Reviews in American History

The historiography of the Vietnam War continues to grow each year as scholars address the diplomatic, military, and cultural aspects of what is still considered to be America's longest war. Whether this subject continues to be popular because of the current interest in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or because of the historical significance of it being the only war America ever lost, new books appear each year that explore every possible aspect of the conflict.

So much has been written on the war that scholars are beginning to be placed in contextual schools, depending on how they view the American role. Simplistically, those who began writing about the war shortly after the fall of Saigon to Communist forces in 1975 and who viewed it as the wrong war at the wrong time against the wrong enemy have been placed in the "orthodox" camp. They are the most numerous and have generally been considered dominant among historians who have written textbooks or monographs on the subject. Most notably and representative of the field are George Herring, America's Longest War (1979); Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1983); and, most recently, John Prados, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War (2009). Writing more recently about America's involvement in Vietnam as being a "noble cause" but lacking proper management and execution are such historians as Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (1999); Michael Lind, Vietnam: The Necessary War (2002); and, most recently, Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965, (2006).

Is it possible, or logical, to place scholars of America's longest war into such broad categories without first examining their nuanced approaches to the conflict? Are there not degrees within each category that distinguish one's [End Page 372] scholarship from another's without the ideological framework inherent in the broad orthodox and revisionist camps?

Two recent books that attempt to analyze specific issues that impact our understanding of the Vietnam War are the subject of this review essay: Jeremy Kuzmarov's The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs, and Michael Allen's Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War are both "myth-busting" books that take on orthodox and revisionist schools in an attempt to clarify existing research on their respective subjects. While both authors would likely place themselves into the orthodox school of Vietnam War historians, their work is much more revisionist because their findings conflict with the generally held beliefs about soldiers' performance and society's response to that performance.

The Myth of the Addicted Army is a "no holds barred" exposé of one of the most persistent beliefs about the American soldier in Vietnam—that he was a doped-up, pot-smoking, heroin-addicted junkie who came home to a society that recognized him not for his service to his country, but for his behavioral frailties. Through meticulous research in the archives, oral histories, and government records, Kuzmarov demonstrates that American soldiers were not "addicted" to drugs and that any usage was normal and understandable within the contextual framework of a combat environment, and it was not detrimental to the combat mission to which he was assigned. Through my own research and experience, I accept, without reservation, this thesis. Kuzmarov also supports the idea that Hollywood's version of the doped-up soldier is without merit, particularly the premise that soldiers used drugs in the field. His chapter on drugs versus alcohol and the generational differences in the way young enlisted soldiers sought to escape the boredom of the rear-echelon is consistent with more recent sociological studies and is similar to the memory of many of those whose...