On March 11, 16 villagers including 9 children, were murdered by an American staff sergeant in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province in rural, southern Afghanistan. The early reports told a horrifying story. The sergeant was part of a village stabilization operation. The team was trying to develop relationships with village leaders and help organize local policeman to search out Taliban leaders. It has been reported that the soldier is 38 years old with 11 years of service. He is married with two children and had been on three tours of duty in Iraq. The sergeant left his base, walked more than a mile, forced his way into three separate homes and went on a killing spree. He subsequently burned some of the bodies. A patrol had been dispatched to find him when he was reported missing, and apprehended him after the killings on his way back to the base. He hasn’t provided any explanations for his actions.

The massacre provoked official reaction. President Hamid Karzai called the act inhuman, intentional and demanded justice. President Obama and Secretary of Defense Panetta extended their condolences and promised a thorough investigation. President Obama, further, characterized the actions as tragic and shocking. The NATO spokesperson expressed his deep sadness.

It is feared that the massacre will set off riots and others forms of violence. Common reactions outside of Afghanistan are revulsion and puzzlement. How could such an atrocity happen?

According to Jonathan Shay, M. D., Ph.D., this type of outrageous killing by an isolated individual has been going on for thousands of years. Dr. Shay explored the subject in Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. He combines an examination of Homer’s Iliad with narratives and analysis drawn from his experiences as a psychiatrist treating veterans with chronic post- traumatic stress syndrome.

Shay’s chapter 5, “Berserk,” may help explain the current atrocities in Afghanistan committed by the staff sergeant,

Restraint is always in part the cognitive attention to multiple possibilities in a situation; when all restraint is lost, the cognitive universe is simplified to a single focus. The berserker is figuratively — sometimes literally — blind to everything but his destructive aim. He cannot see the distinction between civilian and combatant or even the distinction between comrade and enemy. One of our veterans was tied up by his own men and taken to the rear while berserk. He has no clear memory but suspects that he had become a serious threat to them.

Shay assembled a list of characteristics of the berserk state that are common to Vietnam combat veteran narratives and Homer’s Iliad. The list is as disturbing as it is long:

… beastlike; godlike; socially disconnected; crazy, mad, insane; enraged; cruel, without restraint or discrimination; insatiable; devoid of fear; inattentive to own safety; distractible; indiscriminate; reckless, feeling invulnerable; exalted, intoxicated, frenzied; cold, indifferent; insensible to pain; and suspicious of friends.

To illustrate the characteristics, Shay juxtaposes Vietnam veteran narratives with specific passages drawn from Homer.

Shay prefers to use the term berserk rather than aristeía which is frequently used by commentators on Homer. According to Shay, the origins of berserk is a Norse word which has been used to describe warriors who are seen as being frenzied, sometimes going into battle without clothes or armor and seemed to be possessed by god, but also display beast-like behaviors and fury. Some of these same characteristics are found in the Iliad in which the line is blurred between heroic behaviors and blood thirsty abuses. Was Achilles a prototype of a hero or a type of berserker?

There are, though, differences between the berserking actions of Homer’s warriors and the murderous rages of some Vietnam War soldiers. Many of the atrocities occurred after superiors urged solders to “not be sad but to get even.” This is not a characteristic of Homeric warriors. In the Iliad, berserk behavior is of shorter durations. Triggering events in the Iliad are usually much closer to the berserking behaviors. Both Homeric heroes and Vietnam soldiers share a feeling of the betrayal of “what’s right” as a conditioning element, especially as it relates to the passing of a very close brother in arms. Yet, grief alone is not a sufficient trigger. The absence of restraints seems to be an elemental trait.

Shay reflects:

On the basis of my work with Vietnam veterans, I conclude that the berserk state is ruinous, leading to the soldier’s maiming or death in battle — which is the most frequent outcome — and to life-long psychological and physiological injury if he survives. I believe that once a person has entered the berserk state, he or she is changed forever … If a soldier survives a berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and a permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans.

In American military culture, the suppression of grief coupled with using revenge as motivation provoke berserk behavior such as that we have observed in Afghanistan, Shay strongly suggests. The prosecution of the staff sergeant who killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan will be a challenge, as will be managing the political repercussions of his monstrous actions. Is he a berserker? If so, how should the military justice system deal with him? How does his actions affect American policy in Afghanistan?

