Support the Troops: If They're Going Nuts, Drug 'Em and Send 'Em Back to Combat!

[RTFirefly]

This is old news from last May, but it’s the first time I’ve heard about it, and I’m so mad I can’t see straight. It’s like a nightmare of futuristic soldiery out of a Joe Haldeman SF novel, not something from the here and now:

When Army Sgt. 1st Class Mark C. Warren was diagnosed with depression soon after his deployment to Iraq, a military doctor handed him a supply of the mood-altering drug Effexor.

Marine Pfc. Robert Allen Guy was given Zoloft to relieve the depression he developed in Iraq.

And Army Pfc. Melissa Hobart was dutifully taking the Celexa she was prescribed to ease the anxiety of being separated from her young daughter while in Baghdad.

All three were given antidepressants to help them make it through their tours of duty in Iraq - and all came home in coffins.

Warren, 44, and Guy, 26, committed suicide last year, according to the military; Hobart, 22, collapsed in June 2004, of a still-undetermined cause.

The three are among a growing number of mentally troubled service members who are being kept in combat and treated with potent psychotropic medications - a little-examined practice driven in part by a need to maintain troop strength.

Interviews with troops, families and medical experts, as well as autopsy and investigative reports obtained by The Courant, reveal that the emphasis on retention has had dangerous, and sometimes tragic, consequences.

Among The Courant’s findings:

• Antidepressant medications with potentially serious side effects are being dispensed with little or no monitoring and sometimes minimal counseling, despite FDA warnings that the drugs can increase suicidal thoughts.

• Military doctors treating combat stress symptoms are sending some soldiers back to the front lines after rest and a three-day regimen of drugs - even though experts say the drugs typically take two to six weeks to begin working.

• The emphasis on maintaining troop numbers has led some military doctors to misjudge the severity of mental health symptoms.

Some of the practices are at odds with the military’s own medical guidelines, which state that certain mental illnesses are incompatible with military service, and some medications are not suited for combat deployments. The practices also conflict with statements by top military health officials, who have indicated to Congress that psychiatric drugs are not being used to keep service members with serious disorders in combat.

In an interview Monday, Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley insisted that the military uses psychiatric medications cautiously in the war zone, saying that medical professionals may prescribe them at low doses, “for very mild symptoms that might assist soldiers in transitioning through an event.” He said the emphasis on keeping troubled troops close to the front lines is in the service members’ best interests, because it helps them recover and avoid the stigma of abandoning their duty.

Yeah, the same Kiley as in Walter Reed. Now there’s a reliable source.

And in another article in the series, here’s what Kiley’s top psychiatry expert had to say:

Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the top psychiatry expert for the Army surgeon general, said that while the Army is reviewing the 2005 suicides as a way to gauge its mental health efforts, “suicide rates go up and down, and we expect some variation.”

Ritchie said the mental health of troops remains a priority as the war enters its fourth year. But she also acknowledged that some practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with PTSD back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage.

So the Army itself is saying the troop shortage has forced them to send soldiers with PTSD back into combat. And of course the ‘surge’ is only making that shortage worse.

To me, this is the ultimate betrayal of the troops. We’re already sending injured troops back to Iraq, but at least when they get there, someone should notice that they aren’t even capable of carrying their body armor. But if the war’s blown your brain circuitry and they send you right back…that’s fucking barbaric. Evil.

It’s past time to rescue this nation from the monsters who currently rule it. Where’s a mob of peasants with torches and pitchforks when we need one?

[Licentious_Ectomorph]

Depression =/= “nuts.” :dubious:

[Andrew_Bird]

Fuck 'em. They volunteered to an organization known for this sort of thing.

[Gukumatz]

@Andrew Bird

Fuck 'em. They volunteered to an organization known for this sort of thing.

No, fuck you. This shouldn’t have happened.

[gonzomax]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/49233/ This nasty war affects soldiers of all levels. Wrong is wrong.

[Larry_Borgia]

Don’t most people with depression want to return to their job after they get their depression under control with meds?

