U.S. Military: Heavily Armed and Medicated

U.S. Military: Heavily Armed and Medicated

www.msnbc.msn.com

In deploying an all-volunteer army to fight two ongoing wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has increasingly relied on prescription drugs to keep its warriors on the front lines. In recent years, the number of military prescriptions for antidepressants, sleeping pills, and painkillers has risen as soldiers come home with battered bodies and troubled minds. And many of those service members are then sent back to war theaters in distant lands with bottles of medication to fortify them.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:

America's Medicated Army
Military Suicide in Iraq
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Stressed out US soldier shoots fellow troops in Iraq

[edit on 20-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

*SNIP

Brilliant way to lower your suicide stats, increase your retention stats and give the pharmaceutical giants/lobby some pay back for campaign contributions. If these measures by chance increase the innocent fatalities, civilian or military, i suppose it could be written off as a par-for-course war statistic. When adding how much they have bent the rules and standards for recruitment to avoid a draft, you can see how desperate and determined the MIC is in keeping this money training running... on schedule.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 20-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

[edit on 20/5/2009 by Mirthful Me]

Soldiers don't have to take the medication.

They go to the doctor with a complaint. The doctor fixes it and prescribes medication. Soldier picks up medication from the pharmacy. Soldier takes medication home. Soldier then takes medication without a gun to his head.


I guess if the soldiers get hurt we can stop all medication and issue out bottles of whiskey like they did in the old days.

Nah, then the headline would read- U.S military: Heavily armed and completely drunk.

We were given the option of taking Ambien if we needed it to get to sleep. Having flown thru a bunch of time zones, then getting to the AOR and told you're flying a night mission or something, trying to sleep in a hot tent when bulldozers, etc, are moving outside makes it hard to sleep.

Ambien rocks! That stuff puts you out like a light in about five minutes.

i have a video that may interest you about the subject



it is an important issue and we need to talk about it and get it out in the open

is this a slippery slope that leads to worse things?

There is a deeper darker issue not being addressed here...



When you see so many band-aids it should prompt one to question what is underneath.

[edit on 20-5-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Perhaps if they weren't sending the troops to fight on two fronts there wouldn't be a need to send them before they were ready. No one should be sent back out if they are having to rely on anxiety or depression meds just to function.

reply to post by The All Seeing I


ya thats absolutely unacceptable

a ranger died on his 8th tour?

its amazing that the war has been going on long enough for 8 tours to even have happened

i wonder what kind of Performance enhancing drugs the military may be involved with as well...im sure that would be even more controversial

The enitre military is not medicated, but you as a leader I encouraged my troops to seek help when the saw something that diddnt sit right with them. When in theater if they were prescribe certain drugs the leadership took a close look at them to decide if they should be sent to Germany for further treatment or if they were okay to stay in theater in a support role untill they felt better. 9 times out of 10 the soldiers were giving some time off sent to quatar and came back ready fight. When it was deemed they needed help we sent them to Germany and let the doctors there decide what was to happen depending on the soldiers serivty he was sent home to recieve some serious counsleing or return to duty.

The troops who stayed in Iraq when we returned home were instructed to see a mental health spec, and giving the treatment needed.

Originally posted by jerico65
We were given the option of taking Ambien if we needed it to get to sleep. Having flown thru a bunch of time zones, then getting to the AOR and told you're flying a night mission or something, trying to sleep in a hot tent when bulldozers, etc, are moving outside makes it hard to sleep.

Ambien rocks! That stuff puts you out like a light in about five minutes.

Yeah Ambien. Good stuff it was gold! Nothing like trying to stay up as long as possible while taking it. You hallucinate! Pretty cool while being strapped. Nothing like being up for 48 hours and getting attacked right after you popped a couple of those little rascals.

I see nothing to debate here.

If it helps our soldiers do their job better without as much heartache then let them have whatever they need.

War is blood and guts. It's wondering if your family back home is OK. It's also finding out your wife is cheating on you while you are killing people that you really don't want to kill.

If it takes an antidepressant and or a sleeping pill by God let them have it without anti drug, tree hugging idiots telling them it's wrong.

Anti depressants are used for neurological and other types of pain and as well as for sleeping aids.

It is common in war zones to used these drugs instead of narcotics or drugs like Ambien do to the side effects of narcotics and sleep aids like ambien

i think the debate is that having armed soldiers under the effects of mind altering drugs is potentially dangerous

they are using mind altering drugs, otherwise it would not fix depression or stress

stress and depression are mental states, and they are influenced by these drugs

bottom line is, their capacity to make alert focused and WISE decisions on the battlefield May be compromised by mind altering chemicals such as anti depressants

have their been any formal studies to show how soldiers on these drugs react in the warzone? Probably, but i bet they are secret

Originally posted by ANNED
Anti depressants are used for neurological and other types of pain and as well as for sleeping aids.

