The Man Who Became an Unstoppable Weapon While Stoned D

In the early hours of April 1,  1969, Fire Support Base Illingworth,   nestled in the heart of the  Vietnamese jungle, lay in ruins. For nearly ten minutes, the once vibrant  battlefield, shaken by a surprise attack,   fell into an eerie silence following  a devastating explosion. Now,   hundreds of soldiers from both  sides lay strewn across the ground,   some slowly stirring awake, some not,  every man bearing the marks of battle.

Amidst this quiet, 19-year-old Specialist  Four Peter Lemon regained consciousness. Exhausted, scared, and marked by numerous  shrapnel wounds across his head, neck, and limbs,   Lemon’s reality was sharpened by the chaos. He  had shared a joint with friends who were no more,   an act that now intertwined his senses with  a surreal clarity amid the devastation.

Riddled with wounds and enveloped in a haze,   Lemon was fuelled by a surge of adrenaline and  THC. Poised to challenge the odds once more,   he reached for a bag of grenades  and headed right towards the enemy. In early 1969, as thousands of foreign-born  Americans fled back to their motherland to avoid   the draft, Peter Charles Lemon, who immigrated to  the U.S.

at age two from Canada, willingly joined   the Army. Fueled by an unshakeable belief in the  cause—halting the tide of Communism—Lemon was not   just willing but determined to confront  it head-on in the jungles of Vietnam. In the spring, Peter underwent Basic Combat  Training at Fort Knox. While life at the base   was not easy at all due to the exhausting training  and constant pressure, Peter Lemon thrived in   every challenge, displaying incredible  leadership and surprising his superiors.

Very soon, Lemon was chosen to be a squad leader,   and he and his team became one  of the best in all of Fort Knox,   with Peter leading as an example and pushing  them to be their best version of themselves. As the top graduate of his class, Peter was  sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for Advanced   Infantry Training, where he perfected  his technique.

Ready to go into combat,   in late July 1969, the now 19-year-old boarded  a Boeing 707 and left America for South Vietnam. Upon setting foot in Vietnam, Peter Lemon’s  perspective began to shift profoundly. The   complex realities of war, far from the ideals  he held dear, challenged him and his comrades   in unexpected ways.

The harsh environment,  coupled with the moral ambiguities faced by   soldiers on the ground, blurred the lines between  right and wrong, testing Lemon’s convictions. To cope with their depression, Lemon and many  of his friends found solace in marijuana,   using it more and more until  it was more than a daily habit. In late March 1970, Peter Lemon was a  Specialist Fourth Class Lemon in E Company,   2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 1st  Cavalry Division, part of the   unit that established the Illingworth  Fire Base in the Tay Ninh Province.

Described by one soldier as a [QUOTE]: “hot,  miserable little place,” Illingworth was a   small firebase constructed in a dry pond a mere  five miles away from the Cambodian border. Its   219-yard perimeter consisted of claymore mines  and a man-made protective dirt wall. Inside   were about 215 men from several units who provided  artillery support to units operating in that area.

But it was so much more than that. In the middle of the jungle,   without a perimeter fence or barbed wire  and with wildly exposed ammunition dumps,   Illingworth Firebase was ripe for an enemy  attack, a bait for the North Vietnamese Army. The base’s vulnerability was irresistible;   air support was always at the ready, just in  case.

However, the Communists were well aware   of the trap and knew that if they attacked the  American base during the night when aircraft were   less likely to respond due to the increased  danger, they would achieve better success. On the night of March 31, 1970, Specialist  Lemon and his 18-man squad were trudging   back to Illingworth after a reconnaissance patrol  in the vicinity, yearning for a moment of rest.

Yet, just before the stroke of midnight,  the base’s ground surveillance radar   detected stirring—a large enemy formation  weaving through the jungle. Sensing the   impending threat from the North Vietnamese  gearing up for a nocturnal assault,   Base commander Lieutenant Colonel  Michael John Conrad acted swiftly,   commanding his troops to unleash a volley  of warning shots into the darkness.

The message was clear: the  Americans were vigilant,   ready for whatever the night might bring. In response, Specialist Lemon and his squad  roused from their makeshift beds and scrambled   to their defensive positions, their hearts racing,  ready to safeguard the base. The jungle, however,   remained completely silent as if holding its  breath.

With no immediate threat materializing,   Lieutenant Colonel Conrad instructed  everyone to try to sleep again. Back in the dimly lit quarters, sleeping was  impossible. The men were acutely aware that   danger loomed, yet they also knew the importance  of preserving their strength for the battle   ahead.

In a moment of camaraderie, Lemon and his  fellow soldiers shared a joint, reminiscing for   a few minutes about when they would be able  to fly back home, and then went back to bed. Resting on his flat pillow,  as the clock neared 2:00am,   Peter felt the marijuana sharpen his senses, his  mind alert amidst the tranquility. But peace was   short-lived. At precisely 2:17am, the night  erupted into chaos in Firebase Illingworth.

Within seconds, the once-calm base turned into  a nightmare as a 400-men force from the North   Vietnamese Army’s 272nd Regiment stormed  the area. The communications antenna was   the first casualty, quickly followed by  a barrage of artillery and mortar fire. Outnumbered nearly two to one, the 220 American  soldiers in the base were on their own,   as their airpower advantage was  negated by the dark, hot night.

No matter how high they were, they would have  to fight and win or be overrun. Unfortunately   for the Communist enemy, Specialist Peter  Lemon worked better while completely stoned. Seconds after the artillery barrage lifted,  the enemy came running and screaming out of the   jungle, attacking in waves of up to 40 soldiers.

