The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics

codystarbuck
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Nov 14, 2023 18:17:07 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 14, 2023 18:17:07 GMT -5

ps Joe Orlando had no clue about how a mortar works. The fins on a bomb are at the base, and the bombs are loaded with the base going into the tube. The drop in and a firing pin launches them in an arc, where they explode, as the hit the ground. You'll notice, in the story above, he has the bombs going into the tubes head-first, with fins entering last, before they launch.

Orlando served in the US Army, from 1945-47, in the military police, not the infantry and he did not see combat. It is clear he had no training in field weapons, beyond small arms and his MP training. He also draws the American soldiers with M1s and grease guns, rather than M-14s or M-16s. Colan does a better job of research, though his proportions are a bit wonky and he struggles with the carrying handle of the M-16.

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Nov 14, 2023 20:19:20 GMT -5 Prince Hal likes this

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Post by MDG on Nov 14, 2023 20:19:20 GMT -5

"Landscape" was reprinted in Les Daniels' book Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, where I read and re-read it a dozen times (like the rest of the stories in the book). Maybe Orlando's best job (and I'm counting his EC work).

Last Edit: Nov 14, 2023 20:19:35 GMT -5 by MDG

codystarbuck
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Nov 15, 2023 17:08:52 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 15, 2023 17:08:52 GMT -5

Nov 14, 2023 20:19:20 GMT -5 MDG said:

"Landscape" was reprinted in Les Daniels' book Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, where I read and re-read it a dozen times (like the rest of the stories in the book). Maybe Orlando's best job (and I'm counting his EC work).

It was also reprinted by Apple Comics, who were publishing Vietnam Journal, at the time. They did two issues of Blazing Combat: Vietnam/Korea, reprinting those stories, and two issues of Blazing Combat: World War 1 & 2, reprinting those stories. I had one of those, but I can't recall from which set of comics. I think it was more likely one of the WW 1 & 2 issues.

Warren also did a book collection, in 1978....

and Fantagraphics did a nice hardcover collection, in 2009.....

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Nov 23, 2023 23:44:16 GMT -5 foxley and zaku like this

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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 23, 2023 23:44:16 GMT -5

We now move into the 1970s, as the Vietnam War is now being directed by the Nixon Administration, who escalates things and begins bombing North Vietnam. However, since the Tet Offensive and the turmoil of 1968, plus the general increase in violent clashes on campuses and elsewhere, most comic book publishers decide to stay the hell away from Vietnam, as a subject, except as background detail, with some characters, like The Punisher. There was comic entity that was examining this, not only as war stories but from the anti-war side. However, it was in newspapers and, right from the start, it created controversy. That strip was Doonesbury.

Doonesbury began life in a slightly different form, called Bull Tales, in the Yale Daily News, at the university of the same name (Heaven's to Besty; a Yale man!), by Garry Trudeau. Trudeau came from a noted family, on both sides and attended a prep school, before Yale. So, basically, the kind of guy that we Midwesterners would beat up and shove in a locker! Well, no , of course not, because that would mean attending a public school. Anyway, the type of guy you see in movies, set on campuses where there is a lot of khaki and plaid and family crests on blazers, while they fall in love with terminally ill girls who make fun of them.

Anyway, Bull tales caught the attention of James Andrews, of the newly created Universal Press Syndicate, who signed him up to continue the strip, in syndicated form, after graduation. The strip debuted, in 1970, as Doonesbury, named after the main(ish) character Mike Doonesbury. Sat at the fictional Walden College, it follows the cast through their college days, then into the real world. As such, and given the time frame, it reflected a youth demographic that was becoming a major force on the national stage and was constantly being profiled in the media, as the Baby Boom generation came of age, in the late 60s and early 70s. The central characters, at the start are Tulsa native and liberal Mike Doonesbury, and his roommate and quarterback of the football team, the deeply conservative BD. Mike is socially awkward with women, but seems oblivious to it, while BD has a long time, if somewhat dim, girlfriend, Boopsie (eventually his wife). BD is modeled on Brian Dowling, the Quarterback at Yale, amd Mike's name is a mix of the word "doone," described as a prep name for someone clueless, and Charles Pilsbury, Trudeau's roommate at Yale (of the baking company Pilsbury's, though he became an attorney). One of the main sources of humor was the contrast between the political outlooks of the two roomies. This dynamic changed a bit as other characters took up some of the political viewpoint, like former radical and radio host Mark Slackmeyer, and stoner Zonker Harris, who joins the football team, to BD's cobnsternation. As you would expect for the era, there is talk of Vietnam and student demonstrations, as well as the politics of the day. Trudeau had some strips where characters got letters from their President...