It is common in war zones to used these drugs instead of narcotics or drugs like Ambien do to the side effects of narcotics and sleep aids like ambien

Ambien is given because it's lack of side effects. I think the only thing the caution you on is a "sleep hangover" when you wake up.

anti-depressants have been shown to increase the risk for suicidal or psychotic behavior correct? The Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho, had taken anti-depressants right?

And as for pain relievers, can't the continual use damage the liver ?

Could it be that the unprecedented rise in these symptoms are due to the fact that we keep sending unfit soldiers back out because the military is stressed to the breaking point with not enough hands to adequately perform the tasks required?.

Could it be that the use of psychotropic meds are on the rise because they are more readily available and troops are encouraged to take them?

Could it be that the realization that one is participating in a fabricated war for fictitious reasons is too much to bare, so you take the anti-depressants to keep yourself from blowing your own head off?

...could it be all three of these factors?

...or could it just be that i am a "tree-hugging idiot"?
...or even worst, just the opposite... a cold insensitive battle-axe?

Originally posted by jerico65

Originally posted by ANNED
Anti depressants are used for neurological and other types of pain and as well as for sleeping aids.

It is common in war zones to used these drugs instead of narcotics or drugs like Ambien do to the side effects of narcotics and sleep aids like ambien

Ambien is given because it's lack of side effects. I think the only thing the caution you on is a "sleep hangover" when you wake up.

Ambien has some very dangerous side effects.
www.resource4thepeople.com...
www.sddefenselawyers.com...

I would not want someone with a gun taking Ambien in a combat zone.

When I was in combat, I relied heavily on medication. The favorite was Jim Beam.

Good for pain, helps get sleep, and improved my overall attitude.

In Company "O" Arctic Rangers, 75th, we were issued a mini-bottle of brandy each day. Every single day, authorized by the US Army. One single Company in the entire Army.

Of course the guys who didn't drink were real popular, and I had several as best friends.

The mileage is rapidly piling up on our soldiers. A knowing commander upon notification that they will be going home should arrange a ten-day rest with no outside distractions.

To rush them home is to do no favor for them or their families.

Gotta give them time to sort things out. Touch base. Take off your war face. Contemplate.

Everyone needs that, but it's a hundredfold more important for soldiers.

FORT BLISS, Texas – The Defense Department is working to reduce stress on the force and improve quality of life for the troops, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told soldiers at the Army Sergeants Major Academy here today.

As part of that effort, Gates asked the senior leaders’ help in getting troops who need it to seek combat-related mental health care.

Military.com

The military has truly been struggling to deal with the difficulties of having a dwindling level of troops available for rotation and ongoing lengthy wars in two different theatres of operations.

Drugs in the military has been around since Alexander's men chewed on Opium leaves for strength and energy and to dull away the aches and fatiques of constant marching.

Nazi Germany came up with many of the drugs that are favored today amongst the street culture, crystal methadrine, oxy codone, methadrome and others were constantly given to Whermacht Troops especially on the Eastern Front. Though history has not really dealt with it, I suspect some of the most brutal Nazi attrocities committed by enlisted troops and non-commissioned officers were in part byproducts of their detachment and being desensitized by frequent narcotic use and narcotic dependency.

'___' experiments in the 1960's were ostensibly just another attempt to create the "super soldier".

Xanax was actually developed to sedate '___' test subjects on bad trips.

Today some of our war wounded and crippled suck on Fentanyl lollipops to cope with baseline pain that is 80 times more powerful than the synthetic opiates Hitler's scientists formulated.

One thing is for sure we are pushing our all volunteer military to the breaking point in the prosecution of these wars, and the Government knows it.

Here we are all these years later with a whole combat army on the DMZ in Korea to protect your right to buy a Hyundai.

We finally concluded peace with Germany as did the other allies when the Berlin Wall finally fell in the early 1990's but Germany is still virtually under American Military Occupation.

Despite all that I think I would rather see our Soldiers in Korea and Germany where shots aren't fired and they come home safe and sane and innocent men women and children aren't slaughtered in the thousands for them to deal with the memories of the rest of their lives.

War is such a terrible thing and I for one do not believe we as a nation ever pursue the level and degree of diplomacy would should in making wars a thing of the past instead of an every increasing part of our futures.



[edit on 20/5/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

Originally posted by ANNED
Ambien has some very dangerous side effects.
www.resource4thepeople.com...
www.sddefenselawyers.com...

I would not want someone with a gun taking Ambien in a combat zone.

Really? Sleep driving?

Well, the Ambien is given under strict control of a flight surgeon, not taken by some junkie civilian that's having problems getting their beauty sleep.

Guess what? We carry guns!!!

And we fly airplanes!!!!