UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Patrick Hagopian

A penetrating account of the cultural politics surrounding the memorialization of the Vietnam War

A study of American attempts to come
to terms with the legacy of the Vietnam War, this book highlights the central role played by Vietnam veterans in shaping public memory of the war. Tracing the evolution of the image of the Vietnam veteran from alienated dissenter to traumatized victim to noble warrior, Patrick Hagopian describes how efforts to commemorate the war increasingly downplayed the political divisions it spawned in favor of a more unifying emphasis on honoring veterans and promoting national “healing.”

Veterans themselves contributed to this process by mobilizing in the early 1980s to create a national memorial dedicated to all Americans who fought and died in Southeast Asia. At the same time, President Ronald Reagan, after failing to convince the public that the war was a “noble cause,” seized upon the idea of “healing” as a way of reaffirming the value of military service and, by extension, countering the effects of the so-called Vietnam syndrome—the widespread fear that any assertive foreign policy initiative might result in “another Vietnam.” It was with this aim in view, Hagopian reveals, that the Reagan administration worked quietly behind the scenes to ensure that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial would be completed, despite strong conservative opposition to Maya Lin’s bold design.

Hagopian shows that the same emphasis on “healing” came into play in the creation of countless other Vietnam War memorials throughout the country. At many of these sites, the focus was on the psychic wounds believed to have been inflicted on returning vets by an ungrateful nation. Thus the dedication of state and local memorials became occasions not only for setting aside opposing views of the war and honoring those who served, but also for the performance of public rituals in which veterans were “welcomed home.”

“I have not seen a more careful or thorough treatment of memorialization of the Vietnam War. Hagopian goes way beyond the standard treatment of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in his use of sources, his very important treatment of the loaded concept of ‘healing,’ and his careful and sensitive study of other memorial projects. . . . This is an impeccably researched and gracefully written book.”

Edward Linenthal, author of Preserving Memory:
The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum

Patrick Hagopian is lecturer in American studies at Lancaster University.

American History / American Studies / Vietnam War
560 pp., 100 illus.
$49.95 cloth, ISBN 978-1-55849-693-4
June 2009

A volume in the series Culture, Politics, and the Cold War

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