What did the Vietnam war do to us as Americans? There were some great lessons that we failed to act upon. But it’s not too late to remember. This article by Karl Marlantes was well received in 2017.
By Karl Marlantes
This article, an opinion by Karl Marlantes, was originally published in the New York Times on January 7, 2017. Mr. Marlantes is best known as the author of two books: “Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War” and “What is it Like to go to War.” He received the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals for his service as a lieutenant with the Marine Corps in Vietnam.
The legacy of the war still shapes America, even if most of us are too young to remember it.
In the early spring of 1967, I was in the middle of a heated 2 a.m. hallway discussion with fellow students at Yale about the Vietnam War. I was from a small town in Oregon, and I had already joined the Marine Corps Reserve. My friends were mostly from East Coast prep schools. One said that Lyndon B. Johnson was lying to us about the war. I blurted out, “But … but an American president wouldn’t lie to Americans!” They all burst out laughing.
When I told that story to my children, they all burst out laughing, too. Of course presidents lie. All politicians lie. God, Dad, what planet are you from?
American soldiers watching helicopters landing as part of Operation Pershing in South Vietnam in 1967.
Credit Patrick Christain/Getty Images
Before the Vietnam War, most Americans were like me. After the Vietnam War, most Americans are like my children.
America didn’t just lose the war, and the lives of 58,000 young men and women; Vietnam changed us as a country. In many ways, for the worse: It made us cynical and distrustful of our institutions, especially of government. For many people, it eroded the notion, once nearly universal, that part of being an American was serving your country.
And yet even as Vietnam continues to shape our country, its place in our national consciousness is slipping. Some 65 percent of Americans are under 45 and so unable to even remember the war. Meanwhile, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our involvement in Syria, our struggle with terrorism — these conflicts are pushing Vietnam further into the background.
All the more reason, then, for us to revisit the war and its consequences for today. This essay inaugurates a new series by The Times, Vietnam ’67, that will examine how the events of 1967 and early 1968 shaped Vietnam, America and the world. Hopefully, it will generate renewed conversation around that history, now half a century past.
What readers take away from that conversation is another matter. If all we do is debate why we lost, or why we were there at all, we will miss the truly important question: What did the war do to us as Americans?
CYNICISM
Vietnam changed the way we looked at politics. We became inured to our leaders lying in the war: the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident, the number of “pacified provinces” (and what did “pacified” mean, anyway?), the inflated body counts.
People talked about Johnson’s “credibility gap.” This was a genteel way of saying that the president was lying. Then, however, a credibility gap was considered unusual and bad. By the end of the war, it was still considered bad, but it was no longer unusual. When politicians lie today, fact checkers might point out what is true, but then everyone moves on.
We have switched from naïveté to cynicism. One could argue that they are opposites, but I think not. With naïveté you risk disillusionment, which is what happened to me and many of my generation. Cynicism, however, stops you before you start. It alienates us from “the government,” a phrase that today connotes bureaucratic quagmire. It threatens democracy, because it destroys the power of the people to even want to make change.
You don’t finish the world’s largest highway system, build huge numbers of public schools and universities, institute the Great Society, fight a major war, and go to the moon, which we did in the 1960s — simultaneously — if you’re cynical about government and politicians.
RACE
In December 1968, I was on a blasted and remote jungle hilltop about a kilometer from the demilitarized zone. A chopper dropped off about three weeks of sodden mail and crumpled care packages. In that pile was a package for Ray Delgado, an 18-year-old Hispanic kid from Texas. I watched Ray tear into the aluminum foil wrapping and, smiling broadly, hold something up for me to see.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s tamales. From my mother.”
“What are tamales?”
“You want to try one?” he asked.
“Sure.” I looked at it, turned it over, then stuck it in my mouth and started chewing. Ray and his other Hispanic friends were barely containing themselves as I was gamely chewing away and thinking, “No wonder these Mexicans have such great teeth.”
Karl Marlantes at home in Oregon just before shipping out to Vietnam in 1968.
“Lieutenant,” Ray finally said. “You take the corn husk off.”
