Americans, notes Meredith Lair, have long thought of their soldiers as “plucky underdogs just barely making it through” (p. 22). And yet in both Vietnam and Iraq, the United States Forces “rain[ed]” so much devastation “down on their enemies” that they wrought unprecedented horrors (p. 21). In Vietnam between 1961 and 1972, 2 million Vietnamese were killed, compared to 58,000 Americans; and in Iraq during March and April of 2003, between “10,000 and 45,000” Iraqis were killed, compared to 139 Americans (p. 22). Given America's status as a military superpower, why do Americans insist on viewing their soldiers as outmatched?
In this excellent book, Lair explores the distance between myth and fact in US war-making. Of special interest is the consumerist plenty that accompanied American troops to Vietnam and Iraq. Whereas most popular American accounts of US military activity focus on suffering and bravery, America's operations in Vietnam and Iraq had high levels of recreation and prosperity. American soldiers, of course, experienced very real traumas, including death, in Vietnam and Iraq. And yet, the majority of soldiers in these operations served not in combat but in support. In Vietnam, only 25 per cent of troops saw combat, and in Iraq, even smaller numbers did. Most troops, in fact, were rearguard personnel, derisively referred to by combat soldiers in Vietnam as REMFs (Rear Echelon Motherfuckers) and in Iraq as Fobbits (“Hobbits” in Forward Operating Bases). Support personnel had relatively high living standards, a privilege much resented by combat troops.
By 1971, according to Lair, the US military was operating “one of the largest department stores in the world”, most of whose profits came from sales to US soldiers in Vietnam (p. 165). Vietnamese civilians and American personnel alike staffed bases’ postal exchange stores, or “PXs”; these were supplied by the Pacific Exchange, an American military corporation. The PXs varied in size from small to enormous, and they sold American brands of soda, beer, snacks, books, clothing, televisions, stereos, and cameras. Supplementing the PX. were vast recreational programs. By the time that America pulled out of Vietnam in 1972, the US had built hundreds of basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts on its bases, together with swimming pools, softball and football fields, golf courses, archery ranges, and movie theatres. These facilities, along with open mess halls, five-course buffet dinners, and beachside watersports, meant that many troops experienced their tours in Vietnam as a time of leisure and consumption. In Iraq, a somewhat similar, though perhaps less extravagant, situation existed.
Not only does Lair document the abundance that prevailed in Vietnam, she inquires into the significance of such plenty. For many US personnel, the purposes behind the Vietnam operation were unclear. Without a strong cause around which to rally, some began to feel that their country had robbed them of opportunities to become true war heroes. For these men, the abundance that characterized the war zone was hollow compensation for what seemed, to them, a lack of legitimacy.
Other troops, however, reveled in the abundance of the “Nam”. The US military's endorsement of consumption, expressed not only through retail and recreation facilities but also through Rest & Relaxation (R & R) leaves, encouraged US personnel to adopt consumerist orientations toward their tours. Cameras were soldiers’ most common consumer purchase, and many troops documented every aspect of their time in Vietnam, from beach vacations to horrific war scenes, including piled-up corpses of Viet Cong soldiers, on some of which American soldiers climbed and posed (p. 216). This latter form of photography, Lair argues, indicated some Americans’ desires to capture what they perceived as the horrible authenticity of war, an authenticity which was denied to them by their rearguard positions and high living standards. It also demonstrated an objectification of the Vietnamese, one which was replicated in other leisure activities.
Vietnamese women were particularly commodified, with American soldiers paying for both maid and sexual services. Some troops had Vietnamese girlfriends who exchanged sex for evenings out and consumer goods, but even more paid Vietnamese women for sex outright, viewing unofficial military brothels, or “spas”, as perks of service. Some even referred to R & R as “Rape and Run” (p. 207). In this context of soldierly entitlement, it was nearly impossible for Vietnamese women to bring forward rape and paternity suits. The US military, notes Lair, was more concerned about protecting its troops than it was about assisting “the Vietnamese mothers and daughters they had come to save from Communism” (p. 207).
American consumerism had other consequences, too. Soldiers’ spending in Vietnam drove up inflation and inspired the black market. Moreover, the obvious differences in living conditions between American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians created resentments, inspiring some South Vietnamese to become sympathetic to communism. In Iraq, similar resentments brewed. Whereas many Iraqi civilians experienced hunger, power blackouts, and lack of clean water on a daily basis, soldiers on American bases were always well served with food, power, and water. Indeed, so bored with the five-course meals served in military cafeterias did some US troops become that they spent their earnings on pizza and hamburgers, always available in the bases’ fast food outlets.
Given the negative impact of high living standards abroad, why does the US military insist on sending abundance to war? The answer rests in the changing circumstances of American war-making. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Americans’ involvements overseas have changed dramatically. For most Americans, US involvement in World Wars I and II was justified: Germany was threatening world democracy; it had to be stopped. The rationale for newer American offensives, however, is more murky. Equally important, America's style of warfare has become almost completely automated. For these reasons, argues Lair, America has now adopted a “comfort-for-morale” strategy (p. 20). In this new schema, the US military has replaced opportunities for nobility and heroism with ones for tourism and consumption.
Armed with Abundance is a ground-breaking book, one that brings together consumer and military historiography in fruitful ways. Lair calls for increased awareness of the abundance which accompanies America to war, and demonstrates how displays of American economic prowess abroad affect the morale of the foreign civilians that the US is ostensibly trying to empower. Armed with Abundance also traces the history of a powerful American narrative, that of the plucky and outmatched soldier, and shows how this narrative enables the world's greatest superpower to continue marching to war even as it wreaks unprecedented destruction. Armed with Abundance offers consumer and military historians important new avenues to explore, and it does so with the panache of a meticulous researcher and talented writer.