[Squink]

Related thread from 2005: Antidepressants in combat IIRC the poll results accurately (it’s now offline), soldiers wanted more access to their traditional antidepressants.
It looks like they now have it. To me, that seems an improvement over shipping out, and going cold turkey.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@gonzomax

This nasty war affects soldiers of all levels. Wrong is wrong.

Dude, any war, or exposure to the kind of constant, unrelieved stress that being in a combat situation brings, is going to create these kinds of problems in many otherwise healthy individuals, regardless of the correctness or not of the war at large. Seeing people randomly blown to bits, knowing that it could happen to you at any time, without warning, and being encouraged to kill other people in order to carry out your orders and/or protect yourself against strangers wanting to kill you for impersonal reasons are all “wrong” in the sense of social mores.

I used to know a guy who was a brownwater Navy crewman in The Bad Place. He once (and only once) told a story about how they were cruising along one sunny, stinking day, laying prone on the deck, when he heard the crack of a rifle. He looked over at his crewmate to see if the guy had seen the shooter, then nudged him when he didn’t respond. The guy’s head rolled over, exposing the fact that half of his skull was missing. My coworker spent a fortnight in the hospital unit after not being able to sleep for days. They finally pumped him with morphine, gave him a supply of sedatives to help him sleep, and sent him back to his unit.

This sort of thing has been going on since time immemorial, and has nothing to do with this disagreeable and ill-conceived invasion. Going to war–whether just or not–means casualties, and I’m not talking about those from bullets and bombs.

Stranger

[RTFirefly]

@Stranger On A Train

This sort of thing has been going on since time immemorial, and has nothing to do with this disagreeable and ill-conceived invasion. Going to war–whether just or not–means casualties, and I’m not talking about those from bullets and bombs.

Maybe, but at least with the bullets-and-bombs kinds of injuries, they can more or less tell when or whether you’re able to go back and fight again.

That’s not exactly the case with psychiatric injuries. You don’t know how bad someone’s cracked up, until it’s too late of course.

And as far as this particular war is concerned, we’re supposedly trying to pacify the country, which involves not turning the citizens into enemies (more than we’ve turned them that way already). Psychologically fit soldiers should be more or less a requirement, if that’s what we’re trying to do.

Of course, if we’re being lied to about that (of course we are), then no problemo.

[Guinastasia]

@Andrew Bird

Fuck 'em. They volunteered to an organization known for this sort of thing.

No, fuck you. Fuck you up the ass sideways with a rusty chainsaw.

Licentious Ectomorph, no shit, Sherlock. I don’t think that was the point.

:dubious:

[Licentious_Ectomorph]

@Guinastasia

No, fuck you. Fuck you up the ass sideways with a rusty chainsaw.

Licentious Ectomorph, no shit, Sherlock. I don’t think that was the point.

:dubious:

Excuse me, but the OP himself described the soldiers as “Going Nuts” in his own fucking title. Since he’s obviously on their side, he should know better. And as someone who’s on medication for depression, I didn’t appreciate it.

[Czarcasm]

@Licentious Ectomorph

Excuse me, but the OP himself described the soldiers as “Going Nuts” in his own fucking title. Since he’s obviously on their side, he should know better. And as someone who’s on medication for depression, I didn’t appreciate it.

Do you appreciate it more, or less, than when someone who barely knows you slaps a bottle of pills into the palm of your hand and tells you to get your ass back into the battlefield?

[RTFirefly]

@Licentious Ectomorph

Excuse me, but the OP himself described the soldiers as “Going Nuts” in his own fucking title. Since he’s obviously on their side, he should know better. And as someone who’s on medication for depression, I didn’t appreciate it.

Excuse me, but you may have noticed that there’s a limit on the number of characters you’re allowed in a thread title. Two things: (1) do you have a problem with the OP as opposed to the thread title, and (2) do you deny that some of these soldiers who have been given drugs and thrown back into the war were indeed going nuts?

[Count_Blucher]

@Czarcasm

Do you appreciate it more, or less, than when someone who barely knows you slaps a bottle of pills into the palm of your hand and tells you to get your ass back into the battlefield?

