Anecdotally, it seems that modern American military forces have less access to alcohol or drugs than other nations during other time periods. It's probably quite likely that the modern American "sober" military is a product of the "War on Drugs" as well as reaction to drug use by soldiers during Vietnam. I'm sure there are many other reasons that have lead American troops to be, at least ostensibly, a sober force.
At the same time, Hollywood films often portray pre-modern military forces as crude men as heavily reliant on alcohol as food or ammunition.
My question, therefore, is how integral was some form of intoxication to soldiers in different eras and cultures? Alcohol seems to play a pivotal role in preparing soldiers for battle, though the drug's role seems to have waned in recent generations (mimicking the overall US policy towards drugs and alcohol).
I realize this question is quite broad and invites speculation, so I'd ask that you limit your answers to your area of expertise. In your field, was getting drunk on alcohol a standard part of warfare? Did it help or hinder in completing military objectives? Were there long-term psychological effects associated with using alcohol as a short-cut to deal with immediate psychological issues? That is to say, did getting soldiers drunk on the front lines help them deal with the immediate problems, but create more problems after returning home from the front?
While I'd like to open this question to substance abuse in general, I really want to restrict it to alcohol for the time being.
In the Vasa Museum in Sweden I remember seeing a set of instructions containing a list of rations each man would recieve, and this list included an alcohol beverage. Should fighing be expected, the rations were the same, but the amount of alcohol was doubled.
I'm sure there are many other reasons that have lead American troops to be, at least ostensibly, a sober force.
The US military is not sober by any stretch of any imagination, at least in garrison. Overseas, yeah, alcohol is strictly prohibited (because drunk soldiers on guard is really, really, really not good practice), but on base? Good lord does booze get downed. When I was at Bragg, I was never more than a ten minute walk from any barracks to any place where I could get a fifth of gin for under 10 dollars. I drank a lot of gin. I know of exactly one person who was teetotal during my time of service. Hell, even the Mormon in my battery was drunk from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. PT is filled with hungover people suffering through it.
At my initial inprocessing before basic, a sergeant asked the group who drank. "Those of you who don't--you'll learn." You do learn. You learn to drink, because that is all you can do for recreation quite often, and the unnecessary bullshit is tolerable somewhat if you get blitzed that night.
The US military is filled with raging alcoholics, bottom to top. Commands rarely do more than desultory attempts to stifle it, because everyone under their command drinks. I've seen CSMs give soldiers they knew to be underage beer at certain events. The battalion commander was right there, handing beers out as well. Liquor is the bond that soldiers in garrison share with each other, and drunken antics are the cause of every commander's headache and premature grey hair.
During WW1 French soldiers had three types of ration :
-the normal ones that were distributed everyday when in garrison it was made of fresh aliments and was supposed to be consumed within the day of the distribution.
-the "strong" ones that were distributed during combat and were slightly improved but still consisted of frehs aliments and supposed to be consumed within the day.
-the reserve ones the soldiers always kept on them in case they could not be supplied with fresh products, the soldiers were forbidden to touch it without orders.
The normal and "strong" ones were composed of lard, bread, dry vegetables or rice, coffe, sugar, salt and half a liter of wine, generally called "pinard", "holy pinard" or "pater pinard" ("pater pinard" was a mock god the poilus would pray to so they never run out of wine) by the men. All that for one day. Soldiers would sometimes receive an additional ration of wine, they generally hated when it was the case as it generally meant a big assault was planned sometimes in the day.
The reserve rations included some "war bread" (basically bread that did not go bad, soldiers would generally complain that it was because it was never good to begin with), canned meat, sugar, coffee, dried fruits, dehydrated soup, chocolate and about 60 ml of rum or eau de vie, once again it was for one day.
As you can see alcohol was definitly a part of the soldier's everyday rations and the logisticians always made sure the soldiers had an additional ration of "liquid courage" before any major assault. The goal was not to have wasted soldiers but only to make them bolder and less subject to fear.
The "pinard" also had a propaganda purpose and represented the drink of civilized peoples ( resulting from honest earthly labor) and as a symbol of France. In propaganda, the French soldiers were often depicted as happy soldiers drinking some wine between brothers in arms in a convivial way (here, sharing his wine with a British soldier http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinard_(vin)#mediaviewer/Fichier:Lucien_M%C3%A9tivet.jpg) while the German soldiers ("boches" in the French trench slang) were generally depicted as drunkards barbarians getting blind drunk on "schnapps" just for the sake of it.
Related books :
Paroles de poilus, it is a book regrouping original letters of poilus sent to their families during the first world war. It is an incredibly interesting book as it gives a first hand testimony of life in the trenches.
Les poilus by Pierre Miquel
Mourir à Verdun by Pierre Miquel
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