I was from a logging town on the Oregon coast. I’d heard of tamales, but I’d never seen one. Until I joined my company of Marines in Vietnam, I’d never even talked to a Mexican. Yes, people like me called people like Ray “Mexicans,” even though they were as American as apple pie — and tamales. Racial tension where I grew up was the Swedes and Norwegians squaring off against the Finns every Saturday night in the parking lot outside the dance at the Labor Temple.
President Harry Truman ordered the integration of the military in 1948. By the time of the Vietnam War, the races were serving together. But putting everyone the same units is very different than having them work together as a unit.
Our national memory of integration is mostly about the brave people of the civil rights movement. Imagine arming all those high school students from Birmingham, Ala. — white and black — with automatic weapons in an environment where using these weapons was as common as having lunch and they are all jacked up on testosterone. racial tension.
During the war there were over 200 fraggings in the American military — murders carried out by fragmentation grenades, which made it impossible to identify the killer. Almost all fraggings, at least when the perpetrator was caught, were found to be racially motivated.
And yet the more common experience in combat was cooperation and respect. If I was pinned down by enemy fire and I needed an M-79 man, I’d scream for Thompson, because he was the best. I didn’t even think about what color Thompson was.
White guys had to listen to soul music and black guys had to listen to country music. We didn’t fear one another. And the experience stuck with us. Hundreds of thousands of young men came home from Vietnam with different ideas about race — some for the worse, but most for the better. Racism wasn’t solved in Vietnam, but I believe it was where our country finally learned that it just might be possible for us all to get along.
SERVICE
I was at a reading recently in Fayetteville, N.C., when a young couple appeared at the signing table. He was standing straight and tall in Army fatigues. She was holding a baby in one arm and hauling a toddler with the other. They both looked to be about two years out of high school. The woman started to cry. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “My husband is shipping out again, tomorrow.” I turned to him and said, “Wow, your second tour?”
“No, sir,” he replied. “My seventh.”
My heart sank. Is this a republic?

The Vietnam War ushered in the end of the draft, and the creation of what the Pentagon calls the “all-volunteer military.” But I don’t. I call it the all-recruited military. Volunteers are people who rush down to the post office to sign up after Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center gets bombed. Recruits, well, it’s more complicated.
When I was growing up, almost every friend’s father or uncle had served in World War II. All the women in town knew that a destroyer was smaller than a cruiser and a platoon was smaller than a company, because their husbands had all been on destroyers or in platoons. Back then it was called “the service.” Today, we call it “the military.”
That shift in language indicates a profound shift in the attitudes of the republic toward its armed forces. The draft was unfair. Only males got drafted. And men who could afford to go to college did not get drafted until late in the war, when the fighting had fallen off.
But getting rid of the draft did not solve unfairness.
America’s elites have mostly dropped out of military service. Engraved on the walls of Woolsey Hall at Yale are the names of hundreds of Yalies who died in World Wars I and II. Thirty-five died in Vietnam, and none since.
Instead, the American working class has increasingly borne the burden of death and casualties since World War II. In a study in The University of Memphis Law Review, Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen looked at the income casualty gap, the difference between the median household incomes (in constant 2000 dollars) of communities with the highest casualties (the top 25 percent) and all the other communities. Starting from almost dead-even in World War II, the casualty gap was $5,000 in the Korean War, $8,200 in the Vietnam War, and is now more than $11,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Put another way, the lowest three income deciles have suffered 50 percent more casualties than the highest three.
If these inequities continue to grow, resentment will grow with it. With growing resentment, the already wide divide between the military and civilians will also widen. This is how republics fall, with armies and parts of the country more loyal to their commander than their country.
Karl Marlantes discusses the legacy of the Vietnam War in a clip from “The Vietnam War,” a 10-part documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Video by PBS
People would still grumble. We grumble about taxes. People would still try to pull strings to get more pleasant assignments. But everyone would serve. They’d work for “the government,” and maybe start to see it as “our government.” It’s a lot harder to be cynical about your country if you devoted two years of your life making it a better place.
Let the armed services be just one of many ways young people can serve their country. With universal service, some boy from Seattle could find himself sharing a tamale with some Hispanic girl from El Paso. Conservatives and liberals would learn to work together for a common cause. We could return to the spirit of people of different races learning to work together in combat during the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War continues to define us, even if we have forgotten how. But it’s not too late to remember, and to do something about it.
