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Europe

Dutch court convicts soldier for not serving in Afghanistan

2006-11-07

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A military court Monday convicted a soldier for refusing to serve in a Dutch NATO battalion in Afghanistan, but declined to punish him, saying he was suffering post-traumatic stress from an earlier tour of duty.

In a written ruling, the court in the central city of Arnhem also criticized the military for not doing enough for the 20-year-old man, whose identity was not released. There is a responsibility from both the soldier and the armed forces to deal with the negative consequences of a mission, such as a ... case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, the court wrote.

If the soldier truly has PTSD then he shouldn't have been court-martialed in the first place. Most modern armies have good treatment and psych programs, as PTSD is a real issue.

The soldier, who was given a dishonorable discharge earlier this year, had faced a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.

In an interview with the weekly magazine Vrij Nederland earlier this year, the unidentified soldier said he had been promised he would not be sent abroad when he re-enlisted after a previous tour in Afghanistan. He said his unit was a kindergarten class unprepared to serve in a hostile environment, according to the report.

'My group is mostly made up of 19-year-old boys who are fresh from boot camp and barely know how to hold their rifles, the magazine quoted him as saying. 'Only a handful have ever been on a mission.

There's an indictment of the Dutch army, if true. I don't know how the Euros handle their training and their units, but I had thought that service in Afghanistan was for more elite units with thorough training.

Posted by:Steve White

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