A singular atrocity shouldn’t influence national and international policies, but it appears this may be happening. President Karzai is asking for NATO forces to leave the villages and return to its bases, even though small village stabilization teams have been proven to be effective in numerous conflicts. Karzai also is suggesting that NATO forces might be exiting earlier than planned. It isn’t clear what the Afghan and NATO strategic objectives are. What is clear is that the United States’ all volunteer military has been asked to serve in combat for a decade or more, with telling consequences. Multiple deployments are taking their toll on military personnel. It is tearing them apart, and the physical, social and psychological toll on them, their families and communities is enormous. To date, PTSD has been a huge problem, but berserking has been rare and isolated. If berserking incidents increase should we blame the perpetrators, the military, or ourselves?

On November 11^th at 11 Am and 11 seconds of 2011, I was meeting with a group of 6^th graders as part of a Veterans Day event at an excellent middle school in a small town frequently characterized as affluent, but much more economically diverse than this term suggests.

I was impressed by the program. It was organized and run by the students at the town’s middle school with the help of school personnel. I gave some brief remarks about the Vietnam War, shared some remembrances of my service with them, and answered as many of their questions as I could.

At the beginning of my portion of the program, I was presented a thoughtful certificate of appreciation by one of the students who escorted me to the library where I met with other students.  I think that a couple of dozen other veterans participated in the program. Each had his own story to tell.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs explains that Veterans Day is observed on November 11^th regardless of what day of the week on which it falls.

“The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.”

The origins of Veterans Day (previously known as Armistice Day, and in some parts of the world as Remembrance Day) is traceable back towards the end of World War I when on November 11, 1918 at 11 AM a temporary cessation of hostilities between the Allied Nations and Germany went into effect. The “Great War,” actually ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. It was the hopeful thinking at the time to think that World War I would be “the war to end all wars.”

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the commemoration as Armistice Day. As originally conceived, the commemoration was to be observed through a variety means, including public gatherings, parades and a suspension of business at 11 AM on November 11^th. Wilson positioned it as follows:

“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations …”

A series of legislative actions established Armistice Day and then changed it to Veterans Day, ultimately returning its observance to November 11^th. The official focal point of it nationally is a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Ceremony at 11 AM on November 11^th conducted by a color guard which represents all of the United States military services. A “present arms” ceremony is conducted, typically a presidential wreath is laid at the tomb, and “taps” (an emotionally charged musical expression) is played by a bugler. President Obama participated at the ceremony this year, and made brief remarks. Other elements of the ceremony take place in the amphitheater near the tomb.

Throughout America, other ceremonial gatherings and commemorations occurred. These are occasions and places for remembrance and means of bringing communities together. While I was at the middle school, a town level commemoration was held in a small area in town, its symbolic center. A newspaper article reported that a keynote speaker, a veteran, discussed the contributions of community members during major conflicts from the Revolutionary War to the present. It was a relatively small gathering, with a bit more than 100 people.

I was impressed by the event at the middle school. It showed me how within an institutional framework, people can be brought together, young and old, to share experiences as a community. There was a coming together of school personnel, students, and veterans. Through discussions and remembrances age gaps were breached and great and small issues were discussed in an organized and thoughtful manner. From the moment I arrived to the moment I left, I felt warmly welcomed.

Students listened politely to my brief remarks, but they were eager to ask their own questions about small issues and large. I welcomed them all and tried to answer respectfully and thoughtfully.

Preparing to meet with the students led me to re-remember some of my own experiences. Many were just snippets of what I experienced ranging from the bigger philosophical, moral and ethical issues to elemental phenomenological occurrences. I recalled odd bits of thoughts such as an old, Asian and African folk saying, “When elephants dance, the grass gets trampled.”

