STRESS DISORDER

I WOULD like to express my support for the war veterans suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in their claim against the Ministry of Defence for compensation.

It is easy to say that as soldiers they should have been tough enough to deal with the horrors they saw. Horrors which the same Ministry of Defence and media agencies thought we, the public, would find too distasteful to see on our television screens and in our newspapers. However, the reality is that few of us can ever be prepared for the terrors that war throws up. That fact is amply demonstrated by the fact that more Vietnam veterans killed themselves than were killed by their enemy.

It is not surprising, however, that the mental suffering of veterans is ignored and little support offered to help people cope with the trauma they have experienced. Our whole society does its best to ignore mental ill health and sweep it under the carpet. It has rightly been said that mental illness is the last great health taboo.

Such an attitude is dangerous because it leads us to believe that it is the individual's fault for becoming 'mentally ill', it is because of some flaw in their personality or because of their weakness. But my experience shows me that mental ill health is not the fault of the individual, it is what our society does to people, just as we put the veterans into appalling situations.

We will all experience mental ill health and many of us, as many as one in four, will turn to the medical profession and others for help. For all our sakes, we need to ensure that this help is provided and that we, as a society, do not add insult to injury by stigmatising and blaming the victim. - Dr M Nabar, Sunderland.

WAR ON TERRORISM

IN his letter (HAS, Feb 26) on his opposition to the war on terrorism, Pete Winstanley quotes from a speech by the late President Eisenhower in 1953 to support his pacifist views.

In a world which is very different from 1953, Mr Winstanley and others who share his views should listen carefully to what the present incumbent of the White House is saying.

During his inaugural speech President Bush said: "America will be strong." Replying to questions on the Kyoto Agreement he said: "In America we do things differently. That is why we are number one."

Our Government prefers the third way. Neither strong nor weak, but pliable. If it has to pull a large object it stretches. When it has to support a heavy weight it sags.

I am sure that many of our present parliamentarians would, in their younger days, have enjoyed a singalong with those anti-war folk singers, Pete Sieger and Bob Dylan.

In 1953 Blackpool FC were playing against the best teams in Division One of the Football League. Look where they are today through poor defences.

Appeasing terrorists is costly. A conventional war which has a beginning and an end can be budgeted but terrorism goes on for ever. - Thomas Conlon, Kirk Merrington, Spennymoor.

NOW that the Taliban and the forces of al Qaida have been subdued in Afghanistan, let us remember some good the Taliban did.

They destroyed the poppy crops that supply the heroin that destroys the youth of the Western world. I see the Allies are allowing farmers to grow them again.

They do more damage than terrorism, but drugs are on such a vast scale that governments are the chief suppliers.

If the British have any say in Afghanistan, I hope they will discourage the growing of heroin in that land. How you can grow heroin knowing it will destroy millions of young lives and bring grief to anxious parents and at the same time stand on your head in the mosque asking mercy of Allah, I just don't know. - Jim Ross, Rowlands Gill.

REGIONAL ASSEMBLY

THOSE campaigning for home rule for North-East England have long insisted that the Welsh Assembly has given the people of Wales right to self-determination which will improve their everyday lives.

It appears that a recent report undertaken by Glenn Simpson for the Campaign for a North-East Assembly backs those claims up.

We must not begrudge the Welsh the opportunities they have gained, as there can be no room for such negative thinking in the debate over the future of our region. Indeed the fact that we have a similar-sized population to the Welsh and in some respects similar opportunities, with beautiful countryside and vibrant cities, and problems, such as declining heavy industry and large rural areas recovering from the tragedy of foot-and-mouth-disease, suggests that we should follow closely what is happening at the Welsh Assembly with a view to emulating the benefits accruing to the Welsh as soon as possible.

It does appear that a lot of what devolution campaigners have been saying about what home rule could do for North-East England is starting to happen in Wales.

When our opportunity arrives, via a referendum, let us hope that the people of North-East England have the self-confidence and courage to vote to go down the devolution road and start to gain similar benefits to those of Wales. - Peter Sagar, Newcastle.