The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

Throughout The Fort Bragg Cartel, a motif develops as friends, family members, and associates of the key figures describe these figures’ lives before they enlisted in the army. William Lavigne’s mother, for example, insists that her son was “never a bad kid” (52). The goofy, silly, fun child whom she describes is starkly contrasted against the brutal, paranoid figure who—two chapters before—kills his friend in front of their children. The Lavigne that his mother remembers and the Lavigne who emerges from the military are starkly different figures, and through this contrast, the book frames war as a corrupting force in American society. The small town boys such as Lavigne (or Leshikar, Dumas, or Vallejo) lose their innocence in the crucible of combat, returning as traumatized and pained figures who do not know how to operate in the society they once knew. In bringing the trauma of war home with them, they perpetuate the cycles of violence even further.

The cycles of violence are fueled by drugs and illicit narcotics. Harp describes the prevalence of prescribed medicine in the armed forces. Doctors write prescriptions for any kind of physical and mental issue, urged by the representatives of the institution to ensure that the soldiers remain as effective as possible during their deployment.