Son of Jadotville siege hero to launch website about moral injury

Leo Quinlan, son of CMDT Pat Quinlan who led the Siege of Jadotville in The Congo. He has become a keynote speaker on moral injury, having addressed US Military veterans’ associations on four separate occasions as well as the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Picture: Don MacMonagle

The son of an Irish soldier hero is about to spearhead the launch of an international website highlighting to international military leaders and politicians that they can’t abdicate their long-term responsibility to those under their command who have suffered an extreme form of psychological trauma in the line of duty, which is known as moral injury. 

Leo Quinlan, a former Irish army commandant and son of the legendary man of the same rank, Pat Quinlan, who led the successful and now worldwide-recognised textbook battle defence at the Siege of Jadotville in the Congo in 1961, is setting up the site which is due to go live in the next few weeks.

Already there had been a huge buy-in from former military personnel from many different nations about the lack of addressing moral injury, which has for years been confused for years with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

This is different to classic PTSD which can afflict soldiers as a result of horrors experienced in warfare. PTSD can be treated with medication, but those suffering from moral injury need proper professional psychological supports.

However, like PTSD sufferers, the victims of moral injury often take their own lives, become violent to family and friends, and/or become chronic alcoholics or drug abusers.

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Moral injury is where members of the military are left abandoned by their commanders or the State and given no help to deal with the trauma they have endured. It is now widely recognised that 50% of US troops who fought in Vietnam were wrongly diagnosed with PTSD, because in fact they were suffering moral injury.

Leo has been working on establishing the website for the past two years dealing with moral injury and it came about following a collaboration with Melbourne, Australia-based Marty O’Connor, whose father Sergeant Tom O’Connor was a Jadotville survivor and carried the mental scars which impacted heavily on not just himself but his family.

Leo said the veteran caused so much trouble at home that Marty’s mother, Mary, tried to kill herself and all the children on a few occasions and after failing to do so took her own life.

“I connected with Marty in late 2021 and introduced him to moral injury and as Marty said 'the penny dropped' meaning that he then understood what his father was suffering from after Jadotville. He has since forgiven his father and he’s found closure to the family situation as a result of understanding moral injury,” Leo said.

Leo has become a keynote speaker on the subject, having addressed US Military veterans’ associations on four separate occasions as well as the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Leo has been invited back again this year to the US to lecture on the Jadotville moral injury fall-out, which he will deliver to various branches of the American military.

The moral injury website is to be registered as a Limited Company in Delaware, USA, and is to be overseen by five people, including Leo Quinlan and Marty O’Connor.

The others are: Wally Jensen, a US Navy veteran and decorated Vietnam War hero; Tom Goglia, an American consultant in corporate HR trainer specialising in military matters and Michael Lyons, an Irish UN peacekeeping veteran and welfare officer for a Returned Services (personnel) Sub-Branch in Sydney.