A damning new documentary sheds light on experiments done on US soldiers from the 50s to the 70s and the devastating after-effects
A damning new documentary sheds light on experiments done on US soldiers from the 50s to the 70s and the devastating effects
Edgewood Arsenal was a classified US army facility in Maryland where recruits were subjected to sarin, VX, teargas, LSD and PCP. There, Ketchum was administering psychotropic drugs on young soldiers. Brigden’s film unearths archival footage of men going temporarily blind, reduced to babbling or completely dysfunctional logs, or worse, ready to commit violence upon themselves.
“From their point of view, they weren’t properly informed of the experiments that they were signing up for,” says Brigden. “They were told that they were going to be testing army equipment. There was no mention of drugs. But once they got into Edgewood, from what I’ve heard from these vets, they were threatened with court martials if they didn’t participate.”
Somewhere along the way the goalposts moved from developing a defensive strategy to leaning in on psycho chemicals as an effective weapon. Even in that, Ketchum saw their humanitarian benefit, at least as far as warfare was concerned. “Instead of ripping apart someone with a machine gun, you just float a gas of incapacitating drugs and then capture them alive,” says Brigden, reiterating Ketchum’s arguments.
The style doesn’t overwhelm the content, particularly when dealing with the veterans who appear in the film, speaking to both their experiences volunteering at Edgewood and the lingering flashbacks, nightmares and physical effects. If Ketchum’s interview is the documentary’s “spine” as the director calls it, the interviews with the veterans are at its heart.