Alcohol in the combat zone. Thoughts?

at the risk of dating myself, I remember a time when it was permissible to have no more than two drinks with lunch. Unfortunately, that was abused and rather than punish the offenders, we all lost the privilege.

Many other countries allow/permit alcohol in combat and/or field training environments. Why cannot we?

Unfortunately, there's always going to be "that guy"!

I love to drink. That being said I don't think it's appropriate to have in that environment. There will always be people who find a way around the rations and get trashed. I have seen it at both Manas, the Deid, and Djibouti. You need to be focused on one thing when deployed in a combat environment and that's the men and women who are out there with you.

Bullshit, I see those guys in the desert,they should be aloud at least two beers a day.They are working harder than us back home. However there has to be an ass hole rule. Anyone that fights after drinking is off. O tolerance,perioud.

LTC (Join to see) and LTC Paul Labrador I agree with both of you on certain levels, but as a former Commander I just don't think alcohol shouldn't be in the combat zone. Out of the zone is a different story altogether. This is just my opinion. When I look at the number of deaths caused just by accidents in the business that we we're in (non-combat) and then we take into account the combat environment (where everyone needs to be on their best game 24/7), I just think General 1A (even if it was a knee jerk reaction or a simple way to execute a standard across a broad range, or to respect a culture) it makes sense to me and I liked it. I had a good crew that followed it and we all felt good about when we got home. Again, I think the standard makes sense in the Combat Zone and during major training events while in CONUS. I respect your opinions though - that is the great thing about RP. We can express our thoughts openly and engage!

I am not advocating the consumption of alcohol while on a mission or during a fire fight by any means. My thougt process he is more of the limited down time at the FOB.

Granted and attack can happen at any time, and we all need to understand our own limits when it comes to alcohol, but I dont see an issue with enjoing a nice cold one at the end of the day if the situation permits.

I am actually torn on this one, but I voted "no" for the sake of mission first. However, since there are multiple international studies that indicate the benefits of alcohol (in moderation), there are many good reasons to allow it behind the lines. Definitely not beyond the wire though. The problem arises with abuse which is difficult to control.

From a command prospective, its easier to control it if you ban it outright. Although that is a lazy approach in my opinion. But I can say that in the high speed world of SOCOM, alcohol use tends to be ignored. As long as the mission gets done, the other stuff is incidental.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one COL Mikel J. Burroughs

CPT (Join to see) Ok! I have to call a bullshit on the play. Not sure how we moved from drinking in combat to raping and pillaging our own troops. I drank in combat did not rape one person the whole time. I know it is hard to believe with that evil booze of the devil. I also had a 100% success rate of rendering aid while under mortar attack. If I didn't have to do any that is 100% right?

You want to know what is dangerous? A 6'3", 240 pound grown ass man, who has not seen his family in 15 months, who has spent at least 5 days a week outside the wire and can't be trusted to drink a couple beers.

We had a ton of drinking in Iraq at all leadership levels. It kept the morale up more than anything except near the holidays. Xannax was abused by many and when mixed with alcohol, created a bad combo. It was because it was banned that allowed the internal black market to flourish

Was in Iraq in Anbar in 04, and we got 2 beers on the Marine Corps birthday.
When I went to Afghanistan in 08, I was the OIC of a surgical team and worked closely with SF and partner nations (Brits, Aussies, and Dutch). We had a bad day when we lost several guys, the Aussies brought some beer over to our FB. There were no Ops planned, we drank to our lost comrades, and de-stressed. Similar thing when they had a bad day; no one drank to excess, we never drank when our guys were out on an Op. We were smart about it and treated everyone as adults. There were no issues.

CPT (Join to see) - germany 72-72 Alcohol or drugs. Most troops were doing one or both and germany was not a combat zone at the time.