While there is a timeless quality to this expression, during the Vietnam War, its meaning was quite specific: when troops fight, noncombatants are hurt (wounded and killed, with property destroyed). The numbers bear that out. Between November 1, 1955 and May 15, 1975, approximately 58,272 U. S. personnel were either killed or subsequently died as a result of the war; and 303,644 were wounded of which 153,303 required hospital care. Estimates of casualties for the Vietnamese and Cambodians are much larger: between 216, 000 and 316,000 South Vietnamese military forces were killed; and according to one estimate provided by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, more than 1,011,000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong were killed, and about 4,000,000 civilians were casualties, split equally between the North and South. In post war political violence, casualty estimates range from a low of 400,000 to approximately 2,500,000. Between 1975 and 1979 in the Cambodian genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, 1,700,000 civilians died.

After the French were ousted from Vietnam in 1954, at least two separate but related wars were waged, a civil war between nationalist interests; and a proxy war, which aligned North Vietnam with the Soviet Bloc, and South Vietnam, which was aligned with the United States and its allies. It was a hot spot in the Cold War, with much grass trampled.

One of our rhetorical tics, so common and so universal as to be unremarkable, is the shared assertion by liberals and conservatives alike that our soldiers are our heroes. We may disagree about foreign policy, but soldiers are the bravest and the greatest. That mainstream politicians should make this claim – Obama and Bush, McCain and Kerry – should provoke little surprise, but it flourishes as a trope among the anti-war left as well. Political strategies reverberate through time as we refight our last discursive war.

In the heated years of the War in Vietnam there was a palpable anger by opponents of that war that was directed against members of the military who bombed the killing fields of Cambodia, Hanoi, and Hue. While accounts of soldiers being spat upon were more apocryphal than real, used by pro-war forces to attack their opponents. According to sociologist Jerry Lembcke in his book The Spitting Image the story was an urban legend, but it is true that many who opposed the war considered soldiers to be oppressors, or in the extreme, murderers. This was a symbolic battle in which the anti-war forces were routed, and such language was used to delegitimize principled opposition to the war and to separate the young college marchers from the working class soldiers who were doing the bidding of presidents and generals. In the time of a national draft, college students were excused from service, making the class divide evident. (For the record, I admit to cowardice, fearing snipers, fragging, and reveille. I was a chicken dove).

After the war, war critics learned a lesson. No longer would the men with guns be held responsible for the bullets. All blame was to be placed upon government and none on the soldiers, even though the draft had been abolished, and the military became all-volunteer (and the working class and minority population continued to increase in the ranks).

By the time that American adventures in the Gulf and in Afghanistan became part of our political taken-for-granted, so did the rhetoric of soldier-as-hero. Perhaps these rhetorical choices were strategic, but they also served to give our military a moral pass.

When Barack Obama was a candidate he assured voters that he would conclude this national nightmare. Yes, politics involves bluster and blarney, but bringing the troops home in an orderly process seemed a firm commitment, a project for his first term. I trusted that this hope and change was not merely a discursive sop to those who found long-term and bloody American intervention intolerable. Here was a war that seemed hopeless in year one and now in year eleven it seems no more hopeful. To be sure it is a low-grade debacle, but a debacle none-the-less. If, as some have suggested, we invaded Afghanistan to put the fear of God into the hearts of Pakistanis, the strategy has been charmingly ineffective. It seems abundantly clear that our choice is to determine when we will declare the war lost, and when Americans and Afghans will no longer die at each others hands.

Wars cannot be conducted without the connivance of soldiers. Soldiers are the pawns that permit State policy. I recognize that in parlous economic times there are many strategic reasons for desiring the benefits of a military life. And spittle is not political philosophy. But choice is always tethered to responsibility. Members of the military are accepting and even benefiting from a misguided and destructive policy. The nation of Afghanistan deserves self-determination free from our boots on the ground. And the absence of complaint among the all-volunteer military underlines the complicity of our soldiers.

So I do reject the choices of the members of the military whose presence and obedience makes possible the fantasias of foreign policy strategists. They have moral responsibility for their decisions. But the responsibility is not theirs alone, but ours. That we have been unable, unwilling, or unconcerned to stop an unending war against a nation that did not attack us is a mark of shame. It reveals the American public as timid and craven.

Are soldiers responsible for their actions? Surely. Should soldiers be hated? Not until the rest of us are willing to hold a mirror to our own acquiescence in a system that reveals in our political priorities that War and Peace matters far less than Standard and Poors.