Under the Selective Service Act, a deferment from military service could be obtained while attending college, as well as service in the National Guard and Reserves. The latter was a chancier option, if your unit got activated, though that wasn't as big of a problem in the Vietnam Era. However, once college was over, military service and Vietnam were still looming.

BD, in addition to being on the football team, is also a member of the campus Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). I have looked over the old strips and it is unclear if he is attending on an ROTC Scholarship or has elected to join ROTC, with the goal of becoming a Reserve Officer. I attended the Univ of Illinois on a Navy ROTC Scholarship, which was a full commissioning program, with 4-5 years of college (depending on your degree, and an equal number of years minimum service, as payback, as an officer. There were also state ROTC scholarships and others who joined to take the classes. The Navy program, in my time, was for regular Navy service, on active duty. I had a friend who was in the Air Force ROTC program, which was a couple years active duty, then further time in the reserves, with the Army program of a similar nature. So, my guess would be that BD is at Walden on a football scholarship and ROTC was more of a side thing, since he dreamed of being like John Wayne (who did not serve in the military, for reasons that have sparked controversy, in some areas). BD had also gone to a military school, as we learn here....

In a 1971 sequence, BD goes off to Summer ROTC camp......

BD takes to it with great enthusiasm.......

So much so, that he frightens his instructors, a bit.....

BD isn't alone at the camp, as fellow Walden student Bernie , Mike's lab partner and the campus mad scientist. He spends his time developing chemical weapons and other secret weapons....

It's all similar in tone to the more comedic era of MASH, with BD a gung ho trainee, Bernie concocting one bizarre weapon after another, and a satirical, yet somewhat pointed commentary about the culture of the military, which turns killing into an acceptable thing. Killing is a necessity in war, yet most people have been taught that killing is wrong, in their formative stages. Military training does act to break down a recruit and rebuild him as someone ready to kill, if necessary, though not as programmed robots. However, one of the chief ways of changing the view of a recruit is to dehumanize the enemy. It is far easier to kill something you believe to be beneath you and military and political propaganda throughout the ages have sought to depict the enemy as savage beast, subhuman monsters, or similar. Julius Caesar, in his writings, depicted the tribes of Britain as such, claiming burning sacrifices to pagan gods, via wicker effigies, when no records exist of any human sacrifices via this method, beyond Caesar. Similarly, in WW2, the Japanese became buck-toothed, nearsighted monsters, raping and killing and were just "Japs." On the other side, the Japanese soldiers were trained to fight for the glory of the emperor and to see gaijin in a similar fashion, especially those who surrender.

ROTC had long been a part of college. My father took part in ROTC, while a student, before joining the USAF, to serve his military time and earn the GI Bill, to finish his studies. He served as non-commissioned officer, then returned to college to finish his degree. In Vietnam, ROTC became more controversial, as students protested the war and the Draft. ROTC units represented the military, on college campuses. As such, violence between protesters and ROTC cadets and midshipmen were not unknown. Several ROTC buildings were the target of bombings or violence, including at the Univ of Michigan, The Univ of Oregon and demonstrations at other campuses I had officers who had attended during the Vietnam Era and talked of being told not to wear their uniforms on campus, as they became targets of aggression and sometimes violence. Some of these stories, like the tales of people spitting on returning Vietnam vets, have little evidence to support them; but, there were enough protests and confrontations between protesters and police and National Guard troops that units would err on the side of safety.

Throughout his time at camp, BD can't wait to graduate and go to Vietnam to "kill Commies."

For the most part, the camp is depicted in a light hearted manner and there is a sequence where Bernie's girlfriend tunnels her way into the camp to visit him, before he eventually ships her home, in a box. Eventually, BD is voted the Best Performance as a Gung Ho GI, but he feels he can't accept it, because he is just doing his job....

Eventually, BD returns to Walden and any talk of ROTC disappears, in favor of football and other doings, though talk of the war and national politics continues through the strip.

