In this book, I document the non-combat experiences of American soldiers in
Vietnam as a way of examining the social and cultural context in which the Vietnam War
was fought. Most representations of the Vietnam War focus on combat and its aftereffects, excising comfort, recreation, and fun from the picture. I have done the opposite—
painted a picture of the Vietnam War in which “beauty” and “ice cream” take precedence
over the “bullets,” as they often did for Americans who served there. This version of the
Vietnam War is about shopping and television, about hot food and cold beer, about
American soldiers’ desire to improve their lives amidst chaos and disruption, and about
the U.S. military’s willingness to provide the means for them to do so. It is a story about
making do, doing more with less, and making the best of it, but it is seldom about doing
without. In that sense, the typical tour of duty in Vietnam reflects the essence of midcentury America.
In thel950s, Americans abandoned the austere, work-centered urgency of the
Depression and World War II and embraced a culture that was consumption-driven and
leisure-oriented. When the children of the baby-boom grew up and headed for Vietnam,
they took with them expectations of war informed by popular representations of combat
in World War II. Upon discovering that the Vietnam War would deliver relatively few
opportunities for heroism and glory, American soldiers stationed at rearward bases
adjusted their John-Wayne expectations to include comfortable living conditions, ample
recreation, and the ability to consume mass-produced goods. Military leaders in Vietnam,
like cultural elites in civilian life, struggled to reconcile their own values and expectations
of war with those of the younger generation. Ultimately, they capitulated to soldiers’
demands out of fear that troop morale—already damaged by inequities in the draft and in
military assignments—might collapse and imperil the war effort. As a result, the U.S.
military abandoned the concept of citizen-soldiers embracing their patriotic duty in favor
of a new model: soldiers-for-hire grudgingly fulfilling their service to the state. In the
process, the soldiers themselves developed antagonisms for one another as the lavish
American war machine created its own caste system of well-fed, well-protected rearward
personnel who were deeply resented by beleaguered combat troops struggling for their
very survival.
Casting the American way of war in this light is uncomfortable, accounting for
the public’s desire to remember Vietnam in terms of heroism and sacrifice. The combat
memory of the war, embodied in literature, popular media, and commemorative sites like
the Wall in Washington, DC, belies the true nature of most Americans’ service in
Vietnam. Vietnam veterans themselves abetted the conflation of “Vietnam” with
“combat” when they closed ranks after the war to demand recognition from an indifferent
public and compensation from a miserly Veterans’ Administration. Above all, combat
persists in the public’s mind as the dominant experience of the war because it frames
veterans’ service in terms of traditional values like diligence and thrift. By casting
veterans’ service in this light, Americans may situate Vietnam on a comforting
continuum of heroic, nation-defining struggles that extends, in the public’s imagination at
least, from the snow-capped battlements of Valley Forge to the windswept deserts of the
Middle East.