Can Vietnam awaken us again? Teaching the literature of the Vietnam War - 1

Radical Teacher, Spring, 2003 by H. Bruce Franklin

Based on my own experience teaching a course on the Vietnam War and American culture for more than twenty years, I am convinced that no other literature has anything approaching this transformative force. (6) A revealing--and encouraging--sign of our times is the fact that this course, like similar courses around the country, is always overenrolled. But teachers do not need an entire course to share the impact of this literature with students. Introduced into any course exploring contemporary literature, it contextualizes almost all the other works created from the mid 1960s to the present-because the Vietnam War forms such a crucial part of the matrix of all contemporary Literature.

Vietnam War literature profoundly affects today's students because of its confrontation with their own false consciousness, because it casts such glaring light on our current crisis, and because "Vietnam" has such lingering and puzzling meaning for them. Anyone growing up in America in the past couple of decades probably has sensed the emotional temperature rising whenever the term "Vietnam" has been used in any group of adult Americans. Many of my students have fathers, uncles, or other relatives who fought in the war. Often this makes the subject taboo in their homes, thus arousing the usual human curiosity about forbidden zones. Many students are also drawn to what is known as "the sixties," which for some evokes a strange nostalgia. As one young woman put it, "I wish that I were the same age I am now in the sixties."

Some are deeply involved in the music of the period, which includes some important antiwar literature. For example, one student, a Creedence Clearwater fanatic, had a collection that included all their concerts and releases in every form--from 45s to CDs. He adamantly refused to believe that "Fortunate Son" was an antiwar song, until he saw it confirmed directly on John Fogarty's web site. Then he wrote a wonderful essay describing how this forced him to rethink his understanding of CCR and thus his own acculturation.

Vietnam veterans have an exalted place in today's pantheon of American heroes, sanctified by that myth of the spat-upon veteran. The literature by Vietnam veterans, unprecedented in scale and depth of insight, has amazing effects on students.

One text by a Vietnam veteran affects students more profoundly than any work of any kind I have taught in over four decades in university classrooms. That is Passing Time, a memoir by W. D. Ehrhart which makes readers participate in his own transformation from a gung-ho anti-Communist who enlisted in the Marines at the age of 17 and served two tours in Vietnam into a radical visionary artist. Once, when I walked into class the day the book was due, there was an odd hubbub. One conservative young man, who had attended military school and was planning to be a career military officer--and who had been arguing vociferously with me all semester--seemed especially upset. Suddenly he blurted out: "I've never read a book like this. It's changing my whole life." The next thing I knew, he was up in front of the class saying, "We've got to have this guy come talk with us. Why don't we kick in to get whatever it takes to bring him." There was a chorus of assent. Someone called out from the back, "Let's each put in five d ollars." Someone else yelled, "Five dollars? It costs seven fifty just to see a movie." (This was in 1993.) "O.K.," said a new voice, "let's make it ten dollars." And so these students, almost all of whom work to be able to afford college, contributed ten dollars apiece to get a visit from W. D. Ehrhart.