In 1972, that all changed, as BD found a cunning way to get out of writing his term paper: enlist in the Army and request Vietnam!

Thanks to his ROTC training, BD skips boot camp and finds himself on a plane to South Vietnam, where he acts like a child on a vacation trip, as he sees rice paddies from the air. He is soon assigned to Firebase Bundy, where they carry on a daily battle with VC insurgents....

This is a bit different; no one seems to take the war that seriously. Even the VC get in on the act....

BD soon finds that this war is not what he thought, as even the higher ups have turned it into a farce, falsifying body counts to please superiors.....

If it seems a bit callous to make jokes about a war where people were still fighting and dying, it is good te remember that Trudeau is fresh out of college, where all he knows is what is presented in the media, and what he sees is an absurd situation that satires, such as Catch-22 and MASH made fun of, in the past. By 1972, after escalating the war, President Nixon began what was known as "Vietnamization," where the US military turned more and more of the actual offensive roles over to the Vietnamese, and provided more of a support role, as in the advisory phase. They provided transport, air support, and strategy, while ARVN units did more of the fighting. The US presence in South Vietnam was shrinking.

During all of this, BD suddenly finds himself lost and he is not alone....

Enter Phred, or to give his full name, Nguyen Van Phred, a thrid generation terrorist, who was pulled into the family business. The thing is, Phred is lost, too, and, the pair soon see that their survival depends on the help of the other person, so they have to work together.

Phred and BD wander around, trying to find some sort of civilization and escape their predicament. They share stories of their families and come to know each other and like one another. BD can respect Phred's dedication to his work, while Phred, despite his indoctrination, likes Chuck Berry records. Eventually, they get their grievances out of the way....

(warning, certain slurs are used)

Phred even puts on a USO show for BD....

Phred and BD look for a cache of supplies, hidden by Phred's unit, while they were on the run. They locate them, much to BD's delight....

Eventually, BD is found by his GI buddy, George and Phred is taken prisoner. BD is awarded a Purple Heart for being wounded in battle....

Phred eventually escapes and he and BD remain fast friends....

Later, Zonker gets a grant to become a student journalist and becomes the Walden war correspondent, where he is reunited with teammate BD. This sequence parodies the roving journalists, to a certain degree, some of whom never left Saigon, when they wrote stories of being in the field, but others traveled with units, on operations. Mostly, it is a chance to mix character bits with the situation in Vietnam.

Eventually, BD gets his orders sending him home, much to his regret and he says goodbye to Phred, who sends him off with a salute.....

BD returns home to find Mike and some of the others, including Zonker, are now living in a commune. He isn't happy, but he stays. he stays in touch with Phred, who sends him letters, addressed as, "Dear Running Dog....". Phred would pop up from time to time, as current events continued to evolve in Southeast Asia. At one point, BD takes a vacation and returns to Vietnam to see Phred. Phred eventually finds himself traded to the Pathet Lao, the Communist insurgents in Laos, where he is greatly respected, as a veteran,. Trudeau uses these strips to comment on the expansion of the war and bombing campaigns to include Laos and Cambodia, with Fred eventually leaving Laos to go to Cambodia, only to find all of its landmarks destroyed and over 300,00 peopl now refugees. Phred helps deliver the point of view of the refugees of Southeast Asia and eventually leads a delegation to the US, to testify of their plight, before Congress. He eventually returns home for the ultimate victory of the North and becomes an aid to the senior general, then conducts indoctrination classes in Communism, for the population of the South. here, Trudeau gets to send up Communist ideology vs reality, while also demonstrating that Communist rule brought some advantages to people in those countries, including women, as American women fight for equal pay and job access, as well as reproductive rights.

Meanwhile, BD receives the news of the fall of Saigon....

Trudeau ends it with a joke; but, BD reflects the question that many veterans asked, after Saigon fell: "What was the point of it all?" They fought and suffered and lost friends and what did tey have to show for it? South Vietnam fell to the Communists and eventually normalized relations with the US and became a source of cheap manufacturing for US consumer goods. The US abandoned South Vietnam when public opinion firmly turned against it and they proved incapable of building a democratic force in the region, since they were backing a side not chosen in free elections. In the end, the Vietnamese saw them as another foreign invader and worked to get them out, so they could go back to killing each other. Eventually, the much more motivated and better led and organized North established total control over the country. And, despite what the Domino Theory claimed, nation after nation did not fall to Communist domination. Some fluctuated, others eventually became friendly with the West, as a hedge against the Chinese governments aggression, especially after Vietnam and China fought a war, in 1979.

