The conclusion examines two stories from 2016 that reflect broader themes of veterans returning to Việt Nam. The appointment of Vietnam veteran and alleged war criminal Bob Kerrey to Chair of Fulbright University Vietnam revived the now-familiar narrative about American redemption in Việt Nam, while the pilgrimage of thousands of Australians to Việt Nam for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan demonstrated a profound sense of entitlement to Vietnamese spaces. The conclusion summarizes that veterans returned in search of resolution or peace, which manifested in nostalgia. Upon return, many returnees found a measure of peace, but were challenged by the erasure of their wartime presence. Veterans negotiated this displacement by drawing from wartime narratives and performing nostalgic practices to reclaim their sense of belonging in Việt Nam. Yet the 2016 stories indicate that veteran influence in the country will decline as Việt Nam moves on from war.

Chapter 8 examines how veterans worked to reassert their wartime connection to peacetime Việt Nam. Many veterans returned to Việt Nam with strong feelings of diasporic connection to the physical space of the country, feelings that were often challenged by local practices, national memories, and the effects of the passage of time. This chapter explores how veterans negotiated that challenge by engaging in nostalgic practices – such as recreating “bar culture,” expressing nostalgic discontent at the corruption of peacetime Việt Nam, and establishing hierarchies of diasporic belonging among the expatriate communities – before turning to explore how veterans justified their presence in Việt Nam, showing how they harnessed Australian and American wartime culture, values, and knowledge in order to establish their authority. This chapter concludes by analyzing how Australian and US returnees made sense of their return to Việt Nam as living legacies of war.

Chapter 5 examines the dynamics in veterans’ meeting with Vietnamese. A common goal of returnees was to meet “the enemy,” and the solidarity they found with fellow soldiers in Việt Nam became a key theme in veterans’ narratives. This chapter unpacks a near-uniform claim made by veterans that the Vietnamese bore no grudge for the war and welcomed veterans back to Việt Nam wholeheartedly. Because many American veterans positioned themselves as atoning for wartime participation, they viewed this reaction as forgiveness. Australian veterans, conversely, drew from Australia’s national mythology to argue that the Vietnamese welcomed them back because they loved and respected Australian soldiers. This chapter situates veterans’ claims about forgiveness, solidarity, and belonging in Việt Nam in the context of Vietnamese diplomacy, examines the inclusion and exclusion of different Vietnamese groups from veterans’ solidarity narratives, and explores concealed hostility on both sides.

Chapter 1 examines the first era of veterans’ return journeys. Between 1981 and 1994, a trickle of Australian and American Vietnam veterans returned to Việt Nam on journeys of reconciliation. As Western war commemorations and popular culture representations allowed veterans to reflect on their wartime experiences, some returned to Việt Nam to address lingering questions they had about the people, the country, and the war. Others returned in reaction to contemporary political issues, while major economic changes within Việt Nam acted as a cue for veterans who had long dreamed of returning. For some veterans, returning marked a turning point that challenged them to atone for the war, while others found new opportunities and relationships. These first returnees discovered a place that had seemingly moved on from war, which brought them a measure of peace. Many became advocates for formal reconciliation with and restitution for the Vietnamese.

Chapter 3 examines the third era of veterans’ return journeys, from 2006–16. This final period was defined by war commemoration. As Vietnam War commemoration surged in Australia and the United States, increasing numbers of Australian veterans chose to mark a string of major war anniversaries in Việt Nam, while the cultural militarization that paralleled the unfolding War on Terror led anti-war American veterans to reflect on their service. Việt Nam’s tourism industry tapped the growing Western market by turning toward kitsch reproductions of war that hinged on American memories. Organized tours became more popular as returnees became more diverse and reached retirement. Australian veterans strongly preferred commercial battlefield tourism and private troop reunions, while Americans favored peace- or healing-oriented returns. Among both groups, tours were refined and contained over the years to expatriate areas, increasingly marketing nostalgia tourism and secluding returnees from the realities of postwar Việt Nam.

