Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright©
2016 by Robert B. Martin, IV
All
Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express
written permission from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate
events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter 37
Disillusionment, Drug Use, and
Protests
“If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t
really there.” ........Paul Kanter
Most draftees had never
wanted to serve in Vietnam and more and more of the enlistees began wondering
why they were in Vietnam. Politicians made the rules for war but had no real
understanding of how those rules affected the soldiers who were required to obey
those rules. Certain areas in Vietnam were designated as “free-fire zones” and
anything moving could be shot, but in other areas, the troops first had to
obtain permission from someone who may not even be on the scene before being
allowed to fire on the enemy. There were even portions of North Vietnam that
were off-limits to U.S. bombing raids. On the other hand, the VC and NVA had no
rules. This served to frustrate U.S. troops, causing more and more of them to
begin questioning why the U.S. was in Vietnam.
Based upon my observations,
the majority GI opinion was that the U.S. should make one of two choices.
Either the war should have been waged as a no-holds-barred, total war aimed at
defeating North Vietnam, or the U.S. should immediately stop fighting and go
home. To the average GI, this was a no-brainer, and taking neither option only
served to increase the hopelessness and helplessness felt by those at the
bottom of the chain of command.
I can only assume that GI’s
who used drugs did so as an “escape” from their disillusionment in what was
fast becoming an extremely unpopular war, not only back in the World, but also
with the GI’s in Vietnam. Choices of intoxicants were limited for the enlisted
man looking to escape reality. The only legal choice for the lower ranks was 3.2%
beer. In my opinion, many enlisted men would have been perfectly satisfied with
wine (and marijuana perhaps), which may have kept them away from the hard drugs.
A study by Wish et al. in 1979 showed that men who drank alcohol (the “Juicers”)
in Vietnam tended not to use opiates, and opiate users (the “Druggies”) tended
not to drink. This was a very different pattern from the one seen in the same
men both before and after Vietnam, when drinkers were much more likely to use
illicit drugs than non-drinkers.
Drug use was becoming epidemic, with,
as I have already mentioned, estimates as high as 80% of the troops in Vietnam during
1969 and 1970 using some form of illegal drug. A 1970 Department of Defense-sponsored
study found more than fifty percent of MACV (Military Assistance Command
Vietnam) soldiers had smoked marijuana, nearly thirty percent had used
narcotics such as heroin, and more than thirty percent had used other reality-altering
drugs.
It seemed obvious to me
after several months in Vietnam that not only was troop morale noticeably decreasing,
but it was doing so at an alarming rate. As morale took a nosedive, drug use
skyrocketed. Most of the GI’s I knew seemed to be relatively easy going when I
arrived in July of 1969, and the drug of choice had been weed (marijuana). But
the use of heavier drugs, especially heroin and opium, had risen to new heights
by the end of 1969. These drugs were cheap and relatively easy to obtain in
Vietnam.
In 1968 approximately 5,000
American troops were arrested in Vietnam on drug offenses, mostly marijuana. The
number increased to 8,000 arrested in 1969 and 11,058 in 1970. The number of
cases involving hard drugs (such as heroin and opium) increased exponentially
from approximately 1.5% of drug offenses in 1968 to greater than 10% in 1970.
Some specific examples of
the drug problem in Vietnam include:
In
November 1970, CBS News broadcast a report from Fire Base Aires where members
of the First Air Cavalry Division had gathered for a marijuana “smoke-in.”
Also in 1970, an Air Force major who was the command pilot for
American Ambassador Bunker was apprehended at Tan Son Nhut airbase outside of Saigon
with $8 million worth of heroin in the ambassador’s aircraft. He was sent to
Leavenworth.
In early 1971 an Air Force Colonel was court-martialed and
kicked out of the service for leading his squadron in pot parties.
Also in 1971, 43 members of the Cam Ranh Bay Air Force Base security police squadron were arrested
in drug raids.
In April of 1971
members of a Congressional investigation committee reported that 12% to 15% of
U.S. troops in Vietnam were using “high-grade” heroin.
The
New York Mets won the 1969 World Series in October, and in that same month, a Gallup
Poll reported that 58% of Americans thought the Vietnam War was a mistake, a
change from earlier in July when a Gallup Poll reported that 53% of Americans
supported the war. October 15, 1969, was Vietnam Moratorium Day back in the
World. This included massive demonstrations and “teach-ins” against the U.S. involvement
in the Vietnam War. It would come to a head in May 1970.
On November 15, 1969, one month
after Vietnam Moratorium Day, the Moratorium March on Washington was held and
drew almost half a million demonstrators to Washington, DC. Pete Seeger led them
in singing John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.”
News of these protests was
a bit skimpy on AFVN radio. Most of what we knew of the protests was learned
from letters or week-old hometown newspapers received in the mail. A lot of us didn’t
know what to think of these protests. We didn’t like the war either, but there
was not very much that we could do about it. I imagine the folks back home knew
more about the war than we did. They watched it on TV while most of us in Vietnam
were too low on the Totem Pole to know what the hell was going on outside of
our own little area.
Two events happened on
November 16, 1969, but only one made the national news. The other just made us mad.
The event making the national news was the reporting of the My Lai Massacre,
while the event that simply made us mad was what happened after a fight in our
amphitheater during a USO floor show. The audience that particular evening included
GI’s from several other units in addition to our battalion. Too much of the 3.2%
beer was consumed, and for some reason (or maybe none at all), a fight started.
The Aussie band and Go-go dancers were forced to leave the stage and the battalion
commander closed the EM club and canceled all USO shows until further notice. None
of the fighters were from our battalion, but we were still punished by the battalion
commander. That made us mad.
Also in November 1969,
President Nixon changed the draft system to reduce the period of prime
eligibility from seven years (age 18 – 25) to only one year, which would begin
on a man’s nineteenth birthday and end on his twentieth birthday. It was a year
too late for me.
Continued in Chapter 38, Christmas and the New Year.…
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