Combat's Hidden Toll, Medicated Military

Take a pill and get back to duty is basically what this approach leads to and it will do no good at all. One of the coping avenues many PTSD veterans take is the use of alcohol and drugs while attempting to calm their nerves and kill off the ability to feel anything. Giving them medications without adding any kind of therapy is accomplishing the same outcome, numbing instead of healing.

What will it take for the military to be able to understand that while these men and women are highly trained to face any situation in combat they can never be trained to stop being human?

The civilian world has evolved enough to acknowledge the need to address psychological changes in the workings of the mind and spirit after traumatic events yet the most traumatic environment with multiple exposures is being ignored. We can respond to traumatic events caused by nature or other humans, mobilize teams of responders, hit the aftermath of traumatic events head on, yet the military's answer seems to always be quickest solution to get them back on duty. How do they ever expect this to work?

What will it take for them to finally fully understand that numbing them is driving them over the edge? Will they ever understand that the recovery rate is much higher if they address it soon after the events? Do they really want a medicated military?

Combat's Hidden Toll: 1 in 10 Soldiers Report Mental Health Problems
Soldiers Report PTSD Symptoms and Other Mental Health Problems

By KIM CAROLLO
ABCNews Medical Unit
June 9, 2010

Even though he's retired from active military duty, CSM Samuel Rhodes still suffers from deep emotional wounds.

"I had to take this afternoon off from work today because of anxiety," he said. "And sometimes, if I'm going through a really tough time, I think about suicide."

He spent nearly 30 years in the Army and recently spent 30 straight months deployed in Iraq where he, like many soldiers, witnessed some of the horrors of war.

"In April 2005, it started to eat me up because I started losing one soldier after another," Rhodes said. "We lost 37 soldiers that were in my unit."

He was command sergeant major of his brigade, and over the 30 months he was there, he lost 37 of his soldiers. As time wore on, the loss of life wore him down.


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Combats Hidden Toll