Some Psychological Effects of Changing Public Attitudes on U.S. Vietnam Veterans

2018 ◽  
pp. 257-270
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Dohrenwend ◽  
Eleanor Murphy ◽  
Thomas J. Yager ◽  
Stephani L. Hatch
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Substantial Effect ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Memory Distortions ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the substantial effect that changing public attitudes toward the Vietnam war had both on veterans’ own attitudes toward the war and on demoralization in the U.S. armed forces toward the end of the war. In addition, as hypothesized, veterans’ negative attitudes at the time of their own entrances and exits from Vietnam, and negative changes in veterans’ initially favorable attitudes, were related to the period of the war in which they served and positively associated with demoralization. Because measurement of veterans’ attitudes toward the war at their entrance and exit occurred long after their service in Vietnam, it is possible that memory distortions played a role in these findings. However, the data indicate that retrospective bias cannot account for the differences in declining favorable and increasing negative attitudes toward the war related to veterans’ time of war entry.

A Testament to a Dying Vision of America

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-295
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Musiał
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
National League ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
North Vietnam ◽  
The U.S

This article is a review of The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home (2019) by Heath Hardage Lee. The book presents a popular history of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, an organisation that advocated for the rights of American prisoners of war captured by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

In the Crossfire or the Crosshairs? Norms, Civilian Casualties, and U.S. Conduct in Iraq

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin H. Kahl
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Military Culture ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

The belief that U.S. forces regularly violate the norm of noncombatant immunity (i.e., the notion that civilians should not be targeted or disproportionately harmed during hostilities) has been widely held since the outset of the Iraq War. Yet the evidence suggests that the U.S. military has done a better job of respecting noncombatant immunity in Iraq than is commonly thought. It also suggests that compliance has improved over time as the military has adjusted its behavior in response to real and perceived violations of the norm. This behavior is best explained by the internalization of noncombatant immunity within the U.S. military's organizational culture, especially since the Vietnam War. Contemporary U.S. military culture is characterized by an “annihilation-restraint paradox”: a commitment to the use of overwhelming but lawful force. The restraint portion of this paradox explains relatively high levels of U.S. adherence with the norm of noncombatant immunity in Iraq, while the tension between annihilation and restraint helps to account for instances of noncompliance and for why Iraqi civilian casualties from U.S. operations, although low by historical standards, have still probably been higher than was militarily necessary or inevitable.

Covert Warriors for Hire

2018 ◽  
pp. 86-117
Author(s):  
Kyle Burke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Special Operations ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
The World ◽  
Reagan Era ◽  
The U.S

In the late 1970s, a new set of Americans took up the dream of a global anticommunist revolution. Many were high-ranking CIA and military officers who had been forced from their jobs by the Ford and Carter administrations in the wake of the Vietnam War. As Congress passed new laws constraining the United States’ clandestine services, these ex-soldiers and spies argued that the state’s deteriorating covert war-making abilities signaled a broader decline in U.S. power. To remedy that, retired covert warriors such as U.S. Army General John Singlaub, a thirty-year veteran of special operations, entered the world of conservative activism, which promised both steady pay and power in retirement. Working in the shadow of the state, they sought to revitalize a form of combat to which they had dedicated their lives. Some even started private military firms to fill in for the U.S. government. Meanwhile, hundreds of American men, mostly disgruntled Vietnam veterans, sought new lives as mercenaries, first in Southeast Asia and then in Rhodesia and Angola. In the late 1970s, these two camps of revanchist Americans—retired covert warriors and aspiring mercenaries—established patterns of paramilitarism that would transform the anticommunist international in the Reagan era.

Surviving Vietnam

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Dohrenwend ◽  
Nick Turse ◽  
Thomas J. Yager ◽  
Melanie M. Wall
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Impact

Surviving Vietnam: Psychological Consequences of the War for U.S. Veterans presents a unique combination of historical material, military records of combat exposure, clinical diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and interviews with representative samples of veterans surveyed both a little over decade after the war’s conclusion in the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), and again nearly four decades after the war’s conclusion in the National Vietnam Veterans Longitudinal Study (Longitudinal Study). It focuses specifically on veterans’ war-zone experiences and the development in some of PTSD, a relatively new and controversial diagnosis. The monograph begins with a brief history of the Vietnam war that provides context for the discussions of the relevance to their mental health outcomes of the severity of veterans’ exposure to combat, their personal involvement in harm to civilians and prisoners, their race/ethnicity, and their military assignments. It discusses nurses’ experiences in Vietnam and the psychological impact on families of veterans’ chronic war-related PTSD. The monograph then examines factors affecting surveyed veterans’ post-war readjustment, including the effects of changing public attitudes toward the war and the veterans’ own appraisals of the impact of the war on their lives after the war. It concludes by discussing the policy implications of its research findings.

The Battle of An Khe Pass (1972): The Implications of the South Korean Army’s Pyrrhic Victory in the Vietnamization Phase of the Vietnam War

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-109
Author(s):  
Hosub Shim*
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
The South ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Passive Attitude ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Pyrrhic Victory

The Battle of An Khe Pass (1972) was a Pyrrhic victory. The South Korean forces’ conduct in this battle neither frustrated the enemy’s purpose nor minimized Korean sacrifices; and the combination of the Korean’s passive attitude and the pressure to act quickly resulted in poor performance and heavy casualties. This battle revealed the Korean forces’ inherent problems and heightened their pre-existing frictions with the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnamization period (1969–1973). Yet, the result of the battle created the necessary circumstances to justify the Koreans’ further presence in Vietnam. Based on extensive research of various U.S. and South Korean archives, this article explores the Battle of An Khe Pass in the context of the Vietnamization phase of the Vietnam War.

“Mourning a Loss: Conservative Support for Ngo Dinh Diem”

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-284
Author(s):  
Seth Offenbach
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Great Hope ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Ngo Dinh Diem ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. conservative movement in the mid-20th Century argued that the United States needed to continuously get tougher in the fight against communism worldwide. It remained supportive of U.S. efforts throughout the Vietnam War. However, in the period immediately preceding Americanization of the war in 1965, conservatives were uncertain about the outcome of any fighting in Vietnam. Specifically, they claimed that optimism for the Republic of Vietnam was lost with the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. Without Diem, conservatives claimed, the Vietnam War was likely lost before it began. This article discusses how Diem went from a barely talked-about anti-Communist ally prior to his death to becoming posthumously the last great hope for Southeast Asia. Conservatives argued that without Diem, the only way the United States would be able to stop Communist expansion in Indochina would be to engage in a massive aerial bombing campaign and find a regional partner to deploy troops. Had he survived, this might not have been necessary. Learning why and how conservatives supported Diem after his death helps us better understand how conservatives reacted to the Vietnam War once Americanization began in 1965.

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