Bridging The Gap Of South Carolina

Veterans Kick The Prescription Pill Habit, Against Doctors' Orders
July 11, 20145:59 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
By Quil Lawrence
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. Troops coming home from war are prescribed drugs at a staggering rate. Hundreds of thousands of veterans are on opiates for pain, and yesterday we heard about the risk of addiction. Those opiates are among many drugs that vets are taking for everything from pain to PTSD. 1 in 3 vets polled say they're on 10 different medications. Today, we're going to hear how some veterans are rebelling. NPR's Quil Lawrence met some veterans who are kicking drugs against doctors' orders. And a quick word of caution - there are descriptions in this story that some listeners may find disturbing

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: For a lot of people, PTSD is knowing that if you sleep, you return to the worst place you have ever been at the worst possible moment.

WILL: I always see his face. And in my dreams it's the same thing, but I always walk over to him and instead of this Afghani kid that's laying there, it's my little brother.

LAWRENCE: Will is 33 years old. He did one tour in Iraq, one tour in Afghanistan with the Army.

WILL: In Afghanistan there was a real bad incident. We'd just finished this humanitarian aid mission. And we were getting ready to roll out, and this kid runs up to a Humvee. The kid's yelling, water, water, water. And so the medic reaches down to a case of water on the floor. And we turn around - the kid bashed him in the face with a rock. And kid runs off, and I mean we were like a hive of angry bees. And a guy comes out with an AK and, you know, it was the kid's father, we found out later - and start shooting. And they shot the father. The kid ends up picking up the AK. I mean he was 13 - 14 years old. And the driver that had shot the father just froze, and I ended up shooting the kid from - couldn't have been 50 feet away. And after I did that, all I remember is that I was shaking. And one of my soldiers took my weapon away and said it's OK primo. It's going to be OK.

LAWRENCE: Will has other stories, and they're some of the worst I've ever heard - not for the intensity of the firefight or the size of the bombs, but just for the bad pictures he's got stuck in his head - like pulling a friend out of a river in Iraq only to find that there's nothing left of him below the waterline - like realizing your buddy is dead because you find nothing but a huge scrap of his tattoo.

WILL: Those guys had wives and kids, you know? Everybody in my Humvee - we were all single. And it was just - I felt guilty. You know, that should've been us. It shouldn't have been them.

LAWRENCE: Will came away with only, only two ruined knees, a wrecked back, and a piece of bone fragment that sort of floats on his hip, and a mild traumatic brain injury and PTSD. And for all of those things, Will has been prescribed meds - lots and lots of meds.

WILL: For migraines and whatnot due to TBI, topiramate - 10 milligrams of Ambien daily...

LAWRENCE: We'll hear more about Will in a bit. It'll take him about six minutes to list all of his pills. But there are other vets in the same boat. On average, veterans get prescribed narcotic painkillers three times more often than civilians, like these three.

LEO KALBERG: Leo Kalberg. I served in the United States Army.

NANCY BRYANT: My name is Nancy Bryant and I served in the Air Force.

RACHEL STOKES: My name is Rachel Stokes. I was in the Army.

LAWRENCE: They have their lists as well.

BRYANT: I've been on tizanidine.

KALBERG: Citalopram.

BRYANT: Trazodone.

STOKES: Trazodone.

KALBERG: Prozac.

BRYANT: Ambien.

KALBERG: Klonopin.

BRYANT: Dicyclomine.

STOKES: Xanax, Seroquel, and Zoloft.

BRYANT: Hydrocodone.

KALBERG: Tramadol.

STOKES: Tramadol.

KALBERG: Percocet, Vicodin.

BRYANT: Compazine.

STOKES: Oh, naproxen sodium. (Laughing) Everyone has that for every reason.

LAWRENCE: Besides getting the same drugs, these folks have something else in common. Despite the pain and PTSD, they've decided, without telling their doctors, to stop taking their meds. They say the side effects make them feel like zombies. Nancy Bryant came on the idea by accident. She got a stomach flu and she couldn't keep any food or her meds down.

BRYANT: After a few days of that, you know, those medications clearing my system, I just realized - wow, I felt like a totally different person.

LAWRENCE: Leo Kalberg says he realized he was addicted to Percocet. He used to get nervous when he only had a few left. And Rachel Stokes started looking into what the meds she takes are really designed to do, like the ones to help her sleep.

STOKES: Seroquel is for sleep, but it's not even for sleep. Seroquel is for people that have bipolar schizophrenia. And I'm all like, that is not me.

