¹ For one of the first complete presentations on the television news of the image of the Vietnam veteran as a neglected and scorned individual, see “Vietnam Veterans' Dilemma, Part 1,” which aired on the CBS Evening News on 4 April 1973. The report contained the elements: (a) unemployment, (b) inadequate GI Bill, (c) betrayed by US government, (d) psychological problems, (e) no welcome from civilians, (f) war fought by the poor.

² See ABC Evening News, 30 April 1985, in which one veteran, reflecting on the hostile homecoming he received, said that a World War II veteran accused him of losing the war. Another veteran said that the first girl he saw spat on him, and a third Vietvet related: “I feel betrayed, let down.” In “Heroes Without Honor Face the Battle at Home,” Time, 23 04 1979, 31Google Scholar, Vietvet Alan Fitzgerald is quoted: “‘When I came back and landed at San Francisco airport with 200 others, we were spit on and kicked at.’”

³ Friedman, Matthew J., M.D., Ph.D., “Post-Vietnam Syndrome: Recognition and Management,” Psychosomatics, 22, 11 (1981), 931–43CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Bourne, Peter G., “The Viet Nam Veteran: Psychosocial Casualties,” Psychiatry in Medicine, 3, 1 (1972), 23–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

⁴ “The War and the Arts; There Has Been a Cultural Turnaround on the Subject of Vietnam,” New York Times Magazine, 31 03 1985, 51.Google Scholar

⁵ The media programs or articles analyzed by this paper are as follows: (a) all articles on Vietnam veterans appearing in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature from 1963 to May of 1988 (220+ articles); (b) all articles from the New York Times relating to Vietnam veterans from 1963 to August of 1988 (156+ articles); (c) selected articles on Vietnam veterans appearing in the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times from 1965 to 1988; (d) all programs on Vietnam veterans in the Vanderbilt Television News Abstracts from the beginning of this series (which covers the television news on ABC, CBS, and NBC) in August, 1968 to September, 1988 (381 programs). In addition, I viewed approximately 75 of these television news programs at the Vanderbilt Television News Archives in Nashville, TN, to check the accuracy of the abstracts (which I found to be quite accurate).

⁶ “Veterans Find Jobs Faster,” New York Times, 3 05 1968, 35: 7Google Scholar; “The Re-Entry Problem of the Vietvets,” New York Times, 7 05 1967, VI, 23Google Scholar: “But the Vietnam veteran may be lured instead into the labor force; even in an economy which has softened somewhat, he is much sought after by business and industry…since he cannot be drafted!” (emphasis added).

⁷ “Joy in Seattle; Troops Withdrawn from Viet Nam,” Time, 18 07 1969, 15 A.Google Scholar

⁸ “Invisible Veterans,” Nation, 3 06 1968, 723–26.Google Scholar

⁹ Knightley, Phillip, The First Casualty (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1975), 393Google Scholar, notes that an outcry in the United States followed the Mylai revelations: Time called it “an American tragedy,” and Newsweek, ran a headline “A Single Incident in a Brutal War Shocks the American Conscience.”

¹⁰ Castelli, Jim, “Society and the Vietnam Veteran,” Catholic World, 01 1971, 188.Google Scholar

¹¹ “Returning Heroes Get the Cold Shoulder,” Business Week, 31 07 1971, 46–48.Google Scholar

¹² “Home from the War,” New Republic, 30 01 1971, 11Google Scholar; “Why Vietnam Veterans Feel Like Forgotten Men,” U.S. News and World Report, 29 03 1971, 42–44Google Scholar; “Job Placement Lags for Vietnam Vets,” U.S. News and World Report, 11 10 1971, 102Google Scholar; “The Plight of Viet Nam Era Vets,” Time, 27 12 1971, 57Google Scholar; “The Vietnam Vet: ‘No One Gives a Damn,’” Newsweek, 29 03 1971, 27–28Google Scholar +. See NBC, 6 11 1970Google Scholar, noting 80,000 jobless blacks in Chicago; and NBC, 9 05 1972Google Scholar, which reported that “thousands of jobless Vietnam War vets” attended a job fair which was condemned as a publicity stunt.

¹³ “Jobless Problem for Ex-GI's Eases,” New York Times, 15 01 1973, 61Google Scholar, citing the fact that the unemployment rate of Vietvets in the 20–29 years age group had dropped from 11% in 1971 to 5.5% in 1973, comparable to the 5.2% rate of all civilians.

¹⁴ “Veterans Still Fight Vietnam Drug Habits; Heroin Use, Stressed by U.S., Is Only Part of the Problem Plaguing Ex-G.I.'s,” New York Times, 2 06 1974, section 1:4, 46.Google Scholar See also Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, The Vietnam Drug User Returns (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 29, viiGoogle Scholar, which determined heroin use at 34% amongst a sample of returning American soldiers in 1971, and estimated general narcotics use amongst Army enlisted men in this group at 45%.

