Militarized Freedoms

This chapter explores stories of Vietnamese Americans who came of age after the Vietnam War and currently serve in the U.S. armed forces during the War on Terror in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. These soldiers not only wanted to give back to their adopted country for their free lives as refugees fleeing the war but also to make up for America’s loss of Vietnam as well as the defeat of South Vietnam. From the oral histories, the chapter moves on to a major published literary memoir from U.S. Marine Quang X. Pham. Pham, a well-known public figure, talks about his confused life through losing his father, a South Vietnamese former pilot. From these oral and written texts, the chapter analyzes the thoughts of these “children of war” on wide-ranging issues such as migration, nation, family, and citizenship through the concept of “militarized freedom”—defined for these professionals as the sense of freedom (both political and personal) as shaped through their experiences and trauma with militarism. The Vietnamese American soldier encounters a moral dilemma that moves beyond a “Vietnam Syndrome,” an “American Syndrome,” where their professional obligations to American nation-building projects pulsate through their personal status as the living embodiment and physical reminders of America’s loss in South Vietnam.