My dad's a Vietnam Vet. He said his division had two types of people, drunks or pot heads. He was a pot head, and said the weed was super cheap and everywhere. They would smoke at the base, but never out on patrol. After getting back to the states, he couldn't get weed and started drinking like crazy. This would lead to worse things. Thankfully hes doing good now.
Yeah, I dont know you or your dad but I hope you've repaired your relationship. That's something I was never able to do with my father and I hate it. Have a good day
My Dad was a WWII medic. He said he was on a ship heading for battle. Some were weeping, some were shaking. They were scared. It isn't like the movies. The Sargeant went around passing out white pills and told everyone to take them so they wouldn't get sea sick. My Dad and a few others were untrusting. They acted like they took them but didn't. He said the ones who did had a change in demeanor shortly after. They were aggressive and puffed up and ready to fight. When the doors opened, they charged out yelling. I'll never forget that story. He didn't say alot about the war, but he remembered that.
Modern armies actually have trained the soldier these days to be very fearless. Take a look at interviews with most from recent conflicts, they had some fear, but were very much in control, and motivated to perform in combat.
As a Vietnam/Cambodia combat vet I am very familiar with drug problem in the Nam. My drug of choice was Beer as about every 3 days they shipped us in 80 cases of beer and soda. When I reached the field in Feb 1970, it was 6 months before I saw a base camp. My second choice was Pot, usually laced with Heron. Whew!!! I am 72 years old and I have 3 brain cells left. Two of them have been married for 73 years and hate each other and the third brain cell I have left is looking for the drugs I left in the Nam.
You sir have earned the right to say or not say anything you want, we got that freedom because of the great men, like yourself that go to wars and defend our country , in wars that you didnt start
my highschool teacher was combat vet, was kinda a joke for everyone to ask em what vietnam was like. he would tell everyone, "imagine being on acid and watching your friends explode around you" i said "because war is so crazy it's like being on acid?" he said "no, because we were on acid. we knew we were gonna die and no one wanted to die sober."
@@frednugent2310 yeah I don’t buy most stories from war vets. My uncle was a vet and he even said the guys he was with made up all sorts of wild stories to make it appear like they experienced so much more than they actually did ..
@@brianmeen2158 it was the late 60s dude, LSD was everywhere, hippies were using it, doctors, lawyers, FBI and CIA agents, mental patients, army men, even the cia dosed random people in public, i don't doubt for a second that people smuggled acid into nam, i mean 100 hits would easily fit on a postcard so...
So way back in the early 1980s, both my brother and I happened to be home during Xmas leave. My brother was an MP stationed in Germany at the time and I was serving in the Pacific fleet with the US Navy. One day during the holidays, my brother and I began talking candidly about the drug cultures in our respective branches of service. Heroin and hashish were a big problem for the US Army stationed in Germany at the time, whereas it was pot for the Navy on the west coast. My brother asked me if I smoked pot and I admitted that I did. In fact, the pot culture was so overwhelming in the Navy at the time that we often smoked several times a day (note that there's a difference between taking a hit or two on a joint as it gets passed around and getting stoned off your ass). You got up in the morning and someone lit up a joint. You piled into the car for the daily commute to the Naval Air Station and someone lit up a bowl. You headed over to the galley for lunch and someone lit up a joint. You headed home in the evening....more of the same. So a couple nights later, out of nowhere as we were sitting around the dining room table about to have dinner, my brother blurts out "Mike smokes pot!!!". Now, my brother has always suffered from "Middle Child" syndrome and this was evidence attesting to his affliction. My father, who joined the Navy back in 1934 and served until 1964, was ladling out mashed potatoes at the time and simply remarked "Oh hell, they were smoking pot in the Navy before the War".....and he meant the SECOND WORLD WAR....that's when I knew my Dad was cool.
@@crawfordsmith3700 wrong. You missed the bad asses of this generation. Some of us love America and would stand. If they drove my family anywhere it would be over my dead body. Every generation thinks the next cant hang till there backs are against the wall. ( there are a ton of floppy millennials but behind the scenes there be monsters)
A Vietnam vet that I used to work with would talk about how he would take 2 bottles of Jack Daniels out on patrol with him. He would drink 1 and bury the other, since they tended to patrol the same areas again and again, but would then forget where he buried the bottle the last time he was there quote "Theres bottles of Jack Daniels buried all over Vietnam, I never could find where I had buried them."
My cousin served in a rifle company in 67-68 in Vietnam...in letters to home he complained about patrol members being "messed up" (or the equivalent) on drugs..a danger to the platoon and themselves...assuming he meant heroin...he returned to civilian life at a meat packing company outside of Milwaukee, WI...decided this wasn't for him, re-enlisted, ended up as Command Sergeant Major in Special Forces , he died in his early 60's, probably a victim of Agent Orange...what irony, soldiers trying to self-medicate to get through this war, with the slow-acting cancer of the Military-Industrial Complex helping finish off the survivors... returned
I worked with one Grunt who was in Nam. He said there was plenty of drug use back in base camp. He said all the stories about smoking pot in the field was bullshit. He said the gooks could smell that shit a mile away. If you were caught smoking shit in the field you just might have a "accident" that stopped your habit of endangering you squad/platoon. He showed me the Silver Star he received for rescuing a wounded buddy in a firefight. So, I think it's safe to say he wasn't bullshitting me.
In Nam my unit used alcohol and drugs to settle down when we came in from the bush. We never used when on patrol because we were too scared of messing up or being smelled by the VC. Atrocities happened because of fear, revenge, and a few lunatics, not chemicals.
thats what we did too when we come in for re supply 1 night we would get trashed blind and the next we tried to straighten back out and the third night we were getting ready to go back out
I was in a USAF squadron in Vietnam. Some of our crew members were alleged to have smoked weed but I never saw it being done. If it was done it was "off base" and away from prying eyes. The use never came up as a problem during operations. In early 1971, we were all briefed (actually WARNED) that during our yearly flight crew physical, the Air Force flight surgeons would test for drug use. If they found it, we would be court martialed. I always wondered if THAT was the reason George Bush picked his own doctor to do HIS flight physical during that period. (George Bush was not in Vietnam but served in the Texas Air National Guard, when those threats were issued.) Regarding booze, we could buy an (imperial) 5th of vodka or whisky for 1.50 US. You BET everyone drank like fish. I remember our commander and Operations Officer were ALWAYS drunk, certainly off duty and, who knows, while on.
The drug use became more apparent after 69. I had a friend and cousin that came home addicted to heroin.A classmate of mine always walked point stoned, he claimed he could smell them
That part blows my mind if you've ever been really drunk and really stoned you no theres no comparison drunk your useless and can barely stand were weed you still can do stuff
@@dun0790 The problem with alcohol: is not so much that aircrews show up drunk to fly. Not to say that DOESN'T happen. But the REAL problem is they show up with a massive hangover and, as a result, they slop through their procedures and make mistakes that the aircraft refuses to ignore.
I agree with you as far as the last example goes I seriously doubt marijuana had anything to do with the My Lai massacre. I smoked weed, and I knew, and know many people who do, and one of the last thing it does is make you violent. Might make you eat too much. Anyone who tells you it does is because the person is violent to begin with.
well thats the point. if a drug enhances your inner nature and problems, maybe it shouldnt be something readily available, especially in important situations like combat or at work.
@@shadden_x in the case of Marijuana though it doesn't. It's a drug that subdues those violent instincts and puts you more in tune with your sensitive side. I don't cry at movies, but if I get high beforehand I'll find myself tearing up at the happy parts.
Fair point, drugs probably had a hand in some incidents, but I doubt anything like the my Lai massacre. It was most likely just bc of soldiers turned stone cold killers who just grew a hatred for the Vietnamese due to their enemy, and then not being able to differentiate enemy from friendlies.
My dad was a First Lt. in Vietnam in 1968. I asked him about drug use and he said no one in his platoon did any of that, they drank beer and some liquor but no weed or anything harder. He told me later that he personally was too scared to even drink, he was afraid they'd be attacked and he wouldn't be able to function. It had to vary widely depending on the unit you were in and what year it was.
He had troops that were on one thing or the other guaranteed, they were just good at hiding it from him. And as long as that was the case so be it, it's like they told us when I went into the Army, "You can do anything you want, as long as you don't get caught".
Thats correct, Marines, all volunteers, were a disciplined group unlike many Army draftees. In the bush the last thing one wanted was to be messed up on one drug or another. Now the Army guys in the rear with the gear were another matter. They had time and easy access to drugs.
@@0bob0cya SO you were in Vietnam serving in his unit? No, you're basing your ASSumptions on your experience. If you were in Vietnam you were a REMF. I said the first time that they drank in his unit, just nothing else
To be honest I don't think your father was being honest with you about this. My Dad said for my entire life drugs were evil and he would never even consider doing them, until my aunt mentioned him and his friends would smoke weed in their mom's basement in the 70's. He still maintains he didn't inhale, haha.
My dad did three tours. He said they drank beer and whiskey, smoke weed and opium, shot heroin and morphine, and amphetamines. They were also popping benzos and barbs to sleep. They would also take pills called white crosses to keep the awake and moving on long treks through the country. My dad came home a full blown alcoholic at 24 yrs old, he drank day and night, and took speed so he didn't have to sleep because he had terrible horrifying nightmares.
the problem with speed is it doesnt take long to bring those night terrors into hallucinations and bad reactions to imagined guys in the shadows, bright sunlight and lack of water must have made it a hellish thing to be on speed, dehydrated, being yelled at and in a place where you are the invador and no matter what we say about VC crimes, burning their villages and making the civilians live in prison camp brothels was what the search and destroy / strategic hamlets policy was about. make them homeless so they are too busy selling their kids to predatory white men to fight back.
@mukhumor if I remember correctly the first one was a year then you had to be home for 6 months then he went back for another year came back then was back for a while my mom lost my older brother shortly after he was born and then he signed up for a shorter 3rd. The guy was really fucked up. He wasn't with my mom when he initially drafted and his gf committed suicide just weeks before he was sent over. Five years before that my grandfather died from pneumonia from working on the Navy ship yards around all that asbestos. So 13 his dad dies, 18 gf commits suicide. 22 my brother dies shortly after he was born. So I don't blame him for being mentally damaged but what he did to us my mother and sisters I can forgive I just can't foget.
You have to remember the context. The CIA was supporting and encouraging the war lords in the highlands of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand (parts of which made up the "Golden Triangle"). The form of payment was transporting the drugs the warlords controlled via the CIA airline Air America from the back country to the troops in Vietnam as well as the rest of the world. So one part of the government was supporting and dealing in drugs to directly addict the other part of the government: the military. Think that is bad? Well it still goes on today in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other countries. Our government condones, itself deals, and supports drug dealing while running "a war on drugs". Read "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred McCoy for a worldwide view of our government's involvement in the drug trade.
Excellent synopsis Douglas. You forgot to mention the NSA. My late husband (died AO) was in 101st Abrn/Delta Force '69 and visited all those places you mentioned. He did mention speaking with the NSA.
My father was an Army Combat Engineer, who apparently experienced some terrible things. He became addicted the very strong, cheap heroin available in Vietnam. He was eventually caught and sent to Leavenworth, which likely furthered his PTSD - back then they didn't really understand addiction and how to handle it.
I wouldn’t call it drug abuse. The forced fighting and killing was the abuse. The drugs were their life savers and escapes from the hell they were forced into. I volunteered for the military so I can’t imagine being forced from your car bed and thrown into a foreign hell zone. I cry for the young men who were forced into the military and didn’t come home
Vicious circles mate. Vicious circles. Some drugs usually sharpens or at least alters your senses. Add the abstinence effects and this results on hell getting even more hellish
You're part of the "Hard men make easy times. Easy times make weak men" cycle. I'll let you guess at which part you belong to with your tears and feelings about things you had no control over.
