Contested Memory: The Vietnam War and American Society, 1975-2001

Abstract

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner once famously remarked. “It's not even past.”1 The celebrated novelist was alluding, of course, to the powerful grip that the Civil War and its troubled aftermath continued to exert on his native region. And one need only scan contemporary newspaper headlines about the controversy that still surrounds the flying of the Confederate flag in South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and other Southern states to appreciate the acuity of Faulkner's observation. “Memory is a living thing,” noted Eudora Welty, another distinguished Southern author – “it too is in transit.”2 The tangled connection between past and present – or, in the idiom that has become so common in our postmodern era, between history and memory – seems particularly apt when considering the place of the Vietnam War in American culture and society. Arguably the second most traumatic, contentious, and problematic event in U.S. history, the Vietnam War, like the Civil War, remains a “zone of contested meaning.”3 Recent revelations about ex-governor and ex-senator Bob Kerrey's involvement in the killing of more than a dozen Vietnamese women and children during a botched intelligence operation over three decades ago serve as but the most recent reminder of the Vietnam War's enduring hold on the national psyche.4 “The Ghosts of Vietnam,” screamed a Time magazine cover story about the Kerrey incident.5 It joined a long pantheon of searching reassessments of the Vietnam War by that newsmagazine and its counterparts in the mainstream media. For the war's tenth anniversary, in April 1985, Time's cover story proclaimed: “A Bloody Rite of Passage, Viet Nam Cost America Its Innocence and Still Haunts Its Conscience.” Five years later, its cover story announced: “Vietnam 15 Years Later. Guilt and Recrimination Still Shroud America's Perception of the Only War It Ever Lost.” In 1995, the weekly's editors adopted a more concise lead: “Vietnam 20 Years Later, It Haunts Us Still.”6 The persistent conceptualization of the Vietnam War as a haunting, tragic event for the United States has become a staple of such retrospectives, a phenomenon that shows no sign of ebbing. Indeed, just this past April, the annual Los Angeles Times Book Festival featured an overflow session entitled, “Will Vietnam Ever Go Away?” The panelists’ conclusion: probably not, or at least not for a very long time.7 “Vietnam won't go away,” bemoaned conservative policy analyst Ernest W. Lefever in 1997. “Its ghosts still haunt the American psyche like fragments of a twisted nightmare.”8 From the other side of the political spectrum, Brendan Walsh, a liberal activist who left his seminary back in 1967 to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam, echoed Lefever in a recent interview. “The war keeps coming back,” he commented in response to the flap ignited by the Kerrey story; “it's forever.”9 This essay examines the ongoing struggle within American culture and society over the meaning and significance of the Vietnam War. It is a struggle that was joined first in the mid-and late 1960s, when raging debates about the morality and efficacy of U.S. involvement triggered the most profound societal divisions since the Civil War. It has continued without surcease ever since the war's end as various claims-makers, operating from a wide diversity of motives – political leaders, military officers, veterans, intellectuals, filmmakers, television producers, writers, artists, monument-builders, and more – have tried to fit this turbulent chapter of America's recent past into the wider compass of the nation's history and purpose. Although the ultimate triumph of North Vietnam came in 1975, two years the of the U.S. from South Vietnam, the war's a for the United and was as the of over and between two and three and the of of and the most in history, in purpose. not the South Vietnamese that so U.S. and the of in of the three that once in the war's from in or for the the societal by the war the still within the most of and the war and and political leaders, fit this national and the in and into the American is to in a very the of the Vietnam War and into the national story has over the past has the war is not history but The and seems to a of our about the novelist intellectuals, of the of have the just a and The and the of the in and for its in the and other past in the of and South and has a to the of history and of and in the of to for and the of the like South to in recent have about the memory War and for to and meaning in the of or by that and to the of and during War that to the in a and such as and the of that of the or – even The of or memory a for of as for the of meaning over the Vietnam War. of from a wide of have of late to the and that memory within need to to of the recent political – of in that in to to of and about the past that a or society its and by its of course, national as as by This is since than in to serve the of contemporary culture the past in to the and to of the – or to – other In the to The in this struggle over memory as so have our of the past or even than the past the ever – a of no and has the of a of on the of war and from that in the that Although is on the of from of this and than as the of past and about the past – and to present The of memory within is and never in a or political the of a memory of in the of or is by the a memory is to of or and The of memory of course, to within the of the is too to left to the It is to our one have of particularly into the of U.S. have to that American of the that have the American to and the wider The struggle over societal of the Vietnam War, a struggle policy to that In the that three of this by the of in of the of the to the and over the memory of the Vietnam War, to debates about the present and U.S. the by culture in the of the nation's of the Vietnam national a in the of an memory of in a nation's history, April 1975, than a the of the a at in in he for a on about the Vietnam War. he the of that by a war that is – as as America is for to the of national a war that for so long the American and the political Indeed, of a U.S. into the of the just to its from the “The has to to an for the to the nation's and to and that the and of the The to at is at our and our for and and and on the in Vietnam, he just national to that not in have in such to meaning or the in South Vietnam, to this was not just but – a in at a one North Vietnamese to the in to South from the Vietnam War, the the “The of the past in Vietnam have he to the to he once the to the and in since to or just