Memories are not simply about the past. They define the present and shape the future: collective memory making, as Maurice Halbwachs’ influential work demonstrates, personal memories, and iterative interchanges between and among personal, interpersonal, and collected memories. I have been thinking about this on the occasion of the anniversary of a parade in Chicago.

I recently received from someone on a Vietnam War listserv comments and links to Chicago Tribune articles discussing the “Chicago 25^th Anniversary Welcome Home Parade” for Vietnam War veterans. Held originally on June 13^th, 1986 over a decade after the last Americans had left South Vietnam, the Chicago Welcome Home Parade provided for Vietnam Vets the recognition they felt they were denied upon their return from an unpopular war. The 25^th anniversary of the parade was held last weekend, on June 17, 18 and 19, as its original participants are fading away, many no longer able to march.

It is estimated that about 200,000 veterans marched and another 300,000 spectators cheered them on in 1986, a surprisingly large number. In 1985, New York City had a ticker-tape parade in which about 25,000 Vietnam veterans participated. Prior to 1982, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated, Vietnam Veterans received very little recognition and many rarely talked about the war. The memorials and parades changed attitudes towards Vietnam Veterans and how they felt about themselves.

The Chicago Tribune’s multimedia links capture objectified personal and collected memories, providing insights into interpersonal and collective memories. This year’s anniversary celebration afforded numerous associational opportunities for the participants including a banquet, the display of the Moving Wall, a half-sized replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a ceremony which honored soldiers who have returned from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and an interfaith service held at Chicago’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The organizers believe that no soldier should have to wait a decade or more for a homecoming welcome. Memories of the past and associational activities are reshaping the present and future treatment of veterans.

As Halbwachs suggests, the associational aspects are diminishing as organizers and participants have continued to be lost to age-related issues, illnesses and death. One organizer died of pancreatic cancer last year and another continues the effort despite a continuing fight with hepatitis C, which he contracted during transfusions associated with a limb lost during the war.

Some of the remembrances, real and imagined, raise sensitive issues and are part of a battle for Vietnam War meanings and memories. For instance, Jack Shiffler, chairman of the Welcome Home 2011 anniversary event, shared his recollection of his homecoming in December 1967. He contends that although military officials cautioned returning Vietnam Veterans against wearing their uniforms while traveling because of war protests, he chose to wear his. He reports that as he was walking through an airline terminal in Los Angeles, he was approached by an attractive young woman dressed in the attire of someone belonging to a Hari Krishna group. She asked if he was a Marine back from Vietnam. He acknowledged that he was, and then Shiffler says that she spit in his face and verbally abused him. He didn’t talk about the war for years. Shiffler contrasts this with the love and affection that he was given during the 1986 celebration,remembering seeing a sign, “Honor the warrior, not the war.”

Spitting in the face is part of contested Vietnam War remembrances. Although it is recalled in many narratives of the war, it is contested by sociologist Jerry Lembcke in his book The Spitting Image, Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. Lembcke contends that the spitting in the face narrative is a myth, and sees it as his role to help write an alternative history, constructed from other memories to help establish other identities. His work is highly controversial among Vietnam War Veterans.

Few people wanted to talk to me about the war upon my return from Vietnam. I was welcomed home by family and a small group of friends. The 25^th anniversary celebration links helped me recall them. I also recall being virtually shunned by two editors who took my place on my college newspaper when I visited them. On the other hand, I probably was given my first job out of the Army by a company which was very supportive of veterans. My recollections are part of the memory making process.

One of the 1986 articles on the Chicago Tribune website was by Anne Keegan, a very influential journalist in Chicago. On a visit to Vietnam, years after the first Chicago parade, Keegan brought home four Vietnam War Zippo lighters. She was able to return one to its owner. Keegan shared in the Captain’s memories, and they influenced her and her readers. In one of her stories, Keegan noted “The three things a soldier treasured besides mail were the picture of his girl, his toothbrush and his Zippo lighter because the rest belonged to Uncle Sam.” Keegan passed away in May 2011. She helped break the gender glass ceiling in reporting and went to places and reported on stories traditionally off-limits to women journalists. I became aware of Keegan through my dissertation research on the Vietnam War Zippo lighter and meaning and memory making.