This post by Karl Marlantes was pretty much spot on. But I don’t believe 2-years mandatory service to the country or reinstating the draft will ever happen. Also enjoyed his interviews in “The Vietnam War” documentary by Ken Burns. I was drafted between my junior and senior years in college. I was a RTO with Charlie Company, 4/12, 199th Infantry Brigade in Vietnam, until I was WIA on July 2, 1967. Finished my tour in HHC at the BMB. (March 1967-March 1968).
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Well said. It gives me goose bumps for my patriotism and brings me to tears how lives are torn apart by lies from our supposed “Leaders”. Man, look what’s going on today. The war machine is a money machine. It keeps grinding on as it grinds up patriots with it. It is our fault as we let it happen and it is our responsibility and duty as American Patriots not to let it happen. Obviously, elections are no longer real. After all, we have an inept bonehead in the white house surrounded by anti-American crazies.
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I also am a viet nam veteran, I also saw the political lies that were told about that war, the body counts were suppose to show how we were winning,all lies so much more wrong about this war I made it home ,how I really cant say ,luck,faith to this day I still question it.
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I fully agree with a mandatory requirement of two years of national service. As all will likely recall from our training, team spirit was built on shared hardship. Service can take many forms both military and activities such as AmeriCore. I have a nephew who would not have been able to pass a physical due to a deformity and yet he did an admirable job for the country in AmeriCore.
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Article is on target. My story:
In 1966 I had hitchhiked to Mazatlan from Chico, CA on $30. I was now interested to tour Europe. But only had my backpack and one dollar.
The poster said something like: “Join the Army for 3 years, and see the World”! Sounded reasonable to me! At age 21 my options were to be conscripted, or to join the Army. I was sent to Korea Jan 67 – Mar 68, then to Germany until Jul 69. I got to tour Europe. Using the GI Bill I completed my BA, and earned 3 Teaching Credentials. I taught 7/8 Science for 31 years. In 1978 I joined the NG for 4 years, then transferred to the USAR, 1982-2005, retiring as an E9, CSM.
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Sorry, Karl, but I think it is too late to do something about it.
As a combat Infantry platoon leader with the 1st Cav, I fought in the same AO as you. I hate to be cynical, but in my opinion, with very few exceptions, young people today (20s & 30s) know nothing about the Vietnam War and furthermore do not care. I think the same can be said about Afghanistan.
It started with the VN War, and the culture has grown into the belief in allowing others (volunteers) to join the military and fight our wars. There is no understanding or respect for what we did in VN or the brothers in arms who followed us.
Perhaps it is ignorance, lack of historical training or simply the malaise of today’s youth so focused on their own lives and success. Occasionally, they remember to say “thank you for your service” which I always equate to “have a nice day.” If they only knew and understood the true meaning of the words “Welcome Home, Brother.”
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I hear what you’re saying, but I can’t agree with a broad statement about “the malaise of today’s youth so focused on their own lives and success.” I seem to recall that much the same was thought and said about our generation half-a-century ago, but to the surprise of many of those cynics a lot of us rose to the occasion and served our country with courage and honor. But having said that, I agree with Karl Marlantes that compulsory national service should be reinstated and should include civilian as well as military duty; doing that would go a long way toward proving which of us is most correct about today’s young Americans.
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The idea of compulsory national service was once grand and noble, but It is naive to think it could ever be reinstated in today’s political climate.
And so many of the names of “those who rose to the occasion and served our country with courage and honor” are now inscribed on The Wall.
I don’t have the answer, but it seems to me that the patriotism of our parents’ generation has been replaced and fragmented. It has become something very weird and strange -seen on the Capitol steps, on street marches throughout the US, and surrounded by swat teams and paramedics at schools, offices and churches.
It’s very sad to me to see the direction America has taken. Will our youth be able to turn things around? That’s what our parents asked of us – and now I’m back to The Wall.
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Two comments.
First-
Having served at the beginnings of the so-called “All Volunteer Military”, ( 1977-1985), it did not take long to figure out that a better way to describe it would be: “Poverty Draft” All their high minded words aside, the reality was that in the wake of Vietnam the American Elites were complaining too much about how military service inconvenienced their kids’ plans for College, and that the coming economic restructuring would create a pool of people who would have little opportunity and see the military as a worthwhile employment option. In effect, a covert Federal Jobs Program.
