A SUBSTITUTE FOR VICTORY? FICTIONAL PORTRAITS OF THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND COMBAT IN VIETNAM

The Vietnam War was the United States's longest military conflict, a war marked by bitter controversy, painful divisiveness, and by the fact that it was the first major war America had ever lost. In the fictional portraits of combat in Vietnam are indispensable sources for understanding and explaining the moral experience of fighting in such a war--of "what is was like" for the individual American soldier engaged in combat in a protracted, unpopular, and ultimately unsuccessful, conflict. This dissertation examines a representative selection of novels and films that reflect the various moral perceptions of and responses to, the American military effort in Southeast Asia, focusing specifically on the manner in which such works depict the war itself and the American soldier in combat. What has emerged thus far as the cultural legacy of the Vietnam War is a diverse set of fictional images that illustrate how combat in Vietnam challenged some of the most cherished beliefs about the United States's role in war and its soldiers' conduct on the battlefields. Radically different from the predominant fictional response to America's past wars, the cultural legacy of the conflict in Vietnam may indicate an important change in the popular perception of warfare and combat, and may well serve as a substitute for the victory America failed to achieve in Vietnam.