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According to Pogany, the talk with Forsythe helped. Pogany said he felt better and was looking forward to getting treatment and going back to duty.

Forsythe made a recommendation to the Army psychologist, Capt. Marc Houck -- a textbook call for the type of combat stress Pogany was suffering from, taken from the "Leaders' Manual for Combat Stress Control," Army Field Manual 22-51. Forsythe recommended that Pogany spend a few days with a "Restoration Team" at the nearby Tikrit airfield to learn coping skills and stress-reduction techniques. In all likelihood, the training would give Pogany the help he needed to return to his unit. "The doc agreed it was a clear-cut case," recalls Forsythe.

Pogany says he repeatedly told his chain of command that he wanted to stay on in Iraq, and says this contention was confirmed by a sworn statement by a Military Intelligence chief warrant officer. Houck's Report of Mental Status Evaluation, dated Oct. 2, 2003, stated that Pogany "reported signs and symptoms consistent with those of a normal combat stress reaction." Houck stated that "short-term rest, stress coping skills, and/or brief removal from more dangerous situations are often adequate to resolve such reactions." He agreed with Forsythe's recommendations that Pogany spend time with the Restoration Team and concluded that Pogany "is cleared for action deemed appropriate by command."


What the command deemed appropriate surprised Forsythe. From the start, he could tell that Pogany's Special Forces superior officers weren't buying any combat-stress crap from this Army soldier. Forsythe witnessed the company sergeant major berating Pogany within earshot of a bunch of other soldiers. "The sergeant major really had a hard-on for this guy [Pogany]," recalls Forsythe, 28, who left the Army in March when his enlistment period was up and now lives in Killeen, Texas. "I'm like, 'Wow, what did he do to get this guy on him like that?'"

The next day, Forsythe was stunned to hear that Pogany had been sent home despite the doctor's recommendations, and even more stunned to hear Pogany would be charged with cowardice. The charge carried a possible death penalty. "Staff Sgt. Pogany was ready to work through it. But he was never given a chance," says Forsythe. "The sergeant major felt he should be charged with cowardice and sent home. And that's exactly what happened." Pogany became the first soldier to be charged with cowardice since the Vietnam War.

But the Army may have picked on the wrong coward. In the months since returning to his base in Ft. Carson, Colo., Pogany, 33, has refused to shut up and go away. He's fighting the military's charges against him -- charges it has repeatedly reduced. Pogany has become the poster child for how the Army treats combat stress in soldiers -- and it's a pretty ugly poster. As the Pentagon continues rotating troops and more soldiers return to civilian life, this problem will only become more pronounced. By the end of April, the U.S. military had sent more than 250,000 soldiers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom or to Afghanistan (which has experienced similar psychiatric casualty rates).

In March 2004, the Army released a report by its Mental Health Advisory Team, which concluded that 17 percent of the soldiers serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom screened positive for "traumatic stress, depression, or anxiety and reported impairment in social or occupational functioning." According to Department of Defense statistics, at least 24 soldiers killed themselves in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003 -- a rate considered abnormally high and a number that several advocacy groups contend would be considerably higher if it counted soldiers who committed suicide since returning home as well as those who died of self-inflicted wounds that are still under investigation. In March, one of those suicides was a Special Forces soldier from Pogany's unit, Chief Warrant Officer William Howell, who shot himself with a .357-caliber revolver after he returned to Ft. Carson and argued with his wife. Despite the Pentagon's official stance that combat fatigue is a predictable consequence of battle that should be treated with the same seriousness as shrapnel wounds, Pogany's case illustrates that the dominant ethic of the military remains "suck it up" -- and that soldiers don't always get the help they need.

The psychological effects of combat can be devastating, as returning soldiers have learned since warfare began. Using the conservative 17 percent number from the Mental Health Advisory Team (which some think understates the severity of the problem by half), at least 42,500 soldiers who were in Iraq will likely suffer from some sort of combat stress. Yet nearly 50 percent of the military say they believe that if they report a combat-stress reaction, their careers will be in jeopardy, according to an Army survey conducted before the war.

Pogany's case serves as a very public warning to other soldiers that if they complain, they may face prosecution, ridicule and the end of their military careers. When Pogany was charged with cowardice, says Steve Robinson, executive director of the soldier advocacy group National Gulf War Resource Center, "it sent a chilling message across the Army: If you complain, you will be branded a coward." According to Robinson, many soldiers quickly decided "We're not talking about this if that's the way we get treated."