Why don’t you support the troops? You know, Walter Reed style, while wrapped in the flag? Isn’t that what all those bumper-stickers mean?

It sure seems like it’s what the administration elected by those sheep means…

[Czarcasm]

@Count Blucher

Why don’t you support the troops? You know, Walter Reed style, while wrapped in the flag? Isn’t that what all those bumper-stickers mean?

It sure seems like it’s what the administration elected by those sheep means…

Now I’m confused-I thought the reason I wanted to bring those troops(including my brothers) home in one piece was because I hated them.

[Guinastasia]

@Licentious Ectomorph

Excuse me, but the OP himself described the soldiers as “Going Nuts” in his own fucking title. Since he’s obviously on their side, he should know better. And as someone who’s on medication for depression, I didn’t appreciate it.

And as someone who is also on meds for depression AND anxiety, I think you’re way overreacting.

Get a fucking grip.

[Count_Blucher]

@Czarcasm

Now I’m confused-I thought the reason I wanted to bring those troops(including my brothers) home in one piece was because I hated them.

That’s ok. I thought the reason I was an un-patriotic and treasonous citizen was because for every one dollar spent on Iraq, I wanted another dollar spent on helping the kids traumatized, scarred & crippled by it. I wanted them helped through a properly staffed / supplied / funded VA system. Guess I’m just a Nanny-stater because I wanted adequate VA help for the people who have to actually fight the wars the DC Gutless have never had the nads to fight. Intead of just throwing the wounded back into battle to die like ‘good soldiers’. Or tossing them out of the system to fend for themselves as Homeless.

Oh, but evidently I don’t support the troops, dontcha know… :rolleyes:

[Fear_Itself]

@Larry Borgia

Don’t most people with depression want to return to their job after they get their depression under control with meds?

They are committing suicide after being medicated and returned to battle. Does that sound to you like their depression is under control?

[gonzomax]

@Stranger On A Train

Dude, any war, or exposure to the kind of constant, unrelieved stress that being in a combat situation brings, is going to create these kinds of problems in many otherwise healthy individuals, regardless of the correctness or not of the war at large. Seeing people randomly blown to bits, knowing that it could happen to you at any time, without warning, and being encouraged to kill other people in order to carry out your orders and/or protect yourself against strangers wanting to kill you for impersonal reasons are all “wrong” in the sense of social mores.

I used to know a guy who was a brownwater Navy crewman in The Bad Place. He once (and only once) told a story about how they were cruising along one sunny, stinking day, laying prone on the deck, when he heard the crack of a rifle. He looked over at his crewmate to see if the guy had seen the shooter, then nudged him when he didn’t respond. The guy’s head rolled over, exposing the fact that half of his skull was missing. My coworker spent a fortnight in the hospital unit after not being able to sleep for days. They finally pumped him with morphine, gave him a supply of sedatives to help him sleep, and sent him back to his unit.

This sort of thing has been going on since time immemorial, and has nothing to do with this disagreeable and ill-conceived invasion. Going to war–whether just or not–means casualties, and I’m not talking about those from bullets and bombs.

Stranger

Dude, wars that go in the streets with non uniformed combatants are much much worse. When you absolutely know you have killed another human being who you know nothing about, you have to deal. If an incident about previous wars constitutes proof that previous wars are just the same you win the debate. However 36 percent of the soldiers returning home are showing mental problems. medical experts expect the numbers to go much higher. This in my estimation is much worse on the psyche. Plus the average age of an Iraqi male is 15.

[elucidator]

Lets make a distinction. Soldiers, especially combat experienced soldiers, tend to have an intense desire to return based on their sense of loyalty to thier comrades in arms. However commendable the motive, this is not a decision said soldier should be permitted to make. If his judgement is altered by either experience or by medications, this must be taken into account.

Lord help us if an American soldier makes an error in judgement that results in civilian deaths, and said soldier was “on drugs”. Its not like we haven’t handed our enemies sufficient propaganda fodder.