Kaplan doesn't mention "Vietnam" or "armed Forces" or "military" in
the index, so I figure that isn't Siegels source.
McCoy says (p. 258) a U.S. Army survey administered in 1971 showed
11% of a group of 1,000 used heroin regularly and 22% used it once.
McCoy goes on to say that two years later a study showed 34% of US
soldiers commonly used heroin.
I take "two years later" to mean 1973. According to the Statistical
Abstract of the United States, on March 31, 1973, there were a total
of 206 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. This includes 156 Marine
guards at the embassy. So even if 100% of those Marine embassy guards
were shooting heroin right into their eyeballs, the fact is statistically
insignificant when it comes to measuring heroin use among U.S. forces
in Vietnam.
That leaves Robins. That study says almost half of **Army enlisted
men who left Vietnam in September 1971** had tried one or more of
the drugs listed in Table 1. One-third had tried heroin. More popular
than heroin was opium and, of course, some used both and more.
46 per cent of those who had used narcotics at all in Vietnam felt
they had been addicted or "strung out."
Sounds to me this is the source of Siegel's statistics. But they
don't say what he is said to have said.
The Robins study says 20 per cent of all Army enlisted returning in
September 1971 said they felt they had been "strung out" on heroin
while in Vietnam. The Robins study concludes, "While we cannot be
certain that all who said they were addicted actually were so, all
had used narcotics regularly for more than one month, and 83 per cent
for more than six months, suggesting that the figure of 20 percent is
realistic."
Maggie, if you reported what Siegel said accurately, something is
really rotten in Saigon. These sources don't say what you credit to
Siegel.
Lastly, as a Vietnam vet, I don't much care for the claim that
a third of us were heroin users and one-sixth of us were junkies.
Peter Brush