When US soldiers returned from Vietnam in 1973 they did so in defeat, and even disgrace. America had been involved in the region since 1954, when the French colony fell to the North Vietnamese communist army. With the Cold War intensifying, fears of a domino effect, whereby one communist country triggered another, led to US intervention. With the support of the public, the US escalated its operations after 1965.
BODY COUNT
Unlike previous wars, Vietnam became the subject of large-scale news coverage. In 1968 there were about six hundred journalists of all nationalities there reporting on what appeared to be a never-ending bloodbath. The military drafted some 2.2 million Americans, at an average age of nineteen, who were given military training at boot camp, but who were not educated in the country’s complex history, culture, landscape and climate. Graphic images sent home were accompanied by daily statistics of military and civilian casualties, and a powerful anti-war movement began to take hold in America.
STIGMATISED
When the US finally “brought their boys back home” as the protesters called for, news began to come in that these men were far from being welcomed as heroes. Rumours circulated of people shouting and spitting at veterans, who were held responsible for civilian deaths and the government’s unpopular stance on the war. Many vets felt abandoned by the country they had fought for, as they suffered the physical and long-term psychological effects of war.
EMPATHY
In the decades that followed, heroin addiction and suicide were common among Vietnam veterans. Many initially refused to speak about their experiences. However, first-hand accounts began to appear just years after the war. Ron Kovic’s autobiography Born on the Fourth of July (1976) was turned into a movie in 1989. Other films, from Apocalypse Now (1979) to Rambo (1982-2019), Platoon (1986) to Full Metal Jacket (1987) all spoke of the war and its effects from the point of view of those who fought it.
NAM
In the late 1970s, college graduate Mark Baker conducted a series of interviews with dozens of men and women who had served in Vietnam. The resulting book Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There (1981) gave a voice to over one hundred and fifty lower-ranking infantry soldiers and military nurses who related their experiences of boot camp, war and homecoming. Speak Up met with Mark Baker on the 40th anniversary of the publication of the book. We began by asking him what was different about the Vietnam War compared to previous wars.
Mark Baker (American accent): The filter was gone. My father was a foot soldier on the island of Iwo Jima fighting the Japanese [during World War Two] and he never talked about his experience at all. Vietnam was the first time when the media and technology brought those wars into people’s living rooms. I remember seeing the news at night and the body counts and the clips of napalm blowing up and people marching. As people began to see how little was being accomplished, the less they liked it. When the Vietnam War was over we found ourselves in a less than honourable position. My father walked away as having won the war, and in Vietnam we did not.
START TALKING
The war claimed 58,000 American lives and an estimated two million Vietnamese lives (combatants and civilians). In addition, a further 75,000 US troops were severely disabled. After the war, a culture of silence prevailed among veterans amidst countless cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, an unrecognised condition before 1980. When Baker began his research, he promised his subjects that they would remain anonymous. He says he was astounded by their candour.
Mark Baker: I didn’t know what to expect when I started talking to these people. I never showed up with a list of questions. I would turn the tape recorder on, and they would start talking. Sometimes it became very difficult to listen. Even for them, they had buried so much of their own experience. So when they began to talk it was often like an emotional ambush, because suddenly these memories would come flooding back. They were so unpredictable and the conversation would change so dramatically. It was fascinating to me how idiosyncratic we all are.
UNPREPARED
While everyone’s experience was different, some things affected all the men involved, says Baker.
Mark Baker: I think that many of them found that the things that they thought were true and basic to being an American citizen and a man, the things that are related to the glory of war and victors and victims were much more complex and much more human than they had ever expected. Many of them felt as though, I believe, that the institutions, the schools and churches and politicians had not really prepared them for what they found to be the truth of being in a war. War strips away the veneer of civilisation and civility and makes people see the daily life and death numbers.
AUTHENTIC
Nam is not exactly history, Baker says, but it has a vital purpose.
Mark Baker: The reason I think the book is relevant forty years later is because you can get to know the people in it and experience things through their eyes, and that has a universal feel to it. It makes it relevant even today, because terrible things are still happening all over the world. We see terrorist attacks and local and regional conflicts everywhere. Our military intervention seems to be just as inadequate as it ever was.
CLASS AND CONFLICT
Vietnam has had many long-term effects. Historian Kathleen Belew recently sourced the American white supremacy movement in small groups of Vietnam veterans who felt betrayed by their leaders. Furthermore, some 23 per cent of Vietnam soldiers were black, a figure disproportionate to the 11 per cent African-American population. Baker says it is important to remember that those who went to war had few other choices in life.
Mark Baker: If you were middle class and going for [a] college education you could avoid the draft and so a lot of the people who got scooped up and sent to Vietnam were from the poorer, lower classes, without so much education and with fewer opportunities. I think that the Vietnam War was the beginning of some of the polarisation in politics, culture and society that we see now in the US. I think it was one of the first times in American history when a large majority of people began to doubt the media and what their leadership was telling them. And that has continued to be blown up by social media and the internet.