I was born in 1968, I have no memory of the Vietnam War and my public education never touched on it. Perhaps the topic was too “hot” or controversial, or maybe the school year was just not long enough for history classes to cover it.My generation is the children of Vietnam veterans. I had friends whose father’s were vets. However, aside from the isolated black and white photograph or a shadow box full of ribbons hanging on the wall, one would never have known it. It went unspoken.
I spent my youth around service men but can only recall a few instances where personal experiences were discussed. A co-worker of my dad’s over for dinner, talking about his experiences as a helicopter pilot or maybe a couple of veterans talking after a softball game when the beer began to flow.
The only thing I am sure of about the Vietnam War is that veterans do not like to talk about it, particularly around non-veterans.
This perception is so strong that on a few occasions when veterans have talked to me about their experiences, my first thought is to doubt their authenticity.
So what was the effect of all this silence?
My generation’s perception of the war is dictated by the movies we watched. For me, the effect of these movies was to separate the Vietnam War from other wars even further.
Of course there is Apocalypse Now (1979), an amazingly memorable movie that is so surreal it is impossible to take literally. However, the problem with this movie is it is impossible not to have its images color your view.
First Blood (1982), Deer Hunter (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), although completely different kinds of movies, ironically all offer the clearest view of my generation’s perspective on the war. It reinforced the only experiences we had with the war, of the scruffy vet in fatigues, damaged and unable to fit into society. This is the only side of the war we had ever actually seen with our own eyes. Because we had never heard or seen veterans from other wars in this light, it served to separate Vietnam veterans further.
Platoon (1986) is probably the quintessential Vietnam War movie for my generation. It managed to pay respect to those who served but still showed the horror and madness of the war. However, you could say the whole point of the movie is to show how different the Vietnam War was from others.
Luckily, my education about the war went beyond Hollywood. Unfortunately, the books I read failed to clarify the picture. The only truth I discovered is that there is no definitive narrative of the war. Every author has their unique tale to tell. Some of the most memorable include; The Tunnels of Cu Chi by Tom Mangold, About Face by Col. David Hackworth, Vietnam: a history by Stanley Karnow, A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan and the fictional work The 13th Valley by John Del Vecchio.
The greatest disappointment in my education came when I took a college class entitled the Vietnam Experience, covering the war at home and abroad. Here I hoped all the disparate voices would at least be explained, if not woven into a single narrative. However the professor had his own story to tell and the class turned into a semester long indoctrination session.
In hindsight, perhaps it is too much to ask for a definitive narrative about something so controversial. Maybe the only way to look at it is just as a collection of individual perspectives.
If this is the case, the most transformative element in my education came when I met someone who was the child of Vietnamese immigrants. She didn’t resolve any of the larger questions nor give me that definitive narrative. However, now whenever I meet a veteran or discuss the war with someone, I think of her family’s experiences and what they fled from after the United States left Vietnam. Leaving all the larger questions aside, for me, they are what the war was about.
In the end, it does seem that something has been learned. If the steady stream of books from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts is any indication, veterans of those wars are not going to let their story be told by someone else. Many different voices are infinitely better than silence.
Nate Cushman
Sno-Isle Libraries
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