A legendary soldier turned into an "unstoppable weapon" and received the coveted Medal of Honour – all while stoned on cannabis.

Peter Charles Lemon, born in Canada, volunteered to join the US Army in 1969 amid the Vietnam War, ignoring anti-war protests as he firmly believed in America’s mission two oppose the spread of Communism.

“It was the only time I ever went into combat stoned,” he later said. “You get really alert when you are stoned because you have to be.”

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While Peter had started out as a true believer in the Vietnam War and had excelled in combat training, the Dark Docs podcast explains, he had a change of heart after actually arriving in-country in July 1969.

They explained: “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.”

So it wasn’t unusual that the 20-year-old sergeant, while stationed at an artillery base called Fire Base Illingworth, near South Vietnam’s border with Cambodia, chose to take the edge off his adrenaline by sparking up a reefer.

The base had been set up as a deliberate provocation to the North Vietnamese army, and was under constant threat, but on that fateful night of April 1, 1970 Peter had no reason to assume that the attack was imminent .

It was around 2am, just as the warm glow of the cannabis began to make its way through Peter’s bloodstream, when the North Vietnamese launched their attack. Some 400 crack troops surrounded Fire Base Illingworth, outnumbering the Americans by two to one.

Despite his mellow mood, Peter sprang into action first manning a 50-calibre machine gun and pouring hundreds of rounds into the oncoming horde. After running out of ammunition for the .50, he grabbed his M16 and started using that to defend the base – pausing only to lob an occasional grenade whenever he saw the attackers bunching together too closely.

Again running out of ammunition, Peter engaged one of the remaining attackers hand-to-hand, getting into a brutal fist-fight as mortar shells exploded around them. But then the unthinkable happened.

A massive shipment of 8” artillery shells – totally unsuitable for the artillery pieces actually stationed at Fire Base Illingworth, had recently been delivered. Because they were useless to the artillerymen, they had stacked the high-explosive shells in the centre of the compound. When a stray North Vietnamese mortar round detonated close to the cache of shells, all hell broke out.

The entire base erupted in a massive explosion, sending attackers and defenders alike sprawling on the ground: “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 10 minutes."

Peter, now doubly dazed from the explosion as well as the strong south-east Asian weed, was one of the first to regain his composure. The podcast continued: “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.”

He later recalled that he had at this point accepted that he was going to die that night. They continued: "I said to myself, 'You're not going to make it through this one.” Nevertheless, he snatched up a bag of grenades and plunged into the fray, when he ran out of grenades, he fended off attackers with his fists – collecting yet another bullet wound.

Although he collapsed from blood loss, Peter survived the torrid battle. 25 of his comrades did not, and many more were wounded in the fierce fighting.

“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,” they said.

For several years after accepting the award, he kept his medal stashed in a shoe-box and refused to wear it. He felt bitter that the forward fire base – and his dead comrades – had been used as bait to draw out the North Vietnamese army

The podcast continued: “Years later, Pete had a change of heart when he realised that on April 1, 1969, he fought for his friends.

“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.”