106,000 Soldiers were on prescription medication for three weeks or more last year

They give them meds to sleep, calm down and then to wake up. They go for help with PTSD but are given meds and sent back to duty. What really gets missed is that most meds come with a warning about the need to reduce stress and be monitored by a doctor. They are not given therapy and usually end up with chaplains without a clue what PTSD is. One other problem with this is the fact part of PTSD is short term memory loss. If they pop a pill when they are supposed to then forget they took it, you have an overdoes. If they think they took it but didn't, then there is another problem. With just medication, still in danger and under stress, they are not getting better and lose hope of ever feeling better. Heavily armed, depressed, medicated warriors arrive at the choice of pulling the trigger or trying again tomorrow.

Chiarelli Rejects ‘Medicated’ Army Claim
August 09, 2010
Military.comby Bryant Jordan

The Army is not drugging its troops to cope with combat, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said during an Aug. 8 interview on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.”

Chiarelli, referencing a July Army report showing a sharp increase in Soldier suicides and an increase in serious crimes committed by GIs, said the study’s claim that “data would suggest [the Army is] becoming more dependent on pharmaceuticals to sustain the force” is a concern. The report continues: “In fact, anecdotal information suggests that the force is becoming increasingly dependent on both legal and illegal drugs,” with about one-third of Soldiers on some kind of prescription drug.


Chiarelli acknowledged that more than 106,000 Soldiers were on prescription medication for three weeks or more last year -- including antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. But he said the drugs were authorized by U.S. Central Command’s medical personnel, rejecting Amanpour's comment that the report “raises the specter of a significant number of people out there, heavily armed, afraid, under fire, IEDs [around], and drugged.”

“But we know,” Chiarelli said, “that the drugs we’re talking about are cleared by CentCom surgeons for Soldiers to be taking when they’re down-range. So we’re not sending any Soldier into harm’s way who is taking any drug that we feel would somehow endanger him or some others.”
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Chiarelli Rejects Medicated Army Claim