A work of fiction, it begins with this account of a promotional campaign undertaken during the Vietnam War:
That Charlie got his brains spread over the Cambodian treetops made most of them forget that he’d been the chief scriptwriter for a doomed radio propaganda series. “Insane,” he’d called Drugs Away; but the rest of them came to realize he was the crazy one. Still, maybe he’d been a genius, after all. “Sad loss,” they told others back home, privately including themselves among the casualties.
The radio serial, to be broadcast in-country, was the brainchild of “Mad” Major Moon, who saw it as an effective anti-drug tool. His previous assignment had been near Chicago, where he was addicted to WCFL’s Chicken Man. That ongoing comic drama of a would-be super hero originated in the Windy City and was then syndicated on, among other places, Armed Forces Radio.
“We’ll call our show Drugs Away,” the major told his soldiers. “You know, like ‘Bombs Away.’ The hero is named Smash. Sidearm is his diminutive sidekick.”
In one of those cases where truth is stranger than fiction, see this story about a contemporary public relations effort in another overseas conflict.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324874204578441003214496888.html
