Hundreds of troops have died from drug overdoses, the US military reportedly told Congress
More than 15,000 US military service members have overdosed on illicit drugs in the past five years, and 332 of those cases have resulted in death, the Pentagon has reportedly admitted in response to questions from Congress.
The data was given this week to five US senators, led by Massachusetts Democrats Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Rolling Stone reported on Wednesday. The senators had written to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last September, demanding information on overdoses in the ranks, after the magazine revealed that as many as 30 US soldiers died from overdoses at Fort Bragg in 2020 and 2021. The base in North Carolina is the headquarters for America’s special forces, among other things.
“The loss of a single service member to a fatal overdose is one loss too many,” Markey said on Wednesday. “With hundreds of fatal overdoses reported on US military bases, the toll is mounting. We can and must stop America’s overdose crisis.”
The loss of a single service member to a fatal overdose is one loss too many. With hundreds of fatal overdoses reported on U.S. military bases, the toll is mounting—we can and must stop America's overdose crisis. https://t.co/w0VcanB9Eu
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) February 15, 2023
Fentanyl accounted for more than half of the military overdose deaths, the Pentagon said. In fact, deaths from the synthetic opioid have more than doubled since 2017, following a similar trajectory with America’s overall drug crisis. The US had nearly 107,000 civilian overdose deaths in 2021, including more than 71,000 linked to fentanyl, according to government data.
The military’s overdose deaths have paralleled those in the civilian population in other ways, too. For instance, 96% of those who died were enlisted service members, rather than officers, just as the vast majority of civilian cases involve people without college degrees. The overwhelming majority of service members who died from drug overdoses were white males under the age of 33.
There were high concentrations of overdoses at bases that host Army infantrymen, Green Berets and other elite soldiers, Rolling Stone wrote, claiming “this is likely no coincidence,” as these formations have “borne nearly all of the brunt of the past decade of war in Afghanistan and a half-dozen other countries.”
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