Vietnam had invaded and occupied Cambodia, in 1978, deposing the Khmer Rouge, who were backed by China. The Chinese then invaded Vietnam, though it failed to take Hanoi and eventually withdrew, after a month's fighting. China claimed success in its mission, but Vietnam continued to occupy Cambodia until 1989 and then restored relations with China, in 1991, after the break up of the Soviet Union.

BD goes on with his life and becomes a police officer; and, later, manager f his wife's career. He stays in the Reserves and eventually finds himself called up to deploy overseas, during Operation Desert Shield, the build-up period prior to the operational component (Operation Desert Storm) of the Gulf War. Once again, Trudeau returns to war, but does so in a different light and a different era. BD's coming home and Phred's adventures in Laos and Cambodia coincide with Watergate and Trudeau depicts a wall being constructed outside the White House grounds, as Nixon becomes more entrenched as calls for impeachment grow louder. Eventually, he is told that the votes to impeach him are there and the Senate is likely to vote him out of office and he resigns, handing over the presidency to Gerald Ford. Soon after, Trudeau satirizes the amnesty deal offered to Vietnam resistors and compares the deal with the lifetime perks that Nixon maintains, by resigning, rather than being removed from office through the impeachment process. The economic and political turmoil continues through the Carter years and then Ronald Reagan is elected president, ushering in a candidate that BD is gung ho about, back in the mid-70s, when Reagan first starts talking about running for national office. Bush succeeds Reagan, but is seen as a weaker version of that administration and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait brings thigs to a head.

Trudeau has a more nuanced look at the Gulf War, having Mark Slackmeyer and others state that it is a grab for oil, so that they don't have to formulate an energy policy. BD and buddy Ray Hightower find themselves in the desert, trying to maintain a hydration schedule, while waiting for the fighting to commence. Roland Hedley is used to mock the press pools, where journalists are led by the nose and fed Pentagon proaganda, which they repeat verbatim, as news, without additional research, in many cases. I worked at a destroyer squadron command staff and we used to laugh at the press conferences, as the information given to the press didn't match some of what we saw in message traffic. Personally, this was kind of my final political awakening, as it became quite clear that the lessons learn from Vietnam centered around controlling the media's access to the battlefield to control the narrative of the war/operation and prevent a widespread public dissent, as with Vietnam. BD continues on with his life.

Later, in 2004, BD is again deployed to Iraq, during the War on Terror. He becomes the center of some of Trudeau's most realistic and compelling work, as BD is badly wounded....

BD survives, but becomes an amputee and then adjusts to wearing a prosthetic leg. Trudeau earned great praise from the veteran community for his depiction of such subjects and PTSD among returning veterans, assault on female soldiers, as well as other veteran issues. Trudeau, for the most part, with Vietnam, satirized the absurdity and made it more about BD, as his Goldwater Republican views come face to face with the reality of an insane war, with no clear strategy. He ends up having more in common with the enemy than anyone else and Phred serves to humanize that enemy and predict the future, of a friendly Vietnam. With the Gulf War, he was a bit more nuanced, showing how the Middle East had become the new battleground, for control of dwindling resources, with rhetoric on all sides and shifting alliances. With the War on Terror, he shows how things went from an attack on the US, by terrorists, into Gulf War II and questions the legitimacy of the invasion, while also shining a spotlight on the men and women sent there, and the injuries they received, both physical and mental. On one Sunday comic, Trudeau listed the dead of the war.

Trudeau's approach to dealing with military conflict evolved. He never really makes fun of soldiers, in the Vietnam section, so much as the authority of the war, though there is a sequence showing the bombings of the North, showing the crews to be oblivious to the destruction that is raining on the ground, creating a refugee crisis. By the Gulf War, he is showing a great respect for those who are called up, while still taking his shots at the authority who sent them there, asking them to justify their sacrifices. With BD, he depicts his struggle to literally get back on his feet, with the support of family and friends.