Second- I too get quite annoyed when people come up and mouth out “Thank you for your Service”. Sometimes the insincerity of that statement just grates on me.
I usually politely reply that I prefer they say “Welcome Home”, because there’s a lot more real heart and feeling in that.
And from one fellow Officer *to another, I’ll finish by once again saying-
“Welcome Home!
* 1st Lieutenant USMC- Infantry/ Armor/Intel
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Amen …Sir.
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Right on the mark!
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After being shot on a mission (Crew Chief on a Chinook, in Aug of ’68,) I went through hell for 3 months until my discharge from service. I am convinced the casualty reports were understated by the brass and Westmoreland. I still have the note that was attached to my orders for a Purple Heart which asks me not to send it home as it might upset my family. What a bunch of BS, my mother has already had a visit from a chaplain and an Army representative informing her I had been wounded and evacuated to Japan. After being discharged I was effectively “dumped on the street” by the Army, discharged in Oakland, given plane fare to Newark, NJ and a temporary DD-214, (records lost in transit) No follow up medically, still had stitches in my wounds.. No It was pure BS, they treated us like garbage in late ’68. Told my younger brother when I got home, don’t ever enlist, wait to get drafted you might get a high number (He got357). Even the local American Legion didn’t welcome us, said we were not in a “real war”. I am still wary of the VA to this day.
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I thought the author made many valid points and overall it was very well written. I agree with another commenter who said the mistrust began earlier and that occurred on November 22, 1963 when the national security state took out JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald. When Jack Ruby murdered Oswald on live TV, we all knew there was something terribly wrong in America. Most people living at that time did not believe the Warren Report and the stench from that report has not cleared to this day. The government still has not released many pertinent records from that event and they want to “wait out” those of us who were alive at the time. In my view, that was the beginning of the mistrust in America and then in 1968 we experienced one of the most turbulent years since the Civil War when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered, the Tet Offensive began and the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago commenced. In 1968, I was a combat medic with the 198th Light Infantry Brigade.
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For the most part it was pretty fair. Written from a marine officers point of view. As a Army grunt I can tell you that in our part of the war ,the racism was a lot more than he expressed. We couldn’t have been more segregated if we had been in Selma Alabama.
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We’re coming up on the fiftieth anniversary of President Nixon’s “Drug War” speech on June 17th. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Es un artículo muy interesante.
Soy europeo, nací en el norte de España, en 1972.
Tengo un profundo respeto por todos los veteranos que sirvieron en Vietnam, en mi opinión sois auténticos héroes.
Desconozco todo sobre la reencarnación pero si existe yo no tengo duda de que serví en esa guerra. Desde que nací tengo especie de flashbacks en sueños, además de una atracción total sobre cualquier cosa relativo a la guerra de Vietnam, aunque ello solo sea el sonido de un helicóptero. Desde crío tengo un interés muy fuerte.
Volviendo al artículo, quiero decir que efectivamente todos los presidentes previos al incidente del Maddox en agosto del 64 mintieron interesadamente para facilitar la intervención estadounidense en Vietnam. La información relativa a ello trascendió de los papeles del Pentágono cuando los publicó Daniel Ellsberg. También cabe decir que el asesinato de Kennedy pudo tener algo que ver con la posible retirada de Vietnam que parecía haber decidido.
Por último también quería decir con mucha pena que creo que el pueblo estadounidense y sus políticos parecen no haber aprendido la lección y el sufrimiento que la guerra de Vietnam produjo en la sociedad americana.
Me dolió mucho comprobar como George W. Bush llevó de nuevo al ejercito estadounidense a una guerra contra Irak mintiendo a su pueblo.
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Thank you for sharing, John! We can learn from the past, if we allow it.
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I got drafted in ’68, served in Vietnam from ’69 to ’70, and grew up.
I went because I was a dumb kid who respected his country, and when I came back, I decided to fill in the blanks.
I came back with a deep respect for what we have here, as well as an understanding of the fickleness of populist causes.
Yes, politicians lie.
Johnson lied when he said he would fight the war, and then put limits on the military.
