United States — A War Abroad

Abstract

For most Americans the Vietnam War was not just a war abroad but a war in another dimension. Perhaps a majority could not have located Vietnam on a map, and geographical remoteness was compounded by political incomprehension, historical ignorance and racial distance. American conscripts in Vietnam, most press-ganged, scarcely knew where they were or what they were about: what they did know was that ‘Nam’ had little to do with any worthwhile reality and that they yearned to return to ‘The World’. So they counted the weeks and days, and the dead – their own and those of ‘Charlie’.