After the drawdown of troops and the Fall of Saigon, Vietnam became something the country tried to bury. People didn't want to talk about it and didn't want reminders of it. Veterans rarely talked about what they experienced but the dealt with the after effects. The VA system was ill-equipped to aid them and more and more, Veterans had to turn to each other to find people who understood what they were going through and aid one another in trying to reclaim a normal life. Veterans felt abandoned by their country, even as they questioned why they were sent and what it was all about. The media and Hollywood presented the trope of the troubled Vietnam vet, further stigmatizing a generation of soldiers. Some dealt with it better than others. Slowly, after time passed, people began to look at things in a new light and with a certain sense of guilt. Veterans went to Vietnam as tourists, to look for the fallen and try to make sense of things. By the 1980s, some started to change the narrative of the war, from a failure, to winning all the battles, but losing the resolve to win. Vietnam would shape politics of the 80s and as new voices emerged to tell personal stories about Vietnam, the drama began to change. This will be our next phase, as we look at how Vietnam was depicted in comics, starting in the mid-80s and into the 90s, with the maturing of veterans and shift in the political landscape.

Before that, one more topic from Doonesbury. In 1975, as Saigon falls, we get a storyline of little Kim, the last Vietnamese orphan to leave the country and come to the United States, where she is adopted by a Jewish-American family, the Rosenthals. At first, the strip uses it to compare the abundance of America, with the devastation in Southeast Asia.

Baby Kim would eventually grow up and marry Mike Doonesbury. Mike, himself, who was depicted as a liberal, in early days, evolves into more of a center-to-moderate conservative, matching a similar journey of many of the Vietnam generation, as their revolutionary slogans gave way to graduating, working jobs and raising families. Others in the strip would continue a more definite liberal point of view, but Doonesbury grew beyond being an editorial and collegiate strip into more of a mix of family life and politics. Its tackling of current affairs led to many newspaper moving it to the editorial page and the rise of ultra-conservative counterpoints, like Mallard Fillmore. Given its criticisms of the Left, through the Carter, Clinton and Obama eras, it could hardly be called Leftist, nor did it embrace the Right. It pretty much continues to go after authority and point out when the emperor has no clothes, regardless of who the emperor is, though some emperors provide more material than others.

Next, we look at the return to Vietnam, as a subject, for a new generation of comics, brought to readers by those who were there.

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Rob Allen The Power Cosmic! Posts: 9,654	The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 1:44:25 GMT -5 via mobile MDG likes this Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by Rob Allen on Dec 3, 2023 1:44:25 GMT -5 The episode where BD refuses the award and identifies with Patton is probably related to George C. Scott refusing the Oscar he won for Patton in 1970.
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codystarbuck
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 21:22:08 GMT -5 foxley and zaku like this

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 3, 2023 21:22:08 GMT -5

In 1972, the drawdown of US forces began, in earnest; and, by 1973, most combat units had departed Vietnam and the Paris Peace Accords had been signed. In 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese and the Vietnam civil war, for all intents and purposes, came to an end. America quickly moved on from Vietnam, as much due to the exploding scandal of the Watergate break-in, in which the President of the United States was implicated in a criminal conspiracy. Facing a likely impeachment and removal from office, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency and Vice President Gerald R Ford was sworn in. Vietnam still cast a shadow over American life and politics. A post-war recession was devastating the economy and inflation and high unemployment became the norm. The OPEC oil embargo worsened things. The Election of 1976 pitted President Ford, running for the office for the first time (Ford is the only president never elected to the presidency or vice presidency, having been appointed Vice President, after the resignation of Spiro Agnew), against former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Ford's pardoning of Nixon, the entire Watergate scandal, the failing economy, the legacy of the failing in Vietnam all dogged Ford, as well as public images as a klutz, reinforced by repeated sketches on the then new and massively popular Saturday Night Live and public recordings of tripping and falling, led the relatively unknown Jimmy Carter to the White House. An amnesty was eventually declared for draft evaders, though many who fled to Canada remained, as they had assimilated into Canadian life. The Draft was officially ended.