¹⁵ Legacies of Vietnam: Comparative Adjustment of Veterans and Their Peers (Washington, D.C.: A study prepared for the Veterans' Administration submitted to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs U.S. House of Representatives, 1981), 371Google Scholar, notes: “Nonveterans, era veterans, and Vietnam veterans, whether exposed to combat or not, consume drugs at virtually identical rates when compared to men of similar social background living in the same area.” See also The Vietnam Drug User Returns, viii.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Reston, James, “The Forgotten Veterans,” New York Times, 2 06 1974, section IV, 21.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Today's Health, 06 1971, 54–56+Google Scholar; Newsweek, 29 03 1971, 27–28+Google Scholar; and Redbook, 05 1973, 94–95+.Google Scholar

¹⁸ “As Johnny Comes Marching Home,” Time, 11 01 1971, 58–59Google Scholar; and “When Johnnie Comes Marching Home,” America, 24 03 1973, 255–56.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Regarding drug programs, see “What the U.S. Is Doing For Ex-GI Addicts,” U.S. News and World Report, 27 03 1972, 81Google Scholar, which pointed out that the VA had launched the largest drug-treatment program the nation had ever seen; for increases in the GI bill, see “Nixon Seeks 8% Increase in School Aid to Veterans; Congress Leaders Say Proposed Rise Is Too Small – President Also Calls for Higher Pensions for Ex-G.I.'s” New York Times, 29 01 1974, 14.Google Scholar Regarding the Johnson matter, see NBC news on 22 04 1974.Google Scholar

²⁰ NBC, 26 02 1974Google Scholar; CBS, 28 10 1974.Google Scholar

²¹ “Jobless Viet Vets: Anger Clouds Facts,” Chicago Tribune, 6 11 1977, section I, 18.Google Scholar See also “Hearings on Employment Programs for Veterans,” (Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Education, Training and Employment of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979)Google Scholar; and “GI Bill Improvement Act of 1977,” (Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Health and Readjustment of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977)Google Scholar, and “Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment,” (Hearings Before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980).Google Scholar

²² The March issue of the Atlantic in 1978 was entitled “Soldiers of Misfortune; The Treatment of Vietnam Veterans Is a National Disgrace.”

²³ “Wounded Vietnam Vet on Hostage Adulation: ‘It's Damned Unfair,’” Washington Post, 31 01 1981, A-6-6.Google Scholar

²⁴ “The Vet Offensive,” New Republic, 1–8 08 1981, 23–25.Google Scholar

²⁵ NBC, 28 05 1979Google Scholar; ABC, 11 11 1979Google Scholar; and CBS, 26 04 1981.Google Scholar

²⁶ “New Yorkers Roar Thanks to Veterans,” New York Times, 8 05 1985, section I, 1.Google Scholar

²⁷ “Diverse Crowd is Unanimous in Homage to Vietnam Veterans,” Washington Post, 14 11 1982, A 18 aGoogle Scholar; ABC, 10 11 1982.Google Scholar

²⁸ “‘Just Don't Fit’; Stalking the Elusive ‘Tripwire Veteran,’” Harpers, 04 1985, 55–63.Google Scholar

²⁹ Legacies of Vietnam, 186.Google Scholar

³⁰ Myths and Realities: A Study of Attitudes Toward Vietnam Era Veterans (Report completed by Lou Harris for the Veterans' Administration and submitted to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980), xxxix, 39.Google Scholar

³¹ Fred Reed in the December issue of Harpers in 1980, wrote (p. 44)Google Scholar: “To many of us there, the war was the best time of our lives, almost the only time. We loved it because in those days we were alive, life was intense, the pungent hours passed fast over the central event of the age and the howling jets appeased the terrible boredom of existence.”

³² Goldsmith, William, M.D., and Cretekos, Constantine, M.D., “Unhappy Odysseys; Psychiatric Hospitalizations Among Vietnam Returnees,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 20 (1969), 82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Helzer, John E. et al. , “Depressive Disorders in Vietnam Returnees,” journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 163, 3 (1976), 180CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Sierles, F. S. et al. , “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Concurrent Psychiatric Illness: a Preliminary Report,” American Journal of Psychiatry (hereafter AJP), 140 (1983), 1177–79Google ScholarPubMed; Behar, D., “Configuration of Concurrent Illnesses in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder [letter],” AJP, 141 (1984), 1310–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁴ Wecter, Dixon, When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1944), 129, 144, 317Google Scholar; and Waller, Willard W., The Veteran Comes Back (New York: Dryden Press, 1944), 105.Google Scholar