Unknowingly, the enemy was concentrating its   attacks at the southwest corner of the base,  where the infantry defense was the strongest. In a hurried daze, as countless Communists were  swarming in and threatening to overwhelm the base,   Specialist Lemon jumped out of his bunk and  rushed toward his duty position to assist M-60   machine gunner Lou Vaca, located at the berm.

The  thick dust caused their gun to jam constantly and   obscured the angered, on-rushing troops until  they were barely 50 feet from the Americans. According to Lemon, the scene felt  almost imaginary, like an action movie,   with all the dust and the flares only  adding to his already altered state of   mind.

He would later confirm: [QUOTE]  “It was the only time I ever went into   combat stoned. You get really alert when  you are stoned because you have to be.” When his mate’s gun jammed amidst firing at  the oncoming wave of men, Specialist Lemon   took his M-16 rifle and, in a rush of adrenaline  with all his senses more heightened than ever,   unleashed his rifle’s power with precision,  taking down five NVA before it also malfunctioned.

Discarding his rifle, Lemon picked up  hand grenades and hurled them at the   Communists. Yet he ran out of grenades  before he ran out of enemy soldiers. With only one enemy soldier left in front  of him, Lemon rolled up his sleeves and got   to work on the last North Vietnamese troop  with his bare hands in hand-to-hand combat.

As he was about to knock him out, shortly after  3 in the morning, a titanic roaring explosion   lifted both of them –and everyone else in  Fire Base Illingworth– up from the ground. Only a day before, the base mistakenly received   an erroneous delivery of 40 tons of 8-inch  artillery shells.

Being of no use to them,   the Americans placed the ordnance in a  neat pile right in the middle of the base. How the explosion happened  will forever remain unknown:   whether it was from one of the many small fires  nearby, a deliberately thrown satchel charge,   or one of the thousands of grenade and mortar  rounds raining all over the base.

The explosion   created a giant mushroom cloud that made the  soldiers wonder if an atomic blast had hit them. Some of those close to the  blast were sucked into the sky,   while everyone else was tossed through  the air or knocked flat to the ground.   Chaos ripped through all the men at Illingworth.

Eardrums were blown, guns ripped away from hands,   and dirt and dust flew everywhere, jamming  every single weapon around the base. For minutes that seemed like an eternity,  destruction rained from the sky: falling shrapnel,   equipment, and men caused a hurricane of  confusion and pain. The resulting explosion   left a massive 20-foot-deep crater and a  lull in the fighting for about ten minutes   as Americans and North Vietnamese  alike struggled to awaken or get up.

When Specialist Lemon was finally able to stand,   the young soldier was significantly  wounded, dazed, and, of course,   still stoned but managed to stand up and drag one  of his injured fellow comrades to an aid station. While running back into battle,  he was wounded a second time by   enemy fire.

Neglecting his own pain,  angrier and more stoned than ever,   Lemon headed back to his position as the  rain of shells resumed from both sides. It was payback time. As Specialist Lemon moved to his position in the  midst of a hail of small arms and grenade fire,   he realized that the defensive sector  was about to be overrun by the enemy.   For a minute, it seemed that all hope for  survival was lost.

He recalled: [QUOTE] “I said to myself, ‘You’re not  going to make it through this one.” With no time to lose, he grabbed a bag  of grenades and put them to good use,   one by one, until he ran out  of them. When those were done,   he began to knock out enemy soldiers,  attacking one after another with his fists. While running toward the edge of  the base, he got wounded again,   this time by enemy bullets.

But still in complete  disregard of his wounds, Peter continued to fight,   knocking out enemies with his fists, and  the unarmed, injured, and stoned soldier   single-handedly kept the base from being overrun  by the swarms of the North Vietnamese Army. As some of the NVA soldiers were still attacking,  Pete, committed to protect the base at all costs,   found an operable machine gun, jumped to the  top of the dirt pile surrounding the base,   and, in a fully exposed position, the  soldier continued to fire at the enemy,   raining fire upon them until he collapsed  from both his wounds and exhaustion. By five in the morning, less than  three hours after the initial attack,   the Battle of Illingworth Firebase was over.  Against all odds and despite being outnumbered,   the brave soldiers of the 8th  Cavalry managed to repel the enemy. Lemon awoke in an aid station and, believing  that others needed help more than he did,   initially refused treatment or evacuation.  Over the following month, as he recovered   from his grave injuries, he pondered the  aftermath of that night from his hospital bed.

The Battle of Illingworth Firebase was the  worst single day of the war in the year 1970,   with 25 American soldiers falling  in action, including ten from field   artillery units. On the opposing side, 88  North Vietnamese Army lost their lives. When word arrived the following spring that  President Richard Nixon was awarding him the   Medal of Honor at the White House, Pete  Lemon seriously considered turning down   the award.

Still, on June 15, 1971,  ten days after his 21st birthday,   Nixon greeted Peter Lemon and proclaimed him  a “hero” through the nation’s highest honor.   This would mark the first time a Canadian-born  person received such a medal since World War 2. For decades, Peter refused to carry  his medal. Like most of his comrades,   he was disappointed that those at  Illingworth Fire Support Base were   used as bait by top brass and kept  his medal hidden in a shoe box.

Years later, however, Pete had a change of  heart when he realized that on April 1, 1969,   he fought for his friends, all of whom deserved  to be mentioned and worn with pride. Ever since,   Peter C Lemon, the eighth-youngest living  Medal of Honor recipient, a sergeant who,   high on marijuana, fought beyond the limits of  ordinary men, started to carry the medal in memory   of all the soldiers who defended the Illingworth  Firebase against the North Vietnamese Army.