The 1970s are often depicted as a period of hedonism, economic despair, rampant violent crime and corruption, and the emasculating of America. Much of that has to do with popular entertainment of the 1970s. Economic conditions were dismal, which fueled rising crime rates. However, as politicians looked for scapegoats, the statistics for arrest rates of combat veterans became a target for some. Stories of Vietnam veterans being arrested, in post-traumatic episodes, were rampant. The term "post-traumatic stress disorder" first came into wide use, mostly associated with Vietnam veterans. TV and movies often featured troubled vets who commit violent acts, who then have to be brought down in a gun battle, with police. Stories perpetuated the idea of veterans just "snapping."

In general, Hollywood had stayed away from Vietnam, after The Green Berets, apart from MASH, which used to cover of being set during the Korean War, to make commentary about the Vietnam War, and war, as a whole. References were mostly background detail for characters. Even things like the GI Joe toy line had switched from a military context to an adventure context, as Hasbro changed their marketing of the toy to tout the GI Joe Adventure Team, creating playsets, like the Mummie's Tomb Adventure, and providing a non-military foe, for play.

In the late 1970s, this began to change. Several movies started to look at the Vietnam War, in hindsight. 1978 was a watershed year, which saw the releases of the films Go Tell The Spartans, The Boys in Company C and Coming Home. The first film tells the story of an advisory group, in 1964, tasked with reoccupying the village of Muc Wa, which had been the site of a massacre of French soldiers, during the French attempt to resecure the colony. It starred Burt Lancaster and a young Marc Singer and Craig Wasson and depicted the futility of the mission, the corruption on the South Vietnamese side, and the brutality of the war. It was done on a small budget and was not a success, though it has gained a reputation over the decades.

The Boys in Comany C follows a group of Marine recruits, from boot camp to deployment to Vietnam, where they encounter the insanity of their missions, and find an escape via soccer. The film is notable for an early appearance by former Marine and Vietnam vet R Lee Ermy, who worked as a military advisor and appears as a DI, in the boot camp section. The film was filled with young actors, like Michael Lembeck, Craig Wasson, Stan Shaw and James Whitmore Jr, as the older Marine lieutenant, who commands the platoon. Again, it is an outright anti-war film, showing the violence and absurdity, as well as the complete lack of an end goal.

Coming Home is a bit more nuanced a film. Jane Fonda portrays a Marine wife, married to career officer Bruce Dern, who is deployed to Vietnam. A friend gets her involved in volunteering at a VA hospital, where she meets traumatized veteran Robert Carradine, as a young soldier traumatized after only a few weeks in-country; and, Jon Voight, as a disabled veteran who is angry and frustrated with his situation. The pair were high school classmates and they are reunited, as Fonda helps Voigt adjust, while he helps bring her out of her own circumstances. A relationship develops and they have an affair, knowing that her husband will return, at some point. Voigt chains himself to the gate of a recruiting office to try to stop others from joining the war, while Carradine's character commits suicide. Dern returns home, with a self-inflicted wound and his own PTSD.

The film focuses heavily on the traumatic effects of the war on those who survived, without ever really providing a counter-point, in someone who is not struggling with PTSD or physical disability, or some other consequence. The film earned Fonda and Voight Academy Awards, as did the script.

1978 was also the year of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, with Robert Deniro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep. The film follows three friends, from a Pennsylvania steel mill town, to Vietnam and the aftermath. The three friends are captured by the VC and subjected to games of russian Roulette, before escaping. John Savage's Steven loses both legs, while Christopher Walken's Nick is psychologically damaged and stumbles into a gambling den, where he plays Russian Roulette, for money. Deniro's Mike is the seemingly least affected, but, he finds that hunting no longer provides him peace and he cannot shot a deer he has in his sights. He is alienated from his friends, who did not go to Vietnam. Here, again, we see the dehumanizing aspect and the idea of the traumatized vets.

1979 saw the release of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, a feverishly insane film, based upon Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, as a special operations soldier is tasked to travel via swift boat deep into enemy territory and locate a renegade Special Forces colonel, who is fighting his own guerrilla war against the North Vietnamese, and "terminate his command." The boat journey is filled with horrors and absurdities and the further they go, the more extreme the event. Eventually, the soldier comes face to face with the rogue colonel, who is succeeding in his mission, by becoming as inhumane as his enemy. The film is noted for a sequence where Robert Duvall's AirCav unit transports to boat upriver and engages in an air assault on a suspected VC village, to the sounds of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie."

