Culture War: Vietnam’s Demographical Disparities

Appy and DeGroot both dove into hard-to-tackle concepts surrounding the Vietnam War, with Appy covering the demographics present during the war and DeGroot talked of the rising and falling morale of the troops. Appy’s argument that Vietnam was a “working-class war” stems from the overwhelming amount of kids from middle-class, blue-collar families that couldn’t afford college nearly as well as the more upper-class families could. Most of the enlistees for Vietnam looked like a lot of enlistees in the armed forces still do today; fresh out of high school, middle-class, looking to spend their time serving their country like their relatives probably did. Their relatives probably didn’t say much, as many of them didn’t, which means they never learned about what’s actually going on. Appy discusses this: “Told they were there to protect the villagers from aggression, they carried out military orders that destroyed villages and brought terror to civilians. Told they were fighting to prevent the spread of communism, they discovered that support for revolution flourished throughout the country and could not be contained behind fixed boundaries.” (252) With the Vietnam War being the first one to be documented on film and television, most people headed off to war didn’t know what to expect. That same documentation was part of what led to the social unrest that swept the nation during the same time.

DeGroot’s discussion on troop morale is also important to understanding the overall picture of how life was like in Vietnam for soldiers during the war. DeGroot first covers the issues with the reliability of the M4 and one of the largest benefits of it being negated by its larger ammo necessity, before commenting on soldiers having fairly high morale at the start. This part did surprise me a little, as I feel we don’t see coverage of the start of the war very often. Most of what I’ve seen covered of Vietnam, actually, would be the home front rather than what was going on in Vietnam itself aside from film and music (see Good Morning Vietnam featuring Robin Williams or “Goodnight Saigon” by Billy Joel). The low morale often tied soldiers together, as camaraderie often is the only thing the soldiers could consistently count on. This can be seen in the writings of Tim O’Brien’s that DeGroot references, and in both pieces of media.

I’m positive a class divide still exists in the service today. Of the people I know who entered or tried to enter the service, I would say one of the six to seven would be considered true middle class with each of the others sitting around lower-middle class, which seems to be the exact demographic both Appy and DeGroot talk about. Most of their families worked blue-collar, which helps to prove the authors’ point. This is just my experience, but I would argue it’s a proportional snapshot of a much larger picture.