News (Media Awareness Project) - US TX: Column: Vietnam's Lessons Recur In Drug War |
| Title: | US TX: Column: Vietnam's Lessons Recur In Drug War |
| Published On: | 2000-10-18 |
| Source: | Houston Chronicle (TX) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-03 05:06:23 |
VIETNAM'S LESSONS RECUR IN DRUG WAR
Perhaps you've noticed parallels between our drug war and a conventional war from our past.
For example, maybe you've heard the opinion that the Vietnam War ended after the draft began to impact middle-class suburbs same as it had inner-city, poor neighborhoods. The outcry from worried and grieving families with political clout brought the Vietnam War to a close. As the growing number of drug-war prisoners includes more from those middle-class neighborhoods, a similar outcry will have a similar effect.
You also may be familiar with the premise that ending our drug war will be difficult because of the big profits realized by waging it. We hear the phrase "prison-industrial complex" connected to the drug war the same way the phrase "military-industrial complex" is connected to conventional wars.
Stephen represents another parallel. You may be old enough to recall that many young men fled the United States when they saw no other way to avoid being caught up in the Vietnam War. Stephen fled to Europe to avoid drug-war consequences.
He said he left soon after that night a couple of years ago when police stopped him. He gave them permission to search the car, one he had rented while his was in the shop.
"After about two minutes they came out laughing, holding something. They called for a test kit, and whatever they had showed up positive," Stephen said. "I don't know if they planted it. I suspect so because of the show they put on, but I honestly have no idea how it got there. It sure wasn't mine."
Facing A Return To Prison
He said he was on parole at the time for stealing a pickup and always passed his monthly drug tests. His job working offshore in the oil business also required regular drug testing. It paid him well, that job. He also had a wife, and they lived in a nice home in The Woodlands.
Stephen said he had stayed out of trouble, grown up and turned things around since getting out of prison. Not so much as a traffic ticket until that night. But it was almost certain that cocaine the cops said they found would put him back in the pen, and for a long time.
In our e-mail communications, Stephen has been open about his troubled past. He said that his mother died shortly after he was born and his father beat him so that authorities put him in a children's home, where he learned about smoking and stealing.
They were in Scotland at the time. Stephen said they lived in several foreign countries while he was growing up, wherever opportunities in the oil business took his father.
When he was 17, Stephen said, he moved to Florida and stayed in his father's vacation home. Over the next few years he racked up an extensive record with Sunshine State authorities -- "nothing serious or ever violent," he said. "Just kid stuff." Youthful indiscretions.
In 1992, he decided to move to Houston, where a sister lived with her new husband. The day he arrived, they got into arguments so Stephen left the house, bought some beer and "proceeded to get drunk." Then he stole a pickup parked outside an AutoZone, was caught in a matter of minutes and wound up taking a 20-year plea bargain for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
On The Lam, And Missing Home
He served four years and was released on parole in June 1996. Rather than return to prison after police stopped him that night he was driving the rental car, he got his wife to bond him out of jail and fled the country.
He said life is good where he lives now. He works as a security guard, has a nice place to live, a motorcycle and a girlfriend. (He and his wife divorced after he left Texas.) But he wants to come back to the United States to see his brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and cousins. He doesn't want to be a fugitive.
"I would be willing to come there and do community service, pay fines, go to groups or classes," he said. "Anything except those uncouth, unclean, corrupt little tin buildings they call prisons, where there is more crime than the streets. I watched killing, raping, threatening, corruption and much more."
Stephen said he had hoped, if he could figure out the right way to approach him, Gov. George W. Bush might grant him a conditional pardon, "but seeing his views on crime, I'm probably barking up the wrong tree."
After the Vietnam War ended, an amnesty allowed young men who had fled to return to the United States.
Thom Marshall's e-mail address is thom.marshall@chron.com.
Perhaps you've noticed parallels between our drug war and a conventional war from our past.
For example, maybe you've heard the opinion that the Vietnam War ended after the draft began to impact middle-class suburbs same as it had inner-city, poor neighborhoods. The outcry from worried and grieving families with political clout brought the Vietnam War to a close. As the growing number of drug-war prisoners includes more from those middle-class neighborhoods, a similar outcry will have a similar effect.
You also may be familiar with the premise that ending our drug war will be difficult because of the big profits realized by waging it. We hear the phrase "prison-industrial complex" connected to the drug war the same way the phrase "military-industrial complex" is connected to conventional wars.
Stephen represents another parallel. You may be old enough to recall that many young men fled the United States when they saw no other way to avoid being caught up in the Vietnam War. Stephen fled to Europe to avoid drug-war consequences.
He said he left soon after that night a couple of years ago when police stopped him. He gave them permission to search the car, one he had rented while his was in the shop.
"After about two minutes they came out laughing, holding something. They called for a test kit, and whatever they had showed up positive," Stephen said. "I don't know if they planted it. I suspect so because of the show they put on, but I honestly have no idea how it got there. It sure wasn't mine."
Facing A Return To Prison
He said he was on parole at the time for stealing a pickup and always passed his monthly drug tests. His job working offshore in the oil business also required regular drug testing. It paid him well, that job. He also had a wife, and they lived in a nice home in The Woodlands.
Stephen said he had stayed out of trouble, grown up and turned things around since getting out of prison. Not so much as a traffic ticket until that night. But it was almost certain that cocaine the cops said they found would put him back in the pen, and for a long time.
In our e-mail communications, Stephen has been open about his troubled past. He said that his mother died shortly after he was born and his father beat him so that authorities put him in a children's home, where he learned about smoking and stealing.
They were in Scotland at the time. Stephen said they lived in several foreign countries while he was growing up, wherever opportunities in the oil business took his father.
When he was 17, Stephen said, he moved to Florida and stayed in his father's vacation home. Over the next few years he racked up an extensive record with Sunshine State authorities -- "nothing serious or ever violent," he said. "Just kid stuff." Youthful indiscretions.
In 1992, he decided to move to Houston, where a sister lived with her new husband. The day he arrived, they got into arguments so Stephen left the house, bought some beer and "proceeded to get drunk." Then he stole a pickup parked outside an AutoZone, was caught in a matter of minutes and wound up taking a 20-year plea bargain for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
On The Lam, And Missing Home
He served four years and was released on parole in June 1996. Rather than return to prison after police stopped him that night he was driving the rental car, he got his wife to bond him out of jail and fled the country.
He said life is good where he lives now. He works as a security guard, has a nice place to live, a motorcycle and a girlfriend. (He and his wife divorced after he left Texas.) But he wants to come back to the United States to see his brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and cousins. He doesn't want to be a fugitive.
"I would be willing to come there and do community service, pay fines, go to groups or classes," he said. "Anything except those uncouth, unclean, corrupt little tin buildings they call prisons, where there is more crime than the streets. I watched killing, raping, threatening, corruption and much more."
Stephen said he had hoped, if he could figure out the right way to approach him, Gov. George W. Bush might grant him a conditional pardon, "but seeing his views on crime, I'm probably barking up the wrong tree."
After the Vietnam War ended, an amnesty allowed young men who had fled to return to the United States.
Thom Marshall's e-mail address is thom.marshall@chron.com.
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