L'Iraq n'est pas le Viêt Nam

The New York Times reports on drug and (mainly) alcohol abuse in the military:

A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”

While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.

[...]

Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said.

[...]

But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.

“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”

Gee, I wonder why soldiers would do all that? Muliple rotations to a war zone where every civilian is a possible enemy. Ever decreasing down time between deployments. Always training for the next rotation. Equipment shortages. Seeing your friends die in a country where everyone hates you. A war that goes on and on. Stop loss. Imagine having all that in your life. Drink, drugs and the oblivion of suicide may be a perfectly rational response.

This war has given me a whole new perspective on my service in Vietnam. It was a big deal at the time but the real danger, the mind-numbing dehumanization only lasted for a year(and I even dodged some of that). My entire Army career was 18 months total. (I was in the Individual Ready Reserve for a few years but unlike these days, IRR was never called up.) My Vietnam legacy has lasted a lifetime but that's mostly in my head. I don't have to dodge bullets and stay hyper alert for those moments of chaos and terror that will change the world forever. Hell, I was done at 24. I'm not a43 year old reservist with a job or business trying hold together some semblence of a normal life for a family that could be left totally on its own. This generation of soldiers and Marines has it far worse than I did. They are now the longest serving American combat troops since the Civil War.

In Vietnam we drowned our fears in alcohol and drugs. I see no reason to be surprised that this generation is doing the same thing under far more destructive circumstances.