Re-Membering Vietnam: War, Trauma, and ''Scarring Over'' After '

Re-membering Vietnam Kim Servart Theriault 421 Re-membering Vietnam: War, Trauma, and ‘‘Scarring Over’’ After ‘‘The Wall’’ Kim Servart Theriault The era of the Vietnam War was one of the than the figural nationalism typical of war most tumultuous in American history. It was a memorials, that promotes interaction through the time that dismembered individuals, families, and names etched on its surface, reconciliation through much of the government and society—physically, the items visitors are instigated to leave there, and psychologically, and intellectually. The process of healing because it brings the subversive subject of addressing the Vietnam War has been helped the Vietnam War into the open. These character- along by distance and time, which have allowed istics have made The Wall effective, and a standard for historical analyses, but one of the main by which subsequent memorials of war or catas- catalysts for its reconciliation in American trophe are measured. cultural history has been the Vietnam Veterans When we remember Vietnam, whether the war Memorial wall. itself or the era that surrounds it, we bring up an This article is an analysis of how a wall, uneasy past. The controversy that was part of that something generally meant to separate, protect, history plagued the The Wall’s development, or keep people in or out, has become a cultural particularly the design itself, which was subjected phenomenon as an agent of healing. The Vietnam to revisions and compromise. The multitude of Veterans Memorial, generally referred to simply as meanings inscribed in The Wall reflect larger ‘‘The Wall,’’ has helped to re-member, put back cultural issues as basic as right and wrong, good together, or re-engage individuals, families, and and bad, and as complicated as gender inequity, much of the government and society through a racism, constructions of identity, masculinities, process of remembering that has addressed physi- and cultural, social, and political memory. A cal, psychological, and intellectual trauma—quite number of writers have discussed The Wall as a an astonishing feat, since this was done primarily reflection of past and present society. In her essay, through a minimalist work of art designed by a ‘‘The Wall, The Screen and the Image: The college student. The memorial consists of two Vietnam Veterans Memorial,’’ Marita Sturken black granite wings, each almost two hundred and suggests that ‘‘the black walls of the memorial fifty feet long, which meet at an obtuse angle that is act as screens for innumerable projections of submerged into the landscape of the National Mall, memory and history—of the United States’ a green space between the Lincoln and Washington participation in the Vietnam War and the experi- Memorials, and in the far back yard of the White ence of the Vietnam veterans since the war’’ (163). House, in Washington DC. Yet it is precisely the Unlike previous wars, many of which ended nonrepresentational nature of The Wall, rather with parades or some type of respectful display Kim Servart Theriault received her PhD in art history from the University of Virginia and is currently assistant professor of modernist and contemporary art history, criticism, and theory at Grand Valley State University. Her father’s name, Samuel Silver Theriault, is listed on panel 30E of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 422 The Journal of American Culture Volume 26, Number 4 December 2003 for those who had served, Vietnam was a travesty. Such staggering statistics are interesting to Many people protested the war, and many men consider when the United States government did who were drafted went reluctantly or ran away, not attempt to recognize the Vietnam War until becoming known as ‘‘draft dodgers.’’ In addition, 1978. The recognition was reluctant, as Robin unlike earlier accounts of war, such as newsreels Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz relate in their that gave updates during World War II, episodes article, ‘‘The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Com- from Vietnam were shown frequently on the memorating a Difficult Past’’: nightly news and in newspapers. Those who A Vietnam War crypt had already been fought in the war and those who objected to it prepared in the Tomb of the Unknown were often vilified while the war dragged on with Soldier, but the Army determined that no positive outcome. Veterans who returned to neither of its two unidentified bodies (only the United States often had psychological pro- 30% of the remains in either case) made for a blems brought on by the anxiety that was part of decent corpse. Instead of honoring its jungle warfare. Others contracted diseases related Vietnam battle dead by symbolically joining to the jungle or chemicals used to aid fighting. them, through entombment of unknown Many veterans were treated with hostility and soldiers’ remains, with men fallen in earlier returned to shouts of ‘‘baby killer’’ or ‘‘murderer,’’ wars, the army recommended that a plaque and display of medals be set apart behind the and veterans were even spat upon. Veterans often tomb, along with the inscription: ‘‘Let all submitted to a kind of internal forgetting, or know that the United States of America pays denial, in which they disassociated themselves tribute to the members of the Armed Forces from Vietnam by becoming model citizens so as who answered their country’s call.’’ This not to be identified with the war or stereotypes strange declaration bears no reference at all that portrayed Vietnam veterans as social to the Vietnam War, and it required an act of outcasts. the Veterans Affairs subcommittee to make The aftermath of the Vietnam era was it more specific: ‘‘Let all people know that the United States pays tribute to those traumatic and can be characterized through members of the Armed Forces who served marginalization, confusion, and loss, yet the honorably in Southeast Asia during the phenomenon of The Wall is remarkable. Since Vietnam era.’’ (385) its dedication on November 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become a prototype for War was not to be mentioned in the accom- mourning and healing that has spawned many panying inscription, however. Indeed, there more created in the same spirit of healing. There is seemed to be an overwhelming negative reaction a virtual wall on the Internet, five half-scale in the government and military to remember- moving walls that travel around the country, and ing Vietnam. Vietnam was subject to a kind of numerous Web sites, including a ‘‘suicide wall’’ for ‘‘erasure,’’ perhaps because if it were called a war, those who allegedly committed suicide as a direct the question of ‘‘win’’ or ‘‘lose’’ would emerge. result of their service in Vietnam. There have also Upon hearing about the proposal to build the been art exhibitions connected to The Wall, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a Pentagon official numerous books and essays written about it, asked why anyone would want to build a and displays revealing the varied items that people memorial to losers (Scruggs and Swerdlow 30). have left at the memorial.1 By the end of the This is the kind of remembering that the officials 1980s, less than a decade after it was built, the wanted to avoid: that of defeat. Such a response is National Park Service estimated that over twenty tied up in the masculine aesthetics of war itself. million people, about ten percent of the American Wars that are won are testaments to national population at the time, had visited the memorial, virility. Losing a war is a kind of castration, and the most frequented memorial site in Washington such associations for Vietnam suggested ‘‘its very DC. 2 name (Vietnam) is a curse’’ (Caputo 224). Re-membering Vietnam Kim Servart Theriault 423 The circumstances that led to creating The to speak authoritatively for the needs of the Wall are now legendary. In 1979, Vietnam War veterans. Wounds are legitimating marks. veteran Jan Scruggs decided that those who The body of the veteran is, itself, the proof fought and died in Vietnam should be remem- of intimate experience with war, of courage and manhood. Scruggs’ wounds make him a bered. As is the case in private remembering that generalizable veteran, a collective represen- becomes public, exactly how Scruggs came to this tation in his own right. This characterization realization is unclear. There are three different of Scruggs as, first and foremost, a wounded versions about the genesis of the idea. In the most veteran has the effect of invoking the common version endorsed in his memoir, To Heal traditional notion of war hero. With that a Nation, Scruggs decided that a memorial was invocation, the traditional notion of a war necessary after seeing the movie The Deerhunter memorial becomes more plausible. (390) (1978). A second version has Scruggs reading about ‘‘delayed stress syndrome,’’ and still a third has Scruggs coming to the realization while Ultimately, The Wall has become a site for bearing ‘‘nursing a bottle of bourbon’’ (Wagner-Pacifici those wounds honorably, despite the outcome of and Schwartz 390–91). The latter two versions are the war, and ultimately for healing the scars that problematic because they link the Vietnam remain as memories of the war and its era. Veterans Memorial to an aheroic birth related to This trauma, wounding, and scarring is visible mental illness and alcohol. In contrast, linking in The Wall’s design. The design was decided by a a Hollywood version of the Vietnam War to nationwide competition overseen by the Vietnam the memorial’s construction, ironically, becomes Veterans Memorial Fund, which had been estab- noble. lished to collect private donations for the project.3 Yet these versions reflect the way in which The competition guidelines allowed anyone eigh- Scruggs’s desire to build The Wall was instigated teen years of age or older and an American citizen around the idea of trauma.

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