Vietnam Vet and Reggae Psychonaut Roger Steffens
As a 1960s Goldwater conservative, Roger was drafted into the military, shipped to Vietnam to work in psyops, dropped acid and talked his way into a free pass to travel anywhere in-country to help shaken residents and refugees. He was ordered to dump propaganda leaflets from low flying planes on panicked and illiterate villagers, while he distributed Firesign Theatre recordings to U.S. troops from the DMZ to the Mekong Delta, who were tuning in and turning on in the battlefield.
Roger returned stateside a different man and spoke out about the war, while sharing his love for poetry and reggae music, eventually writing seven books on the subject. Roger became friends with reggae great Bob Marley and went on to create the world’s largest collection of Marley material.
Roger takes us down a wild and trippy path through war-torn Vietnam and into the violent streets of 1970s Jamaica for an insider’s look at how Reggae music was born in 1968 and quickly overtook the world.
