In honor of Memorial Day, and at my aunt Lil's request, I am posting an essay that I wrote during my first semester at George Mason (dated October 5, 2002) for my America in the 1960s class. The assignment involved synthesizing primary and secondary sources to answer a historical question regarding the Vietnam veteran.
Why was the Vietnam veteran perceived as uniquely troubled and scorned? The media was responsible for the creation of this image. The media used short-term problems the Vietnam veterans were faced with as a backdrop. Long-term problems that were later employed, by the media, gave new dimension to this image. This image was on display far too long after public sentiment had already been swayed of its own accord.
The media compounded and distorted what inevitably were short-term problems giving them the appearance that they were long-term problems that extended to all Vietnam veterans. The print media quickly latched on to the fact that 12.4% of returning Vietnam veterans aged 20-24 were jobless. This was compared to the national unemployment rate of the time, which was 6%. The television media also focused on jobless vets, most especially their protests. Popular perception conformed to this image. O'Brien and the main character in his story didn't have trouble finding jobs and they were not the only exceptions. The television media, in specific, pointed out that Vietnam soldiers and veterans were additionally plagued with a drug epidemic. Despite studies that showed their drug usage was comparable to that of civilians, this component nonetheless also became imbued in the national conscience as a result of the media's liberal use of fact. Countless articles in the print media insisted that the Vietnam veterans had not been welcomed home. In O'Brien's piece, Speaking of Courage, Norman Bowker didn't want fanfare in honor of his return and, according to Dean's essay; he is not the only Vietnam veteran who felt that way. Books like First Blood (Morrell, 1972) reinforced this collective image that was readily accepted by a majority of the American people.
President Ford declared an unequivocal end to the Vietnam era and the media seemingly discarded the image it had created of Vietnam veterans being uniquely troubled and scorned now that all of the short-term problems were successfully resolved. About the same time the media at large had dropped this subject, Bowker wrote his letter to O'Brien. This letter later became the basis for O'Brien's short story. In this letter, Bowker explained that he wanted to talk about his problems, but just could not. This was due to the popular effect of the media. They had created an archetypal Vietnam veteran and Bowker became a victim of it. Society had come to suspect all Vietnam veterans were damaged goods, and certainly Bowker was to some extent damaged, but by the time the media was finished with him and other Vietnam veterans (temporarily, anyway) he thought himself unrecoverable and ended his own misery. In a sense it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. What is particularly interesting about this story is that Bowker and O'Brien were involved in the war together and their lives ended up very differently.
When the long-term problems of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Agent Orange, and a supposed high rate of suicide in Vietnam veterans began to surface, the media conveniently dug the old image out of the trash. The majority of these long-term problems were thought to have stemmed directly from the old sentiment that these heroes had not been honored properly. Old myths certainly reinforced this image of Vietnam veterans not receiving the attention they deserved. The Hollywood media portrayed veterans of other wars as having received more fanfare upon their arrival back home than did veterans of the Vietnam War. The problem thus re-entered the national conscience as more of an effect of the media's renewed interest than anything else and the populous again scrambled to rectify this problem.
Despite all that was done over the years to atone for the Vietnam veterans' plight, the media still continued to portray them as uniquely troubled and scorned individuals. In 1980 and 1981, conceivably when the film version of First Blood was being put together, Hollywood was still trying to present the old view that not only were we not paying proper respect to the Vietnam veterans, but also that we were in effect pushing them increasingly further astray from readjustment by not doing so. The media was slow in keeping up with popular sentiment. Ten years separated the publication of the novel First Blood from its movie counterpart's release. It was as if they took the old story from 1972 and in 1982, when the film was released, substituted a newer (but not current or representative) stereotype for the old.
When the plight of the Vietnam veteran had taken hold as a matter of national concern the media did much to reinforce and embellish stereotypes that had originated from within it. The media distorted problems they brought into public awareness and made them seem as though they afflicted all Vietnam veterans alike, when it was more the exception than the rule. After the end of the national campaign to atone for the Vietnam veterans' maltreatment the media was still stuck on its old archetype. In effect, the media was still feasting on its own myth when the public had already excused themselves from the dinner table.
Dean, Eric T. Jr. "Myth of the Troubled and Scorned Vietnam Veteran."Journal of American Studies 26.1 (1992) 59-47ISSN: 00218858.
O'Bien, Tim. "Speaking of Courage," Things They Carried Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence (1990) 157-182 ISBN: 03955198X.