




Vietnam is one of the most violent, and terrifying wars the United States has ever been engaged in.  Many of the veterans of this horrific war returned home with not only physical scars, but mental ones as well.  This bloody war caused many veterans to display clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder also known as PTSD. Many things can cause PTSD, such as but not limited to: sexual assault, witnessing death, life threatening experiences, and more.  The sheer violence seen in the Vietnam war sent many vets home scarred forever.  The Vietnam war occurred right as drugs became more “acceptable” and to vets it was no different than to common folks.

In the article Vietnam Vets: How did they adjust? by Bower, the question of how returning Vietnam vets adjusted back to regular life after the war.  To be blunt, they did not adjust well.  Approximately 35% of veterans returning from war with heavy combat experience were diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to Bower.  This makes it very hard for these veterans to try and return to what is thought of as “normal life”.  The article also points out that arrest rates have been much higher for returning veterans from the Vietnam war than others.  The arrest rate could be contributed to the higher rate of drug use by Vietnam veterans as well.

In the article Behavior by Science News they outline the drug use influx amongst veterans returning from the Vietnam war. In The Things They Carried they examine drug use, and abuse in Vietnam one quote saying:

“In Vietnam, for instance, Ted Lavender had a habit of popping four or five   tranquilizers every morning. It was his way of coping, just dealing with the realities, and the drugs helped to ease him through the days. I remember how peaceful his eyes were. Even in bad situations he had a soft, dreamy expression on his face, which was what he wanted, a kind of escape.” (Obrien)

This quote lays out that some soldiers felt a need to use drugs just to get through the days of this terrible war.  This drug use scared the many in America because they were afraid that the use of “dope” would turn the states to a generation of heroin addicts and would destroy the United States. (Science News) But, this did not turn out to be a problem, the major problems in fact were alcohol, divorce and unemployment in Behavior it states that many veterans did not turn to drugs once they came home but a large percentage did get divorced, suffered from alcoholism, and were unemployed following the war.

In the primary text, they also examine how common it was for soldiers to carry large amounts of drugs to help them get through their days in Vietnam, one soldier kept 6 to 7 ounces of what they referred to as “premium dope” on him.  They also peek in to the rituals after another soldier has been killed in battle: 

“obvious, the guy's dead, and Mitchell Sanders used his radio to report one U.S. KIA and to request a chopper. Then they wrapped Lavender in his poncho. They carried him out to a dry paddy, established security, and sat smoking the dead man's dope until the chopper came.”

They don’t save the drugs for themselves or turn them over instead they smoke it right away, this could be because of addiction, but more likely due to the fact they don’t know when they are going to die.  This could be there last moments a live so they decide to enjoy it and smoke a dead mans weed.  The Things They Carried not only talks about what they carried, but how it seemed to affect the lives of those in this abysmal situation. At the time and now, we as society may look down on those who turn to drugs in order to cope but at the time this is what those in the war felt necessary to get through the war

The prolific drug use in Vietnam is seen as a coping method in order to deal with the horrifying reality that was the war in Vietnam.  Today we may see this as a major problem but this was the coping method of the time for the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans suffering from PTSD.  The vets did not continue their drug usage according to Science news but instead seemed to struggle with their severe post-traumatic stress disorder leading to alcoholism, divorce and unemployment.

 



