From personal experience, if you're on your FOB, or forward operating base, and are not on a watch shift, Ambien is perfectly fine, provided that after your sleep, you do not compromise mission integrity by being sluggish and groggy.
Benzodiazepines are a totally different story. It surprises me that, after the soldier in the article was prescribed clonazepam, he was able to return to mission readiness. When I was Rx'd clonazepam and quietiapine for post-traumatic stress in-country, I was put on a restriction that I couldn't participate in anything outside of the perimeter within 72h of taking the lorazepam. I was told by my CO that benzos were "not fit" for military use, and that as soon as we redeployed to Hood, I'd be drummed out of the army, issued a dishonorable, etc. I couldn't find any supporting Army documentation and of course, his threat went unrealized.
I am still on the fence about SSRIs for soldiers w/ PTSD. I don't like how all the research w/ SSRI fails to address combat trauma specifically, and it's possible that eliminating the reuptake of serotonin or norepinephrine in a pt or soldier who doesn't have a serotonin/norepi deficiency could be dangerous, as noted in the article. I was Rx'd Sertraline 50 and after 48 hours I had terrible suicidal ideation. Discontinued use and informed meddac.
It's a very nasty issue. For me as a squad leader, as long as mission readiness was never impacted, I had no problems with my soldiers taking sleeping aids or benzodiazepines. Being "less aware to noise" is the primary reason we take sleep medication in theater. Posts are busy, busy places at all hours of the day and night, and sleeping through the racket can be challenging no matter how tired one is, and base security is not compromised at all by sleeping aids (As long as everyone does the right thing). Thanks for the article, I hadn't seen that.