RICHARD FRIEDMAN: They were using antipsychotic drugs off label - way, way, way off label. Obviously, they're not using them to treat the major disorders for which these drugs are designed.

LAWRENCE: Richard Friedman is the director of psychopharmacology at Cornell Medical College. He researched the military's use of antipsychotics like Seroquel and stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin. He says those drugs have no official purpose that fits a combat zone. He figures the military was using whatever drugs they could to keep troops sleeping, waking up and functioning at war.

FRIEDMAN: They were in a difficult situation when they had unprecedented levels of stress in a group of otherwise healthy people. So I think they resorted to psychopharmacology as a means to keep people in active duty.

LAWRENCE: Friedman says it's like giving a football player painkillers so he can finish the game. It gets him back on the field, but it might hurt him worse in the long-term. The Pentagon says it has safeguards to prevent over prescription or the use of drugs in harmful combinations, and the VA's guidelines warn about using many of these drugs off label. Now, using drugs off label is common in medicine, and Friedman says doctors do it with good intentions. He also says stopping taking the meds without a doctor's guidance can be dangerous. Maybe, but Rachel Stokes is sick of doctors and their pills.

STOKES: The medications - I hate all the medications. If a scientist actually went through and did research and they really found out what really worked, then that's different. But it doesn't seem like they're doing that.

LAWRENCE: She may have a point. A study by the Institute of Medicine last month concluded that the VA and the Pentagon do a poor job tracking what happens when they treat PTSD with drugs. There is a brand-new effort at the VA to educate its doctors. Gavin West is with the VA.

GAVIN WEST: We've undertaken a psychopharmacologic safety initiative where we're looking across the board at more safe and more effective use of medications.

LAWRENCE: Which brings us back to Will. Remember Will? He's almost done reading out his prescriptions.

WILL: We've got tramadol, baclofen...

LAWRENCE: Will's also not taking his meds. He's still in the process of being medically retired from the Army, so he asked that we only use his first name.

WILL: I always keep at least one month on supply. My next month's supply comes next week, so as soon as they come in, I take those and I flush them. And then I just scrape my names off the - all the pill bottles and throw them all away.

LAWRENCE: Will keeps a month's supply of pills because he's getting drug tested. That's right - tested to make sure he is on drugs. That's to make sure he's not selling his drugs on the street, which isn't uncommon. So every few months when he has an appointment, Will gets himself back on drugs. He gradually works up to the dose he's supposed to be on. When we met, he had just cycled himself off the meds again, after a doctor's appointment.

WILL: I'm actually feeling pretty good. I have now been fully off the meds for nine days - the first three days of being off them were really bad. I just - real bad nausea, diarrhea, shaky.

LAWRENCE: Will hopes he'll be out of the Army soon and he can stop the roller coaster of getting on and off the drugs. He says it's worth it for now. When he was on the meds, he was a shut-in - too doped up to drive, depressed. Dealing with his PTSD without the drugs - he's still working that. Quil Lawrence, NPR News.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/07/11/330178170/veterans-kick-the-prescription-pill-habit-against-doctors-orders

First Blood: The Ambush that Ignited the French and Indian War

The French and Indian War, which would later expand into what is known as the Seven Years' War globally, began with its first exchange of fire on May 28, 1754, near present-day Uniontown in Pennsylvania. A young George Washington led the Virginian colonial forces in a skirmish against the French, marking the outset of the conflict. This war between the British and French colonial empires, aided by various Native American tribes and colonial militias, fundamentally reshaped the geopolitical landscape of North America and sowed the seeds for future American discontent with British rule.

What began as a diplomatic mission quickly escalated into violence when 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington and his men, accompanied by Mingo allies led by Tanacharison (the "Half King"), encountered a French contingent led by Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. The French claimed they were on a diplomatic mission to deliver a message demanding British withdrawal from the contested Ohio Valley territory.

Washington, acting on intelligence from Native American scouts, treated the French as a scouting party with hostile intent. The ensuing surprise attack at dawn resulted in approximately 13 French casualties, including Jumonville himself, who was reportedly killed by Tanacharison after being captured. This controversial engagement thrust the young Washington onto the international stage and ignited what would become a global conflict.

The skirmish at Jumonville Glen was merely the flashpoint of tensions that had been building for decades. Both Britain and France coveted the strategically valuable Ohio River Valley for its rich fur trade and potential for territorial expansion. The region became a powder keg as both imperial powers established competing trading posts and forts, each trying to secure alliances with various Native American nations.

