A FORMER Army corporal has claimed damages for post-traumatic stress disorder arising from his experiences while serving with Irish peacekeeping troops in Somalia and Lebanon.
Kevin McBride claimed he was traumatised by incidents including an ambush of a convoy in which he was travelling in Somalia in 2004.
During the incident he said he saw eight Somali soldiers from a militia being thrown into the back of a convoy lorry with their heads “hanging off and spouting blood”.
The action is being taken against the Minister for Defence and the claims of failure to treat his alleged post -traumatic stress disorder are denied.
Opening the case, John Paul Shortt SC, for Mr McBride, said his client joined the Army in 1975 and was discharged in 1998 because of a psychological illness leading to ineffectivity.
He had gone on month-long drinking binges when he came back from Lebanon in 1996, counsel said.
Mr McBride (53), Cloonteah, Newtownforbes, Co Longford, has also claimed that while he was on a seven-month tour of duty in Somalia in 2004, Indian troops escorting his convoy had pursued the convoy’s attackers into the bush after an ambush.
He claimed the Indian soldiers had brought out eight dead Somalis, put their bodies in the back of the lorry and brought them through the local village as a warning not to attack the convoy again.
It was “unbelievable to see what they had done as this parade of death passed by us”, Mr McBride said.
He said he could not remember receiving any debriefing after the incident but it would be in his mind for the rest of his life, he told the court.
He also witnessed the “pigsty conditions” in which Somalis lived and saw one officer getting physically sick at what the people had to endure.
Mr McBride said he felt guilty about throwing a sandwich to a Somali woman with a child as about a hundred people had surrounded her, knocked her to the ground and stamped on her face.
“As we drove off, I felt so guilty and will remember it for the rest of my life.”
Mr McBride said he had also experienced trauma as a result of a 16-day Israeli bombardment near an Irish base in Lebanon in 1996 in which there were “bodies all around”.
This was known as the “Grapes of Wrath” incident.
The hearing before Mr Justice Vivian Lavan continues.