| This study explores how ordinary Americans could be made to fight a brutal and immoral war, and explores the impact of that experience. I report on intensive life-history interviews with seven Vietnam-era veterans and one conscientious objector, covering their decisions about going into the military, the impact of military training, their experience of the war, and the unresolved issues the war left in their lives.;Military training was designed to transform civilians into soldiers. It assaulted and stripped away the civilian self, placed trainees in a regressive state of helplessness and dependence, built into them a pattern of instant obedience to authority, and habituated them to violence. The rewards and punishments of training's privilege system led them to cooperate in their own oppression and to collaborate in the oppression of others. Resistance was possible, but the army could often contain or co-opt it.;The war immersed the combat soldier in death; the technological soldier dealt out death at a distance; and soldiers at these extremes processed their responsibility for killing differently. Military racism depersonalized the Vietnamese; military bureaucracy depersonalized the GI as well. Combat intensified needs for intimacy, but the pain of losing friends led to emotional numbing.;Veterans left the war with a sense of loss and betrayal. They had lost friends, lost parts of themselves, lost faith in religion, the government, other people, themselves. They let themselves be sent to Vietnam in naive trust and found that trust broken; they may have failed their friends or themselves. American society's post-war denial of moral pain or responsibility for the war hindered veterans in mourning losses and working through repressed guilt and rage--and hinders the society in learning from its past and not repeating it.;Family, friends, school, church and mass media helped legitimize military service. The existence of the draft led young men to assume that they would end up in the military--or face prison. The military also drew young men in by promising to resolve normal developmental conflicts. |