The Albany Congress of 1754, held just weeks after Washington's ambush, attempted to address these escalating tensions by proposing a unified approach to relations with Native tribes and defense against the French. Meanwhile, Native American nations found themselves making calculated decisions about which European power might better serve their interests, with the Iroquois Confederacy generally supporting the British while many Algonquian-speaking peoples allied with the French.

The immediate aftermath of Jumonville Glen proved disastrous for Washington personally, as he was forced to surrender at Fort Necessity just weeks later. However, the long-term consequences of this first bloodshed were profound for American history. The eventual British victory in the French and Indian War eliminated French power from eastern North America but left Britain with enormous war debts and vast new territories to administer.

The subsequent taxation policies implemented to address these challenges generated tremendous colonial resentment. Many veterans of the conflict, including Washington himself, had received their first military training during the war, skills they would later employ against their former British commanders.

Perhaps most importantly, the conflict fostered a sense of shared identity among previously disparate colonies, creating connections between influential colonial leaders who would later form the core of the revolutionary movement. What began with Washington's controversial ambush in a Pennsylvania glen ultimately set in motion events that would transform thirteen separate colonies into a unified nation seeking independence.

The Mystic Massacre: A Turning Point in Early Colonial Conflict

On May 26, 1637, during the Pequot War, English settlers and their Native American allies launched a devastating pre-dawn attack on a fortified Pequot village near the Mystic River in present-day Connecticut. Known as the Mystic Massacre, this event marked one of the first large-scale and brutally violent confrontations between European colonists and Native Americans in New England. The assault resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children, and it became a defining moment in the history of early colonial-Native relations.

See Image 1

Tensions leading to the Pequot War stemmed from escalating competition over trade and territory between English settlers and the Pequot tribe, one of the dominant Native groups in southern New England. Disputes over land ownership, trade control with the Dutch, and retaliatory violence created a climate of fear and mistrust.

In the early 1630s, a series of violent encounters between English colonists and Pequot warriors—along with the deaths of English traders and growing alliances between tribes and rival colonial powers—set the stage for full-scale war.

See Image 2

In the early hours of May 26, 1637, Captain John Mason led a coalition of around 90 English soldiers, along with several hundred Mohegan and Narragansett allies, to attack a major Pequot village. Instead of engaging in traditional warfare, the English forces surrounded the village and set it ablaze, trapping its inhabitants inside. Those who tried to flee were cut down.

Estimates suggest that between 400 and 700 Pequot—mostly non-combatants—were killed in the attack. The scale and method of the massacre stunned even some of the English allies, who reportedly were horrified by the indiscriminate slaughter.

The Mystic Massacre dealt a devastating blow to the Pequot tribe. In the following months, English forces and their allies continued to pursue and kill or enslave Pequot survivors. By the end of the war in 1638, the Pequot as a political and cultural force had been nearly eradicated.

The Treaty of Hartford effectively outlawed the use of the Pequot name and prohibited survivors from returning to their ancestral lands. Many were enslaved or absorbed into other tribes, forever altering the demographic and political landscape of the region.

See Image 3

The Pequot War—and the Mystic Massacre in particular—signaled a shift in colonial attitudes and tactics, foreshadowing the violent and often genocidal conflicts that would follow across North America. It demonstrated how alliances with Native groups could be instrumentalized by colonial powers and revealed the devastating impact of European settlement on Indigenous communities.

May 26, 1637, remains a day of mourning and remembrance for the descendants of the Pequot people and a stark reminder of the complex and often brutal origins of colonial America. The massacre not only changed the course of New England history but also left a legacy of dispossession and resilience that continues to resonate today.

Signing of the SALT I Agreements... Keep Reading

On May 27, 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreements in Moscow, marking a pivotal moment in the Cold War. These historic accords—consisting of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and an interim agreement on strategic offensive arms—represented the first concrete steps taken by the two superpowers to limit the nuclear arms race that had dominated global politics for decades.

The SALT I agreements symbolized a breakthrough in U.S.–Soviet diplomacy, showcasing the delicate balance of deterrence, rivalry, and cooperation that defined the era.

The nuclear arms buildup that began in the aftermath of World War II had escalated by the 1960s into an intense and costly arms race. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had amassed vast arsenals of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), with each side striving to maintain strategic superiority—or at least parity.

Amid growing concerns about the risks and financial burdens of unchecked proliferation, President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev initiated a period of détente—a strategic easing of tensions that opened the door to high-level negotiations. SALT I was the product of these discussions, which had begun formally in 1969.

