"Self-medication is pervasive in American culture," the Pentagon's top scientific panel recently noted. Especially American military culture.
One study showed that "90% of Special
Forces soldiers and 76% of support soldiers" used energy boosters, protein powders, creatine, and other supplements.
But troops are doing more than chemically modifying their bodies. After years on patrol overseas, "12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope," Time magazine reports in a cover story on "America's Medicated Army."
In some ways, the prescriptions may seem unremarkable. Generals, history shows, have plied their troops with medicinal palliatives at least since George Washington ordered rum rations at Valley Forge.
During World War II, the Nazis fueled their blitzkrieg into France and
Poland with the help of an amphetamine known as Pervitin. The U.S. Army also used amphetamines during the Vietnam War.
The anti-depressants are new, however.
"In the Persian Gulf War, we didn't have these medications, so our basic philosophy was 'three hots and a cot'" — giving stressed troops a little rest and relaxation to see if they improved. "If they didn't get better right away, they'd need to head to the rear and probably out of theater." But in his most recent stint in Baghdad in 2006, he treated a soldier who guarded Iraqi detainees. "He was distraught while he was having high-level interactions with detainees, having emotional confrontations with them — and carrying weapons," Horam says. "But he was part of a highly trained team, and we didn't want to lose him. So we put him on an SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, like Prozac and Zoloft]**, and within a week, he was a new person, and we got him back to full duty."
That's probably an exaggeration, or an example of the placebo effect. Those drugs usually take much longer to really kick in. And besides, "the battlefield seems an imperfect environment for widespread prescription of these medicines," the magazine adds.
Many more troops need help —
pharmaceutical or otherwise — but don't get it because of fears that it will hurt their chance for promotion. "They don't want to destroy their career or make everybody go in a convoy to pick up your prescription,"
says LeJeune, now 34 and living in Utah. "In the civilian world, when you have a problem, you go to the doctor, and you have therapy followed up by some medication. In Iraq, you see the doctor only once or twice, but you continue to get drugs constantly." LeJeune says the medications
— combined with the war's other stressors — created unfit soldiers.
"There were more than a few convoys going out in a total daze."
