Date of Award

Spring 2021

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Historical & Political Studies; College of Arts & Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. Jennifer Riggan

Abstract

Due to a stunning defeat in Vietnam, the years following the conflict were full of denial, shame, and silence. The silence in post Vietnam War America was followed by a resurgence of American nationalism in the 1980s at the hands of the United States government, which relied heavily on reshaping the war narrative as a way to designate meaning to American losses and regain the national image of superhero. While the rhetoric of presidents resonated with the American public it failed to mend the deep divides caused during the war period, which is most apparent through the creation of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial in Washington D.C. and the controversy that sparked around it. This paper provides a behind the scenes look at the making of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, a process which put history on trial as perennial questions like how should a story be told, who should tell it, and what story should be told, were at the forefront of public discourse. Scholarship on public memory insists that one must understand the complex and invariably contested processes that society undergoes when forming devices of commemoration, noting that nation’s histories are rarely unfiltered. Memories are at the core of national identity, even if those memories have acquired unrecognizable mutations. On both an individual and national level, Americans carefully selected and embraced certain narratives from the Vietnam War period that they deemed relevant and worthy. The controversy that arose around the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, the fine attention on behalf of U.S. presidents through their rhetoric, and the scholarship explaining shifts in collective memory all yield significant truths in regards to the United States national identity and democratic processes around writing history for the pedagogy of future generations.

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The Haunting National Memory of Vietnam A War Where the Losers Write the Story

Due to a stunning defeat in Vietnam, the years following the conflict were full of denial, shame, and silence. The silence in post Vietnam War America was followed by a resurgence of American nationalism in the 1980s at the hands of the United States government, which relied heavily on reshaping the war narrative as a way to designate meaning to American losses and regain the national image of superhero. While the rhetoric of presidents resonated with the American public it failed to mend the deep divides caused during the war period, which is most apparent through the creation of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial in Washington D.C. and the controversy that sparked around it. This paper provides a behind the scenes look at the making of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, a process which put history on trial as perennial questions like how should a story be told, who should tell it, and what story should be told, were at the forefront of public discourse. Scholarship on public memory insists that one must understand the complex and invariably contested processes that society undergoes when forming devices of commemoration, noting that nation’s histories are rarely unfiltered. Memories are at the core of national identity, even if those memories have acquired unrecognizable mutations. On both an individual and national level, Americans carefully selected and embraced certain narratives from the Vietnam War period that they deemed relevant and worthy. The controversy that arose around the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, the fine attention on behalf of U.S. presidents through their rhetoric, and the scholarship explaining shifts in collective memory all yield significant truths in regards to the United States national identity and democratic processes around writing history for the pedagogy of future generations.