U.S. Drops Case Against Soldier Accused of Cowardice after a military physician diagnosed Pogany with a medical problem probably caused by Lariam
U.S. Drops Case Against Soldier Accused of Cowardice
Fri Jul 16, 2004 06:18 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dropped its criminal case against a sergeant who last October became the first American soldier charged with cowardice since the Vietnam War, the Army said on Friday.
Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany, an interrogator with a Special Forces unit serving in Iraq, was charged with cowardice after being so shaken by seeing a bloody corpse of an Iraqi that the military sent him back to the United States.
The charge was reduced last November to dereliction of duty, and the Army this week dropped the case against Pogany, said Sgt. 1st Class Blake Waltman, a spokesman at the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
"The command determined that additional information that they received over time indicated that Staff Sgt. Pogany might have had a medical problem that required medical treatment. As always, our primary concern is for the health and welfare of the soldier," Waltman said.
The move came after a military physician diagnosed Pogany with a medical problem probably caused by Lariam, an anti-malaria medication required for some U.S. troops.
Pogany arrived for duty last September in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
Pogany said he witnessed on his second night in Iraq the body of an Iraqi man who had been shot apart by gunfire, leaving him so upset that he vomited and shook for hours.
He said that when he told a superior he was experiencing a panic attack and needed help, he was simply given sleeping pills. A few days later the Army sent him back to the United States.
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