Hello Everyone,
Reading about WWII it appears that it was common for combat soldiers to carry self injectable morphine in their personal first aid kits. Do individual soldiers still carry pain medication?
No. In 27 years in the army I never saw this.
It was replaced with a note reminding the users that, “What’s good for M & M Enterprises is good for the country. – Milo Minderbinder.”
Apparently British soldiers carry morphine in some circumstances, but US soldiers don’t. How much do soldiers know about the morphine they carry on operations? A questionnaire study of knowledge and understanding of the morphine auto-injector on Op HERRICK 17 - PubMed
Just a quick look but I can’t see anything with regards to US troops that personal first aid kits included morphine even then. Medics carried it so it was still commonly available and used at unit level by medical personnel. Think more at the EMT level and possible to administer without a doctor’s order, even by radio.
Are you sure the level of care you were seeing was administering morphine at the individual/first aid level instead of at that level? Do you know which military we’re talking about since there are differences between nations like Pantastic’s link points out.
I hear cotton’s gluten-free and non-GMO.
Well, in the documentary Saving Private Ryan, there was the scene where the squad combine their morphine ampules to euthanize the soon-to-be-dead Wade. Mr Spielberg wouldn’t lie to us, would he?
I talked to a veteran friend who was in Iraq a few years ago. He said that Combat Medics carried it where he was stationed, but he did say that some special forces members were issued it during certain assignments.
He also said that when it was issued, it was only temporary and you had to return it or have a documented need to use it while on assignment. If you didn’t have a valid reason for using it, there was a ton of consequences and paperwork.
Well he is part of Hollywood so getting things wrong from sheer ignorance is a distinct possibility even for movies that really make an effort for realism. There’s also intentionally modifying small things to drive the story and for dramatic effect…don’t call it lying. 
Taking a quick look at the scene I don’t see anything that clearly supports your description of the scene anyway. Wade was a medic. He would have been carrying morphine based on his duties not based on it being issued as part of every Soldier’s individual equipment. They administer an overdose. In the jumble of the scene it’s not clear to me whether they pulled the drugs from their equipment versus Wade’s equipment. It’s just there and being injected.
In about a decade of time in the Air Force, I never saw morphine in an Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK). The kit did contain various bandages and dressings, tourniquets, some ibuprofen and alcohol wipes, a tube of chap stick, and probably a few other odds and ends. If we were expected to face chemical or biological threats, we would also be issued some medical stuff like Atropine autoinjectors (that stuff will jump start your heart if it’s not working, or give you a heart attack if it is working, but a heart attack is better than dying from the effects of nerve toxin) and various other stuff, but none of it was pain killers, just antidotes for various nasty things.
As I understand it, any such antidote kits were also considered accountable items and had to be signed out and signed back in if unused. I’m not sure why anyone would use atropine unless they would literally die otherwise, though.
They also gather it from the 101st in Band of Brothers. I think that some Elite forces, going behind lines, were issued it.
But not line troops. My dad had sulfa powder and quinine in WWII in New Guinea.
He did say that many US soldiers carried a better equipped first aid kit than “Jap” Medics did.
I was a kid at the end of WWII Every GI coming back had amongst his yarns the story about the guy who always gargled and brushed his teeth with sulfa after returning from leave.
Ah, here ya go:
https://www.med-dept.com/medical-kits-contents/class-9-items-drugs-chemicals-and-biological-stains-morphine-tartrate/
*Illustration showing Item No. 9775700; Morphine Tartrate, 1 Tube, with different designs of outer box. The hard fibreboard tube was used to protect the Syrette in certain types of First-Aid Kits (notably the Parachute First-Aid Packet – Item No. 9778500).
Squibb produced a number of packages of their Morphine Syrette. The most popular of these was without a doubt Item No. 9115700 – Morphine Tartrate, 1 Tube. This was the individual tube of Morphine which could be found inside every Parachutist’s First-Aid Packet. This unit consisted of a small, light yellow and red printed box, inside which was contained the Syrette itself, i.e. a collapsible tube with a sterile needle.
So Airborne. Rangers are a maybe.
Airborne makes sense - the chance of being separated from the unit medic being very much higher than for line infantry.
Survival Kit contents check. In them you will find: one 45 caliber automatic, two boxes of ammunition, four days concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills, one miniature combination Rooshan phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in rubles, one hundred dollars in gold, nine packs of chewing gum, one issue of prophylactics, three lipsticks, three pair of nylon stockings.
So 3 lipsticks & 3 pairs of nylon stockings, but they expected you to use the same condom 6 times?
I believe the lipsticks and nylons were meant to be traded to the locals for whatever you might need. Or for dressing up for your big dance number for Hitler.
Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. 
I’ve been told by medics that they don’t really like to use morphine in the field. It may sound callous, but pain is data, and a soldier who can’t feel his wounds is a soldier who might not know how severely he’s injured. If you’re screaming that your leg hurts, there’s a better chance someone will treat your leg.
Veteran soldiers learn to pick up “spares” of just about everything, including stuff they weren’t issued in the first place. Swiping and scavenging are an ordinary part of military life, and the chaos of a shooting war makes picking stuff up much easier. If I were there, I’d find a way to get myself some morphine too, just in case.
:dubious:
Say Babushka, sorry that I dropped a couple of big nukes on Novosibirsk but can I have some bread? Here I’ll trade you nylon stockings for it… my missus loves this stuff.