Word: combative
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...Which means that any drug that keeps a soldier deployed and fighting also saves money on training and deploying replacements. But there is a downside: the number of soldiers requiring long-term mental-health services soars with repeated deployments and lengthy combat tours. If troops do not get sufficient time away from combat - both while in theater and during the "dwell time" at home before they go back to war - it's possible that antidepressants and sleeping aids will be used to stretch an already taut force even tighter. "This is what happens when you try to fight a long...
...Prozac was the first to be approved by the FDA, in 1987, followed by Zoloft from Pfizer, Paxil from GlaxoSmithKline, Celexa from Forest Pharmaceuticals and others - existing antidepressants had many disabling side effects. Impaired memory and judgment, dizziness, drowsiness and other complications made them ill suited for troops in combat. The newer drugs have fewer side effects and, unlike earlier drugs, are generally not addictive or toxic, even when taken in large quantities. They work by keeping neural connections bathed in a brain chemical known as serotonin. That amplifies serotonin's mood-brightening effect, at least for some people...
...then Major E. Cameron Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist, was among the first to suggest that SSRIs should deploy with Army combat units. In a paper written and published after she returned from a combat deployment to Somalia, Ritchie noted that the sick-call chests used by military doctors "contain either outdated or no psychiatric medications." She concluded, "If depressive symptoms are moderate and manageable, medication may be preferable to medical evacuation...
...military docs were debating the matter among themselves. Nash, a Navy psychiatrist, wrote that Navy doctors - who also provide Marines with medical care - had "sharp differences of opinion" over letting troops in war zones use SSRIs. Skeptics argued that their "real safety" in combat had not been proved. Supporters countered that their use could "avoid depleting manpower resources and damaging individual careers through unnecessary removals from operational duty." Nash reviewed the medical literature and reported that SSRIs "can be safely administered to deploying and deployed personnel...
...drugs became a flood after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Details of America's medicated wars come from the mental-health surveys the Army has conducted each year since the war began. If the surveys are right, many U.S. soldiers experience a common but haunting mismatch in combat life: while nearly two-thirds of the soldiers surveyed in Iraq in 2006 knew someone who had been killed or wounded, fewer than 15% knew for certain that they had actually killed a member of the enemy in return. That imbalance between seeing the price of war up close...