Another one laid to rest

Two men were talking at physical therapy today, recounting some military experiences. I listened, but made no comments. One man, who claimed 22 years as a USMC pilot, mentioned that smuggling heroin in the cadavers of men killed in Vietnam was common. 

This is one of those myths whose factuality is dispelled by a simple statement: Consider the logistics. Consider putting in place military mortuary workers who hollow out cadavers and put in heroin. Consider where might the heroin be stored until needed. Consider other mortuary workers at the US end of the line, those who open the caskets and remove the heroin from cadavers and then replace uniforms as though undisturbed.

Logistically impossible.

“Despite being portrayed as fact in the 2008 film American Gangster, starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, this tale of a plot to smuggle heroin out of Thailand in the coffins of US servicemen who had died in the Vietnam war never actually happened.” – John McBeth, South China Morning Post, 2 June 2019.

“Atkinson calls his claim of using coffins ‘the biggest hoax ever perpetrated.’” – Blake Stillwell, We Are the Mighty, 20 March 2022. (Not a story written well.)

Here is a story so filled with BS that it must be read in order to recognize how far tellers of tales will go to sell their untruths.

“During the Vietnam War, the amount of heroin, which was exported to the United States, became so immense that the operations could not remain clandestine. Consequently, in the 1960s, it became prudent for CIA operatives to stash heroin in caskets of dead Americans as well as in body bags, areas, which would be least, searched. When the bodies of American GIs were flown to military bases on the West coast, the heroin could be easily removed. In addition, boxes and crates, which were sent back to the states, carried heroin and coded labels alerted CIA operatives as to where to look.” -- https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/09/04/380290/-Is-Heroin-being-Smuggled-in-Dead-Soldiers-Body-Bags-from-Afghanistan-Iraq

 

Ah, it all was done by the CIA! Now it makes sense! The CIA had operatives in all branches of the U.S. military. Those agents worked in mortuary services, preparing the bodies of dead GIs for return to families and loved ones. So imbedded were the CIA that heroin-laden bodies were easily deposed of their drug cargo. Also, CIA agents stationed at post offices all over the United States watched for crates specially coded and emptied those crates of heroin.