refuses to show the personal sacrifices the soldiers have made. All is not OK for those of us who return home supposedly well.

Some live with permanent scars from horrific events no one other than those who served will ever understand.

We cannot stand the memories and decide death is better. We kill ourselves because we are haunted by seeing children killed and families wiped out. Soldiers don't know how to cope with returning to a society that will never understand what they endured. When you go to bed you wonder if you will [die] because a mortar [hit] your sleeping area.

Soldiers live in deplorable conditions and can not often handle coming back to the world they left behind. It is something that drives soldiers over the edge and causes them to withdraw.

As Americans we turn our nose down at them wondering why they act the way they do. Who cares about them, why should we help them?"

- INDEPENDENT