Re: That devil weed . . .
Peter Brush (PWBRUS0@UKCC.UKY.EDU)
Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:12:26 -0400
On Mon, 5 Aug 1996 20:27:03 -0400 Maggie Jaffe said:
>Dear Sixties People:
>
>Captain Roach (AKA John Baky) and Peter Brush's postings bring to mind
>something I read in Seymour Hersh's *My Lai 4.* I've posted this before,
>but it's well worth looking at again. Amazingly, in an attempt to demonize
>marijuana use, the Criminal Investigation Division (C.I.D.) of the Army
>interrogated Charlie Company about the use of the drug before and during
>the My Lai Massacre. Hersh reports that:
>The C.I.D. interviewed more than seventy-five witnesses by November 26,
>1969.
>Many of them recalled being asked about the use of marijuana in
>Charlie Company; that question seemed of special interest to the
>investigators. The GIs all acknowledged that many members of the company
>smoked or otherwise made use of marijuana, which is
>plentiful in South Vietnam, but none believed it was in any way
>a significant factor in what happened at My Lai 4. (121)
>
>That devil weed . . .
>
Maggie;
Interesting scapegoating. There's a great article in the New
York Times magazine (5Dec71) by a psychoanalyst who was a
consultant for the DOD on drug use. He says the Army mostly
ignored marijuana use in Vietnam by soldiers until the newspapers
made a big deal of it. Then the crackdown began.
By contrast, the Marine Corps took all users to court-martial
from the very beginning until their justice system got over-
load with pending cases.
I ran into one Marine who says his unit could buy hashish, French
bread, and lobster for 10 piasteres from Vietnamese fishermen in
1965. Less than ten cents. No wonder it was not possible to end
marijuana use in Vietnam.
Peter Brush