24Jul
Wake-Up Time with Provigil
In January 2003, US Air Force majors William Umbach and Harry Schmidt faced court-martial after a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers and wounded eight others. During a pretrial hearing, Umbach’s lawyer spilled one of the Pentagon’s dirty little secrets – the pilots had been on speed when they dropped the fatal bomb.
Their judgment was impaired, he claimed, because superiors pressured them to prepare for the mission by taking Dexedrine, a practice he described as common. The charges were dropped, but not before the revelation sparked public outrage: Why were our boys flying $30 million jets on uppers?