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The Myth of the Troubled and Scorned Vietnam Veteran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Eric T. Dean Jr.
Eric T. Dean Jr.
Affiliation:
Eric T. Dean, Jr., formerly practiced law and is currently a Ph.D. student with the Department of History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
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Extract

In the United States since the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the Vietnam veteran has become known as a neglected, troubled, and even scorned individual. According to this view, the Vietnam veteran's problems began in Vietnam where he was forced to participate in a brutal and disturbing war in which he was under fire twenty-four hours a day. The enemy, the wily and tenacious Vietcong and North Vietnamese regulars, were not always clearly defined nor were they above hiding behind or using civilians, leading to the unintentional – and sometimes intentional – killing by American forces of noncombatants, including women and children. Due to the military's policy of limiting the tour of duty in the war zone to one year, combat groups lacked cohesion and suffered from low morale, resulting in the excessive use of marijuana and heroin and an eventual breakdown of discipline, leading to the “fragging” of officers who attempted to reimpose order.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , April 1992 , pp. 59 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 For one of the first complete presentations on the television news of the image of the Vietnam veteran as a neglected and scorned individual, see “Vietnam Veterans' Dilemma, Part 1,” which aired on the CBS Evening News on 4 April 1973. The report contained the elements: (a) unemployment, (b) inadequate GI Bill, (c) betrayed by US government, (d) psychological problems, (e) no welcome from civilians, (f) war fought by the poor.

2 See ABC Evening News, 30 April 1985, in which one veteran, reflecting on the hostile homecoming he received, said that a World War II veteran accused him of losing the war. Another veteran said that the first girl he saw spat on him, and a third Vietvet related: “I feel betrayed, let down.” In “Heroes Without Honor Face the Battle at Home,” Time, 23 04 1979, 31Google Scholar, Vietvet Alan Fitzgerald is quoted: “‘When I came back and landed at San Francisco airport with 200 others, we were spit on and kicked at.’”

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52 The usual television coverage showed a Vietnam veteran in agony: “I started flashing back; I was in the Nam…; I burned a village to the ground and everyone in it…I need help” (CBS, 30 05 1979)Google Scholar; “We were made into weapons of war and then discarded” (CBS, 11 01 1984)Google Scholar; “I'm living the war just like I was there yesterday, I can't shake it” (ABC, 29 09 1987)Google Scholar; “They fought and struggled and came home to a public that didn't care…” (CBS, 12 05 1988).Google Scholar In the print media, however, dissenting views have been somewhat common, if not predominant. For instance, see Keegan, Anne, “GI's Vietnam Was Bittersweet Plum,” Chicago Tribune, 31 01 1983, a, 15 CGoogle Scholar: 1 (story of a Vietvet who was not assigned to combat and had a good time in Vietnam); “Victims of Our Noble Cause,” Progressive, 02 1983Google Scholar (calls the Vietvet obsession a “freak show”); and Reed, Fred, “Jello Writers,” Harper's, 12 1980 (recounts the excitement of the war zone, and ridicules the writers who couldn't begin to understand or put the experience in perspective).Google Scholar

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56 Ross, , Preparing for Ulysses, 18.Google Scholar