RX for Disaster Sleepless in Iraq By MARC LEVY

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/levy08222007.html

.......

Iraq 2007

Thanks to an impressive PR campaign, energy drinks are doing exceptionally well in the United States and throughout the world. Demand is especially high in poor, bombed out, bullet ridden, kidnap addled, socially disintegrating and otherwise despoiled Iraq. And Afghanistan. The customers: the American army.

Mark Brinkley, a staff writer for Army Times, put it this way, "They're certainly getting enough of the amber energy cocktail, buying more than 138,000 cans each month from the 54 military exchanges supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. All told, four of the top eight sellers in combat exchanges are human rocket fuels. Either snazzy energy drinks or super-sweet shots of cold, condensed coffee. Not since Popeye put back the spinach has such a big boost been promised from such a tiny package." High demand has led Bawls Guarana, a high-caffeine soft drink that packs twice the punch of Pepsi or Coke, to develop The Bawls Military Gift Pack. Regarding the muster for Red Bull, Monster Energy Drink, Bawls et al, Brinkley posits, "Maybe it's sleep deprivation."

Indeed, a stunning report by Peter Beaumont (The Observer, August 12, 2007) paints a bleak portrait of US troops, pushed to their physical limits and exhausted. A desperate low tech way to prop the eyelids open until the day's tense patrol, the night's careening convoy, or the checkpoint guard shift ends, is to chug can after can of Red Bull, Rip It, or Bawl's, and cat nap when possible. Only after the worn out, sleep-deprived soldier is back at base is there a chance for undisturbed slumber. But the cumulative effect of multiple and extended tours, extreme over-work and sleep deprivation appears to be a growing army of none, with no end in sight.

Ranger in a Strange Land

Elite military forces have long used certain drugs to increase combat effectiveness. My best friend, a heavy combat Army Ranger (see counterpunch.org/levy02162007.html) relates that prior to missions in Vietnam, he and his men were issued Dexedrine and paregoric tablets. The former increased self-confidence, concentration, risk taking, and reduced pain, hunger, thirst, and the need for shuteye. The latter induced constipation. Think about it: men who do not defecate cannot be tracked by the scent of their shit, and can walk, march, crawl or lay in wait for hour and hours. Three days or three weeks later, once back at base, they crashed, drank, smoked pot, decompressed. A week later they choppered out; the cycle began again. Thirty-seven years later, my Ranger pal does not sleep well. Broken sleep, he calls it. And his nightmares are not pleasant. But Rangers are a self-selective bunch. Their training is ferocious. Through interrupted sleep, brutal physical training, and fearsome harassment, the Army does its best to physically and psychologically break a man down. Those who graduate have extraordinary endurance. The same cannot be said for the average American soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq. Patriots who think otherwise are just plain wrong. And one more thing. Returned home, my Ranger pal went through a long period of being short-tempered, violent, prone to taking extreme risks, did ten years hard time, but most importantly, to this day feels that he cannot accept the moral wrongfulness of his actions in war and afterwards. Why? Because the US government ordered him to take amphetamines, the better to do his dirty work.

The Pilots of Penzance

In the 19th century the Germans invented methamphetamine. By the Second World War the German army was using it widely. In 2002, Air Force pilots Major Harry Schmidt (call sign 'Psycho') and Major William Umbach misidentified a target in Iraq. After the mission, they complained of exhaustion. They felt the "common-sense" rule of 12 hours off between flights was being ignore


....