I was in the Marines from '74 to '76 (long story) and one of my good friends who had been over in 'Nam said he got off the plane....a person handed him a bowl, then the next thing he remembered was getting back on the plane to go home. Take that with a grain of salt, but we peed in the bottle every week the whole time I was in and everyone in my Company did everything we could get our hands on..pretty much...but nobody ever got busted by the drug testing. When I was doing my exit interview during discharge I asked the civilian woman doing it about the drug testing and how nobody ever seemed to get busted? She laughed and said 'The Commandant of the Marine Corps doesn't believe that about 90% of his men are using drugs...so they ignore the tests thinking they're not accurate'. She then asked if I used anything illegal....of course I laughed back with a hearty affirmative. Crazy time.
My uncle went into the war a alcoholic, and left with a "drinking problem," he said he tried cannibis knocked him out until the point he found himself floating down a rice paddy on an inflatable mattress during a fire fight. Mind you he was the platoon medic. RIP CHRIS DENNIS, GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Good lord, nothing scarier than when you get in a firefight and look over at doc and he’s in the 4th dimension lmao. Talk about unfortunate timing man. I sympathize with the drinking problem though, my father is a vet who served in Bosnia, Iraq and afghan and came home with a drinking problem. Takes a toll. Respect to your uncle bro.
I noticed the increased "overreaction" to things when I was first prescribed Dexedrine. I can see how someone in a combat area could "overreact" to anything, particularly with heightened hostility. Yelled at my gf once for suggesting I use a roller brush to paint a wall. "I KNOW WHAT IM FUCKING DOING!!".
@@eugeniorey4565 Sounds like you need a bigger dose personally ive only gotten aggresivity from ADHD stims when the effects end and i enter the crash. When i started i got prescribed a 8h XR of ritalin and pretty much exacly at the 8h mark i would become manic and violent but when i got prescibred i cant quite remember the name but it was a 14h duration dextroamphetamine derivative it just stopped
My dad served in 67-68 in the US Infantry and said Vietnam wasn't anything like it would later be remembered. In fairness he admits he served early when both morale and discipline were higher. No one did drugs openly and insubordination was not tolerated. He can't speak to what came later of course. When he visits with other Vietnam vets he will listen to how these other guys will talk about events and things and he'll just nod and say "oh yeah, uh huh" and then later tell me that he has no idea what they are talking about as it was a side of Vietnam he did not experience. He also reads accounts of actions he was involved in via other people's memoirs and says that it doesn't reconcile with his memory of events. I personally believe that what different soldiers experienced was genuinely unique to their tour dates, locations, actions, units, etc. In addition, some of the Vets are obviously suffering from mental and physical issues (one close friend was really messed up by Agent Orange for example and sadly his mind isn't all there sometimes) and that is also a factor on their recollections. My father thankfully did not come back with a lot of baggage, so to speak. As far as My Lai...I don't believe that was drugs. In my belief that was men pushed beyond the breaking point. In Vietnam at large, but more specifically with the soldiers involved in My Lai, these guys saw over and over and over what was being done to them by the Viet Cong and constantly told they would get a chance to unleash that anger, hurt and frustration on the enemy responsible. But that didn't happen. Ambushes, booby traps, etc and then the VC pulled out and you were looking at civilian peasants you knew were aiding the enemy (they had no choice, honestly) and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it but keep marching after an enemy you never really got to fully engage with. Eventually, the soldiers snapped under the strain and attacked the civilians at hand as proxies for all the others they could not get retribution on. My Lai is an example of what is so harmful to a soldier's psyche when you try to fight a war as a political police action. That is just my two cents.
Well put about My Lai. That company had watched their buddies killed by snipers and mines for weeks without ever seeing the enemy leading up to that day and were told that they were finally getting to face the VC straight up. They were geared up for a fight. They were told to shoot anything that moved. They were being led by morally deficient people. Drug use had nothing to do with it. Medina and Calley seem more like drinkers to me.
The only massacre I believe a marijuana user is capable of is a large pizza by themselves. Blaming marijuana for that incident felt like a convenient way of avoiding the more harmful drugs the government itself was providing to the soldiers to keep them fighting.
It has more to do with the person. There have been vile criminals who were into psychedelics, eg Manson. And some guy who was the distributor for the lsd produced in the Kansas missile silo. He tortured some kid. And is now in an OK prison where he's call Hannibal Lecter.
I love when I hear you speak, and I can hear little hints of your Australian background shine through. It's good to see an Aussie representing us on a larger platform for military history
I was a Staff Sergent in Vietnam in charge of a 105mm howitzer. I did not do any drugs while in Vietnam and neither did my men to my knowledge. I could not live with myself if I thought that our rounds would hit our own soldier's due to drugs or alcohol. Although when I got home, I struggled with PTSD. I drink a lot of alcohol and did a lot of drugs. Due to my wonderful wife who stuck by my side, I was able to quit drinking and drugs. now married 55 wonderful years. Sober for 45 of those years.
My grandfather was heavy machine gunner in Vietnam, he told me how him and his unit took LSD and always shot off rounds from the heavy mg loaded with tracers and they liked watching the bullets fly through the air while they were on it. And he said that position he held was never attacked because of it
I can imagine the enemy making an attempt at their position and seeing those fly off in the night and thinking "damn, these guys must be batshit crazy!" LOL
In spite of all the psychedelic surrealism, some say Apocalypse Now is actually one of the most accurate depictions of the vietnam war from a soldier's perspective
A Vietnam vet told me that the reason why he and every soldier he knew smoked weed or did heroine was because there was literally no other way to cope with the war. He said it was literally so hot and wet and uncomfortable and they were so exhausted and scared for their lives that the only way to keep going was to get high all the time. I don't blame them at all. I would have done the exact same thing. I think that if the soldiers didn't have drugs to help them cope during the war then they would have had way more mental breakdowns and possibly more panic attacks. They wouldn't have had the drug to take their mind off the reality they are in. Drugs or no drugs vietnam was a horrific and tragic war that no American should have gone to.
Unless they had to go . Americans don't get to pick which wars they will go to or not going to go to. lf you are in a combat unit in the U S Army or the Marine Corps and a war breaks out - you are probably going .
My Dad would never "do drugs", hated it, yet he drank like a fish and was addicted to prescription pain killers, the Army had prescribed them for combat injuries. Back in the states his civilian doctor routinely changed his pain killer prescription, so as not to be addicted to one drug. Not sure how that really worked out.
As a recovering opiate addict I'll tell you. He's addicted to ALL opiates. Switching what kind doesn't make a big difference. I'm sure they helped his pain somewhat though. They def didn't work as good as they use to though.
@@snapjitzy I wholeheartedly disagree. I fully believe being indiscriminate about my opiate use was quite an asset in getting over my dependence. Whether Vicodin, oxycodone, or heroin, all would work equally well. I'd much rather be pill-sick as opposed to the brutality of fentynal sick. It took self-control to integrated pills, especially the Mickey Mouse types like Vicodin, after I finally found the needle. One tangle with fentynal withdrawals convinced me to stop using pills, and I still nodded with the same dose as always. No one was more surprised that I at the efficacy! I'm just saying it's possible, however I acknowledge the high probability of psychosomatic forces at play.
They should legalize all drugs. It's no one's business what someone takes. It should be between the doctor and patient. Law enforcement needs to keep their greedy
@@MomMom4Cubs an extremely well thought out reply. Of course harder opiates have more intense withdrawals and IV drug use is more physiologically addicting but my post is still 100% accurate.
@@snapjitzy I not saying your experience isn't accurate for you. I merely was providing an equally valid experience. Both are accurate, however anything physiological in nature is by its nature subjective.
Weeds no problem, would make you cooler under fire. Tripping the fuck out and seeing your friends getting blown up is a good way to think you’re in a simulation and you’re invincible then you stand up and die.
@@jeffpraterJSF Or the opposite and seeing your buddy blow up would make you hide somewhere cowering in fear and completely tripping out until you get killed while youre in the worst mindset imaginable.
Fun Fact: Vietnam war vet Peter C. Lemon earned the Medal of Honor while fighting off NVA troops while high on marijuana Edit: For more information, here's a link to a video that tells his story ua-cam.com/video/14dwhEVMnng/v-deo.html
@Dave White he himself Probably didn’t, but I’m sure he didn’t mean it that was it was interpreted no? But seriously tho I’d be down with supporting giving troops microdosed cannabis
@Dave White …no shit? I mean… I smoke a bowl a day or less, and a quarter lasts me usually 9-12 days so, that’s why I said microdose. But huh… I didn’t know you couldn’t microdose it. Learnt something new daily.
An older gentleman I am friends with who served in Vietnam said everyone got loaded on opium or alcohol to forget about their circumstances any chance they got. He said the people you really had to watch out for were the ones who stayed sober and enjoyed the killing.
My dad was in Vietnam 70-71. Said he seen everything from weed to heroin. He had nothing to do with those but did drink alot. But not so much the day before they were to go out. Wanted to stay as sharp as possible.
I would suggest that the My Lai massacre was most likely wired out Speed users and strung out junkies, but then, any US politician at the time, and a fair few today, will blame any act of violence on marijuana, even though it makes most users very calm, peaceful people. Hell, alcohol causes thousands more incidents of violence than marijuana ever will!
That’s absolutely a ridiculous statement. My Lai was a black day in history, for sure. No excusing it. However, it is far more complex. During that time period, the 11th LIB had only been in Vietnam for a few months, and TF Barker was created to destroy the VC presence in the Batangan Peninsula. The unit suffered constant casualties in the time preceding the event by booby traps, and rarely had seen an enemy to fight. The stress of going out every day, seeing friends killed and maimed by an enemy they never saw, along with command failure by Medina and Calley on the ground, and other higher level commanders in the 11th Brigade. The men were told it was a free fire zone, and urged on him certain leaders. There was some marijuana use by troops, but these men in particular weren’t a bunch of speed crazed maniacs. Nothing excuses what happened, but that’s an oversimplification and incorrect analysis of the what and why.
Not making any excuses for what happened at My lia many times the Viet gong used those villagers to recruit fighters weapons and food was found there in one of the houses the situation got out hand Calle lost control of his men
The heat, the humidity, the drenching rain, the mind shear, the constant engagement of all your senses in assessment and perception of danger, The reality of there, you being there, no escape from there, much not at face value. And you are a teenager without much life experience to draw from to judge your circumstance. You are part of a team but alone. Others depend upon your actions and your survival depends on luck, your choices, and.in how your group conducts itself. At any instant everything can be obliterated. You must choose, even when you are trying not to choose. And you wake up still there.
I was talking to a man who had been in Saigon, and he said that on any given night most of the soldiers were so drunk or so high they didn't know what they were doing. He said the whole thing was so senseless. ... When I was in Germany 1977 - 79 we faced a very similar profile of drugs. There was high quality, cheap heroin. A lot of hash. There was some really good stimulant sold legally on the German economy but illegal on post. But the major drug was alcohol. Every soldier in our company drank a lot. There was only one guy in our company who didn't drink to excess. On every Friday evening there would be a line of soldiers going to the package store, and a line coming back. The military was stupid enough to make alcohol plentiful and cheap. A 40 oz. bottle of Bacardi Rum cost $2.90. If I was a battalion commander I would have considered making alcohol much more difficult to get. Alcohol caused a lot of problems. I was one of the worst.
Still gave the world some great music related to Vietnam and drugs, Purple Haze From Jimi Hendrix, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and Charlie Brown from Sapat
@@Rollercoaster555 Too true, Screaming Eagles and in typical Jimi fashion got his dad to send his guitar to Kentucky specially for him, but got discharged after breaking an ankle on his 26th jump
My father was, by all accounts, a sweet, shy young man before he joined the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam. I never knew that man. I knew a man who was a severe alcoholic, cocaine/heroin and pill user who molested my brother and I, pursued any self destructive behavior and ruined 2 or more families and their children. He was discharged from the Marine Corps for continued and chronic drug use and immoral behaviors. Thank you Vietnam. Thank you US GOVERNMENT.
