Dope. Is it Really? In the wet, cold dark forests of Vietnam, where death lurks behind every corner, soldiers are dejected, depressed, and downright miserable. The cure is simple and easy. Marijuana. It grows exponentially in Vietnam and provides soldiers a mean of escape away from the gruesome war. It keeps the men mellow and focused on their task. They are able to forget, this day to day struggle between life and death and gain strength to continue fighting the battle. In addition to marijuana, soldiers resorted to opiates such as heroin, because of the relatively low price and purity of the illicit drug. It was very rampant among the soldiers. I mean just two bucks would secure a fix of high-grade heroine (Ronk Liz). Similarly, in Tim O’Brien’s …show more content…
Not only did the use of copious drugs by the soldiers in Vietnam lead to the abuse of other drugs, but it also impacted their health, the relationship they had formed with their loved ones and left the future …show more content…
Starting from November 1, 1955, the day the Vietnam War began, the war has brought nothing but pain to the lives of the American Soldiers. They were forced to kill, and witness mass murder of friends and innocent civilians of Vietnam. In order to escape these traumatic experiences, soldiers resorted to drugs. Drugs like marijuana, opiates, amphetamines and barbiturates. According to a study done by professor Lee N. Robins in Washington State University, “38% of enlisted men tried heroin, 38% tried opium and 80% used Marijuana, while in Vietnam (Robins et al., 1970). The use of copious amount of drugs allowed soldiers to forget about their daily experiences and to keep on fighting. In an Interview, one veterans recollects a heart wrenching night that led him to the use of drugs. He says, “During a night ambush I killed a twelve year old kid. It was something I could not handle… seeing him dead, laying on the ground… [It] stayed on my mind. The next morning, I bought drugs,” (The Forgotten Veterans, Richard Kotuk). Traumatic experiences such as this, can really have a negative impact on a person. Being thousands of mile from home, from loved ones, soldiers had to resort to drugs for comfort. They depended on Marijuana, heroin, narcotics, opium … etc to deal with day to day emotionally and physically distressing events. However any
The affect that the Vietnam War had on American soldiers was astounding. The Vietnam War affected ninety percent of the American troops so much so that they started to turn on each other. The fragging started as a result of increased drug and alcohol use. The word “fragging” means to kill or maim the upper leadership. These increased
President Lyndon B. Johnson began sending troops to Vietnam in 1964 to combat the Vietcong. Dedicated soldiers trudged through the dense jungles of Vietnam, they crawled through collapsing underground tunnels and braved burning villages. These are the circumstances under which Tim O‘Brien‘s narrative, The
Chapter two introduces the policy problems related to the War on Drugs, as well as other policies that banned or limited other use of alcohol and drugs. Authors start with the history of the regulations of mood altering substances that began in colonial times, and then it escalated with “The Father of Modern Drug Enforcement”, Dr. Hamilton Wright. President Roosevelt assigned him to be the first Opium Drug Commissioner of the United States. Dr. Wright saw drugs as a big problem, according to the text the drug prohibitions started with his opinions on limiting drug use. In 1906 the Pure Food and Drug Act was signed and required the labeling of the ingredients of the products.
The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.
The Vietnam War was very different from the past wars. There were a lot more cases of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among soldiers than any other wars http://historyofptsd.umwblogs.org/vietnam/ . In ‘The Things They Carried’, a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien, using the psychological lense can help us understand how wars can change a person’s mental state dramatically. It can show us what soldiers had to carry during the war, including intangibles, like fear and guilt. These men had to fight a war that the U.S. did not have to be involved in and it changed their whole life.
To understand the War on Drugs one needs to understand the cultural landscape that made the war on drugs advantageous. Ronald
What has distinguished Vietnam veterans from most of their predecessors is that the public 's detestation of the war seemed to be directed onto them, as if it was their fault. Thus they did not return as heroes, but as men suspected in participating in shocking cruelty and wickedness or feared to be drug addicts. The combination of society rejecting them, the government ignoring them, and their families not understanding to them, caused Vietnam veterans to self-destruct both mentally and sometimes physically.
Furthermore, during the war, there was an abundance of opium and heroin in Vietnam for both the population and the United States military personnel. The availability of the drug was staggering. “You could just buy it by the roadside”, Patrick L who is a Vietnam veteran recalls “there was every kind of drug and alcohol for sale: American beer and hard alcohol, but also grass, pills of every kind and harder hallucinogens. In several regions, you could buy pure, liquid opium in a large flask for around $10. We just used to dip cigarettes and joints in it.
Substance Abuse in Returning Combat Veterans Returning combat veterans have difficulties contributing to our society based on their problems with substance abuse. There is an issue of returning combat veterans not being able to afford treatment for their illnesses, so they resort to self-medicating and use drugs and alcohol. Although it is worth considering that some combat veterans manage to escape their addiction for some time, but will usually end up relapsing and only hurt themselves more. We may also be concerned about some combat veterans not being able to adjust to their new lives and resorting to substance abuse a method of stress relief.
He points out that many of those who experimented with drugs in the 1960s developed addictions or other problems, which continue to have an impact on American society
How did the drugs affect the soldiers in the VietNam War? The drugs affected the Vietnam war in many different ways, and in some ways, they might have been a necessity to these soldiers as it was a way to keep them from going over the tipping point and these drugs might have just kept them sane. Although these drugs can have a massive pleasurable effect on the soldiers, these drugs caused the soldiers to have major withdrawal symptoms after the war and these men were not able to live life happily after the war as their bodies could no longer function without the drugs. These drugs were also very easy to come by in the war rangin from people selling them on the side of the street and getting them from the army themselves.
Marijuana was grown all over Vietnam, and soldiers had easy access to it. It mellowed out the war, and helped them continue fighting. Edward S. Michaelskim, a Vietnam veteran, said, "Everybody did it" referring to drugs and alcohol. In The Things They Carried, drug use is treated like another not-too-pleasing strategy for ignoring the horrors of the war. Some soldiers had families waiting for them at home, some had religion, and others had dope.”
Even when Americans were victorious they had to be careful. In the victory people are tempted to rip down flags and steal the remaining useful supplies, but the Vietnamese wouldn’t let them get valuables that easily. They added explosives to flag poles, and supplies, even ballpoint pens could be rigged. The soldiers always had to be focused and ready for any kind of situations. These traps could be anywhere so the people first in line, or leading the group, always had to be extremely observant and gained a huge symptom of paranoia.
The use of narcotics like cocaine, claimed many lives and earned widespread coverage by media and news. Following this Nancy Reagan began the “War on Drugs”, a campaign to combat pre-existing drug usage and prevent future
Some may not be too familiar with the war on drugs and the effects it has had on the society we live in. The war on drugs was started by the Nixon administration in the early seventies. Nixon deemed drug abuse “public enemy number one”. This was the commencement of the war on drugs, this war has lasted to this day and has been a failure. On average 26 million people use opioids.