Roosevelt lied when he said that we were not going to fight the Nazi’s, but provided military assistance to Great Britain.
War is a terrible thing. No one denies that. Particularly those who have been there. Without some sort of struggle, however, we lose focus. That struggle doesn’t have to be war, per se, but we need to look beyond our noses, untie ourselves from our mother’s apron strings, and work to make this a better world.
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I agree with everything Mr. Marlantes has said. Thank you for expressing so well the views of many of your fellow Vietnam vets.
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“We’re losing too damn many people in Vietnam, its time for us to get out.
The Vietnamese aren’t fighting for themselves, we’re the ones doing the fighting. After I come back from Texas that’s gonna change. There’s no reason for us to lose another man over there.
Vietnam is not worth one more American life!”
President John F. Kennedy to Assistant Press Secretary Malcom Kilduff
20 November, 1963 White House Oval Office
“You just get me elected, and I’ll give you your damn war!”
President Lyndon Johnson to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
23 December, 1963 White House Christmas Party
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The war was just a waste of young lives and what for, nothing ,, many people don’t realise it was a religious war , Catholics against Buddhists, as an Australian I am still ashamed we were there !!!
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” …WE … “?
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Yes, a real american has written this article. There are far more “Real Americans” than there are anything else in this country. It seems that the media and the government have made it seem otherwise. Having been soldiers in many far off lands, we know how the rest of the world praises our country and how we stand in the world order.
In times of peril, our people are the most proud and strongest in the world.
In the year 2021 our people are divided. What or whom will it take to reunite such a great civilization?
Jon Smythe , Vietnam survivor and once proun American.
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Great article but it will the same bullshit. Rich, politically connected will avoid service or have the safe jobs in the rear. The same people who were fighting I the jungle will bear the real cost for the rest of their lives.let’s put some rich kids in the infantry. Never happen
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Served RVN as OCS Capt. FA BC & 25th DivArty LNO, 1967-68; again as MAJ at MACV-IG Investigator (FB MaryAnn; black marketing; alleged atrocities; command failures during drawdown.) -LTC US Army Ret. 1961-82
Good article. VN Also saw the decline of true reporting & rise of fake journalism. Can’t fight a war restricted inside borders while enemy runs free. I deplore the elites staying out of service. Agree with universal service for all. Thanks. Bob O’Neal
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I walked into the V.F.W. upon my return in January of 1967. My Dad, a decorated WWII Army veteran, was a life member and was taking me out for a beer. In less than five minutes, I was told we “lost the war”, and other bs. It was all I could do to contain myself. Please do not say we lost because we didn’t. The pols did.
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Further comment.
Lyndon Johnson was so terrified of the Vietnam War turning into a superpower confrontation that the massive direct involvement of China and the Soviets against the American Military was deliberately downplayed. Something most Americans are still unaware of today. Even Ken Burns made hardly a mention of it in his recent documentary.
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I was hoping for more fact reporting on LeDuan (from Ken Burns), the Communist leader of the VietCong in and around 1965, when LeDuan ordered his VC goons to murder, butcher then mass-bury the poor S. Vietnam farmers who refused to turn communist. Americans deserve the FULL truth.
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As an Australian , keep our nose out of others business, let them sort out their own problem, ( don’t be tricked by political motives !!
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Speaking as a former Marine Lieutenant myself, who grew up during the war and himself served just after Vietnam, I understand the meaning of this piece perfectly. However, the Vietnam War was not where the American public’s cynicism began. It actually started with the controversy over the circumstances behind the death of President Kennedy, ( Which continues to this day.). Vietnam, put that process in high gear.
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You have to understand Vietnamese people,to understand the war ,it was lost from the start, you can’t support corruption. (Iraqi, Afghanistan)
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Excellent article. I too favor two years service to the country by everyone after H.S.. If not the military then somewhere else. Forest Service, hospitals, etc. whatever. I also served in Viet Nam from 1/’67 to 8/’68, when I was shot and unable to finish my extended tour. I went to college on the GI Bill in ’69,and was very disillusioned with everything. I still have problems with draft dodgers and guys who went to Canada. I do not think I will get my head straightened out about ‘Nam and its after effects no matter how hard I try or how much counseling I attend.
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