The Battlefield as Heroin

When you think of all the things people might get addicted to, war isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. But as one of my Vietnam War vet classmates back in the mid-1970s put it: There it is.

Consider the reality of being in that particular war zone. Most of the time in most of South Vietnam, the enemy was not the NVA or the Viet Cong. It was boredom. There you were, stuck halfway across the planet from your normal joys and diversions, enduring the slow tick of the second hand, counting...