³⁵ Willard Waller states (at 51): “War is full of horrors. Many soldiers carry with them into life after the war the memory of these jumbled emotions of fear and horror. For some, at least, these emotions are complicated by feelings of guilt.” For reports on World War II veterans, see Grinker, R. R., “Psychiatric Disorders in Combat Crews Overseas and in Returnees,” Medical Clinics of North America, 29 (1945), 729–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brill, Norman Q., M.D., and Beebe, Gilbert W., M.D., “Follow-Up Study of Psychoneuroses; Preliminary Report,” AJP, 108 (1951), 417–25CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed;

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³⁶ For World War I, see “Heroes For Sale” (1933), and “They Gave Him a Gun” (1937), the latter portraying a veteran turned into a killer by the war experience. For World War II, see Hirsch, Foster, The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1981), 21Google Scholar, noting the portrayal of veterans as “disoriented, shell-shocked, and violent.”

³⁷ Regarding World War II, see Fleming, Robert H., “Post Vietnam Syndrome: Neurosis or Sociosis?” Psychiatry, 48 (1985), 124CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, noting that there was only one major unit Victory Parade in World War II. Waller and Wecter note that most soldiers come home individually or in small groups and that the most satisfying reunion, often the only one that has real meaning for the veteran, is that with his immediate family.

³⁸ “The war and the Arts; There Has Been a Cultural Turnaround on the Subject of Vietnam,” New York Times Magazine, 31 03 1985, 51, 55Google Scholar; Phillips, Kevin, Post-Conservative America: People, Politics and Ideology in a Time of Crisis (New York: Random House, 1982), 165Google Scholar; and Heilbronn, Lisa M., “Coming Home a Hero; The Changing Image of the Vietnam Vet on Prime Time Television,” Journal of Popular Film and Television, 13 (1985), 1, 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ “The Vietnam-Veteran Blues,” New York Times, 29 03 1974, 35.Google Scholar

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⁴² The last veteran of the Revolutionary War, Bakeman, Daniel F., died on 5 04 1869Google Scholar, and the last Revolutionary War widow, Damon, Esther S., died on 11 11 1906.Google ScholarGlasson, William H., Federal Military Pensions in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), 93Google Scholar; statement, Clayton, 146–47.Google Scholar

⁴³ See Browning, Don, “Psychiatry and Pastoral Counseling: Moral Context or Moral Vacuum?” Christian Century, 6 02 1974, 158.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ “Vietnam – Will There Be a Collective Healing?” Center Magazine, 07/08 1981, 15.Google Scholar

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⁴⁶ Ibid., 321.

⁴⁷ Rosen, George, Madness in Society: Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Fleming, Robert H., “Post Vietnam Syndrome”Google Scholar notes that the borrowing of embellished “war stories” is regularly practiced.

⁴⁸ See Rothman, David J., The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 1971)Google Scholar; Scull, Andrew, “From Madness to Mental Illness: Medical Men as Moral Entrepreneurs,” European Journal of Sociology, 16 (1975), 219–61CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Fullinwider, S. P., “Neurasthenia: The Genteel Caste's Journey Inward,” Rocky Mountain Social Science Journal, n, 2 (1974), 1–9Google ScholarPubMed; and Sicherman, Barbara, “The Uses of a Diagnosis: Doctors, Patients, and Neurasthenia,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 32, 4 (1977), 33–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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⁵² The usual television coverage showed a Vietnam veteran in agony: “I started flashing back; I was in the Nam…; I burned a village to the ground and everyone in it…I need help” (CBS, 30 05 1979)Google Scholar; “We were made into weapons of war and then discarded” (CBS, 11 01 1984)Google Scholar; “I'm living the war just like I was there yesterday, I can't shake it” (ABC, 29 09 1987)Google Scholar; “They fought and struggled and came home to a public that didn't care…” (CBS, 12 05 1988).Google Scholar In the print media, however, dissenting views have been somewhat common, if not predominant. For instance, see Keegan, Anne, “GI's Vietnam Was Bittersweet Plum,” Chicago Tribune, 31 01 1983, a, 15 CGoogle Scholar: 1 (story of a Vietvet who was not assigned to combat and had a good time in Vietnam); “Victims of Our Noble Cause,” Progressive, 02 1983Google Scholar (calls the Vietvet obsession a “freak show”); and Reed, Fred, “Jello Writers,” Harper's, 12 1980 (recounts the excitement of the war zone, and ridicules the writers who couldn't begin to understand or put the experience in perspective).Google Scholar

⁵³ Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Boss, Davis R. B., Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Baritz, Loren, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 297.Google Scholar

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