The Hippie Trail......

[SteeleJoe]

I often thought about the relatively innocent guys that went to Vietnam and made their first contacts with hallucinogenic drugs, prostitutes and the deadly rest of every day life out there. They went back to the US of A, completely f##d up and became a part of society. The Vietnamese won on that level as well, the USA was never the same again.

I lost contact with the guys I knew that went there (no Facebook then) but I often think of them.

Charles Manson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson ) put an end to peace and love, the returning veterans did the rest.

Oh dear...

* Cannabis and opiates were the drug of availability and choice in SEA.

* The mentally damaged Vietnam Vet (as I've written before on this forum) is largely a myth engendered and propagated by Hollywood and crap novels.

* To claim that Charles Manson what you say is absurdly simplistic and inaccurate: first of all, the "Peace and Love" period was almost entirely an invention of the press and a popular conceit based on some romantic rhetoric by Hippies. In fact there was LOADS of crime and social ugliness that did not abate in any appreciable way during that time. Moreover, by the time by the time that Manson and his crew committed their crimes we'd had race riots, the murders of both Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr and years of televised horror and brutality in Southeast Asia.

Beyond it being false, it's truly ugly to blame Vietnam Vets for the end of that mythological period and to pait them as accomplices (unwitting or not) to Manson. (It's almost as ugly to claim that the damage to US society was welcome result for the Vietnamese and can be regarded as a victory for them).)

I often thought about the relatively innocent guys that went to Vietnam and made their first contacts with hallucinogenic drugs, prostitutes and the deadly rest of every day life out there. They went back to the US of A, completely f##d up and became a part of society. The Vietnamese won on that level as well, the USA was never the same again.

I lost contact with the guys I knew that went there (no Facebook then) but I often think of them.

Charles Manson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson ) put an end to peace and love, the returning veterans did the rest.

Oh dear...

* Cannabis and opiates were the drug of availability and choice in SEA.

* The mentally damaged Vietnam Vet (as I've written before on this forum) is largely a myth engendered and propagated by Hollywood and crap novels.

* To claim that Charles Manson what you say is absurdly simplistic and inaccurate: first of all, the "Peace and Love" period was almost entirely an invention of the press and a popular conceit based on some romantic rhetoric by Hippies. In fact there was LOADS of crime and social ugliness that did not abate in any appreciable way during that time. Moreover, by the time by the time that Manson and his crew committed their crimes we'd had race riots, the murders of both Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr and years of televised horror and brutality in Southeast Asia.

Beyond it being false, it's truly ugly to blame Vietnam Vets for the end of that mythological period and to pait them as accomplices (unwitting or not) to Manson. (It's almost as ugly to claim that the damage to US society was welcome result for the Vietnamese and can be regarded as a victory for them).)

Sitting in the UK at the time, we all knew it: after Manson did what he did, the Peace and Love thing was ended. We became political activists which meant we got laid more often but Manson certainly did it for me and quite a few others. I was in the US in 67 and again in 69 and saw what happened to friends that went to Vietnam. I'm not blaming the vets, but most of them had some kind of dependence problem when they came back.

Fair enough. Interesting to hear a perspective from someone who was both in the UK and the US during that period.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[chiangmaikelly]

My hippie trail very much involved Vietnam and Thailand. I left the States a boy and a hippie. I came back not a boy and not a hippie. I was angry when I got back. Angry at my pregnant wife. My dad, made a lot of money from the war and probably the reason I didn't get killed but I was still angry. When I got back I left my wife and her child from another man and went on the hippie trail. I went to Denver and then the mountains and sang hippie songs, moved to the West coast and shot album covers and filmed oranges for commercials. My parents hired private detectives to find me and my soon to be ex wife passed out flyer's with my photo.

Somewhere I stopped running, married again and settled down and packed all my memories of South East Asia in a mental box.

10 years ago when I moved back I opened up the box. Nothing bad happened. At least not real bad. I was a child of a war. I grew up during a war. I tried the hippie shi* in the Army. They straightened me up right away.

[harrry]

Now we have succesfully sidetracked the topic to the events that were happening on its geographic periphery it may be interesting to look at the way some of the participants in the hippy trail have changed.

I remember that an ex NewZealand prime minister on a visit to India commented to the Indian Prime Minister as he was travelling in his limousine from the airport that the last time he was there it was in a tuk tuck full of rucksacks. THe Indian was very sympathetic of his lowly origins.

What other thens and nows are there.

(getting to sound like the blether aren't I)

Edited March 10, 2013 by harrry

[chiangmaikelly]

I voted for this guy. No discussion about hippies would be complete without him and his wife.

[bobbin]

But.....

He's Canadian!

Funny though, when he married her there was about a 30 year age gap and she became the First Lady (we don't actually have that "title") at age 22. Most people in Canada gave him kudos for scoring a beautiful young wife.

Marriage didn't last as she cracked under the strain of having to "adjust herself" to her social position. Not before having three sons though.

Canada would be better off with him as PM rather than the GWB jr. we are suffering with at present.. However, his son is currently the front-runner to head his father's former political party, so we will probably see Trudeau Part Deux.

[metisdead]

Looks like the topic kind of fell off the hippie trail into a discussion of the Vietnam war, those posts and replies have been removed.

[theblether]

I saw a few Hippie types wandering around Chiang Khon on Saturday, one of them was telling me his pal was hiding out somewhere by close to Pai on a three year overstay. There must be some good stuff up there

On the other hand I do appreciate the free spirit element, there's too many unnecessary rules strangling us all.