#1Jan 29th, 2009
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He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. "You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would."
Quote:
a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. "It's not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they're having over there for a variety of reasons," LeJeune says. "If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills."
12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope. ... about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were on such medications last fall.
The U.S. Army also used amphetamines during the Vietnam War.
The increase in the use of medication among U.S. troops suggests the heavy mental and psychological price being paid by soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The mental trauma has become so common that the Pentagon may expand the list of "qualifying wounds" for a Purple Heart historically limited to those physically injured on the battlefield to include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Using drugs to cope with battlefield traumas is not discussed much outside the Army, but inside the service it has been the subject of debate for years.
"Medication can, however, alleviate some debilitating and nearly intolerable symptoms of combat and operational stress injuries" and "help restore personnel to full functioning capacity."
...any drug that keeps a soldier deployed and fighting also saves money on training and deploying replacements.
- it's possible that antidepressants and sleeping aids will be used to stretch an already taut force even tighter.
Joyce Raezer of the private National Military Family Association. "Boy, it's really nice to have these drugs," she recalls a military doctor saying, "so we can keep people deployed."
Professionals have their doubts. "Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?" asks Dr. Frank Ochberg...
(FDA) urged the makers of antidepressants to expand a 2004 "black box" warning that the drugs may increase the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. The agency asked for and got an expanded warning that included young adults ages 18 to 24, the age group at the heart of the Army.
The question now is whether there is a link between the increased use of the drugs in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters and the rising suicide rate in those places.
"The high percentage of U.S. soldiers attempting suicide after taking SSRIs should raise serious concerns," says Dr. Joseph Glenmullen of...
"And there's no question they're using them to prop people up in difficult circumstances."
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This thread I dedicate to EagleSmack.
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Terrific mobility in their legs... must be one of the side-effects 
