Drug use in warfare goes back to the ancient world. Throughout history drugs (which includes alcohol) have been used for various reasons by soldiers. Most commonly, to enhance performance or to keep you awake and alert. They can also be used to reduce appetite and pain. Drugs can help soldiers overcome stress or mental trauma because of the horrors they face and faced. And they have been used to deal with boredom when not in combat. In the 20th Century, you even had drugs being used to come down from other drugs.
“Liquid courage” was used for the wounded, to celebrate, and to dull your emotions. The Greeks and Romans were wine-drinking societies and their soldiers had access to wine as their main drink. In the Odyssey, Homer mentions “Nepenthe” which was apparently a combination of wine and opium. It was used for trauma. However, there is no record that alcohol impacted battles (despite the spurious claim that the Spartans lost the Battle of Leuctra because they were drunk). It is safe to say individual soldiers probably were tipsy before fighting in a phalanx. There is evidence that Alexander the Great’s Macedonian phalangites used opium to alleviate exhaustion during their long march into India. Some believe war elephants were plied with alcohol before going into combat. It was common through most of history for soldiers to go on a binge when a city, castle, or fort was captured after a siege. It was an unwritten rule that the besiegers could do whatever they wanted when the place fell. Alcohol fueled the rampage. God help the civilians. And any officer that tried to stop their men.
In the Middle Ages, Viking berserkers used hallucinogenic mushrooms to fire themselves up. In the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy gave a daily ration of grog (rum plus water). It was not unheard of for sailors to barter for other mates’ share to get drunk, but there is no record of a battle involving a drunken crew.
In the American Civil War, coffee with its caffeine became the best way to stay awake. Soldiers relied on coffee so much that the war led to a large increase in the popularity of coffee that continues to this day. Opiates, especially morphine, were prescribed for dysentery and gangrene. And as a painkiller for amputations. The drug was a huge improvement over anything before, but unfortunately, its addictive properties were not understood and led to problems for some veterans after the war. Morphine addition was referred to as the “soldier’s disease”. It was still used in future wars, but with the doses controlled to avoid addiction.
In WWI, alcohol was a popular remedy for the boredom and horror of the trenches. British soldiers were given a daily rum ration. Wine was readily available on the Western Front, but was mainly used by soldiers in reserve or on leave. Cocaine was available. British wives and girlfriends would mail cocaine and heroin to Tommies. The British had a substance called “Forced March” which reduced appetite and increased endurance. It was a concoction of cocaine and cola nut extract.
WWII was the first war where army leadership officially approved of drug use and in fact provided the drugs and encouraged their use. Pills were used to enhance performance and to keep soldiers awake. This began with the German army. It has been said that the conquest of France was partly due to the army being on amphetamines. German scientists had invented Pervitin which was a methamphetamine. It allowed Germans to go without sleep for up to 50 hours. It also allowed the soldiers to live up to their super-soldier ideal. Unfortunately, it caused dizziness, sweating, depression, hallucinations, addiction, and some suicides. Hildebrand was the name of their chocolate laced with Pervitin. It had 13 mg. of the drug compared to the 3 mg. pills. The Germans continued to use it heavily throughout the war until the factory was bombed near the end.
The Allies also gave out a lot of pills. The British army preferred its Benzedrine, which was essentially the same as Pervitin. Supposedly, the Battle of El Alamein was won by Brits on speed. The American army also used it. It is estimated that 250-500 million pills were distributed to American soldiers during the war. American soldiers had syrettes of morphine in their medical kits, but these were used almost exclusively for wounds. The Japanese amphetamine was called Philopon. It was used mainly to keep awake. There was an epidemic of addicts after the war with up to 550,000 Japanese addicted to it. Kamikaze pilots took off after imbibing sake and the drink was commonly used before banzai charges.
The Vietnam War was famous for drug usage. It has been called the first pharmacological war. Amphetamines like Dextroamphetamine were issued but it was twice as powerful as Benzadrine. The doses were called “Pep Pills”. Soldiers and Marines sent on special missions were given a variety of amphetamines and opiods to carry in their medical kits. Marijuana was heavily used and this was condoned by the generals until the media got its teeth into its use and this resulted in a crackdown. In an unintended consequence, soldiers turned to the prevalent and cheap heroin. In 1971, a survey showed that 51% of soldiers used marijuana, 31% used LSD, and 28% used heroin and cocaine. In 1973, 20% of grunts were habitual users of hard drugs. Doctors used Chloropromazine as an anti-psychotic in dealing with severe PTSD. It worked in the short term and the rate of mental breakdowns fell to 1% in comparison to WWII’s 10%. Sadly, the doctors did not realize it needed to be paired with psychotherapy. As a result, some veterans returned to America with a combination of PTSD and withdrawal from the drugs used to treat it. Withdrawal from the Pep Pills caused some veterans to become aggressive and this helped create the image of violent Vietnam veterans. In spite of all this, the drug use, which became especially heavy after the Tet Offensive since the men knew the war was unwinnable and winding down, did not seem to impact the performance of units in the field. There was a lot of peer pressure to not use drugs while on missions. The heavy usage occurred when the soldiers and Marines were back at their base.
The American military in Afghanistan and Iraq did not follow in the footsteps of the Vietnam army. Although marijuana was still being used, the preferred drug was alcohol. Binge drinking was common when off duty. The use of prescription drugs increased greatly. Drugs like Percocet, Oxycontin, and Vicodin were prescribed in huge quantities. Drugs like Ambien were given out to alleviate the effects of the other drugs. More recently, special forces members have used anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs to meet their stringent physical goals.
And to show where we are at today, in the Ukrainian War, Russian cannon fodder have been fueled with alcohol.
P.S. For those of you who have seen “Black Hawk Down” and wondered about the extreme behavior of the Somalis, their aggression and lack of concern about being killed was due to consumption of a drug called Khat. The American mission happened to occur at the time of day that male civilians took a drug break.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_drugs_in_warfare
https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-drug-fuelled-combatants-219658
https://recovery.org/addiction/wartime/
file:///C:/Users/krtha/Downloads/21788-creating-the-warrior-mentality-through-chemical-influence-the-use-of-drugs-in-warfare-and-its-consequences.pdf
https://www.history.com/articles/drug-use-in-vietnam
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