Iraq veteran thought "Suicide is a death you'll never have to mourn"

Iraq Veteran And Suicide Survivor: 'I Was On Every Drug That Killed Anna Nicole Smith'
Huffington Post
Molly O'Toole
Posted: 09/28/2013

Cutler decided, "I'm just gonna check the fuck out," and got his paperwork in order for his family. "My exit strategy for Walter Reed was to hang myself," he said. "I was ready to roll. Once you've killed people, one more life doesn't really matter. Suicide is a death you'll never have to mourn."

Promethazine, zolpidem, nortriptyline, morphine, divalproex, metoprolol, prazosin, ibuprofen, diazepam, quetiapine, meperidine, trazodone, mirtazapine, hydromorphone.

For Boone Cutler, this was a "combat cocktail" -– just one month's worth of the medications he was given at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while being treated for traumatic brain injury after a mortar attack in Sadr City, Iraq, in 2005.

"I'll tell you, at one point in time I was on every drug that killed Anna Nicole Smith, plus some," said Cutler, who was an Army sergeant at the time of the attack.

The drugs weren't enough. After being medically evacuated from Iraq, Cutler was confined to Walter Reed, which was then becoming crowded with the unanticipated casualties of the war. Soldiers were crammed together in rotting, rodent-infested neglect and, said Cutler, they were heavily medicated by the overworked staff.

"There were so many wounded and not enough to care for everybody," Cutler said. "So it was a chemical prison. You get there and they just throw you on a shitload of meds, with one 15-minute appointment a week. It was the worst time in my life. Two years. It was jacked. I saw a lot of guys looked better when they came in than when they left, because of the isolation."
read more here