A Bright Shining Why

When thinking about the war in Vietnam, my mind usually goes to pop culture depictions.  Movies like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now (and many others), the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Doors, etc. have had an outsized influence in the minds of people too young to have lived through the actual war.

For good or ill, pop culture has a large influence on the way we perceive things.  It is also interesting to note the differences between how certain conflicts like WWII are presented with respect to the war in Vietnam.  For instance, have you ever seen a WWII movie where U.S. soldiers are the bad guys? Most of the depiction of WWII soldiers is of brave, young men voluntarily rushing into the jaws of death to free the world.  Contrast this with how Vietnam is usually presented in movies, music, books, etc. 

One clear difference is most, if not all, Vietnam media have a certain degree of protest to them.  While Platoon is a fantastic movie that shows the ambiguity of soldiers at war, it is far from a positive depiction of the soldiers who fought there.  I would imagine there are very few people who have seen Apocalypse Now, Causalities of War, or The Deer Hunter and thought to themselves “man, I wish I was there!”

Noted bullshitter Gen. Willian Westmoreland who once famously said “Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.”

Who knew that the so-called “fog of war” referred to the Army’s fervent wish that they could censor the war in Vietnam to put it into its best possible light for the people back at the home front. I have always found it hard to understand what exactly happened during the Vietnam War.  I was reading a book called Vulgar Tongues, a book about the origins of various slang words and phrases.  In the section on slang developed from war, there was an entry about Vietnam.  According to the author, one of the many terms used to describe a totally fucked up situation was “fugazi.”  Of course, anyone familiar with the early 80s DC punk scene will recognize that rocker Ian MacKaye named his band after this term. 

With my interest somewhat piqued by this, I looked for where the author of Vulgar Tongues got his source information.  Turns out, it was from a from a book written by Mark Baker titled “Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There.”  The book, written in 1981, purports to the be the result of over 150 interviews the author conducted with the men and women who were soldiers, nurses, doctors, or other type of participant.

I was excited to read this book.  I thought it would provide a real-world, grounded depiction of the Vietnam veteran, as opposed to the caricature we often get from characters like Rambo.  Opening the book, the tone is set almost immediately as it becomes clear that the author doesn’t provide any details about the person who is speaking.  All the interviews are presented anonymously.  Very anonymously. Understandably, the name of the person telling their story isn’t provided.  Less understandable is why no other supporting details are provided.  Some details trickle out in each of the chapters, but there is little information about the rank of the individual, where they were from, which branch they served in, or any other identifiable information.

I understand about the need to maintain the privacy of the people being interviewed.  On the one hand, total privacy can ensure that interviewees can be honest and not fear any repercussions.  On the other hand, the author had to anticipate that the veracity of the claims made in the book would be challenged since there is no way to independently verify them.

This certainly clouded my view of the book without even reading one of the chapters.  When I did start reading, some other problems became apparent. Many of the stories had a stereotypical feel to them.  Page after page of Doors tapes, smoking hash, burning down VC villages, and making ear necklaces as a gruesome souvenir.  Was this truly the shared experience of soldiers in Vietnam?  Was everyone involved in their own personal My-Lai massacre? 

While I am not claiming that the book is a work of fiction, it certainly does have the deck stacked against it.  The lack of any identifiable characteristics makes the stories suspect.  The transition to “writing” in a black voice is also somewhat uncomfortable.  If no one is being identified, why is it necessary to identify black and Hispanic soldiers by writing their stories in a specific patois?

One thing that I did find surprising was the authors deft handling of what now would be called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Many of the stories discuss the difficulty of the adjustment soldiers faced when returning home.  For example, I always assumed someone suffering from PTSD would be a bit skittish around loud noises, the book tells several stories however, of the soldiers not being unable to handle all the quiet.  Soldiers had spent the last year (or more) of their lives in a warzone where the din of rifle fire was the backdrop.  Upon arriving home, they could never quite believe that the silence they were now experiencing was unlikely to be broken with a firefight.

All in all, I don’t regret reading this oral history of Vietnam, but can’t say that I was moved by it.  The lack of information about who was telling their story took away some of the personal investment you would normally have. 

While Vietnam did seem to be an unjust war, it is important to always remember the men and women who fought there were not often enthused to be in Vietnam themselves.  They deserved better than they got when arriving back home.  The men and women who fought in the war were forgotten about when the war ended and were looked at as mere pawns during its conduct.  A US senator famously visited Gen. Westmoreland in Vietnam and was greeted by the General’s optimistic appraisal that his war of attrition was working fabulously, and we were “killing them at a rate of 10 to one.” In a rare moment of candor from a senator, he replied “General, the people back home aren’t interested in the ten, but they sure care a whole lot about that one.”