Quaaludes on the other hand were quite fun and had zero to do with losing Vietnam.
Vietnam was lost on capital hill and in Johnson's oval office.
I have never been anything but supportive here of Vietnam war and those I grew up with and knew who fought in it .
That doesn't mean we are glorifying drug use. You might notice I said I haven't used drugs since my early 20s, they get in the way of life and raising 5 children.
But as a southern style long haired boy weaned on the good music of the 60s, a came of age as Lynyrd Skynyrd-Led Zep-Tull-Floyd-Dead sorta fellow born around 3-4 years too late for Vietnam service (1957) that yes I do remember fondly my youth in the south of partying in the woods letting yer hair down, duck camp, deer camp, the insatiable quest for punani, smoking pots and taking some dope within reason and little drinking too. I had a blast...a wonderful growing up.
But was it not without pitfalls? nope...like any youth generation it can be very hazardous.
None of which makes me responsible for Vietnam. I applaud your service. I always have. My family is full of Vets. My uncle was killed in the Ardennes right after he turned 19. Another was gassed in number one. As a baby they passed me over his dying body as he lay at the vets home in Biloxi after 50 years post gassing of a difficult life.
Yes...I agree that LSD influenced many in the Yippie..student movement or was it that because of how they were they were inclined to that. I'm not sure but I'm a staunch southerner...we were not keen on Yippies nor their Freedom Rider agitator predecessors regardless of whether we took LSD or not.
And even more so, in the news media!
I enjoyed the hippie life and I enjoyed California and I fought the draft that I didn’t believe in, but after I beat the draft and won my permanent deferment I almost immediately enlisted in the army and asked for jump school.
There was never a time when I did not support our efforts in Vietnam and I was never the type to not make that clear, no matter who I was with or where I was.
One thing that I would not tolerate during my hippie days was draft dodgers that left the country, that proved that they were not standing on principle and I would insist that they leave the house (they often made appearances in the states), if it was a party where I was a stranger then I would make a public appeal to the host to remove the coward or else I was leaving, I kind of liked doing it because it gave me a chance to shock complacent people and make them think, I like to think that most people got my point and agreed with me. Oh, and like always I would have a paperback book in my pocket.
I do not intend to condemn anything you did 40 years ago. Only about today. Yet you defend yourselves.
Is 40 years ago a subject want to explore?
DG
p.s. if so, I cannot guarantee to remain civil.
November 1965--pre-Haight-Ashbury.
Vietnam 1965: The Day It Became the Longest War
Read this as a four-page article in Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute May 1996.
LBJ lost it November 1965.
Cronkite put the last knife in after Tet 1968.
Jane Fonda did her part.
John Kerry did his part.
And, still, Hell ain't half full.
Now if we get Obama out of the Afghan situation we will succeed there.
Traitors being like weeds.
Further this deponent sayeth not.