US military uses drugs to keep troops in battle

[donsu]

this subject has been reported here at DU before but needs to be seen again

http://agrnews.org/?section=news&news_section=2#USmilitaryusesdrugstokeeptroopsinbattle

Wounded US soldiers are being patched up and returned to battle before they are healed. The wounds in this case are to the psyche, caused by the trauma and horror that are as integral to war as guns and death.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, when "suck it up" fails to snap a soldier out of depression or panic, the Army turns to drugs. "Soldiers I talked to were receiving bags of antidepressants and sleeping meds in Iraq, but not the trauma care they needed," says Steve Robinson, a Defense Department intelligence analyst during the Clinton administration.
Sometimes sleeping pills, antidepressants and tranquilizers are prescribed by qualified personnel. Sometimes not. Sgt. Georg Anderas Pogany said that after he broke down in Iraq, his team sergeant told him "to pull himself together, gave him two Ambien, a prescription sleep aid, and ordered him to sleep."
Other soldiers self-medicate. "We were so junked out on Valium, we had no emotions anymore," Iraq vet John Crawford told "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross. He and others in his unit in Iraq became addicted to Valium.
The issues around mental health and medication are exacerbated for the more than 378,000 troops who have served multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. Post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) caused by a previous tour are cropping up in later ones.
"It concerns us when we hear military doctors say, 'It's wonderful that we have these drugs available to cope with second or third deployments,'" said Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association.
"But that statement makes military spouses cringe," she continues, "Soldiers are saying 'we don't have time to recover.' "

-snip-

All these factors promote that classic US solution: Better living through chemistry. When effective, antidepressants and sleeping pills can enable a soldier to get back in action — either from a huddle of terror and disgust, or increasingly, from back home to serve an additional tour.
But the use of brain-altering medications must be monitored for effectiveness and safety, which is beyond the Army's capability in Iraq. The medications can take weeks to kick in, dangerously interact with other medications or fail to work at all. Side effects can include organ damage and thoughts of suicide.

-snip-

In a May 2 letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wrote: "Last year's suicide rate was the highest since 1993. Eighty-three Army soldiers on active duty committed suicide, 25 while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan — a 24 percent increase over the prior year. I find it simply astonishing that the sheer magnitude of the mental health crisis facing our Armed Forces does not compel you to action."
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drag the criminal, murderous bushmilhousegang out of our White House now!

drag the criminal, murderous military officers out of our military so our troops can be treated humanely and with honor now!

[patrice]

1. Yep.

I could see this one coming.

I have a street corner sign about it in the trunk of my car (along with several others), think I'll get it out and start using it again.

[stellanoir]

2. My friend who lost her only son late last year in Iraq

on his second tour sustained a leg injury in boot camp that was never treated properly or allowed to heal. He hobbled through his two tours but in his last conversation with his young wife, he told her that he along with the rest of his entire platoon were on anti-depressants.

I don't know what particular brand they were given but my friend had researched it. I helped her edit a speech about him a couple months ago and one of the points she made in that speech was that this same variety of anti-depressant has a warning label on it on that states "do not operate heavy machinery while under it's influence." She wondered plaintiffly if the DOD has made a special disclaimer to that warning by adding "but it's fine to take during a guerilla war."

Sheesh. Such blatant inhumanity I never thought I's see in this lifetime.

[patrice]

8. Anti-depressants, read that any one or more of a Wide variety of

Stimulants. Giving them the other variety, the dopamine re-uptake inhibitors is perhaps another option, more of a balancing effect, I think.

At any rate, taking psychotropics has consequences to one's biology, some of these people become suicidally depersonalized and depersonallizing of others too, which is necessary if your job is to kill some of them. God what a Crazy way to live! No wonder they are forever Changed. That is what an old woman told me today about her son's tours in Viet Nam.

[patrice]

10. So sad! I will pray for him. n/t

[lies and propaganda]

12. when i was in basic in 99....

kids, includiong myself, NEVER reported injuries. If you did, you would more than likely to get 'recycled' which is pushing you back to some week of your training. So you could be ready to graduate and hurt your leg, of course youre going to stfu because you dont want to start over fresh.

i have shin splints to this day.

[bridgit]

3. yup, jacob's ladder re-visited...

:thumbsdown:

[Jigarotta]

6. Jacobs Ladder - the creepiest movie ever for me.

I could literally 'smell' it while I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep the night I saw it.
One of Tim Robbins first, I believe - he did a swell job, as always.

[Vogt]

4. Hmmmm

So the military is giving the soldiers drugs under which a normal person shouldn't be operating heavy machinery? Maybe like a tank? An Apache f-ing helicopter? Or even an M-16 for that matter? Jesus Christ, just when you think it's as bad as can be.

You know something else, when I was watching one of those CNN Presents shows about a year back or so, I saw something that horrified me vis-a-vis the dignity of the American soldier. This poor kid was in a hospital bed wounded and when he turned his head toward the camera there was a number written on his forehead with a marker, ostensibly to identify him. My God.

Oh and here is something else while we're on the subject. There was a story, I think maybe from Fahrenheit 911, but possibly someplace else, about a young military wife who was struggling so badly to make ends meet for her and her young child with her husband in Iraq that the community actually had to instigate a program of food donations to give her on a continual basis just so she and the child could eat. Yes, that's horrible, but it's not the worst part. A short time later her husband was killed over there and GET THIS: Because he was killed just before the end of a certain month, the military docked his final paycheck five days before they gave it to his widow. Can you fucking believe that? Christ.

[patrice]

11. My older sister's husband was in the Army for a long time.

They never gave him much more than lost paychecks and general trouble - a genuine country kid from Small Town American when it really was small, he had some difficulty with so-called authority figures (contrary to advertising, the Army didn't do squat for L. and his Dad). My sister and her kids didn't have nice food to eat, nor a middle-class household.

[htuttle]

5. "Oh? Shall we review your 'rapid progress'?"

"Rapid progress to where humans learned to control their military with drugs."
-- Q, Encounter at Farpoint

[Deja Q]

14. Or the line he said moments before,

"400 years ago the governments of your world were squabbling over your puny planetary resources..."

(something to that effect, but for 1987 television, even a mention of resource usage was worthy...)

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. Kicked and Recommended

[genie_weenie]

9. Why not?

They tested drugs on us...

[BlooInBloo]

13. That's old isn't it? Or: How far back does that practice go?

WWII? Older?

[Auntie Bush]

15. I wonder if those soldiers who killed all those Iraqi's

were on drugs which made them Psychotic. I wouldn't doubt it and it certainly could help explain what happened.