@bossbonita1235 thank you. It's hard to come out with something like this but trust me, when you open that book and read it aloud for the rest of the world you can begin helping others who have the same issues. My father even pushed me to the point me absolutely SNAPPING on him when. He put his disgusting hands on my wife ass and attempted to pull her sports bra off AT A 50TH Wedding Anniversary. My wife was terrified and I saw no easy way out for this one. So, when the gala affair was in the books I found a reason to be in one place, with just he and I. It would Wind up on the front lawn of my grandparents house where, (,not bragging) I about took his head off him. I will always be ashamed of THAT. Because I showed a great deal of protection for my wife, I inadvertently the made that night about me and how I WAS WRONGED. What should have been done is that I should have bidded my time and taken it up at a later time. Anyway. That was the mast time I would ever see him alive. I went back to Minnesota and he drank himself to death. Sorry for the long and meandering response. Peace brother. Thank you Eric RM
I was in Vietnam 1967 door gunner on a helicopter gunship I never witnessed any drug use I did hear about maintenance guys doing pot but never saw it after getting out of army 1968 couldn't find a job except going back to Vietnam working on helicopters I was shocked by all the drug use especially heron you could find it anywhere for five bucks as far as atrocities I did witness a lieutenant pilot shoot at fishermen in the ocean his reasoning being he wanted to kill someone before going home I complained about it but nobody gave a shit
I was a Corpsman USMC we had 2 Marines who were smoking # 4 smack in cigarettes. They went home on leave and got busted by customs. We were glad to get rid of that dead wood.
@@tommytwogloves16 thank you for your service and sacrifice. It’s disgusting that Hollywood and the liberal media makes it appear that Nam soldiers were cool because they used drugs.
My Canadian uncle was a medic in Vietnam he had access to all kinds of medical supplies he said that everyone was either drunk or on drugs or both he was part of something called a sog team going into very scary situations he said u had to take something or your senses went into overload. He told me that he was a pothead and needed downers to face patching up his mates. He said cannabis was everywhere it kept you sane and alert and relaxed at the same time.
I spent 11 1/2 months 68-69 in Northern I Corps. People were fighting the war there day and night. I never saw or heard of anyone using drugs or alcohol in combat. Those were problems with rear area guys who were bored.
I was in the Army from 1967-72. My last duty assignment had been Med Company at Ft Sill, OK. I became close friends with many of the men who had returned from Vietnam. Many of them had become addicted to heroin, which was 95% pure white powder, and they would take leave on return to the US to kick the addiction before going home to their families. The communists were behind making the drugs available to our troops and our govt learned the lesson well. One of the main reasons the Russians left Afghanistan was because their troops were getting addicted to heroin in unbelievable numbers. I am relatively sure our CIA was behind the way the Russian troops would access the drugs. A lesson well learned from Vietnam.
One of the men had managed to forward a package to his next duty station (Ft Sill) by carefully opening a package his mother had sent him right before going back to the US. He had put 120 vials of Vietnamese heroin in the box, which did not get checked again as it appeared to have been merely forwarded. He sold 20-30 of the vials and used or shared the rest. When one of my friends had gotten married, his buddies gave me a couple of the vials and just about everyone got ripped. I had allowed one of the guys to shoot me up with what was apparently way more than I should have used and I got violently sick. The chaplain had still been at the house when one of the guys had shot me up and I walked out of the bathroom, running into the wall. He left almost immediately.
As a retired LEO I can say from tons of experience that marijuana users are just about always calm and agreeable, especially compared to drunks. The statement made by Thomas J Dodd stating that marijuana was the cause of the Mi Lai massacre was obviously just a statement based on opinions and the narrative of the time. Of course, marijuana could have been laced with other drugs but it appears to be more of a statement based on a political narrative. Marijuana was placed on the schedule 1 list of narcotics, which it should never have been on. We have seen the same issues today when politicians make statements concerning (legal or illegal) drugs, like the Covid vaccine. They don't know, they just push whatever narrative they are in line with. We have medical professionals on different sides of the discussion but the government only wants to push one narrative. We cannot forget that in Vietnam drugs were also being pushed towards American soldiers from the enemy. That was a part of the enemies strategy and in hindsight it seems to have worked to some extent.
I had a friend that was drafted during the Vietnam war. He was the only one in his group that was sent to Germany. He told me that he had very little memory of his experience because he was stoned most of the time. Nobody cared what was going on with the troops in Germany during the main conflict. I also met someone who was one of the initial "advisors" sent to Nam. He said that they were so F..ked up that they stole and tried to fly a helicopter. He said the last thing he remembered was just getting off the ground then BOOM.
I'm surprised Peter Lemon was mentioned in this video. He was a combat soldier in Vietnam who frequently used marijuana and during a late night base attack, he managed to fend off numerous NVA soldiers with small arms, his knife, a shovel and his bare hands, all while under the influence. He would receive a medal of honor for his actions, possibly being the first medal of honor recipient that earned it while high.
The only time we had drugs regular was on a fire base. The unit I was with spent it’s time between phi bai and the ashau valley. Good luck even finding drugs. They took the medics morphine So if you got shot better hope you were not working under the triple canopy. The 3.2 beer was okay for some thing to drink in the m
Was there drug use by military personnel in VN, yes, but, I ask you, would you get in a car with a drunk driver, would you go out on a ambush, recon, search & destroy mission with the guy who was suppose to watch your six high on dope? You must remember, the number of troops in VN peaked out at about 480,000. You had at least 100,000 in Saigon and the Pentagon East. You had another 100,000 at CamRanh Bay and many others elsewhere. On any given day there was no more than 40,000 or 50,000 beating the bush searching for the enemy. You can thank guys like Oliver Stone and his Hollywood buddies for the images they displayed and conjured up regarding the soldiers in VN. I spent 68 months in RVN and fought along side of people like Lew Millett, William Tyler and and mostly with indigenous peoples/soldiers. The soldiers in VN fought valiantly under extreme harsh conditions, but, the real battle they faced was the one when they returned to CONUS, and for that, you can thank Hanoi Jane, John Kerry and their likes.
Talked to a Vietnam vet when I was a teen( we were both alcoholics at the time ) he was saying how not scared he’d be patrolling the jungle with a canteen full of Jack Daniel’s during an ambush. His words” Shoot me I don’t care, I’m still going to make sure I tap the floor before just laying down so I’m not uncomfortable laying there fighting 😂” Normal people just lay on the floor cause they’re scared of dying . I’m now a USMC and that veteran Pete has passed. Semper Fi do or Die Pete
My mom's uncle, RIP, came home from Vietnam with a horrible heroin addiction. It may have stemmed from him being injured when his chopper went down, I was told he was a door gunner. My great aunt was fortunately able to break his addiction not too long after. Him and my grandpa never spoke about their experience in Vietnam though. My mom even says my youngest brother looks like he did when he was younger, he's a big dude like my great uncle was.
I once took acid and played rising storm. Man was it one of the most confusing and terrifying gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I’m pretty sure everyone else thought I was an idiot.
I took a half tab of acid and walked 22 miles with my friends in a national park in one day and we made sure that if we saw people we didnt speak to them because we would all seem crazy and act weird but there were 2 people who knew we were on acid because while we helped them refill their bottles at a stream with their filter we fixed they saw us with the tabs on our tongues and smiled and told us to have a good trip and thanked us for helping them. We reached objectives and passed terrain faster than they did and would wait around enjoying the scenery then they would catch up and ask us how the hell did we get there faster than them haha
My brother was there in 68, he became addicted to crystal meth. He and another we’re going around selling it, got caught, and spent 6 months in the brig. He drank a lot, and had pulmonary lung disease from agent Orange. He finally started getting compensated for it, then died at age 65. His Moto was, shot at and missed, shit on and hit. My family welcomed him home dearly. He will be missed.🇺🇸
The entire time I was in Iraq, the only member of my unit to die from air duster abuse was a 60 year old Full Bird Colonel. I never heard of a single other soldier having done it. True story.
I can definitely see amphetamines or methamphetamines playing a role in kicking off a massacre, but weed? they're more likely to try placing orders for pho
nah unless your a couple days in on a binge or worse on a comedown you are surprisingly peacefull/calm not calm physically but you are just so happy you dont want to figth anyone well atleast that from personal experience (didnt smoke meth i just took it in pills)
Also got to remember that most pot was a lot milder high back then. Most unseasoned people could smoke a joint casually and not be couch ridden and drooling on yourself like a lot of the heavy stuff you can find today...
A few guy's would smoke pot,but rarely had a chance to do it.The problem was at the base camp and firebases.We were in the mountainous jungle,and there was no time for such thing's,hell there was time for cigarettes.The problem was fire,no fires day or night's.
As a USMC infantryman in Viet Nam, served almost 2 yrs in combat, Feb. 68 to Oct 69, from PFC to Sergeant, I can state, that even though there was marijuana use while in a secure area, NEVER did I see, hear, or ever smell any drugs while on operations. No Marine would allow it, discipline and morale in Marine units never defeatist. Liberal, but proud of being a Marine.
worked with a 1965 USMC draftee (he was #7 when counting out by 10) who was in country from early 66 to mid 67, and he told me on more than one occasion that they smoked weed out on patrols. some of it laced with PCP. they got radio calls because they hadnt checked in at X time. they called in and and were told to pop yellow smoke. when they did, the spotter aircraft reported back that they were about 5 miles north of the DMZ (what there was of it). they had gotten stoned and just kept on walking...
@@truthsayers8725I think you were lied to. I will reiterate, from Feb 68 to Oct 69, in 5th Marines never even considered it. Draftee Marine in 65, doesn't sound right, wandering around 5 miles in NVN stoned. I have too much respect for the NBA to believe this.
Speaking of massacres will you do a video on south korean war crimes in vietnam? We always hear about My Lai but sk allies did similar atrocities too more often than us sometimes.
@@ktheterkuceder6825 The Koreans were feared most by the NVA and Viet Cong than anyone. They would cut off the dead enemys penis and put it in their mouths and leave so the others found them that way. I WAS First Field Forces 71-72.
When I was in the USAF in the mid 70's drug use of all kinds was rampant. And alcohol was so prevalent - freely available all over the place. The enlisted clubs regularly held nickel beer nights and squadron activities always included dozens of kegs of free beer. The barracks were like a shopping mall for all sorts of drugs.
I was there 67 and 68. Marines. Drinking, yes when beer was available. Pot, sometimes. But neither was used in the field because that would have been suicidal, obviously. Never saw or heard of hard drugs.
My family has lived this. My father served in Vietnam It was psychologically devastating for years. He was a heroine addict and was refused help.Just like 70% of the other soliders labeled dishonorable so the government wouldn't have to pay them.
It's not a popular thing to talk about but I know of a lot of soldiers in the middle east wars who were using heroin on the field of battle. When they came home they kept using. There are some dangerous junkies on the streets of our country, combat tacticians with an opiate addiction.
The Vietnam vets that I've talked to including my uncle and 3 cousins said the powder heroin was so powerful that people did not have to shoot up. They would sprinkle it with weed. Thai Stick. The source was right next door in Myanmar Burma. They said $1 worth was enough to get off 4 people.
This is a good and fair piece of journalism ... I grew up on a Hippie commune and seen what Vietnam did to returning vets from the war second hand ... it was very sad 😥
@@vetbcrazy I had a friend that was at My Lai, the things he told me, I had to stip him because I couldnt stand to hear no more. I wont repeat them but I will tell you that they were given orders to go in and kill EVERYTHING THAT BREATHED AIR AND THEN BURN IT TO THE GROUND. In the military you dont have the luxury of evaluating an officers direct order as to right or wrong. If you disobey a direct order from a superior officer you would be court martialed and locked up in the stockade. In Nam their jail was to lock you up in a steel CONEX i.e. a steel shipping container. I could tell you all so much shit it would give you nightmares. But I've put it all behind me because you really have to for your own well being.
@@vetbcrazy It really didnt. I know the whole story of My Lai intimately and the real reason it took place and what exactly took place, but I wont repeat it. It was for a quite valid reason, so dont judge those that were there and took part from an outsiders point of view. And they werent hopped up on drugs.