Chapter 7 examines veterans’ reflections on key war legacies in light of their return journeys. After the war, veterans grappled with complex and politically charged narratives about the war that shaped how they viewed their individual experiences. Those that returned to Việt Nam faced new stories and memories about the war that challenged these narratives. Rather than challenging their views, the experience of returning to Việt Nam often reinforced their existing values and beliefs, and many returnees drew from return experiences to support their existing views. This chapter situates returnees’ views in broader historiographical debates on four key issues: perceptions of defeat (or victory) in Vietnam, the anti-war movement, the association between “their” war and war crimes, and the justness of the war. The majority of veterans raised these key legacy issues in their interviews without prompting, indicating how polarizing and contentious the Vietnam War continues to be.

The Introduction explains that veterans returned to Việt Nam in search of resolution, or peace, in their personal relationships with the war. This search manifested in nostalgia for “Vietnam,” with returnees acting as a diasporic community forged in war. While many returnees found a measure of peace upon return, they were also challenged by the erasure of their wartime presence. Veterans drew on wartime memories and performed nostalgic practices to recapture their sense of belonging in Việt Nam. Outlining three distinct eras of returnees, this chapter shows how a comparative, transnational perspective reveals stark differences in American and Australian war memories, narratives, and imaginings of “Vietnam.” This chapter presents a review of the existing scholarship on the topic of returning veterans, situating the book in broader literature on the war and its legacies; explains the book’s oral history methodology and analytic approach; and outlines the broader structure of the book.

Chapter 6 examines how veterans responded to Vietnamese war memory at four key sites: the War Remnants Museum, Hỏa Lò Prison Museum, Sơn Mỹ Memorial and Museum, and Long Tân. When veterans returned to Việt Nam, they discovered that the Vietnamese narrative of the “American War” rendered them perpetrators of atrocities or, at best, passive victims of imperialist warmongering nations. While some returnees embraced Vietnamese war memory, others rejected or challenged it, and many struggled with the tensions and contradictions between different versions of the war. Across national and ideological lines, veterans displayed a selective acceptance of Vietnamese war memory, isolating elements that corroborated their memories of war and rejecting the legitimacy of others. This chapter also considers varied response to the Vietnamese erasure of veterans’ wartime allies and concludes by examining how Australian returnees increasingly approached the site of Long Tân through the Australian tradition of “Anzac” pilgrimage.

Chapter 2 examines the second era of veterans’ return journeys, from 1995–2005. This era of return was characterized by “normalization”: the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Việt Nam offered security to tentative veterans who had watched the reconciliation process from afar. Lifted travel restrictions and a growing tourism industry provided returnees with more latitude in their returns, resulting in a more diverse return group. Increasingly, veterans from both countries returned on “healing journeys,” approaching Việt Nam as the locus of their trauma. A discourse of trauma emerged in their narratives, mirroring the rising popularity of therapy and psychoanalysis in Western cultures, with the majority of normalization returnees describing their returns as therapeutic. Many of the normalization returnees became engaged in reconstruction activities as a form of atonement in Việt Nam, reshaping early returnees’ reconciliation processes into personal healing projects.

Chapter 4 examines how veterans responded to the presence and absence of war remnants in Việt Nam. Returning veterans often engaged in battlefield pilgrimage as a way to reflect on the past, encountering or visiting war remnants in the form of battle locations or military bases. However, for the Vietnamese, the remnants of war were not limited to battlefields and military architecture. This chapter takes a broad view of relics and remnants, considering alongside military battlefields and bases the ecological, social, and individual effects of war on those who lived through it and those born in its aftermath. These more subtle remnants were obvious to some returnees, but to others, they were invisible. Exploring veterans’ reactions to the presence or absence of war remnants in these forms illuminates further remnants of war: the biases and other lingering effects of wartime ideologies of the Australians and Americans who returned.