Mr Saletan,

I will make the assumption that you have not been in uniformed service in the US, and if you have, you have not been in a combat arm. If you had, you would have long ago realized that the military has placed a great deal of emphasis on training and conditioning its soldiers to sleep deprivation. My personal experience with sleep deprivation came in the early 80's as an infantryman in training at Ft Benning.

Every step of education in a soldier's (I will hereby use the word soldier to refer to infantry/spec ops troops, not technical specialist or the like) career, every advancement and every school a soldier attends (except airborne school, imagine that...) further extends and refines that soldier's training in dealing with the effects of sleep deprivation. The importance of this training has long been known and practiced by this nation. In my opinion, your commentary is wide off the mark, there is no doubt that to not train to face this eventuality would be the very height of neglect for our military leadership. In fact, military troops are 'graded' by their ability not only to complete training, but to endure privation and stress. The gulf between a specialist at Ft Benjamin Harrison and anybody on Smokebomb Hill is so vast as to almost constitute a different species.

However, having seen the problems attendant with stimulant abuse, almost anyone would agree that there are no supplaments that are safe and effective for long term use. The brain just isnt wired that way and cannot substitute chemical augmentation for its own internal processes. Its internal processes can be trained and strengthened, but once again, there are limits to how far the brain can be pushed and noone really knows or understands the limits of neurophysiology as applied to humans.

Having seen what I would describe as 'nervous breakdowns' due to sleep deprivation, bizarre acts of 'sleep walking' and seen meth and amphetamine addicts have psychotic breaks, I have seen the results of tampering with this system past the point of harmless intervention. Like many of the things the military studies, there is a great need to understand the topic without abusing it, or allowing it to be abused.

Sleep deprivation is a form of abuse, so severe that in extreme cases it can lead to death. The sleep deprivation that this government has subjected detainees at Gitmo can almost certainly be considered torture (waterboarding was stopped being used in the military long ago as a training tool), yet it is a necessary part of military training. The difference in the 2 conditions is consent and that is the real issue, not the hows and whys of sleep.

I no longer trust the US to behave in an ethically sound manner either among its own citizens, it own soldiery or to other people of the world. I am worried that as sleep deprivation research becomes more 'scientific', more soldiers will be pressed into use as guinea pigs and coercive methods will be used by the military. Short term benefits must be weighed against the dangers of long term damage and the loss of an essential part of our collective humanity. Failure to properly oversee the military in any research of this kind will lead to more than a loss of sleep.

Thanks for your post. Everyone here benefits from your firsthand knowledge of military practice. I should mention that I have a habit of deliberately trying to make every new turn in biotechnology, especially the creepy ones, sound as tempting as possible, the way its marketers would present it. It's for effect. But I can see how it looks like an endorsement if you take parts of it at face value.

It's hard for me to say this is unethical though. If the overall result is less casualties that's a good thing. OTOH, I'm sure there will be a bunch of people exposed to these agents before we have any real idea of their long-term side effects.

And yes, the military probably WILL use coercion to get "volunteers", but again, if they offered this to soldiers in the field and told them the object of the medication is to cut the chance of each soldier dying in HALF, how many people would turn that down?

Would you?

Another contibuting factor to sleep deprivation, Mr. Diaz, as explained to me by a career Marine officer, quite decorated incidentally, was infantry commanders are always in a hurry to push their men. As if they thought they needed to win the war tommorow!

He further told us, when in the rear, instead of letting the men stand down and rest. Many unit leaders felt they should keep the men busy with nickle and dime, as he termed it, details to keep them busy, and their minds from wandering to mischief.

This gentleman was convinced this was a contributing factor in casulties in Vietnam due to fatigue while out on patrol.

I wonder if this still goes on?

In respnse to a previous poster, yes, if something can reduce the mortality rate of your troops by 50%, then you would have to explore it. However, in my experience with sleep deprivation in the military, college, medical school and otherwise, I find the 50% reduction in casualties to be wildly overstated. First of all, as you go sleepless for a longer and longer period of time, your sympathetic nervous system becomes more and more involved in the normal function of your body. As that happens, there is a simultaneous degradation of higher order thinking and a substantially higher accident and error rate associated with the sleep deprived state. This is irrespective of the ability to perform certain menial or physical tasks, while caffeine and amphetamines can alleviate many of the symptoms of lack of sleep, they do so by activating the sympathetic nervous system.

Thus, you have the amelioration of one symptom with the potentially fatal exacerbation of the others.

The exingencies of combat and the stress thereupon are hazardous enough without compounding them. It would be better and perhaps more accurate to say that being able to provide soldiers with sufficient rest would reduce casualties.