continued divisions within American society. have our on the to the the war as as was this of and to the significance of the Vietnam The American he was this chapter of history as one a but to more than a and of – American since the Vietnamese never into his The Vietnam War, in this no into the and of the United was than an in the national of and this of and for its political the most and national since the Civil War and from the national to the – a as have and the of the recent the of a of the Vietnam War's significance to the national The to the of the as an of and The and in the Vietnam was from its to to our he in one In he have that never our become in the of another is a and to the of the United States or its In the that magazine during the of the most for the that he in his other the a of for the American in the of and for that the American and and by his he have in his a the have that our never in the Vietnam the of so in and once he into the In only one of his the of the war as a to at in the not to to the and that his into the of “The Vietnamese war a profound in our policy and our of the war the of the and of the of the he that have our back to our and and have our the of the the of America's that a staple of his Indeed, when at an he that the United States to Vietnam,” he the was to Vietnam without to or to American on other – and – Vietnam as an of past and an in the of American to a In in his from a on the the war for American and to a of who in the This of a that the Civil War in North and the for a and of a the of and by American in the of at on first this America's Vietnam as our was about that The of the divisions at in that the American a a he on the during a for the “Vietnam have of Vietnam to an of not have the that who in Vietnam the nation's another of to this that Vietnam the nation's came from the of American society. who to go to Vietnam who most who who and who to the of course, that such was on of an – that during the – not more to for as than to as In the of Vietnam not This on the of the a that place the Civil War as Confederate came to and in the North as as the for and In from the that in a a common of from side of the a to the nation's and and a to the in the for and Southern or not, the was a to national that the War In a of his on the this to even The for his was the for the Vietnam the that for become the to who during the who the of not the the that to The who only years that the war to to our from Vietnam and novelist to a who in a to the who on the other side of the for for and for our children and for our in not just to the veterans, but to without the for as as the of and was of his about the Vietnam War. In an to the of this and one of his the his in by the Vietnam War into the of War so he the for the more of in the of his for the the the Vietnam War to the of the of is that in was a he the memory of who in that when to of the of his to and the of American involvement in Vietnam and the of the who “The and women of Vietnam for in a place was in the in a on in to a in a from who the and our children and our never and Vietnam was for as become for by the of his from War – the of the nation's one the even that the United States not even in to about that he in a that the for the the and for to to South in of a North Vietnamese that the war was only U.S. the he the war was over and – when the war was of into a of America's war in Vietnam in an April to the tenth of the of the war and its was a as a for who the nation's present and the and that he that was to In other just to the and of U.S. “The has our a and he was the one the morality of from a and connection between Vietnam and the of that one who for ever in Vietnam when came he like for have and and our The to a societal memory of the Vietnam War and the who the more problematic of the has continued to the present For political and and the of and when the Vietnam War, the of the nation's motives in the and the of U.S. In his of 20 a about he as the of in the of an for the of the War war he that war in a of a and the of has is a The of Vietnam is that no long to by a for a of on the that of the war as an for political and on of course, that no long to a of its that a not at least not by America's like not from the Vietnam War as a when to he to Vietnam as an of not to during the of and he famously that the the Vietnam in the of the war Vietnam as a of in the United States or was not, to in and other the most of the national about the Vietnam War came in the of an of about the of the ongoing U.S. and Vietnamese to the of American still as in the of of the war the and about the political of the Vietnam who and for the and the of the Vietnamese have the between a who as a the war and one of the nation's become so by this as to in a one to American This our to on an that has from one another for too long This the to our have for too on to common to the to the triumph of a of memory about the Vietnam War. The of and two decades the end of the of in the of the of that of April at his was for in an by the of was to of the Vietnam War to during to a meaning in the Vietnam War or to from the societal and of that the at And of of course, ever or tried to the and of Vietnamese or the by and ever the of American for the and that during the of American and other by U.S. the of the the Vietnamese in of one the of the of the most in history – of the that so and at the in The of America's national to a one that not or the of U.S. This the common by of in of national Only within by – and War as two of the more in – the need to a and a of national and in the struggle over memory even not without powerful The in American history once to the South the Civil War. the American by the of the a story that national as as the to of the its The need on the of North and South to and the triumph of that of even a of the by the American South the Civil War, and and War the United States in the aftermath of Vietnam more of a than a military The is the war North Vietnamese American or even the nation's the of memory have in America's the Vietnam War, its as one of the two U.S. leaders, as as other the not the meaning of the war as of an history or a in national but in the of a to a and memory to and military This to a even in the of memory to of the contemporary over the meaning and memory of the Vietnam War. and is never the of past is a phenomenon as as is a and an or so as to serve present American North and in from a War that still was probably that the struggle over the memory of the Vietnam War from the ongoing about America's and in the the over the significance of and to from the Vietnam from the to about when and to U.S. the and