While, the 25^th anniversary celebration may be a small thing, going unnoticed by the media generally, it illuminates how we actively connect the past, present and future.

On May 6^th, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) announced the names of five American servicemen that were being inscribed on the black granite walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall), and will be read for the first time on this Memorial Day, at 1 p.m. In addition, the designations of eight names are being changed from missing in action, signified by a cross, to confirmed dead, symbolized by a diamond. The criteria and decisions for being included on The Wall are set by the Department of Defense. With the additions, the total number of names inscribed (killed or remaining missing in action) is 58,272.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund was established in 1979 by a group of veterans led by Jan Scruggs, and, over the years, has been “dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C., promoting healing and educating about the impact of the Vietnam War.” In July 1980, President Jimmy Carter authorized the Fund to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on a site near the Lincoln Memorial in Constitution Gardens. The Fund explains that the resulting monument “was built to honor all who served with the U. S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. It has become known as an international symbol of healing and is the most-visited memorial on the National Mall.”

The Memorial consists of more than the well known Wall that was designed by Maya Ying Lin. The other sites for remembrance are the Flagpole that was installed in 1983 around which the emblems of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard are displayed; the Three Servicemen Statue, designed by Frederick Hart and dedicated in 1984; the Vietnam Women’s Memorial designed by Glenna Goodacre and dedicated in 1993; and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commemorative Plaque, also called the “In Memory Plaque, ” dedicated in 2004 to honor veterans who died after the war as a direct result of injuries which were incurred in Vietnam, but do not qualify for inclusion on The Wall. An education center is being planned.

The names of American military casualties of the Vietnam War are the core element of the Memorial. The initiators wanted to insure that those who were sacrificed would not be forgotten. Inscribed in the black granite, the names are a powerful symbolic expression, which brings many visitors to tears. Among the current 58,272 engraved names are the ones of those designated as missing. Not included are veterans who were casualties of Agent Orange, an herbicide considered carcinogenic by many, the victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder related suicides and the fatalities among non U. S. military personnel. The memorial also leaves unnamed millions of Vietnamese military and civilian casualties inflicted by all sides during the war. Statistics on Vietnamese casualties are spotty at best, in part because North Vietnam wanted to conceal the hardships it was enduring, and in part because the narratives that have been told in the United States have been focused on Americans, not the Vietnamese.

© 2003 Seth Rossman | Wikimedia Commons

Notwithstanding this lack of inclusiveness, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial may be considered a gateway and turning point in Vietnam War meaning and memory making. With the creation of the Memorial, a memory block was eliminated, and an outpouring of remembrances and representations ensued.  The discussions that led up to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the approval process, the building of the memorial, and the visitations to the memorial helped legitimize more open public discussions about and representations of the war, providing a stimulus for personal, interpersonal, collected and collective memories about the Vietnam War. A proliferation of Vietnam War contributions appeared in the media, popular culture, art and academic works.

The project to build a memorial came to fruition through a bottom up approach to civic action. It emerged from kitchen table politics, an example of the “politics of small things” as Goldfarb puts it. While the design elements of the Memorial have been controversial over the years, they have been implemented to accommodate competing memories associated with the Vietnam War and the need to heal relative to continuing divisions. Associational activities inspired by individual contributors with a vision yielded the creation of the memorial, revealing many competing memories associated with it. Approving, funding, creating, building, opening, maintaining, commemorating, and facilitating visiting and accessing the Memorial helped open the creative flows of Vietnam War representations that followed, and influenced the reception of them.

Small things matter relative to the establishment of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial including: the personal initiatives of Jan C. Scruggs, president and founder of the VVMF, to establish the Memorial; the leadership of Diane Carlson Evans to create the Vietnam Women’s Memorial; and the thousands upon thousands of personal actions of individuals who have left behind objects at The Wall which have been preserved by the National Parks Service.

“When people freely meet and talk to each other as equals, reveal their differences, display their distinctions, and develop a capacity to act together, they create power,” Goldfarb maintains about the politics of small things. In this instance, the power developed into associational efforts to help shape memories of the Vietnam War and heal a nation.