If you had access to the rate of friendly fire deaths and the information attendant with them, you would be shocked. A great many of the deaths in the conflicts since Vietnam are known to be due to friendly fire, an amount thought to be upwards of 20%. A significant number of those deaths have been due to sleep deprivation, although that is not usually listed in official reports, but summaries of the activities of involved parties usually shows lack of rest to be an issue. If you had ever stood an armed watch post after 36+ hours awake, youd know what I mean.

"If you had access to the rate of friendly fire deaths and the information attendant with them, you would be shocked. A great many of the deaths in the conflicts since Vietnam are known to be due to friendly fire, an amount thought to be upwards of 20%. A significant number of those deaths have been due to sleep deprivation, although that is not usually listed in official reports, but summaries of the activities of involved parties usually shows lack of rest to be an issue. If you had ever stood an armed watch post after 36+ hours awake, youd know what I mean."

I would imagine that this probably held true before the vietnam war as well. We just didn't have the scientific data to back it up. I also wouldn't be surprised if sleep deprivation may impact development of traumatic disorders like PTSD and TBI. Increased dependence on the sympathetic nervous system might prevent some of the natural inhibitory processes from functioning properly resulting in atrophy of areas like the hippocampus and amygdala when responding to stressful events. Unfortunately, the only long term treatment for sleep deprivation is to sleep.

Diaz,

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think we know really what the problems are with sleep deprivation well enough to say whether or not we can correct for them. For example, is there some substrate that breaks down that needs replenishing? Even if said substrate(s) are found, will giving them or their precursors allow the body to use them? What could be done to boost parasympathetic output when tired (assuming increased sympathetic output is a problem)?

Any problem when initially defined is found to be more complicated than was originally thought, and "quick" solutions usually aren't. OTOH, we'll never find out anything if we don't look.

Howdy Bondsman,

I am a scientist of sorts, and oddly enough, my work concerns the functioning of neurons. Nothing directly germaine to the conversation mind you, just enough that I am in total awe of the complexity housed by a single neuron, much less the infinately intricate assembly that is the brain, or the inexplicability of the human soul and spirit. You can grind a brain to a puree, but how can you extract the soul from the resulting homogenate?

Currently science really doesnt know much about neurons or the brain. Applied science tends to be a bit rougher than pure science, thqats why most engineers know how to use tools. My point is, we dont know enough about the brain to be doing extensive testing on living human subjects that cant be reasonably be expected to give informed consent. Lets not call it sleeplessness, lets call it steroids instead, just for a moment.

Lets say there was a steroid that would increase your ability to jump, lift, run, do anything physical a person could do 20% better. Since many highschool students would be more than willing to take said steroid, you decide to test it on them. Lets say you even have an uncontrollable fit of honesty and tell them that the long term effects arent known, some percentage of people can go insane or die after 5 days or perhaps even less, and it will concurrently destroy your ability to engage in high order thinking.

How many hands do you think it would take you to count the athletes that would walk away from a magic bullet like that?

Loss of sleep can and has killed people and caused psychiatric decompensation of a permenant nature. It can happen in less than 5 days. The military of this country cannot be trusted to conduct such research ethically and soldiers cant reasonably be considered free from threat, coercion or inducement to provide informed consent. It is important work and someday potentially useful, but it is nowhere near ready to do that kind and level of work on humans.

And yes, I did participate in the military's version of sleep deprivation training and I support it wholly. It has some safeguards, lots of experience nd they do it the old fashioned way, by giving you lots and lots or practice doing it. That, I am fine with, it is the lot of the soldier. To do work such as Mr Saletan alludes to smacks of the old Soviet Bloc work on steroid enhancement.

Hi everyone,

Very interesting discussion and for once, it is not degenerating into name calling, which is a surprise.

I am not a specialist of neurology or serving in the military, though I have served in the French Army and studied biology. This said, I learned a couple of tricks then about sleep reduction. Obviously, just like the US forces, the French ones are working on this kind of research and we were trained to execute our military tasks with sleep deprivation conditions of up to 48 hours and more. Obviously too, this was very hard and the number of "stupid" accident was increasing enormously in such conditions.

But I also remember that French combat troops (particularly the Foreign Legion, as well as most other first line units) were taught to sleep as much as they could all the time. That is all the time they were not being used to do something. That was not just an option, but a direct order. Every time you were not tasked with anything (even during combat missions), you had to sleep. Legionnaires were able to fall asleep practically in less than a minute, regardless of the time of day or night. I suspect this was a great way of improving their combat effectiveness.

carynl:

Another contibuting factor to sleep deprivation, Mr. Diaz, as explained to me by a career Marine officer ... when in the rear, instead of letting the men stand down and rest. Many unit leaders felt they should keep the men busy with nickle and dime, as he termed it, details to keep them busy, and their minds from wandering to mischief.

Alphast:

French combat troops (particularly the Foreign Legion, as well as most other first line units) were taught to sleep as much as they could all the time. That is all the time they were not being used to do something. That was not just an option, but a direct order. Every time you were not tasked with anything (even during combat missions), you had to sleep. Legionnaires were able to fall asleep practically in less than a minute, regardless of the time of day or night.