As someone who is novice to psychedelics only doing dmt this must have been absolutely mentally terrifying and psychologically damaging to kill someone’s on drugs would probably destroy any sense of reality and making the transition to regular society even more insane. I know everyone’s trips are different but damn I do know there were probably some psychopathic people fighting in Vietnam that were ready to kill everyone and everything in sight. This had to be absolute terrifying for some to see your friends brain and guts blown out while you’re tripping. Some really really scary shit when you think about it in your own conscientiousness. I feel for all the troops that lost their minds out there no more war.
I would love to know where you got that stat about 1% of American soldiers suffered mental breakdowns compared to WW2 at 10%. Thats an interesting stat. I love all of your videos, they are informative, entertaining, often original, and well put together. Thank you for your hard work!
A lot more guys came home from WW2 addicted to opiates than people realize, it's just that people didn't talk about it back then, that's why there was an explosion in heroin use in the 50's. At the beginning of WW2 combat troops carried their own morphine surrets in their first aid kits, guys would inject themselves before an impending battle not to deal with the fear but because they were afraid if they got blown up or something and were laying there all screwed up they wouldn't be able to do it, after a while when the military caught on to it they took them off of the individual soldiers and only the medics carried them, some of them liked it and after the war started looking for opiates which led to the explosion of heroin use in the 50's. Even after the Civil War opiate addiction was a problem, back then withdraws were known as "soldiers sickness".
Back in the late 70s I rode in my brother's 1966 Ford Fairlane over to purchase a lid of Columbian Gold (I recall it was $30) from an uncle of one of his friends who turned out to be a former fighter pilot in Vietnam from about 65-67, during which time he regularly used cannabis. He told us about his first acid trip, relating how they were called up shortly thereafter. When I asked him how that went, he told me it didn't seem to hit him until after the mission was over. He explained that he and one of his flyboy buddies, who scored the trips to begin with, were totally unfamiliar with the "experience", shall I say. I was 13 at the time.
You briefly touch on an interesting point in this video about breakdowns. The mad vietnam vet trope is something of a complete myth, they actually had a really high employment and quality of life rate after the war compared to what is imagined.
My dad was stationed on Okinawa in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I remember him talking about a dozen Green Beret Special Forces who were arrested for smuggling large quantity of heroin from Vietnam to Okinawa and the US. Because they were in the Special Forces they would frequently travel to Vietnam and their luggage was never searched. This “privilege” to travel via USAF transport planes without being questioned or searched made them the perfect drug smugglers.
I was a dog handler and I got to work with many units and the drug use in Vietnam 70-71 was not as extreme as y’all portrayed in this video. Sure there were incidents where soldiers would over indulge, but there was a brotherhood of being in Nam and most of that bond served to throttle the extremes of most situations. Yes, and most of the soldiers did it in their off time and usually on base and at night. It was not tolerated in the bush, can’t mess up because buddies are depending on each other to cya. BTW, drugs have always been a part of warfare, even in ancient times. It was the extreme carnage of the Civil War that programmed drug use for pain and shell shock. No surprise that post WWII saw advancements in warfare through pharmacology.
I too was a dog handler 67-68 all the units i scouted for had a unwritten rule no getting high in the bush. The more liberal ones rules no smoking once ambushed and LP were put out
Excessive drug taking and alcohol are an escape from the situation we’re in. Been there in civilian life. I can’t imagine how a soldier must feel in a guerrilla war.
I don’t think marijuana was the cause of any massacre ever... More likely is that a certain small amount of people are seriously fucked and when you have a situation like Nam some get in. Someone who can stomach killing isn’t the same animal as someone who likes and enjoys killing people.. I’m a Plumber, I can handle dealing with shit but someone who actually enjoys it would creep me the hell out.
I was in Vietnam 1967-68, and i think that drug use was a reflection of our peers. the drinkers and druggies were the same ones as their peers outside the military. Putting on a uniform does not change things too much..
I had two brothers in Vietnam at same time, One Army , One Marine , Both said weed and beer was everywhere and used like it was nothing. Both said it seem like they wanted you be either drinking or smoking when You where in base camp,
I was an infantry soldier in Vietnam but there was only one time during which drug use became a problem to the fighting efficiency of my company. A new commander came in, cracked the whip and cleaned things up. If you were in the field you couldn’t involve yourself too deeply in drugs or alcohol in that hot climate or it would show in your attitude. Sadly, pot parties or just plain alcohol was responsible for various incidents of poor performance.
My uncle was an MP in Vietnam. He told me you could always tell who was on heroin. Their uniforms were sweat-soaked like they had just stepped out of a shower.
many a dustoff or insertion were Warrant officers with a buzz on and were so good at finding a lz that wasn't hot.Guys loved it bc they gave an aura of cool,calm,can do,yes sir.
I remember working g with a navy nom vet he said he would sit on his patrol boat at the stern. "with a 20 pack of Marijuana cigarettes laced with heroine, that I got from a kid that would roll them in the city. I would just sit there...and smoke the entire pack..." he...was a character...this was in 2016 and 17...he told us some of the stories and just holy fuck.
The Vietnam vets were never institutionalized for mental disorders as with the WW 2 veterans per capita. I worked as a nurse in the long term care facilities for the vets 16 years after the Vietnam war ended so I had the opportunity to supervise the care of vet patients from both wars.
I served in Vietnam in '72. Drank like a fish when not on patrol. Got back to the world and the cost of alcohol was about 2 to 3 times more than in country. Took me several weeks to not buy a case of beer for the day. Money ran out to fast and I like to have green in my pocket. I don't think I became a alcoholic but darn close.
I can't believe the My Lai situation was the result of pot use. It was the result of unrelieved stress. You tease a dog long enough, and he finally snaps.......
In 1970-1971 I was a marine in vietnam and I never saw anyone using illegal drugs. It was common to drink alcohol when it was available, which wasn't often where I was stationed, and how much you could drink was limited. It wasn't smart or safe to get drunk and not be aware , especially at night and if it was your time to provide security. People knew that if they got caught using any type of illegal drugs their military career was over and they were definitely going to the brig. No doubt there were some who did it and didn't get found out.
remember kids nowadays owning a firarm in america and smoking a joint is super illigal. and can get you sent to prison for gun crimes. but conscripts smoking half an ounce a day out of an M-16 in an active combat zone was totally fine.
Pot is becoming legal in more and more states and even states where its still illegal, possession isn't really the crime it used to be. Drug war has long been lost.
Unless you were there, you have no idea. Command and Staff didn't give a rats ass about the life of Snuffy. They were concerned about promotions and bad press. The Lifers only wanted to live to retire, and they didn't care over whose body it was. I can say that, I did 2 tours in Eye Corps with the 101st.
I joined the Army in 1979 and had a joint left when I got to Basic Training. I smoked it with my buddies in the reception center, then proceeded to make a 0% on a 20-question multiple-choice Military Intelligence quiz, lol. Later in AIT for the Chemical Corp, they would show us films of the effects of LSD on Service Members, which did affect their performance😵💫, wildly.
When LSD was first synthesised, the British army tested it on volunteers to see if it would help them out think the enemy, it was a dismal failure because they overestimated the dose and gave them 10 times the normal dose, I saw a film taken at the time, of soldiers trying to do an assault course carrying rifles, they were obviously terrified and totally incapable of completing the course. This of course was way before it was illegal.
I once met a Vietnam Vet that showed me his eight bullet holes that he survived. He said that guys that were on heroin that went on patroll at night could not see well because of dialated pupils and so not able to survive.
Ripped the bullet out and filed the primer off of a 5.56 made myself a onehitter while i served as an airborne infantryman in '02. Afghanistan has the best cannabis in the world.
I always believed soldiers in horrible situations need something to numb them out in a way. And I don’t mean like a first time user. Someone that’s become a functioning user(not abuser). If the human body was built to where 30-40 year olds were like 18-25 year olds. Then I don’t think we would need such things. But you get kids strait out of the high school playground, arm them, and to battle. Well of course their going to need something. Half nut up half nut down. Idk sobriety is underrated, and so is ptsd
The platoon commander who was charged with the atrocity at My Lai in South Vietnam was an exceptionally incompetent officer who supposedly didn’t even know how to read a map.
My dad's a Vietnam Vet. He said his division had two types of people, drunks or pot heads. He was a pot head, and said the weed was super cheap and everywhere. They would smoke at the base, but never out on patrol. After getting back to the states, he couldn't get weed and started drinking like crazy. This would lead to worse things. Thankfully hes doing good now.
Hell nowadays he could
Get his medical card haha
Yeah, I dont know you or your dad but I hope you've repaired your relationship. That's something I was never able to do with my father and I hate it. Have a good day
Your dad's a legend
It's always interesting to hear from someone who knows another person who was in the war! Thanks for the comment.
@c0ya1 smoking opium is no different than drinking beer or smoking weed. It’s not that strong. Smoking heroin is where there’s a problem.
My Dad was a WWII medic. He said he was on a ship heading for battle. Some were weeping, some were shaking. They were scared. It isn't like the movies. The Sargeant went around passing out white pills and told everyone to take them so they wouldn't get sea sick. My Dad and a few others were untrusting. They acted like they took them but didn't. He said the ones who did had a change in demeanor shortly after. They were aggressive and puffed up and ready to fight. When the doors opened, they charged out yelling. I'll never forget that story. He didn't say alot about the war, but he remembered that.
Modern armies actually have trained the soldier these days to be very fearless.
Take a look at interviews with most from recent conflicts, they had some fear, but were very much in control, and motivated to perform in combat.
@@manofwar577 nothing can train you to be a psychopath. They just train you to ignore fear or work past it.
Extreme times call for extreme measures, unfortunately
Sounds like amphetamines
@@jmz2144doesn't just sound like it but was. 🤔
As a Vietnam/Cambodia combat vet I am very familiar with drug problem in the Nam. My drug of choice was Beer as about every 3 days they shipped us in 80 cases of beer and soda. When I reached the field in Feb 1970, it was 6 months before I saw a base camp. My second choice was Pot, usually laced with Heron. Whew!!! I am 72 years old and I have 3 brain cells left. Two of them have been married for 73 years and hate each other and the third brain cell I have left is looking for the drugs I left in the Nam.
Thank you for your service
@@thetruth1862 Thank You. Those two simple words, sometimes are hard for me to say.
You sir have earned the right to say or not say anything you want, we got that freedom because of the great men, like yourself that go to wars and defend our country , in wars that you didnt start
Thank you for your service from a 23 year old man who would have nothing without all those who fought to protect our country.
Man didn't they have some good weed?
The only war crimes I've committed on Marijuana are against entire regiments of Doritos
The great battle of Cool Ranch, at Pepperidge Farm.
@@kw2519 never forget the battle of bloody (pepper)ridge
I personally have committed genocide against the mini apple pie people.
They were severly decimated 🥺
@@kw2519 they never stood a chance.
my highschool teacher was combat vet, was kinda a joke for everyone to ask em what vietnam was like.
he would tell everyone, "imagine being on acid and watching your friends explode around you"
i said "because war is so crazy it's like being on acid?"
he said "no, because we were on acid. we knew we were gonna die and no one wanted to die sober."
Imagine having to make that choice
Bullshit!
@@frednugent2310 yeah I don’t buy most stories from war vets. My uncle was a vet and he even said the guys he was with made up all sorts of wild stories to make it appear like they experienced so much more than they actually did ..
@@brianmeen2158I had a chance conversation with a vet one day and he told me the same thing lol
@@brianmeen2158 it was the late 60s dude, LSD was everywhere, hippies were using it, doctors, lawyers, FBI and CIA agents, mental patients, army men, even the cia dosed random people in public, i don't doubt for a second that people smuggled acid into nam, i mean 100 hits would easily fit on a postcard so...
