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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/12/they-just-wanted-to-ruin-my-head-records-show-army-lobotomized-2000-ww2-vets/



‘They just wanted to ruin my head’: Records show Army lobotomized 2,000 WW2 vets
By Arturo Garcia
Thursday, December 12, 2013 21:03 EST

Newly uncovered documents show the U.S. Army embraced frontal lobotomy as a way to treat at least 2,000 troops in the aftermath of World War II, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“They just wanted to ruin my head, it seemed to me,” one veteran, Roman Tritz, told the Journal. “Somebody wanted to.”

Tritz, now 90 years old, told the Journal he was forcibly lobotomized on July 1, 1953, after resisting previous attempts. Though the Department of Veterans Affairs has no record of the procedures taking place, the Journal cited government records, inter-office correspondence and letters in reporting that they took place at VA facilities around the country to treat troops who were identified as gay, along with those diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression and psychosis. The records show the bulk of the procedures were carried out between April 1947 and September 1950.

The Journal reported that VA head Frank Hines approved the use of lobotomies in July 1943, two years before he was replaced at the position by President Harry Truman. The chief proponent of the procedure — which involved driving an ice pick-like instrument through the patient’s eye socket — was neurologist Walter J. Freeman, despite objections from other VA medical professionals; one psychiatrist reportedly accused Freeman of wanting to employ lobotomies to treat “practically everything from delinquency to a pain in the neck.”