Fascinating.

Yeah, soldiers get nickle and dimed to death, especially infantrymen that in peacetime dont have a 'job'. But almost anyone that has been airborne or infantry can sleep anywhere, even standing up, when need be. The big problem comes when you start getting PTSD and cant sleep well anymore, nor easily. Then it becomes a self fulfilling feed forward catastrophe.

For a really interesting view on sleping and the military, get David Hackworth's autbiography 'About Face' and read the part where he deals with guys who sleep on the job by putting them on OP duty in Vietnam.

Col Hackworth was, until his death a few years ago, the most decorated living American soldier. I had the priviledge of knowing him and corresponding with him until we had a difference of opinion on an article he wrote for Newsweek during the Somali conflict. But Col Hackworth was a stone expert of fighting and counterinsurgency, a great read for anyne interested in how the lessons of Vietnam still arent learned today.

Hi Mr.Diaz. I can tell you were quite fond of David. He was a soldier's, soldier. I recall young Soldiers and Marines would correspond with him and he would check into their stories and issues - - we enjoyed him very much.

I know after the Admiral Mike Boorda affair, Hack was made into a scapegoat, unfairly, and some tried to tarnish his resume. I believe after some digging, it turned-out he had even more awards then previously thought!

Thank you for the post

I think you're really on the money here.

I served in an infantry unit (also went to Ft. Benning for basic) and sleep deprivation was also a running theme. Though, in my experience most of the deprivation scenarios were the result of piss poor planning (aka lack of leadership) and not the mission. Due to administrative screw ups, it was not uncommon for squads or platoons to go 24+ hours w/out relief, while rested units were hanging out at the MWR at our FOB. It's one thing to push troops to the limit while in garrison but it's another to needlessly put lives on the line in a combat zone. Our clueless CO and a-hole 1SG really weren't issues during training, but it was all terrifying while deployed.

I also recall a time where we had to spend close to two days at our LP/OP. When we got back to our base, we immediately had to report for our annual "Consideration of Others" training, w/out a chance to eat, sleep, or shower.Yeah, this kind of training is nice while in the states but is a complete waste in a combat zone. Mandatory training (like CO2) was a joke and killed moral.

We had a few guys completely "freak out" and lose it and I'm sure it was a combination of extreme stress and lack of sleep. We also had a track commander blow his brains out in one of our bunkers. Instead of swapping out the sand bags, someone simply painted over brown sand bags with white paint. Eventually the blood stains began to soak through the paint and it all served as a reminder to us whenever we had our mortar drills.

While deployed, I was extremely grateful that we had those KBR people do our laundry and cook (we didn't have to pull KP) but it basically created a situation where all we did was patrol, eat chow, and sleep.

From all of my time in the military, my most common memory (either while deployed or stateside) was simply being exhausted all of the time.I served in a run-of-the-mill mechanized unit, so I would assume things were better organized/lead in more "elite" units. But, who knows :-)

When I was a PFC, I recall a time when I was so tired during our Bradley tables (after about 36 - 48 hrs of no sleep), I began to hallucinate while driving one and rammed a tree. I can remember wishing that whenever someone was forced to drive after going 24 hrs w/no sleep, their Platoon Sergeant would have to sign a waiver saying Joe isn't responsible for any accidents.

Part of my misses my time in the Army but they couldn't pay me enough to go through all of it again. Hell, college and grad school was easy compared to it.

Hail brother!

I dont know if 'elite' organizations are better anything, other than beaten on. My war was Grenada, back in 83, so I cant claim any harrowing tales such as the ones you probably have. I do think that there was a concerted effort towards gauging our responses to sleeplessness, during night fire, night drills, O/N forced marches, such of that nature. Operating heavy machinery under the influence is extremely dangerous and I am suprised and appalled that your tactical leadership wasnt more on the ball.

A funny note, I too did college, and some graduate medical education (working on my qualifier as we speak). I used to tell people that I only got one thing out of the Army and that one thing was the alteration of one word.

That word is difficult. What I call difficult is what most people call 'impossible'.

Airborne!

KBO1, I've always loved listening to stories from those with the experience to tell one. Thank you.

You might be interested: an old dear friend of mine, now a retired Marine, was meritoriously promoted from staff sergeant to 2nd Lieutenant, in Vietnam.

Later in his career, as a higher unit commander, he would remind his subordinate commanders, "when I say to have everyone ready to go at 6:00 am, it doesn't mean each leader in the chain of command has to subtract an hour, thereby getting everyone up at 2 in the morning, to stand around waiting!"

I imagine his prior time spent at the bottom of the totem pole gave him some insight into what you have mentioned.

Incidentally, you actually had appreciation of others training? I think that is so, je l'ai trouve' amusante'. : - )