So way back in the early 1980s, both my brother and I happened to be home during Xmas leave. My brother was an MP stationed in Germany at the time and I was serving in the Pacific fleet with the US Navy. One day during the holidays, my brother and I began talking candidly about the drug cultures in our respective branches of service. Heroin and hashish were a big problem for the US Army stationed in Germany at the time, whereas it was pot for the Navy on the west coast. My brother asked me if I smoked pot and I admitted that I did. In fact, the pot culture was so overwhelming in the Navy at the time that we often smoked several times a day (note that there's a difference between taking a hit or two on a joint as it gets passed around and getting stoned off your ass). You got up in the morning and someone lit up a joint. You piled into the car for the daily commute to the Naval Air Station and someone lit up a bowl. You headed over to the galley for lunch and someone lit up a joint. You headed home in the evening....more of the same. So a couple nights later, out of nowhere as we were sitting around the dining room table about to have dinner, my brother blurts out "Mike smokes pot!!!". Now, my brother has always suffered from "Middle Child" syndrome and this was evidence attesting to his affliction. My father, who joined the Navy back in 1934 and served until 1964, was ladling out mashed potatoes at the time and simply remarked "Oh hell, they were smoking pot in the Navy before the War".....and he meant the SECOND WORLD WAR....that's when I knew my Dad was cool.
@@crawfordsmith3700 wrong. You missed the bad asses of this generation. Some of us love America and would stand. If they drove my family anywhere it would be over my dead body. Every generation thinks the next cant hang till there backs are against the wall. ( there are a ton of floppy millennials but behind the scenes there be monsters)
@@crawfordsmith3700 hahaha I’m currently in the army and I couldn’t agree more with what you said.
@@crawfordsmith3700 Where did the random African American part come from?
Well he does Heroin!
@@crawfordsmith3700 Natural selection works brutally on the battlefield.
I'd like to congratulate Drugs, for winning the War on Drugs.
This was an Onion headline
Hahaha nicely said
And the war on terrorism
Really, Drugs was the one enemy that had been kicking every army's ass since 1900. Pretty dumb to just declare a shooting war on them.
I'll smoke to that.
A Vietnam vet that I used to work with would talk about how he would take 2 bottles of Jack Daniels out on patrol with him. He would drink 1 and bury the other, since they tended to patrol the same areas again and again, but would then forget where he buried the bottle the last time he was there quote "Theres bottles of Jack Daniels buried all over Vietnam, I never could find where I had buried them."
If someone ever finds a bottle of Jack Daniels in Vietnam respond to this comment 😂
I think this is the most American thing I've ever read lol
@@spiffywolf2850 🇺🇸
That is hilarious. I never have heard that one before.
Could you tell me where he was stationed at?
My cousin served in a rifle company in 67-68 in Vietnam...in letters to home he complained about patrol members being "messed up" (or the equivalent) on drugs..a danger to the platoon and themselves...assuming he meant heroin...he returned to civilian life at a meat packing company outside of Milwaukee, WI...decided this wasn't for him, re-enlisted, ended up as Command Sergeant Major in Special Forces , he died in his early 60's, probably a victim of Agent Orange...what irony, soldiers trying to self-medicate to get through this war, with the slow-acting cancer of the Military-Industrial Complex helping finish off the survivors...
returned
thats a crazy thing.
I worked with one Grunt who was in Nam. He said there was plenty of drug use back in base camp. He said all the stories about smoking pot in the field was bullshit. He said the gooks could smell that shit a mile away. If you were caught smoking shit in the field you just might have a "accident" that stopped your habit of endangering you squad/platoon. He showed me the Silver Star he received for rescuing a wounded buddy in a firefight. So, I think it's safe to say he wasn't bullshitting me.
In Nam my unit used alcohol and drugs to settle down when we came in from the bush. We never used when on patrol because we were too scared of messing up or being smelled by the VC. Atrocities happened because of fear, revenge, and a few lunatics, not chemicals.
thats what we did too when we come in for re supply 1 night we would get trashed blind and the next we tried to straighten back out and the third night we were getting ready to go back out
what would y'all take out there? could you also find psychedelics?
You can't blame for wanting revenge
I was in a USAF squadron in Vietnam. Some of our crew members were alleged to have smoked weed but I never saw it being done. If it was done it was "off base" and away from prying eyes. The use never came up as a problem during operations. In early 1971, we were all briefed (actually WARNED) that during our yearly flight crew physical, the Air Force flight surgeons would test for drug use. If they found it, we would be court martialed. I always wondered if THAT was the reason George Bush picked his own doctor to do HIS flight physical during that period. (George Bush was not in Vietnam but served in the Texas Air National Guard, when those threats were issued.) Regarding booze, we could buy an (imperial) 5th of vodka or whisky for 1.50 US. You BET everyone drank like fish. I remember our commander and Operations Officer were ALWAYS drunk, certainly off duty and, who knows, while on.
The drug use became more apparent after 69. I had a friend and cousin that came home addicted to heroin.A classmate of mine always walked point stoned, he claimed he could smell them
That part blows my mind if you've ever been really drunk and really stoned you no theres no comparison drunk your useless and can barely stand were weed you still can do stuff
Did the army and marines have the same standard drug testing
@@dun0790 The problem with alcohol: is not so much that aircrews show up drunk to fly. Not to say that DOESN'T happen. But the REAL problem is they show up with a massive hangover and, as a result, they slop through their procedures and make mistakes that the aircraft refuses to ignore.
@@Detroittruckdoctor55 Don't know.
I agree with you as far as the last example goes I seriously doubt marijuana had anything to do with the My Lai massacre. I smoked weed, and I knew, and know many people who do, and one of the last thing it does is make you violent. Might make you eat too much. Anyone who tells you it does is because the person is violent to begin with.
well thats the point. if a drug enhances your inner nature and problems, maybe it shouldnt be something readily available, especially in important situations like combat or at work.
@@shadden_x in the case of Marijuana though it doesn't. It's a drug that subdues those violent instincts and puts you more in tune with your sensitive side. I don't cry at movies, but if I get high beforehand I'll find myself tearing up at the happy parts.
Well in that case of your a cannibal and marijuana makes you hungry.....lol
Anyone who thinks weeds bad need to get there finger out there ass and do the there own unbiased research
Fair point, drugs probably had a hand in some incidents, but I doubt anything like the my Lai massacre. It was most likely just bc of soldiers turned stone cold killers who just grew a hatred for the Vietnamese due to their enemy, and then not being able to differentiate enemy from friendlies.
My dad was a First Lt. in Vietnam in 1968. I asked him about drug use and he said no one in his platoon did any of that, they drank beer and some liquor but no weed or anything harder. He told me later that he personally was too scared to even drink, he was afraid they'd be attacked and he wouldn't be able to function. It had to vary widely depending on the unit you were in and what year it was.
He had troops that were on one thing or the other guaranteed, they were just good at hiding it from him.
And as long as that was the case so be it, it's like they told us when I went into the Army, "You can do anything you want, as long as you don't get caught".
He’s full of crap too.
Thats correct, Marines, all volunteers, were a disciplined group unlike many Army draftees. In the bush the last thing one wanted was to be messed up on one drug or another. Now the Army guys in the rear with the gear were another matter. They had time and easy access to drugs.
@@0bob0cya SO you were in Vietnam serving in his unit? No, you're basing your ASSumptions on your experience. If you were in Vietnam you were a REMF. I said the first time that they drank in his unit, just nothing else
To be honest I don't think your father was being honest with you about this. My Dad said for my entire life drugs were evil and he would never even consider doing them, until my aunt mentioned him and his friends would smoke weed in their mom's basement in the 70's. He still maintains he didn't inhale, haha.
My dad did three tours. He said they drank beer and whiskey, smoke weed and opium, shot heroin and morphine, and amphetamines. They were also popping benzos and barbs to sleep. They would also take pills called white crosses to keep the awake and moving on long treks through the country. My dad came home a full blown alcoholic at 24 yrs old, he drank day and night, and took speed so he didn't have to sleep because he had terrible horrifying nightmares.
You must have had a difficult upbringing. I can relate man, all the best to you from Australia. Peace.
the problem with speed is it doesnt take long to bring those night terrors into hallucinations and bad reactions to imagined guys in the shadows, bright sunlight and lack of water must have made it a hellish thing to be on speed, dehydrated, being yelled at and in a place where you are the invador and no matter what we say about VC crimes, burning their villages and making the civilians live in prison camp brothels was what the search and destroy / strategic hamlets policy was about. make them homeless so they are too busy selling their kids to predatory white men to fight back.
Wow, that is pretty fuggedup. 3 tours by 24. insane.
@mukhumor if I remember correctly the first one was a year then you had to be home for 6 months then he went back for another year came back then was back for a while my mom lost my older brother shortly after he was born and then he signed up for a shorter 3rd. The guy was really fucked up. He wasn't with my mom when he initially drafted and his gf committed suicide just weeks before he was sent over. Five years before that my grandfather died from pneumonia from working on the Navy ship yards around all that asbestos. So 13 his dad dies, 18 gf commits suicide. 22 my brother dies shortly after he was born. So I don't blame him for being mentally damaged but what he did to us my mother and sisters I can forgive I just can't foget.
@@EIRE1980 Wow. Thats a big slab of 'real life'. Stay safe.
It's childish how many people tell themselves alcohol isn't a drug.
I have arguably been an alcoholic since I was 18. I've never heard anyone say alcohol wasn't a drug
almost everything contains a drug depending how much you want to think about it
@@bman6065 I think Op's statement was more or less them just getting a statement out then actually believing what they typed
So is caffeine.
Alcohol isnt a drug it's a drink
You have to remember the context. The CIA was supporting and encouraging the war lords in the highlands of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand (parts of which made up the "Golden Triangle"). The form of payment was transporting the drugs the warlords controlled via the CIA airline Air America from the back country to the troops in Vietnam as well as the rest of the world. So one part of the government was supporting and dealing in drugs to directly addict the other part of the government: the military. Think that is bad? Well it still goes on today in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other countries. Our government condones, itself deals, and supports drug dealing while running "a war on drugs". Read "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred McCoy for a worldwide view of our government's involvement in the drug trade.
Excellent synopsis Douglas. You forgot to mention the NSA. My late husband (died AO) was in 101st Abrn/Delta Force '69 and visited all those places you mentioned. He did mention speaking with the NSA.
Dead on
Exactly. The military industrial complex is a son of a bitch
My father was an Army Combat Engineer, who apparently experienced some terrible things. He became addicted the very strong, cheap heroin available in Vietnam. He was eventually caught and sent to Leavenworth, which likely furthered his PTSD - back then they didn't really understand addiction and how to handle it.
I wouldn’t call it drug abuse. The forced fighting and killing was the abuse. The drugs were their life savers and escapes from the hell they were forced into. I volunteered for the military so I can’t imagine being forced from your car bed and thrown into a foreign hell zone. I cry for the young men who were forced into the military and didn’t come home
Thank you for your service.
Vicious circles mate. Vicious circles. Some drugs usually sharpens or at least alters your senses. Add the abstinence effects and this results on hell getting even more hellish
You're part of the "Hard men make easy times. Easy times make weak men" cycle. I'll let you guess at which part you belong to with your tears and feelings about things you had no control over.
Excellent comment!
@@lukehenry5987 guess you lost your fucking empathy when you were dropped on ur head mf 😂😂
I was in the Marines from '74 to '76 (long story) and one of my good friends who had been over in 'Nam said he got off the plane....a person handed him a bowl, then the next thing he remembered was getting back on the plane to go home. Take that with a grain of salt, but we peed in the bottle every week the whole time I was in and everyone in my Company did everything we could get our hands on..pretty much...but nobody ever got busted by the drug testing. When I was doing my exit interview during discharge I asked the civilian woman doing it about the drug testing and how nobody ever seemed to get busted? She laughed and said 'The Commandant of the Marine Corps doesn't believe that about 90% of his men are using drugs...so they ignore the tests thinking they're not accurate'. She then asked if I used anything illegal....of course I laughed back with a hearty affirmative. Crazy time.
cool story man thank you for serving, and if i was in that war i would definitely be scoring as well lol
My uncle went into the war a alcoholic, and left with a "drinking problem," he said he tried cannibis knocked him out until the point he found himself floating down a rice paddy on an inflatable mattress during a fire fight. Mind you he was the platoon medic. RIP CHRIS DENNIS, GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Good lord, nothing scarier than when you get in a firefight and look over at doc and he’s in the 4th dimension lmao. Talk about unfortunate timing man. I sympathize with the drinking problem though, my father is a vet who served in Bosnia, Iraq and afghan and came home with a drinking problem. Takes a toll. Respect to your uncle bro.
US soldier on Dexedrine: ARGHHH
Me on Dexedrine for ADHD: Ah, I can do the washing up today
They were likely taking it in much higher amounts than theurapeutical dosages.
I noticed the increased "overreaction" to things when I was first prescribed Dexedrine. I can see how someone in a combat area could "overreact" to anything, particularly with heightened hostility. Yelled at my gf once for suggesting I use a roller brush to paint a wall. "I KNOW WHAT IM FUCKING DOING!!".
@@eugeniorey4565 Sounds like you need a bigger dose personally ive only gotten aggresivity from ADHD stims when the effects end and i enter the crash. When i started i got prescribed a 8h XR of ritalin and pretty much exacly at the 8h mark i would become manic and violent but when i got prescibred i cant quite remember the name but it was a 14h duration dextroamphetamine derivative it just stopped
My dad served in 67-68 in the US Infantry and said Vietnam wasn't anything like it would later be remembered. In fairness he admits he served early when both morale and discipline were higher. No one did drugs openly and insubordination was not tolerated. He can't speak to what came later of course. When he visits with other Vietnam vets he will listen to how these other guys will talk about events and things and he'll just nod and say "oh yeah, uh huh" and then later tell me that he has no idea what they are talking about as it was a side of Vietnam he did not experience. He also reads accounts of actions he was involved in via other people's memoirs and says that it doesn't reconcile with his memory of events. I personally believe that what different soldiers experienced was genuinely unique to their tour dates, locations, actions, units, etc. In addition, some of the Vets are obviously suffering from mental and physical issues (one close friend was really messed up by Agent Orange for example and sadly his mind isn't all there sometimes) and that is also a factor on their recollections. My father thankfully did not come back with a lot of baggage, so to speak.
As far as My Lai...I don't believe that was drugs. In my belief that was men pushed beyond the breaking point. In Vietnam at large, but more specifically with the soldiers involved in My Lai, these guys saw over and over and over what was being done to them by the Viet Cong and constantly told they would get a chance to unleash that anger, hurt and frustration on the enemy responsible. But that didn't happen. Ambushes, booby traps, etc and then the VC pulled out and you were looking at civilian peasants you knew were aiding the enemy (they had no choice, honestly) and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it but keep marching after an enemy you never really got to fully engage with. Eventually, the soldiers snapped under the strain and attacked the civilians at hand as proxies for all the others they could not get retribution on. My Lai is an example of what is so harmful to a soldier's psyche when you try to fight a war as a political police action. That is just my two cents.
Well put about My Lai. That company had watched their buddies killed by snipers and mines for weeks without ever seeing the enemy leading up to that day and were told that they were finally getting to face the VC straight up. They were geared up for a fight. They were told to shoot anything that moved. They were being led by morally deficient people. Drug use had nothing to do with it. Medina and Calley seem more like drinkers to me.
Agree. Pot historically doesn’t make people violent to commit Mei Lei. I agree soldiers were suffering unimaginable stress
The only massacre I believe a marijuana user is capable of is a large pizza by themselves. Blaming marijuana for that incident felt like a convenient way of avoiding the more harmful drugs the government itself was providing to the soldiers to keep them fighting.
@Dave White solely propaganda because when the war on drugs was declared guess what fucking became the first class I substance….
It has more to do with the person.
There have been vile criminals who were into psychedelics, eg Manson. And some guy who was the distributor for the lsd produced in the Kansas missile silo. He tortured some kid. And is now in an OK prison where he's call Hannibal Lecter.
I smoke weed all the time and it can make you a bit paranoid but other than that it's perfectly fine
Now many state governments tax and allow the sale of The Devil’s Lettuce.
Damn
I love when I hear you speak, and I can hear little hints of your Australian background shine through. It's good to see an Aussie representing us on a larger platform for military history
I was a Staff Sergent in Vietnam in charge of a 105mm howitzer. I did not do any drugs while in Vietnam and neither did my men to my knowledge. I could not live with myself if I thought that our rounds would hit our own soldier's due to drugs or alcohol. Although when I got home, I struggled with PTSD. I drink a lot of alcohol and did a lot of drugs. Due to my wonderful wife who stuck by my side, I was able to quit drinking and drugs. now married 55 wonderful years. Sober for 45 of those years.
My grandfather was heavy machine gunner in Vietnam, he told me how him and his unit took LSD and always shot off rounds from the heavy mg loaded with tracers and they liked watching the bullets fly through the air while they were on it. And he said that position he held was never attacked because of it
I can imagine the enemy making an attempt at their position and seeing those fly off in the night and thinking "damn, these guys must be batshit crazy!" LOL
I have fond memories of being a 16 year old in 1967 and a couple of Vietnam vets teaching me how to smoke weed with a shotgun barrel.....
@@TheWolfsnack I had an old Vietnam vet teach me that too at 18
@@TheWolfsnack ah yes...platoon what move theater were you at?
Which begs the question. How'd LSD get in Vietnam?
In spite of all the psychedelic surrealism, some say Apocalypse Now is actually one of the most accurate depictions of the vietnam war from a soldier's perspective
A Vietnam vet told me that the reason why he and every soldier he knew smoked weed or did heroine was because there was literally no other way to cope with the war. He said it was literally so hot and wet and uncomfortable and they were so exhausted and scared for their lives that the only way to keep going was to get high all the time. I don't blame them at all. I would have done the exact same thing.
I think that if the soldiers didn't have drugs to help them cope during the war then they would have had way more mental breakdowns and possibly more panic attacks. They wouldn't have had the drug to take their mind off the reality they are in. Drugs or no drugs vietnam was a horrific and tragic war that no American should have gone to.
Unless they had to go . Americans don't get to pick which wars they will go to or not going to go to. lf you are in a combat unit in the U S Army or the Marine Corps and a war breaks out - you are probably going .
My Dad would never "do drugs", hated it, yet he drank like a fish and was addicted to prescription pain killers, the Army had prescribed them for combat injuries. Back in the states his civilian doctor routinely changed his pain killer prescription, so as not to be addicted to one drug. Not sure how that really worked out.
As a recovering opiate addict I'll tell you. He's addicted to ALL opiates. Switching what kind doesn't make a big difference. I'm sure they helped his pain somewhat though. They def didn't work as good as they use to though.
@@snapjitzy I wholeheartedly disagree. I fully believe being indiscriminate about my opiate use was quite an asset in getting over my dependence. Whether Vicodin, oxycodone, or heroin, all would work equally well.
I'd much rather be pill-sick as opposed to the brutality of fentynal sick. It took self-control to integrated pills, especially the Mickey Mouse types like Vicodin, after I finally found the needle. One tangle with fentynal withdrawals convinced me to stop using pills, and I still nodded with the same dose as always. No one was more surprised that I at the efficacy!
I'm just saying it's possible, however I acknowledge the high probability of psychosomatic forces at play.
They should legalize all drugs. It's no one's business what someone takes. It should be between the doctor and patient. Law enforcement needs to keep their greedy
@@MomMom4Cubs an extremely well thought out reply. Of course harder opiates have more intense withdrawals and IV drug use is more physiologically addicting but my post is still 100% accurate.
@@snapjitzy I not saying your experience isn't accurate for you. I merely was providing an equally valid experience. Both are accurate, however anything physiological in nature is by its nature subjective.
The fact he said druggo makes the channel even better 🇦🇺
I can't imagine being high on weed or LSD and going into combat, it would be a living nightmare.
No it wouldn't. It was the opposite. That's the whole reason they took drugs en masse. It was a coping mechanism to escape said nightmare
Weeds no problem, would make you cooler under fire. Tripping the fuck out and seeing your friends getting blown up is a good way to think you’re in a simulation and you’re invincible then you stand up and die.
Huge difference between being high on a natural existing herb and a synthetically created hallucinogen!!
@@jeffpraterJSF Or the opposite and seeing your buddy blow up would make you hide somewhere cowering in fear and completely tripping out until you get killed while youre in the worst mindset imaginable.
Weeds fine but honestly trippingnin a Jungle with VC I could never understand
Fun Fact: Vietnam war vet Peter C. Lemon earned the Medal of Honor while fighting off NVA troops while high on marijuana
Edit: For more information, here's a link to a video that tells his story ua-cam.com/video/14dwhEVMnng/v-deo.html
@Dave White I was about to comment the same thing.
@Dave White he himself
Probably didn’t, but I’m sure he didn’t mean it that was it was interpreted no?
But seriously tho I’d be down with supporting giving troops microdosed cannabis
@Dave White …no shit? I mean… I smoke a bowl a day or less, and a quarter lasts me usually 9-12 days so, that’s why I said microdose. But huh… I didn’t know you couldn’t microdose it. Learnt something new daily.
@@whitewolfcrowley6550 I wouldn't call a bowl a day micro dosing.
@@AutismIsUnstoppable I would
An older gentleman I am friends with who served in Vietnam said everyone got loaded on opium or alcohol to forget about their circumstances any chance they got. He said the people you really had to watch out for were the ones who stayed sober and enjoyed the killing.
Excellent videos mate...you and Mark Felton make the best war history vids on youtube. Your title sequence is top notch also.
My dad was in Vietnam 70-71. Said he seen everything from weed to heroin. He had nothing to do with those but did drink alot. But not so much the day before they were to go out. Wanted to stay as sharp as possible.
I would suggest that the My Lai massacre was most likely wired out Speed users and strung out junkies, but then, any US politician at the time, and a fair few today, will blame any act of violence on marijuana, even though it makes most users very calm, peaceful people. Hell, alcohol causes thousands more incidents of violence than marijuana ever will!
That’s absolutely a ridiculous statement. My Lai was a black day in history, for sure. No excusing it. However, it is far more complex. During that time period, the 11th LIB had only been in Vietnam for a few months, and TF Barker was created to destroy the VC presence in the Batangan Peninsula. The unit suffered constant casualties in the time preceding the event by booby traps, and rarely had seen an enemy to fight. The stress of going out every day, seeing friends killed and maimed by an enemy they never saw, along with command failure by Medina and Calley on the ground, and other higher level commanders in the 11th Brigade. The men were told it was a free fire zone, and urged on him certain leaders. There was some marijuana use by troops, but these men in particular weren’t a bunch of speed crazed maniacs. Nothing excuses what happened, but that’s an oversimplification and incorrect analysis of the what and why.
"most users" being the key point.
Not making any excuses for what happened at My lia many times the Viet gong used those villagers to recruit fighters weapons and food was found there in one of the houses the situation got out hand Calle lost control of his men
The heat, the humidity, the drenching rain, the mind shear, the constant engagement of all your senses in assessment and perception of danger,
The reality of there, you being there, no escape from there, much not at face value.
And you are a teenager without much life experience to draw from to judge your circumstance.
You are part of a team but alone. Others depend upon your actions and your survival depends on luck, your choices, and.in how your group conducts itself.
At any instant everything can be obliterated. You must choose, even when you are trying not to choose.
And you wake up still there.
Scary. I know this is how I’d feel
Sounds like they were mentally weak and not capable of winning a war, which is what happened.
@@lukehenry5987Yikes! And you have what experience, exactly?
I was talking to a man who had been in Saigon, and he said that on any given night most of the soldiers were so drunk or so high they didn't know what they were doing. He said the whole thing was so senseless. ... When I was in Germany 1977 - 79 we faced a very similar profile of drugs. There was high quality, cheap heroin. A lot of hash. There was some really good stimulant sold legally on the German economy but illegal on post. But the major drug was alcohol. Every soldier in our company drank a lot. There was only one guy in our company who didn't drink to excess. On every Friday evening there would be a line of soldiers going to the package store, and a line coming back. The military was stupid enough to make alcohol plentiful and cheap. A 40 oz. bottle of Bacardi Rum cost $2.90. If I was a battalion commander I would have considered making alcohol much more difficult to get. Alcohol caused a lot of problems. I was one of the worst.
Still gave the world some great music related to Vietnam and drugs, Purple Haze From Jimi Hendrix, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and Charlie Brown from Sapat
Dont forget Fortunate son
@@eldritchia Well its fortunate you remembered
Reflections of my life by Marmalade .
John did you know Jimmy hendrix was a Vietnam combat vet he was in airborne don't know if it was 82 ND or 101 but he was there
@@Rollercoaster555 Too true, Screaming Eagles and in typical Jimi fashion got his dad to send his guitar to Kentucky specially for him, but got discharged after breaking an ankle on his 26th jump
My father was, by all accounts, a sweet, shy young man before he joined the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam.
I never knew that man. I knew a man who was a severe alcoholic, cocaine/heroin and pill user who molested my brother and I, pursued any self destructive behavior and ruined 2 or more families and their children.
He was discharged from the Marine Corps for continued and chronic drug use and immoral behaviors.
Thank you Vietnam.
Thank you US GOVERNMENT.
Sorry for you and your brother 🙏🏼
If he did that to his own children, I’d hate to know what he did to the poor Vietnamese children and civilians 🤦🏻♀️
@bossbonita1235 thank you. It's hard to come out with something like this but trust me, when you open that book and read it aloud for the rest of the world you can begin helping others who have the same issues.
My father even pushed me to the point me absolutely SNAPPING on him when. He put his disgusting hands on my wife ass and attempted to pull her sports bra off AT A 50TH Wedding Anniversary. My wife was terrified and I saw no easy way out for this one. So, when the gala affair was in the books I found a reason to be in one place, with just he and I. It would
Wind up on the front lawn of my grandparents house where, (,not bragging) I about took his head off him. I will always be ashamed of THAT. Because I showed a great deal of protection for my wife, I inadvertently the made that night about me and how I WAS WRONGED. What should have been done is that I should have bidded my time and taken it up at a later time.
Anyway. That was the mast time I would ever see him alive. I went back to Minnesota and he drank himself to death.
Sorry for the long and meandering response.
Peace brother.
Thank you
Eric RM
I was in Vietnam 1967 door gunner on a helicopter gunship I never witnessed any drug use I did hear about maintenance guys doing pot but never saw it after getting out of army 1968 couldn't find a job except going back to Vietnam working on helicopters I was shocked by all the drug use especially heron you could find it anywhere for five bucks as far as atrocities I did witness a lieutenant pilot shoot at fishermen in the ocean his reasoning being he wanted to kill someone before going home I complained about it but nobody gave a shit
Thank you for your service.
Damn that last part is just.... what kind of sick son of a bitch would want to do that?
Total breakdown of military discipline leads to defeat
I was a Corpsman USMC we had 2 Marines who were smoking # 4 smack in cigarettes. They went home on leave and got busted by customs. We were glad to get rid of that dead wood.
@@tommytwogloves16 thank you for your service and sacrifice. It’s disgusting that Hollywood and the liberal media makes it appear that Nam soldiers were cool because they used drugs.
My Canadian uncle was a medic in Vietnam he had access to all kinds of medical supplies he said that everyone was either drunk or on drugs or both he was part of something called a sog team going into very scary situations he said u had to take something or your senses went into overload. He told me that he was a pothead and needed downers to face patching up his mates. He said cannabis was everywhere it kept you sane and alert and relaxed at the same time.
What an interesting topic of discussion. Very fascinating. One of my favorite history channels!
I spent 11 1/2 months 68-69 in Northern I Corps. People were fighting the war there day and night. I never saw or heard of anyone using drugs or alcohol in combat. Those were problems with rear area guys who were bored.
I was in the Army from 1967-72. My last duty assignment had been Med Company at Ft Sill, OK. I became close friends with many of the men who had returned from Vietnam. Many of them had become addicted to heroin, which was 95% pure white powder, and they would take leave on return to the US to kick the addiction before going home to their families. The communists were behind making the drugs available to our troops and our govt learned the lesson well. One of the main reasons the Russians left Afghanistan was because their troops were getting addicted to heroin in unbelievable numbers. I am relatively sure our CIA was behind the way the Russian troops would access the drugs. A lesson well learned from Vietnam.
One of the men had managed to forward a package to his next duty station (Ft Sill) by carefully opening a package his mother had sent him right before going back to the US. He had put 120 vials of Vietnamese heroin in the box, which did not get checked again as it appeared to have been merely forwarded. He sold 20-30 of the vials and used or shared the rest. When one of my friends had gotten married, his buddies gave me a couple of the vials and just about everyone got ripped. I had allowed one of the guys to shoot me up with what was apparently way more than I should have used and I got violently sick. The chaplain had still been at the house when one of the guys had shot me up and I walked out of the bathroom, running into the wall. He left almost immediately.
As a retired LEO I can say from tons of experience that marijuana users are just about always calm and agreeable, especially compared to drunks. The statement made by Thomas J Dodd stating that marijuana was the cause of the Mi Lai massacre was obviously just a statement based on opinions and the narrative of the time. Of course, marijuana could have been laced with other drugs but it appears to be more of a statement based on a political narrative. Marijuana was placed on the schedule 1 list of narcotics, which it should never have been on. We have seen the same issues today when politicians make statements concerning (legal or illegal) drugs, like the Covid vaccine. They don't know, they just push whatever narrative they are in line with. We have medical professionals on different sides of the discussion but the government only wants to push one narrative. We cannot forget that in Vietnam drugs were also being pushed towards American soldiers from the enemy. That was a part of the enemies strategy and in hindsight it seems to have worked to some extent.
I had a friend that was drafted during the Vietnam war. He was the only one in his group that was sent to Germany. He told me that he had very little memory of his experience because he was stoned most of the time. Nobody cared what was going on with the troops in Germany during the main conflict. I also met someone who was one of the initial "advisors" sent to Nam. He said that they were so F..ked up that they stole and tried to fly a helicopter. He said the last thing he remembered was just getting off the ground then BOOM.
I'm surprised Peter Lemon was mentioned in this video. He was a combat soldier in Vietnam who frequently used marijuana and during a late night base attack, he managed to fend off numerous NVA soldiers with small arms, his knife, a shovel and his bare hands, all while under the influence.
He would receive a medal of honor for his actions, possibly being the first medal of honor recipient that earned it while high.
The only time we had drugs regular was on a fire base. The unit I was with spent it’s time between phi bai and the ashau valley. Good luck even finding drugs. They took the medics morphine So if you got shot better hope you were not working under the triple canopy. The 3.2 beer was okay for some thing to drink in the m
Ironing and that’s all
Was there drug use by military personnel in VN, yes, but, I ask you, would you get in a car with a drunk driver, would you go out on a ambush, recon, search & destroy mission with the guy who was suppose to watch your six high on dope? You must remember, the number of troops in VN peaked out at about 480,000. You had at least 100,000 in Saigon and the Pentagon East. You had another 100,000 at CamRanh Bay and many others elsewhere. On any given day there was no more than 40,000 or 50,000 beating the bush searching for the enemy. You can thank guys like Oliver Stone and his Hollywood buddies for the images they displayed and conjured up regarding the soldiers in VN. I spent 68 months in RVN and fought along side of people like Lew Millett, William Tyler and and mostly with indigenous peoples/soldiers. The soldiers in VN fought valiantly under extreme harsh conditions, but, the real battle they faced was the one when they returned to CONUS, and for that, you can thank Hanoi Jane, John Kerry and their likes.
I guess you're not Fonda Jane lol
Talked to a Vietnam vet when I was a teen( we were both alcoholics at the time ) he was saying how not scared he’d be patrolling the jungle with a canteen full of Jack Daniel’s during an ambush. His words” Shoot me I don’t care, I’m still going to make sure I tap the floor before just laying down so I’m not uncomfortable laying there fighting 😂”
Normal people just lay on the floor cause they’re scared of dying .
I’m now a USMC and that veteran Pete has passed. Semper Fi do or Die Pete
My mom's uncle, RIP, came home from Vietnam with a horrible heroin addiction. It may have stemmed from him being injured when his chopper went down, I was told he was a door gunner. My great aunt was fortunately able to break his addiction not too long after. Him and my grandpa never spoke about their experience in Vietnam though. My mom even says my youngest brother looks like he did when he was younger, he's a big dude like my great uncle was.
I once took acid and played rising storm. Man was it one of the most confusing and terrifying gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I’m pretty sure everyone else thought I was an idiot.
RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE.
Done that with arma and shrooms, i just got lost in the woods
@@Ukraineaissance2014 haha arma on shrooms? sounds fun ngl
I took a half tab of acid and walked 22 miles with my friends in a national park in one day and we made sure that if we saw people we didnt speak to them because we would all seem crazy and act weird but there were 2 people who knew we were on acid because while we helped them refill their bottles at a stream with their filter we fixed they saw us with the tabs on our tongues and smiled and told us to have a good trip and thanked us for helping them. We reached objectives and passed terrain faster than they did and would wait around enjoying the scenery then they would catch up and ask us how the hell did we get there faster than them haha
My brother was there in 68, he became addicted to crystal meth. He and another we’re going around selling it, got caught, and spent 6 months in the brig. He drank a lot, and had pulmonary lung disease from agent Orange. He finally started getting compensated for it, then died at age 65. His Moto was, shot at and missed, shit on and hit. My family welcomed him home dearly. He will be missed.🇺🇸
Hes the badass I always dreamed of being but uncle Sam turned his back on my generation
The entire time I was in Iraq, the only member of my unit to die from air duster abuse was a 60 year old Full Bird Colonel. I never heard of a single other soldier having done it. True story.
Damn he was in iraq and he abused air dusters? Dont they have good xtc over there?
I can definitely see amphetamines or methamphetamines playing a role in kicking off a massacre, but weed? they're more likely to try placing orders for pho
People commit war crimes stop blaming drugs, if they had some coffee before shooting some Vietnamese kids you wouldn’t blame the coffee
Doubt meth would even do it, it was just a mix of lunatics and a thirst for revenge.
nah unless your a couple days in on a binge or worse on a comedown you are surprisingly peacefull/calm not calm physically but you are just so happy you dont want to figth anyone well atleast that from personal experience (didnt smoke meth i just took it in pills)
Also got to remember that most pot was a lot milder high back then. Most unseasoned people could smoke a joint casually and not be couch ridden and drooling on yourself like a lot of the heavy stuff you can find today...
A few guy's would smoke pot,but rarely
had a chance to do it.The problem was at
the base camp and firebases.We were in
the mountainous jungle,and there was no
time for such thing's,hell there was time
for cigarettes.The problem was fire,no fires
day or night's.
As a USMC infantryman in Viet Nam, served almost 2 yrs in combat, Feb. 68 to Oct 69, from PFC to Sergeant, I can state, that even though there was marijuana use while in a secure area, NEVER did I see, hear, or ever smell any drugs while on operations. No Marine would allow it, discipline and morale in Marine units never defeatist. Liberal, but proud of being a Marine.
worked with a 1965 USMC draftee (he was #7 when counting out by 10) who was in country from early 66 to mid 67, and he told me on more than one occasion that they smoked weed out on patrols. some of it laced with PCP. they got radio calls because they hadnt checked in at X time. they called in and and were told to pop yellow smoke. when they did, the spotter aircraft reported back that they were about 5 miles north of the DMZ (what there was of it). they had gotten stoned and just kept on walking...
@@truthsayers8725I think you were lied to. I will reiterate, from Feb 68 to Oct 69, in 5th Marines never even considered it. Draftee Marine in 65, doesn't sound right, wandering around 5 miles in NVN stoned. I have too much respect for the NBA to believe this.
