The Vietnam War in

American Cultural
Memory
Oliver Schantz
HIST 2166
Introduction to Cultural
Memory
What is cultural memory?
➔ Interpretation of shared events and experiences
➔ Informs national identity and what it means to be part of a larger
cultural whole
◆ A way for people to understand their relationship to the
collective
➔ A way of defining the meaning of what is being remembered
◆ Takes snippets of information ways that fit with the
understandings of the people doing the remembering
➔ Often differs from factual histories
➔ Forms through shared discourse – media, education, politics
◆ Relates, incorporates, and generalizes individuals’ experiences
Forming Cultural Memory
The United States has a complicated cultural memory of the
Vietnam War because the war challenged many of the things
that were central to many Americans’ understanding of their
country.

The United States formed, processed, and negotiated its

memory of the Vietnam War through:
➔ Media interpretations and icons
➔ Defining veterans’ role within cultural memory
➔ Defining the anti-war movement’s role within cultural
memory
➔ Reinterpreting the legacy of the Vietnam War
Forming Cultural Memory:
In Media
➔ Media transmits and develops cultural memory
◆ Shared pool of information
◆ Shared presentation

➔ Television coverage of the war gave a sense of

participation and connection

➔ Photos became iconic and separate from their full

context
◆ Blame passed to photojournalism for U.S. loss
Forming Cultural Memory:
In Media
➔ The generations too young to remember the Vietnam
War in real time rely on circulated depictions as part of
our understanding
➔ Movies are a popular way of telling stories about the war
◆ Reversing aggression – depicting American soldiers
being brutalized
◆ Not unique to Vietnam – WWII movies established a
genre about moral wars
Forming Cultural Memory:
Understanding Veterans
➔ National discomfort around the Vietnam
War impacts the acknowledgement of
veterans
◆ Undefined and unacknowledged
role in homecoming
◆ Later source of myths about the
Vietnam War era
➔ No national acknowledgement or
recognition rituals for servicemen
returning from Vietnam
“Within the historically
traumatic event of the
Vietnam War, trauma can
be seen and heard in the
image of the Vietnam
Veteran…He is a symbol
of a history that America
struggles to reconcile.” -
Christina D. Weber
Forming Cultural Memory:
Understanding Veterans
➔ The valorized image of Vietnam veterans is relatively
recent
◆ Unflattering media depictions as violent and
addicted to drugs
➔ Following the homecoming rituals following the end of the
Iran Hostage Crisis, many reexamined the homecomings
of Vietnam veterans and a desire for the
acknowledgement of veterans as a form of national
healing emerged
➔ Remembering the war by recognizing its veterans fit into
a larger way of reimagining the war
◆ National healing by honoring military service
required a narrow image of Vietnam veterans
Forming Cultural Memory:
Characterizing an Era
➔ Memory of the anti-war movement separates it from the
civil rights movement and from veterans
◆ Part of depoliticizing veterans in memory
◆ Part of remembering activism of the 1960s as
separate and specific to a decade
➔ Domestic instability heightened the stakes of the
questions brought up by the Vietnam War
◆ Human and political rights movements like the civil
rights movement called the U.S. concept of its
equality into question on a national level while the
war introduced questions about U.S. benevolence
abroad
Reinterpreting the Vietnam
War
➔ Changing understanding of the
United States left a gulf between
the pre-war national identity and
imagining the post-war identity
◆ Revise, explain, or return to
the pre-war national identity
as both benevolent and a
military power
➔ Impacted all members of the
nation
◆ Deliberation over how, when,
and why the U.S. should
intervene shadowed foreign
policy decisions
“During the Vietnam War a
growing number of American
questioned the version of
national history so vividly
enshrined in high school
textbooks of the 1950s – the
idea that the United States
was a peace-loving nation
that had ‘accepted’ world
‘leadership’ only with the
greatest reluctance and only
to help other peoples secure
the blessings of liberty.” -
Christian G. Appy
Reinterpreting the Vietnam
War
➔ Following the economic and social stagnation of the Carter
presidency, Reagan appealed to an interest in redeveloping an
image of American power and influence
◆ Required a reinterpretation of the Vietnam War
➔ Reagan formalized and legitimized a way of remembering the
war that imagined veterans as inherently heroic but maligned
and criticism of the war a dishonor to veterans
◆ Understanding opposition to the war as opposition to
American soldiers redirects attention away from the
government’s relationship with veterans
● Focuses memorialization on practices for honoring
individuals
Sites of Memory
➔ There are many memorials to the
Vietnam War and to its veterans
◆ Most prominent due to its
location among other
national monuments is the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in
Washington D.C.
● Explicitly apolitical and
focused on recognizing
all American veterans,
according to the
Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Fund
Sites of Memory
➔ The Vietnam Veterans Memorial succeeds in remembering
individuals, but it also contributes to the form of cultural memory
that emphasizes the national shame of not initially honoring
veterans rather than shame of the war itself
◆ Instability of wartime and post-war national identity required
that cultural memory foreground American loss without
requiring a shared resolution of why and how the U.S. went to
war
 Image and Quote Bibliography
Adams, Eddie. Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief. 2013. Photograph. The Nam Project.
https://thenamproject.com/photographs/.

Appy, Christian G. American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity. New York, New York: Penguin, 2015.

Browne, Malcolm. The Burning Monk. Photograph. The Nam Project. Saigon, June 2013.
https://thenamproject.com/photographs/.

Filo, John. Mary Ann Vecchio Kneeling over Jeffrey Miller. Photograph. The Pulitzer Prizes. Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970.
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/john-paul-filo.

United States National Park Service. View of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Looking West toward the Washington Monument.
Photograph. U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Washington D.C., n.d.
https://www.cfa.gov/about-cfa/design-topics/national-memorials/vietnam-veterans-memorial.

Ut, Nick. Children Running from a Napalm Attack. 1972. Photograph. Time Magazine. https://time.com/vietnam-photos/.

Weber, Christina D. Social Memory and War Narratives: Transmitted Trauma among Children of Vietnam War Veterans.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

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