Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
It may have something to do with the fact that they got sent to a country where opium is cheap and popular... they liked it / got addicted to it... came home, and the only good way to get more is to pretend they have chronic pain...
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When Soviet Army was in the same place we have no drug-related problems. I mean course there some incidents, but it was not a kind of epidemic like in the US army. Personally I have never heard of any.
My brother in law was a Soviet Airborne in Afghanistan. He told a lot about that war, but he never mentioned any case of a drug use there. Vodka was another case... ;) Sometimes they really did party with booze. But it was considered as a very serious violation of the Charter and the punishment was severe.
As about suicides during the Soviet-Afghan war, they were rare and always caused by one of two reasons:
- Soldiers shot themselves then they knew that their girlfriends didn't wait for them and got married with another guy. Actually this was the most frequent case of suicide even in peacetime.
- Soldiers shot themselves or use a grenade to be blown up together with Mujahedin when they were surrounded to avoid capture.
I don't understand the 1st group (killing yourself because of cheating chick is stupid). But the second group of suicides is a normal behavior. Especially if you can take a few enemy lives with you. I would do the same in a similar situation.
Some individual episodes of heroism of Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan.