Carson

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• Soapstone 2012/07/25 01:53:33
  

  Hi Carson, to answer your questions. For the first part or early years of the war drugs were not an issue. Things slowly changed however starting around 1967 - 68. Why this happened is a little unclear but theres a number of ideas. One of them being that more and more inner city youth were coming into the service. Often when kids got into trouble Judges would offer them a choice of jail or service. Of course most chose service and these kids were street smart and been exposed to drugs. Don't take this wrong, I'm not making any judgements here. I knew many of these kids and fought side by side with them. One of my door gunners was a black kid from Pasadena, Ca. and was one of those kids. He died in my arms after being shot in the throat. But I digress, as far as specific drugs are concerned, Opium and Herion were the most prevalent of the hard drugs. Of course there was Marijuana, but I don't now nor then considered that as a hard drug. In so far as these drugs affecting the war, well that's debatable. Use of these drugs was normaly recreational by most GI's. I'm not saying there were no addicts, there were many. But they were mostly what we refered to as REMF people. REMF in case you don't know is an acronym for Rear Echelon Maintenance Fuckers. Pardon my French but it has be...

  Hi Carson, to answer your questions. For the first part or early years of the war drugs were not an issue. Things slowly changed however starting around 1967 - 68. Why this happened is a little unclear but theres a number of ideas. One of them being that more and more inner city youth were coming into the service. Often when kids got into trouble Judges would offer them a choice of jail or service. Of course most chose service and these kids were street smart and been exposed to drugs. Don't take this wrong, I'm not making any judgements here. I knew many of these kids and fought side by side with them. One of my door gunners was a black kid from Pasadena, Ca. and was one of those kids. He died in my arms after being shot in the throat. But I digress, as far as specific drugs are concerned, Opium and Herion were the most prevalent of the hard drugs. Of course there was Marijuana, but I don't now nor then considered that as a hard drug. In so far as these drugs affecting the war, well that's debatable. Use of these drugs was normaly recreational by most GI's. I'm not saying there were no addicts, there were many. But they were mostly what we refered to as REMF people. REMF in case you don't know is an acronym for Rear Echelon Maintenance Fuckers. Pardon my French but it has become a term of endearment today. It is for that reason that so many came home addicted to hard drugs. It was very rare to have a guy who spent time in the field, either infantry or any combat position that was addicted. Lots of guy's smoked pot and lots of guy's drank. They were categorized as Heads ( pot smokers) or Bottle Babies (Drinkers) and then there were some that did both. About the psychedelics, that all came over there via the USA in the from of CARE packages from home. About the second question, the fact is there were many, many guys that did more then one tour of duty, I was one of them, I did two tours. Which probably accounts for my slightly crazy sense of humor. Some things to consider are the fact that our tour of duty was one full year. Most guy's were mentally drained after that one year. Let me explane why, in the Civil war a Soldier would see, in one year, about 30 to 45 days of combat. In WWI it was about the same, 30 to 45 days of combat. In WWII the number went up to 50 to 65 days of cambat. Korea was less, 30 to 40 days of combat. In Vietnam if you were in a combat position, like Infantry or Helicopters the number of days in caombat was, are you raedy for this, 245 days per year that you were there. A little known fact that Combat Veterans of Vietnam rarely talk about. Couple that with the volume of men that came and went over the span of that war and it's becomes clear why so many replacments were needed. Okay, I hope this helps to answer your questions and if you have more please feel free to ask.

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• Soapstone 2012/07/20 15:47:28
  

  Carson, if there's anything you would like to know about Vietnam, please fell free to ask. It would be both an honor and a pleasure to answer. That war/ conflect was and is very complex and most people even today don't really understand it all. I consider myself a student of that war with first hand knowledge of it. Have a good day.

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• Zombiecat~Metalhead4Life 2012/01/16 15:13:28
  

  Yep! :)

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• Ben~ Libertarian Socialist 2012/01/16 04:33:03
  

  Eh what?

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• Disko Pickle 2012/01/15 09:11:51
  

  That stuff will turn your teeth black.

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• cccp~marxist-leninst 2012/01/13 04:27:07
  

  Thank you for yer friendship bro

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• ndaye 2012/01/11 10:54:57
  

  moderated...

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• Carson 2011/12/21 06:52:48
  

  Ask me anything...

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• Larson Whipsnade 2011/12/21 01:33:25
  

  Look up Simo Hayha- now THERE was a guy who could shoot!
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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• txmoni7 2011/11/25 20:44:00
  

  They are good to have, but only if you know how to use them...

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