This is the second part of a two-part episode on the American GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War.

So if you haven't heard the first part, our episode 10, I'd go back and listen to that first.

Today, we continue our conversation with Jerry Lemke, a Vietnam veteran-turned author, sociologist and professor

about other aspects of the movement, his experiences in Vietnam Veterans Against

the War, and how it's all remembered today.

I'm John.

And I'm Stephanie.

And this is working class history.

Going to lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the river river side going to lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside study war no more

one thing that went along with the counterculture in the united states was a lot of drug taking. Was that something which spread to?

A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Most what I saw and saw a lot of was simply pot, which now sounds so

innocent. But then it was very illegal and it was very much a part of underground GI activity

in Vietnam, a kind of, well, definitely off the books, illegal, illicit.

You know, the drugs were bought on the market, bought illegally, had to be, you know, moved around illegally.

All the part of this, I haven't used the word underground before, but that's a key word,

you know, beyond the purview of the authorities, there was a kind of military life that went on in that way. When I say

the countercultural, the counterculture within the military, the drug culture was part of that.

Illicit, underground, out of sight, as much as it could be, you know, violation of rules,

smoking pot, on guard duty, had its own, you know, even beyond military culture,

but was a kind of subversion, really really of military, of course, of military

policy and the rules, but a kind of subversion of military readiness.

My own view, I did guard duty a lot, a lot of different places, a lot of firebases,

...