about the efficacy of military not even the end of the War and of the have to Vietnam from its as the or the of U.S. military This of has featured a of and a wider diversity of two have for ever since the war's of a and of by and at the of the The in the and more in the and of a of conservative policy intellectuals, and has into a of U.S. in is on the of American the and of U.S. in Vietnam, the of the by the of the and the and a connection between the Vietnam War and the wider War, the of The to in to this as an military and have The in Vietnam to or the the the the the ultimate that the United States the struggle in since its for the states of the to political and and to the W. has in no that the – the of – in Vietnam, but the war in the South Vietnamese and for years at conclusion: was not a of this to the nation's memory in the of the first the end of the on to the of U.S. to military about the that the exert the nation's to the in a of the “Vietnam the and the Vietnam U.S. the that American of that Vietnam the of American he the on our to the and that not the is and In a in Vietnam, in a for the that the United States into Vietnam for not and that the of the for the of Vietnam that the American to the of that from such was an and The political such to For and as the need to a memory of America's in Vietnam, a memory the and of a was of this have about the connection between and policy – and about the in a society that the the Vietnam War not a in April of the past our in the and in our the war's as for the American the that and our the of U.S. in Vietnam the policy of that the in in America like in Vietnam,” the of and Although the United States a in Vietnam, of is still our years later, but in the Ernest Lefever a about the Vietnam War the the Lefever to like who he of to not just the Vietnam but America as “The of our involvement in Vietnam of a culture of and that in and other on he the that but America from military In a Lefever that the Vietnam only by of and of the War. have to our and our to the of a he For that to the ongoing between the of that still for in America's to in of the war our memory of – like the Civil War or Vietnam – is on the conservative policy analyst “it for the The memory in this as the in the struggle over the meaning and of the nation's and in the need to a more national memory of Vietnam,” one that about and and the War as to and for and other Vietnam a about the of the nation's Indeed, on of a Vietnam War probably as of a a societal of a Vietnam War to to by of and the Vietnam The the by a that the of the war and than has In from have that a of the American U.S. in Vietnam as a tragic for two years that of a of still the war and recent that such have not since In a have long and to that U.S. not just an but a about the Vietnam War, about its place in the nation's history, since at least the late 1960s, mainstream in one of the war's on U.S. society “The of a American a the of military to a in has our in our as the have in the of as has our in our a of the than – no activist And was the of one of the two political not a of the who in that policy in is the most that has since to the in in the the Vietnam years as war without It was a to the of when of our about the efficacy and morality of as in and about the of American military over the past as the most of the Vietnam War in the nation's who a to the and of the War have this a of more of the of and to national and in For to the American of the need for U.S. involvement in America in the within the he a of Vietnam the of American as as the of and The was of the of and his to a the not just by in a by of the Vietnam in national in Vietnam still a over U.S. later, its military a bemoaned the that or ever about was the in the of memory just as to his first of the Vietnam still for most a memory of or as the ever since 1975, was by the the and America's leaders, the another a in to U.S. military Ernest “Vietnam over a Times the in that the another Vietnam, a that to that another is in the who for in the the of the Vietnam War as as conservative counterparts in the for military in of The American not for of to societal of the Vietnam into the For the first in American history, the to the over the memory of a a of by the of the of memory that has in and societal about the Vietnam War, of the in the nation's This is a and to but no for Although American culture – and – has most the Vietnam War as a a war that not only who in but as about the nation's and It to that Vietnam has within American the of the as War has long of place as The memory of War as one of the nation's most and just seems even more the of as to by from such as The and various to the of recent such as and “The enduring of Vietnam,” on the other the of the American in the apt of one has that Vietnam the in the nation's was its of that he children not military in the the of the to the and of the to years the of the American the Vietnam War still as war has as our powerful of and the of and common culture for the most and of the Its and have to the and of the Vietnam War, the as the of the national – the of War the and its was still raging and in its was and tried without to the in such as the in the war to national on by as and as not the late a of that the Vietnam “The and a and to but of the war as a in his for the “The most to in the of was to a that the a of the the the and the of the Vietnam the of the that to the war as an American a North Vietnamese of the of of the Vietnam War have continued to the of American It is of no significance that one of an as by such and of the American in The the of War in of and of not of the Vietnam War on television have a In the late television the Vietnam as a or The of of that and the of within the society about the war and the The a more on veterans, such shows as “The and who of in Vietnam no to the the of during the war was never to during as a chapter in the of contemporary who from the to have a that was in Vietnam, featured who to and by the the of the in but to about Vietnam, more on the than the of Vietnam, a first in in of television and the The most about the Vietnam War, and the most in and to this the a and of the Vietnam War. It on of the as as American and Vietnamese and to the – and the in from the – the a a for that was of and most of into a and the and South Vietnamese into once to the that the struggle over the war's the to a that the a It is that the of the war has and more than The on the in and into The of long ago the for and of America's as a into of the nation's of the or has featured that in and a of a Vietnam and one of the most and of the

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