One conclusion that I think the CIA reached, is that the drugs of choice for on the ground soldiers are opioids and methamphetamines.
I cared for a Haliburton driver over a decade ago. He quit after a year. By then he is a mass of PTSD. He also checks the listings daily, because his fellow drivers are getting killed regularly.
"The military does not report the CIVILIANS killed. The DRIVERS. We don't COUNT." He was enraged and grieving.
"An AED blew under a friend's truck and he bled out through his groin." He witnessed that one. That would be the femoral artery that supplies most of the leg. You can bleed out fast through it.
"We all tried to put armor in our own trucks, because they were not armored." Makeshift hunks of metal, under the truck and along the sides.
"I got an AED blast in a safe zone and that's when I quit." PTSD and blew his driver's side window in. Hearing loss and concussed, traumatic brain injury. He is sorta ok.
"We would wait with the convoy with the soldiers. It could be 24 hours of waiting. Then we'd have to GO at the drop of a hat. It was terrifying. Everyone used meth to stay awake to drive. The soldiers too. Meth and heroin."
Great. He influenced me when I went to work at Madigan Army Hospital for three months in 2010. I assumed that soldiers coming back may have used meth or heroin or opioids or whatever they could get their hands on. Then I realized that the policy re addictive drugs was Don't ask, don't tell. Oh, right, great. Let's addict them to fight wars and then get mad at them for being addicts. Fuck the military.
Interestingly, Madigan Army hospital takes care of Air Force as well. The Air Force DOES drug test. Probably meth and heroin do not improve flight skills. I would argue that I don't want someone on meth or heroin driving a tank or operating a machine gun.
Perhaps it has changed. I don't know.
andirons