4 Iraq veterans in Japan commit suicide
Agence France-Presse
FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2006
TOKYO Four Japanese soldiers have killed themselves since returning
from Iraq, possibly because of trauma from the war, a news report
said Friday.
A Japanese Defense Agency spokeswoman confirmed the four deaths,
but said that it was "difficult to identify the reasons for their
suicides."
The Asahi Shimbun reported, however, that a number of Japanese
troops were emotionally scarred by their experience in Iraq, the
first Japanese mission since World War II to a country where
fighting is under way.
One officer who killed himself last year was posted at a station
that was attacked by rockets several times and a member of his unit
was almost shot by accident by a U.S. soldier, the paper
said.
During joint military training with the U.S. military after he left
Iraq, the officer had said of American troops, "We will be killed
if we are with them," according to the report.
Japan has 600 troops in a relatively safe southern Iraqi town of
Samawa.
The troops, serving on a reconstruction mission, have had no
casualties and have not fired their weapons. They are barred from
combat by the pacifist Japanese Constitution that was imposed by
the United States in 1947.
The Defense Agency said that its doctors care for soldiers' mental
health before, during and after Iraq assignments.
With rotations, a total of 5,000 Japanese troops have done duty in
Iraq since 2004.
A record high 94 members of the 240,000-strong Japanese military,
known as the Self-Defense Forces killed themselves in the 12 months
before March 2005.
Eighty-five have committed suicide in the 11 months since then.
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