@@fernandoalegria4240 whatever you say.
Speaking of massacres will you do a video on south korean war crimes in vietnam? We always hear about My Lai but sk allies did similar atrocities too more often than us sometimes.
@@ktheterkuceder6825 The Koreans were feared most by the NVA and Viet Cong than anyone. They would cut off the dead enemys penis and put it in their mouths and leave so the others found them that way. I WAS First Field Forces 71-72.
When I was in the USAF in the mid 70's drug use of all kinds was rampant. And alcohol was so prevalent - freely available all over the place. The enlisted clubs regularly held nickel beer nights and squadron activities always included dozens of kegs of free beer. The barracks were like a shopping mall for all sorts of drugs.
I was there 67 and 68. Marines. Drinking, yes when beer was available. Pot, sometimes. But neither was used in the field because that would have been suicidal, obviously. Never saw or heard of hard drugs.
My family has lived this. My father served in Vietnam It was psychologically devastating for years. He was a heroine addict and was refused help.Just like 70% of the other soliders labeled dishonorable so the government wouldn't have to pay them.
It's not a popular thing to talk about but I know of a lot of soldiers in the middle east wars who were using heroin on the field of battle. When they came home they kept using. There are some dangerous junkies on the streets of our country, combat tacticians with an opiate addiction.
The Vietnam vets that I've talked to including my uncle and 3 cousins said the powder heroin was so powerful that people did not have to shoot up. They would sprinkle it with weed. Thai Stick. The source was right next door in Myanmar Burma. They said $1 worth was enough to get off 4 people.
This is a good and fair piece of journalism ... I grew up on a Hippie commune and seen what Vietnam did to returning vets from the war second hand ... it was very sad 😥
I served with the First Team in Vietnam. While I wasn’t at the My Lai incident, I can almost guarantee that marijuana had nothing to do with it.
@@vetbcrazy I had a friend that was at My Lai, the things he told me, I had to stip him because I couldnt stand to hear no more. I wont repeat them but I will tell you that they were given orders to go in and kill EVERYTHING THAT BREATHED AIR AND THEN BURN IT TO THE GROUND. In the military you dont have the luxury of evaluating an officers direct order as to right or wrong. If you disobey a direct order from a superior officer you would be court martialed and locked up in the stockade. In Nam their jail was to lock you up in a steel CONEX i.e. a steel shipping container. I could tell you all so much shit it would give you nightmares. But I've put it all behind me because you really have to for your own well being.
@@vetbcrazy It really didnt. I know the whole story of My Lai intimately and the real reason it took place and what exactly took place, but I wont repeat it. It was for a quite valid reason, so dont judge those that were there and took part from an outsiders point of view. And they werent hopped up on drugs.
As someone who is novice to psychedelics only doing dmt this must have been absolutely mentally terrifying and psychologically damaging to kill someone’s on drugs would probably destroy any sense of reality and making the transition to regular society even more insane. I know everyone’s trips are different but damn I do know there were probably some psychopathic people fighting in Vietnam that were ready to kill everyone and everything in sight. This had to be absolute terrifying for some to see your friends brain and guts blown out while you’re tripping. Some really really scary shit when you think about it in your own conscientiousness. I feel for all the troops that lost their minds out there no more war.
I would love to know where you got that stat about 1% of American soldiers suffered mental breakdowns compared to WW2 at 10%. Thats an interesting stat.
I love all of your videos, they are informative, entertaining, often original, and well put together. Thank you for your hard work!
A lot more guys came home from WW2 addicted to opiates than people realize, it's just that people didn't talk about it back then, that's why there was an explosion in heroin use in the 50's.
At the beginning of WW2 combat troops carried their own morphine surrets in their first aid kits, guys would inject themselves before an impending battle not to deal with the fear but because they were afraid if they got blown up or something and were laying there all screwed up they wouldn't be able to do it, after a while when the military caught on to it they took them off of the individual soldiers and only the medics carried them, some of them liked it and after the war started looking for opiates which led to the explosion of heroin use in the 50's.
Even after the Civil War opiate addiction was a problem, back then withdraws were known as "soldiers sickness".
Back in the late 70s I rode in my brother's 1966 Ford Fairlane over to purchase a lid of Columbian Gold (I recall it was $30) from an uncle of one of his friends who turned out to be a former fighter pilot in Vietnam from about 65-67, during which time he regularly used cannabis. He told us about his first acid trip, relating how they were called up shortly thereafter. When I asked him how that went, he told me it didn't seem to hit him until after the mission was over. He explained that he and one of his flyboy buddies, who scored the trips to begin with, were totally unfamiliar with the "experience", shall I say. I was 13 at the time.
You briefly touch on an interesting point in this video about breakdowns. The mad vietnam vet trope is something of a complete myth, they actually had a really high employment and quality of life rate after the war compared to what is imagined.
My dad was stationed on Okinawa in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I remember him talking about a dozen Green Beret Special Forces who were arrested for smuggling large quantity of heroin from Vietnam to Okinawa and the US. Because they were in the Special Forces they would frequently travel to Vietnam and their luggage was never searched. This “privilege” to travel via USAF transport planes without being questioned or searched made them the perfect drug smugglers.
I was a dog handler and I got to work with many units and the drug use in Vietnam 70-71 was not as extreme as y’all portrayed in this video. Sure there were incidents where soldiers would over indulge, but there was a brotherhood of being in Nam and most of that bond served to throttle the extremes of most situations. Yes, and most of the soldiers did it in their off time and usually on base and at night. It was not tolerated in the bush, can’t mess up because buddies are depending on each other to cya. BTW, drugs have always been a part of warfare, even in ancient times. It was the extreme carnage of the Civil War that programmed drug use for pain and shell shock. No surprise that post WWII saw advancements in warfare through pharmacology.
In WW1 parents sent their serving kids war hampers, which included heroin and a set of works, cheaper hampers contained opium.
I too was a dog handler 67-68 all the units i
scouted for had a unwritten rule no getting
high in the bush. The more liberal ones rules
no smoking once ambushed and LP were put
out
Such a crazy situation to be in, imagine not being able to focus on your enemy because your too focused on the lack of your last fix.
Excessive drug taking and alcohol are an escape from the situation we’re in. Been there in civilian life. I can’t imagine how a soldier must feel in a guerrilla war.
I don’t think marijuana was the cause of any massacre ever...
More likely is that a certain small amount of people are seriously fucked and when you have a situation like Nam some get in.
Someone who can stomach killing isn’t the same animal as someone who likes and enjoys killing people..
I’m a Plumber, I can handle dealing with shit but someone who actually enjoys it would creep me the hell out.
I was in Vietnam 1967-68, and i think that drug use was a reflection of our peers. the drinkers and druggies were the same ones as their peers outside the military. Putting on a uniform does not change things too much..
were you stationed as a grunt in the bush out in the shit though?
I had two brothers in Vietnam at same time, One Army , One Marine , Both said weed and beer was everywhere and used like it was nothing. Both said it seem like they wanted you be either drinking or smoking when You where in base camp,
I was an infantry soldier in Vietnam but there was only one time during which drug use became a problem to the fighting efficiency of my company. A new commander came in, cracked the whip and cleaned things up. If you were in the field you couldn’t involve yourself too deeply in drugs or alcohol in that hot climate or it would show in your attitude. Sadly, pot parties or just plain alcohol was responsible for various incidents of poor performance.
My uncle was an MP in Vietnam. He told me you could always tell who was on heroin. Their uniforms were sweat-soaked like they had just stepped out of a shower.
One of the greatest history channels out there, never take anything for face value and make sure you know all the facts before you upload videos 👍🏻
Fun Fact! The Band that sings 'Come on Eileen' is named after Dexedrine, their name being Dexy's Midnight Runners.
many a dustoff or insertion were Warrant officers with a buzz on and were so good at finding a lz that wasn't hot.Guys loved it bc they gave an aura of cool,calm,can do,yes sir.
Quintin Tarantino?!? 1:00
Thought the same thing lol
Must be his dad
I remember working g with a navy nom vet he said he would sit on his patrol boat at the stern. "with a 20 pack of Marijuana cigarettes laced with heroine, that I got from a kid that would roll them in the city. I would just sit there...and smoke the entire pack..." he...was a character...this was in 2016 and 17...he told us some of the stories and just holy fuck.
The Vietnam vets were never institutionalized for mental disorders as with the WW 2 veterans per capita. I worked as a nurse in the long term care facilities for the vets 16 years after the Vietnam war ended so I had the opportunity to supervise the care of vet patients from both wars.
"We don't have a drug problem, everybody has it" -Robin Williams.
I served in Vietnam in '72. Drank like a fish when not on patrol. Got back to the world and the cost of alcohol was about 2 to 3 times more than in country. Took me several weeks to not buy a case of beer for the day. Money ran out to fast and I like to have green in my pocket. I don't think I became a alcoholic but darn close.
Your channel always teaches me something new.
I can't believe the My Lai situation was the result of pot use. It was the result of unrelieved stress. You tease a dog long enough, and he finally snaps.......
In 1970-1971 I was a marine in vietnam and I never saw anyone using illegal drugs. It was common to drink alcohol when it was available, which wasn't often where I was stationed, and how much you could drink was limited. It wasn't smart or safe to get drunk and not be aware , especially at night and if it was your time to provide security. People knew that if they got caught using any type of illegal drugs their military career was over and they were definitely going to the brig. No doubt there were some who did it and didn't get found out.
remember kids nowadays owning a firarm in america and smoking a joint is super illigal. and can get you sent to prison for gun crimes.
but conscripts smoking half an ounce a day out of an M-16 in an active combat zone was totally fine.
Pot is becoming legal in more and more states and even states where its still illegal, possession isn't really the crime it used to be. Drug war has long been lost.
@@jonaswhitt4322 its still a felony tho to smoke a joint and own a firearm at the same point in your life.
I have a question, were you in Vietnam? My brother was. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
Unless you were there, you have no idea. Command and Staff didn't give a rats ass about the life of Snuffy. They were concerned about promotions and bad press. The Lifers only wanted to live to retire, and they didn't care over whose body it was. I can say that, I did 2 tours in Eye Corps with the 101st.
I joined the Army in 1979 and had a joint left when I got to Basic Training. I smoked it with my buddies in the reception center, then proceeded to make a 0% on a 20-question multiple-choice Military Intelligence quiz, lol. Later in AIT for the Chemical Corp, they would show us films of the effects of LSD on Service Members, which did affect their performance😵💫, wildly.
When LSD was first synthesised, the British army tested it on volunteers to see if it would help them out think the enemy, it was a dismal failure because they overestimated the dose and gave them 10 times the normal dose, I saw a film taken at the time, of soldiers trying to do an assault course carrying rifles, they were obviously terrified and totally incapable of completing the course. This of course was way before it was illegal.
I once met a Vietnam Vet that showed me his eight bullet holes that he survived. He said that guys that were on heroin that went on patroll at night could not see well because of dialated pupils and so not able to survive.
Ripped the bullet out and filed the primer off of a 5.56 made myself a onehitter while i served as an airborne infantryman in '02. Afghanistan has the best cannabis in the world.
I always believed soldiers in horrible situations need something to numb them out in a way. And I don’t mean like a first time user. Someone that’s become a functioning user(not abuser). If the human body was built to where 30-40 year olds were like 18-25 year olds. Then I don’t think we would need such things. But you get kids strait out of the high school playground, arm them, and to battle. Well of course their going to need something. Half nut up half nut down. Idk sobriety is underrated, and so is ptsd
My Mom said that a Vietnam vet she dated told her staying high was the only way he saved his sanity.
😢
The platoon commander who was charged with the atrocity at My Lai in South Vietnam was an exceptionally incompetent officer who supposedly didn’t even know how to read a map.
I didn't drink, smoke pot, etc., but after my tour and to this day I am impaired. Fear breeds solutions, right or wrong.
Thanks for publishing this. I never heard of any of this until traveling to Vietnam and going to the American War museum.