Do Not Fire An M16 While Taking This Medication
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Medication warnings,
May cause anxiety. Combat may intensify this effect.
Use care when operating a laws rocket or firing an M60
machine gun. If you can no longer kill efficiently,
please consult with your doctor of pharmacist.
Traumatized troops returning to Iraq
The US military is sending troops with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health problems back to combat duty in Iraq, and many of these traumatized troops are being deployed while taking antidepressant or anti-anxiety medications, San Diego Union Tribune writer Rick Rogers reports.
Many observers are concerned about the practice. Psychiatrist Frank Ochberg--the Dart Center's chairman emeritus--says, in the story: "I have not seen anything that says this is a good thing to use these drugs in high-stress situations ..."
Rogers also quotes Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.:
Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would prevent personnel from being deployed.
“They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of PTSD,” he said. “That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable and it makes it hard for them to collect disability claims once they get out of the military.”
Military psychiatry--since its advent in World War One--has always sought to avoid diagnosis and to return traumatized troops to combat duty whenever possible, but critics see indications that the US military's current practices are motivated by political rather than medical considerations. Rogers writes:
Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization Disabled American Veterans.
“The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from the war,” Ilem said. “They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are really trying to tamp down the discussion.”