Re: Drug Use in Korea

["Janet Valentine" <valent03@bellsouth.net>]

Yes, Doug.  You're correct of course.   I should have been more precise.

There are a number of stories of  medics/corpsmen, and medical personnel
farther back, supplying medicines for recreational use, not just in the
Korean War but the World Wars and Vietnam as well.  It seems to have been
"not uncommon."  Your experience is a good corrective, however, because it's
a temptation to generalize, to assume that if some behaved a certain way
then all behaved that way.  It's particularly important when it comes to
experiences of war - we try hard to develope a "composite" of a particular
war and the fighting men who lived through it, but the only way to do it
effectively is to recognize, and to keep in mind, that experiences of war
are individual, that one man's war isn't the same as another's.  Different
times, places and people matter.  Thanks for the reminder.

Still there is enough ievidence in the way of precedent and of personal
experience to argue that medical alcohol found it's way into the hands of
the troops via some corpsmen/medics.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas M McLean" <dmclean@internetcds.com>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 11:10 AM
Subject: Re: Drug Use in Korea


> Gin is distilled from various grains and flavored with Juniper berries.
Doug
> McLean. F-2-5 USMC
>
> Janet Valentine wrote:
>
> > LOL!  No doubt everyone on the list knows that gin is distilled from
juniper
> > berries.  I have to agree with Trish  on her assessment of  iodine as
> > scotch - bleccchhhhh!  But those sorts of recollections are valuable
> > historical evidence, and this one speaks of a long soldier tradition of
> > creativity and flaunting of official regs.
>
>
>
>