Ran across this book in the “New” stacks at the local library the other day. As is my frequent custom, I sat down to read the first ten or twenty pages, but this one was so absorbing that I had to take it home with me.
While the central subject matter — the growing evidence that some illegal pariah drugs, including LSD and Ecstasy/MDMA, have legitimate clinical and medical uses and could even represent breakthroughs in dealing with some anxiety and psychological disorders (like PTSD) — was compelling enough, I was especially riveted with patient accounts of their war experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam. As you may know, almost anything related to Viet Nam is of particular interest to me, owing to my (non-combatant) experience there in 1967-68 during that war, and having friends directly adversely affected by their time in combat.
Now, today on July 4, I find myself receiving periodic newsletters from the New York Times on its “Vietnam ’67” project series. Check out an example here and subscribe if you care to.
ASIDE: Perhaps you have noticed differing spellings of that Southeast Asian country: Vietnam, Viet Nam, or even VietNam. Viet Nam is closest to the original way that Vietnamese people spell it, and that is how, as a US Government employee, I was instructed to use it (with VietNam a frequent variation in the context of governmental acronyms, etc.) However, I think the contemporary usage throughout most of the world is now “Vietnam” and I see that to be the New York Times convention.