by Jenny Thompson

April 1975: Images of the end of a war, broadcast to the world, seen by a nation whose eyes stare at these slices of time in disbelief, sadness, relief, shame--the final chaotic shots of a long, arduous journey. Slowly fade to black. What for many Americans constitutes one of the most critical events not only in the nation's history, but in their own lives, the Vietnam War remains a conflicted memory in our society, its meaning still debated as it is re-interpreted, its old wounds exposed anew, as Americans search for a meaningful way to remember it collectively.

The generation currently being educated about this recent past has a unique composition never to be replicated in the future. These students are often the sons and daughters, nieces and nephews of those who lived through the war--veterans, protesters and supporters. Because of their proximity to, or indeed, their intimate connection with the war, they comprise a generation that has been deeply effected by it. But for most of these college students in the 1990s, the larger cultural debate and continued conflict over the meaning of the Vietnam War shapes and sometimes even obstructs, their own understanding of this crucial period in American history.

Members of this supposed Generation X, who range in age from 18-22, lack any personal memory of the war, having been born after the war ended. Still the war serves as their opening act; its memory is their legacy, just as World War Two was the Baby Boom generation's. Yet unlike those raised on the "good war" stories of unity and victory, these students have come of age in a dark shadow.

Aware of their own confusion, many explain that when it came to studying the war in high school, "We didn't get that far" or "We skipped really fast over Vietnam." Clearly, rather than a product of their own ignorance, their lack of information is a direct reflection of the nation's difficulties in confronting the subject of the war in Vietnam as history, in need of being taught in as rational a manner as one might teach another of America’s more controversial events, such as the Civil War.

But instead, the majority of my students tell me that their secondary education all but ignored the subject of Vietnam. Although there are many excellent college-level courses that cover the war, taught by teachers who approach the subject as a necessary and vital part of a student’s education, it appears to me that to wait until college to learn this history denies students a basic opportunity to learn about a critical period that has exercised such force in American society in general, and often in their own lives in particular.

This leads me to the second origin of the shadow concerning Vietnam: When I ask them, "Where have you learned what you do know about the Vietnam War?" most students respond that they have been schooled by Hollywood, their lesson plans comprised of movies such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. For many of them, the names William Westmoreland, Lewis Puller, or Ho Chi Minh remain indecipherable hieroglyphics, symbols of a remote past. But they do recognize other names, like Colonel Kurtz and Rambo. This skewed "historical" recognition indicates that our society has tacitly granted Hollywood the primary authority to fill in the blanks concerning the war’s history. To me this rather like letting John Wayne teach students what World War Two was really like.

Indeed, feature films appear to be the single most authoritative means by which students have "learned" about the war. Exercising critical influence over their thinking, most of the films they identify as providing them with their ideas about the war, portray in both subtle and overt ways, the notion that Vietnam was a mistake, plain and simple, cut and dry, end of debate. Patriotism? To fight and potentially sacrifice oneself in a war is simply not even a remotely realistic idea. Communism? This concept has little if no meaning, but merely describes a generic enemy of America. (A few of my student have even described how the United States fought against Hitler and communism in World War Two). Military or Diplomatic goals? Well, everyone knows that the war had no "reason" and was fought without any justification. Support for the war? Everyone in the United States opposed it. The soldiers who served? They were "out of control." The result? We lost.

In echoing these statements, some students initially convey the impression that they are eager to put the war behind them, and in effect, willing to dismiss it as a subject in need of no further investigation. Thus as a teacher, the hardest task I have confronted is in persuading the students not only that there is much to be learned from studying the war, but also that viewing it as "without reason" and as "a mistake" is a perspective that itself is a product of a particular historical moment.

Thus, in my class we examine not only the war’s history, but also the manner by which attitudes toward it have been shaped, including analysis of how their own perspectives have come to be defined. With a focus on the ways the media has covered the war in print, film and photographs, as well as the ways the war has been portrayed in scholarly arguments and academic history, we explore how the war’s representations have changed over time. After having spent the first section of the class examining representations of World War Two, students are encouraged to compare the ways in which the style of a war’s presentation may serve just as much as its politics and military strategies to lead people to conclude that one war was "clear" while another "chaotic"--in effect, the class pits Ernie Pyle against Michael Herr. Further, asking the students to critically engage the historical evidence--debate it, probe it, and critique it--I encourage them to trace the war’s meaning in their lives today.

In order to take advantage of the students’ own important relationship to such recent history, I attempt to bring the war into the class room. Adrian Cronauer’s visit to our class spurred many students to remark how history seemed to come alive as they listened to his engaging talk and asked him questions. Other veterans who have visited the class have similarly allowed students to engage in discussion and draw connections between their own lives and the past. One speaker, a Marine Corps veteran, brought with a photograph of himself as a nineteen-year old soldier, while another showed slides from his year at Bien Hoa air base.

In encouraging students to confront the war personally and to make use of their status as postwar generation, I also ask them to go out into the world and see for themselves the presence of the war’s memory in their midst. Whether they choose to interview a veteran, visit the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, or another museum exhibit, they often return from such journeys with a renewed vigor in relation to the way they now view the war’s relevance. One student described how the interview "got me away from articles and books…It was the real thing." And another reflected: "After completion of this interview, I realized that there are so many stories that are left untold." Some students have taken advantage of the assignment to interview a parent or family member who served in the war. Several recounted afterwards that they previously had never discussed the war with, for instance their own fathers and had no idea what they had done in the war. In recording these "untold" stories, student not only add to their understanding of the nation’s history but often their family history.

Combining historical and cultural analysis of the war, the class, I feel, succeeds in addressing two important aspects of history--both that of the war itself and that of our own day and its current struggle over the war’s memory. While Generation X more often than not gets a bad rap, stereotyped as a group of wayward and listless kids, I find that most of my students, as representatives of that generation, are eager and insightful, willing, if given opportunity, to learn about their legacy and to confront even the most controversial past with an informed perspective. Indeed, after learning about the war for themselves, some have marveled at what they then view as the nation’s difficulty to teach this history. One student described her reaction to a museum exhibit on the war, a display, she felt, which did not succeed in instructing visitors by neglecting to answer basic questions concerning its history. She wrote: "I began to feel like the victim of some huge conspiracy. My overall feeling was [that] the American government was attempting to sweep Vietnam under the rug and erase it from the minds of everyone by not giving the war proper coverage."

In a final paper, another student observed: "It would be a tragedy for my generation to ignore or even feel ashamed of our country’s past." This statement typified the lesson the students teach me everyday: History is made anew by each generation. If we are to realize a future in which the past may be confronted and understood, instead of dismissed, stereotyped, or "Hollywoodized", we must allow this generation access to its history. It is never too early, for soon it will be their turn to write it for the next generation.