The pattern is relentless: young veteran, barely 30, over-medicated, and not only uncertain but grim about his future. He may still be married, but is likely divorced, possibly estranged from his children. His family frets over his physical and mental health, while taking careful note of his ups and his downs.

Then one day, he dies. The veteran may have taken his own life deliberately. In an increasing number of cases, however, he may have simply gone to sleep and never woken up following a fatal reaction to one of the drugs or cocktails of pills he was prescribed by military doctors.

As our nation has come to rely more heavily on pharmaceutical drugs to manage chronic pain and psychological health, the U.S. military has followed suit, doling out drugs on the battlefield and now back on the home front in a vast network of veterans (VA) hospitals and clinics. But as the rates of sudden death and suicide have spiked over the past decade, it’s become clearer to mental health and military advocates that this heavy reliance on prescription drugs may be partly to blame.

“You get a cocktail, and it’s usually a sleeping pill, anti-anxiety medication, an anti-depressant, and an anti-psychotic—and sometimes even a stimulant like Ritalin or Adderall,” noted Lt. Col. Charles Ruby, who retired from the Air Force and is now working as a clinical psychologist and advocate for veterans. “You have no idea what can happen,” tells TAC.

“Prescription drugs have become the catchall—‘take this and if it makes you feel better, we’ll increase the dosage’,” according to (Ret.) Brigadier Gen. Becky Halstead, a public proponent of alternative medicine following her own two-year stint on medications for chronic fibromyalgia.
"We use prescription drugs because it is a quick fix. It started because our military was strained and it was just keeping more people propped up to do their jobs. But the long-term danger is we made people too dependent on it. It’s alarming to me."
Nationally, prescription drug overdoses have risen significantly. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, for example, the number of Americans who died from painkillers rose to 14,800 in 2008 from 4,000 in 1999—the vast majority being unintentional.

In 2008, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, then the Army’s Surgeon General, raised eyebrows when he mentioned that there had been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the new warrior transition units (WTU) military-wide. The units are supposed to help wounded and sick soldiers transition back into uniform or out of the military, but they’ve been beset with drug problems and low morale for years.