SALT I was composed of two major agreements:

The ABM Treaty: This treaty limited each country to two anti-ballistic missile sites (later reduced to one), each with no more than 100 interceptors. By capping defenses against nuclear attacks, the treaty aimed to preserve the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) and deter either side from launching a first strike.

The Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms: This agreement froze the number of ICBMs and SLBMs at existing levels for five years but did not limit the number of warheads or the development of new weapons systems such as MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles).

While the interim agreement did not reduce existing stockpiles, it was a crucial first step in establishing mutual limitations and verification processes.

The signing of SALT I reflected the deep mistrust that persisted between the superpowers, but also a shared recognition that an unrestrained arms race was unsustainable—and dangerous. Though the accords were limited in scope, they created a framework for dialogue, transparency, and future negotiations.

President Nixon called the agreements "only a beginning," emphasizing the importance of continued engagement. Indeed, SALT I set the stage for further arms control efforts, including SALT II in 1979 (which was signed but never ratified) and later, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreements of the late 20th century.

The SALT I agreements, signed on May 27, 1972, were a landmark in Cold War diplomacy. They demonstrated that even amid ideological conflict and global competition, dialogue and restraint were possible. The agreements didn't end the arms race, but they provided mechanisms for verification, built trust incrementally, and slowed the pace of nuclear escalation.

Today, SALT I remains a foundational moment in arms control history, illustrating the power of diplomacy to manage even the most dangerous of rivalries—and the ongoing need for vigilance in nuclear policy.

Mark your calendars for Myrtle Beach Military Appreciation Days 2025! 🇺🇸

Let's make this year's parade bigger and better than ever. Sign up today by clicking here: bit.ly/3GdVdJ0

The parade is at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, May 24, along Farrow Parkway in The Market Common. Vietnam War veteran and longtime local Col. Thomas "Buddy" Styers will lead the parade as Grand Marshal. Ed Piotrowski will emcee the parade along the route on the Grand Park side of Farrow Parkway, across the street from Valor Memorial Garden. Ed's father, Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas J. Piotrowski (Marines, ret.), will serve as Honorary Grand Marshal.

The picnic immediately follows the parade in Grand Park. Everyone is welcome to have a free hamburger and hot dog lunch. The "100 Grand Band" will provide live entertainment. The picnic will be filled with military-related vendors.

Would you like to be a vendor? Click here:https://cms6.revize.com/revize/myrtlebeachsc/i_want_to/learn_about/docs/2025%20Military%20Appreciation%20Day%20Picnic%20Exhibit%20Table%20(1).pdf

Vendors are required to be military related and cannot sell anything.
Military Appreciation Days is organized by the City of Myrtle Beach and Military Appreciation Committee.

The City of Myrtle Beach and its Military Appreciation Committee have planned a series of events to celebrate our military. The month-long celebration features various free events. See the list of events below.

- Horry County Junior ROTC Drill Meet– 9:00 a.m., Saturday, May 3, 2025, Pelicans Stadium Parking Lot, 1251 21st Avenue North.

- Military Family Members Social– 12:00 p.m., Saturday, May 3, 2025, Pelicans Stadium Parking Lot, 1251 21st Avenue North.

- Myrtle Beach Pelicans’ Military Appreciation Night (Pelicans vs. Delmarva Shorebirds)– 6:05 p.m. Game Time, Saturday, May 10, 2025, Pelicans Stadium, 1251 21st Avenue North (Card Set Veterans Recognized Before Game).

- Military Appreciation Days Parade – 10:00 a.m., Saturday, May 24, 2025, Farrow Parkway, The Market Common.

- The annual Military Appreciation Days Picnic immediately follows the parade. The picnic will be held in Grand Park this year, not Valor Memorial Garden. The picnic will feature live music by The 100 Grand Band, military vendors and a free hamburger and hot dog lunch. This event is open and free for everyone to attend!

- Jack Platt Veterans’ March: 9:00 a.m., Monday, May 26, 2025, along Ocean Boulevard, 16th Avenue North to Plyer Park, 1000 North Ocean Boulevard.

- Memorial Day Remembrance Ceremony: 11:00 a.m., Monday, May 26, 2025, Myrtle Beach Convention Center, 2101 North Oak Street.

- Col. Francis Esposito Golf Tournament: Shotgun Start at 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, May 27
Blackmoor Golf Club, Murrells Inlet

- Festive Brass Concert Performance: 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 27, 2025, General Robert Reed Recreation Center, 800 Gabreski Lane.