As Iraq winds down, U.S. Army confronts a broken force

[unhappycamper]

As Iraq winds down, U.S. Army confronts a broken force
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, September 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq's most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.

What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.

Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.

"The inmates were running the prison," Wilson said.

~snip~

With the U.S. drawdown in Iraq, the Army is finally confronting an epidemic of drug abuse and criminal behavior that many commanders acknowledge has been made worse because they'd largely ignored it during nearly a decade of wars on two fronts.

[indepat]

1. Amazing how troops on a noble seven-year combat mission would so quickly fall into drug abuse and

criminal activity. Who woulda' ever thunk it? :shrug:

[Gin]

2. maybe some of them see the trap they fell into....and some of them

that had to go out of the green zone were in high gear all the time... and in fear of being blown up with every step....that would make me take pills to get through it....

the human system can't stay in high gear without breaking down.....no excuse for criminal behavior but some of it I understand.

[pinboy3niner]

4. And 'numbing' is a common coping mechanism...

...both for dealing with continuing traumatic experience and for dealing with intrusive, disturbing memories later.

[indepat]

6. Just maybe, maybe what's criminal is subjecting your troops to this inhumanity over the long haul

:shrug:

[Gaedel]

3. We have to rebuild it

We went through the same thing in the 1970s after Vietnam. Drug problems, race problems, and general discipline problems. It isn't easy, but you can build out of it. One thing that was easier then was that you just let the draftees go and they took their problems with them. I can see rather stringent re-enlistment standards coming up and if you aren't perfect out into the economy you go.

[spanone]

5. illegal war = illegal shit