Jeez, if Jesse had bothered to read it, I've made several detailed posts about Hendrix and Purple Haze.
Hendrix wrote Purple Haze in 1966 in London, he recorded it in late 66 and performed it for the first time on US soil at the Monterrey Festival in the Summer of 67, the song became probably the biggest hit of the Summer of Love.
Purple Haze is almot certainly not to do with LSD, Jimi told Chas Chandler he had a dream where he was chased by a purple cloud, he later embellished the story to being under the sea and included further detail.
No-one will ever know what really inspired Jimi, there are multiple strong possibilities:
The smoke grenades used by the US Army produce clouds of purple smoke and were colloquially known among soldiers as 'Purple Haze', Jimi was a soldier, hewould have been very familiar with these granades from training.
Vietnam is a country almost permanently covered in haze, US soldiers referred to going out on patrol as 'getting hazed' and when wounded they received Purple Heart medals. Therefore 'Purple Haze' referred to the state you were in after being wounded, shot with morphine and had a Purple Heart pinned to your bedsheets.
Either of those is more likely to have been the source of the phrase 'Purple Haze' and it's highly probable Hendrix heard the term in the Army.
As for Owsley Stanley, he has categorically refuted claims that the acid at Monterrey was anything to do with the song. Owsley did meet Jimi at Monterrey and Jimi was tripping on acid but the acid wasn't purple it was brown. Owsley mixed up the batch he called Purple Haze after Monterrey and he said the reason they called it that was to cash in on the name as the song was by far the biggest hit of that summer and was constantly on the radio when Owsley was working in his lab.
Do a google for Owsley Stanley Purple Haze and you'll find an interview and statement from Owsley where he refutes the link between Hendrix, Monterrey and his Purple Haze acid batch. I posted it before here, I posted a lot of detail about this actually...
Marine with Purple Heart in Vietnam, 1967.
M18 smoke grenade in training.
Replica M18 grenade in Violet, they also came in Red, Yellow and other colours, Violet was the purple one and most popular.
The guy on the right is carrying several M18s.
That's from a film but it is exactly how M18s were carried and used.