Ethics, Narcotic Rx and US Army in war

Hello,
First thread in a long time, I hope this does not become a disaster
I heard this story last year
http://ift.tt/1WL7zrz

It is part of a continuing series about Iraq/Afghan war vets on NPR.

This vet as a soldier injured his back and had surgery, he was prescribed narcotics (Vicodin) and encouraged to soldier on.

Now the story develops as you would expect, this dependence on narcotics goes on, he soldiers on yet gets in the deep stuff, gets threatened with discharge, resigns and then his life crashes and burns.

Now he gets a break

Quote:

Still, at his discharge hearing, something finally went Bryan's way. The presiding officer looked at his record over 17 years. It was excellent. He'd served three combat deployments. She saw that he got hooked on pain medications because the military had prescribed them. She insisted that Bryan McDonel had earned an honorable discharge — and that's what he got.

So what do you think, there is a war, soldiers need to function, their units need them, they want to be productive and not abandon their units...

Yet here we have a situation where the system encouraged narcotic dependence, this soldier served 17 years and crashed and burned and lucked out at a review.

So what do you think?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1PrVoug