In 1980, while American citizens were being held hostage, in Iran, the US election came down to incumbent President Jimmy Carter and former actor and governor of California, Ronald Reagan. Carter was dogged by the recession, which was starting to show signs of improvement, when US agriculture took a hit, as the administration placed an embargo on grain sales to the USSR, as a protest to the invasion of Afghanistan. The failure of an attempt to rescue the hostages left the government and military looking weak and Regan's campaign focused on a return to America's fabled glory, the post-WW2 Eisenhower era (while ignoring the negative aspects of that period). Reagan won the election and the administration began a program of building up the military and pouring money into the Defense industries and removing restrictions on corporate mergers, media holdings and investment banking. Reagan, who had served in the Army Reserves and was called to active duty, during WW2, but was unfit to serve in combat, used the military as a sign of returning American strength, soon greenlighting the use of military force in several locales, including greenlighting a military invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, which was in the midst of a power struggle. US forces seized control of the island and extracted some 600 American medical students who were used as justification for the intervention, as the administration feared another hostage crisis. The presence of Cuban advisors on the island was of a greater concern, as it signaled an expanding Cuban sphere of influence, in the Caribbean and Latin America. The operation was also carried out just two days after a car bomb at the Marine barracks killed 241 Marines, in Lebanon, on peacekeeping duty.

In some circles, particularly on the Right, talk began to increase that the US military won every engagement against the North Vietnamese and VC, but that the politicians did not have the will to take the fight to the North and end the Communist rule. the war was painted as the product of the Democratic administrations of Kennedy and Johnson, ignoring the original commitment of American support and forces, under the Eisenhower Administration. Such ideas began creeping into movies and filled popular pulp fiction, like the Executioner series of paperbacks, which inspired Marvel's creation of the Punisher. It slowly began seeping into films, particularly action films, with a more Conservative viewpoint. The 1983 film, Uncommon Valor, straddles the line a bit, as a retired Marine colonel obsesses about his MIA son, captured during the extraction of a LRRP team. He finds evidence that he may be alive, in Vietnam, and recruits his former team members to conduct a POW rescue mission. The film is a mixture of the idea that the US "won all of the battles, but lost the war," and the idea of traumatized vets, as seen in Fred Ward's Wilkes, who suffers from deep PTSD. other team members are depicted as leading fairly normal and productive lives, apart from Tex Cobb's Sailor, who is in protective custody, after killing a biker gang leader. Some show the psychological effects of the war, but it is presented not as the horror of war, so much as the way the war ended, without vitory and being seen as running out on the South Vietnamese and the MIA soldiers.

The same director, Ted Kotcheff, the previous year, had adapted a David Morell novel, First Blood, from 1972, about a Vietnam veteran Special Forces soldier, pushed too far by a redneck sheriff, who takes to the mountains and ends up engaging in a guerrilla war against the authorities. In Sylvester Stallone's hands, the film becomes more about not winning the war, than being traumatized by it. The sequel, Rambo, hammers home the point as John Rambo returns to Vietnam to locate potential American POWs and asks Col Trautman, his mentor, if he gets to win, this time.

Then, in 1986, veteran Oliver Stone, who had written the screenplay for the film Wall Street, wrote and directed a film based on his experiences in Vietnam. Stone had written the screenplay, in 1968 and had been trying to sell it for years. Stone had enlisted, in 1967 and served with the 25th Infantry Division, in Vietnam, as well as the 1st Cavalry Division, where he earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart with oak leaf clusters (designating the second awarding of the Purple Heart). Stone was eventually able to get a producer and distributor and made the film, featuring Charlie Sheen, as the POV character, based on Stone, and Wilem Dafoe and Tom Berenger as the two sergeants who exert influence over him. Former Marine officer and journalist Dale Dye was hired to put the actors through a simulated boot camp, to learn to be soldiers, to be more authentic on screen. The film was released to great success and won Stone the Best Director Oscar, as well as the Best Picture, plus awards for Best Cinematography, Film Editing and Sound, while Berenger and Dafoe were both nominated for Supporting Actor.

Now, Vietnam became a topic for discussion again and more and more memoirs and historical accounts emerged. Films such as Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal jacket and Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone mixed with actioners like the Chuck Norris Missing in Action films and lower budget films, like Hamburger Hill and The Siege at Fire Base Gloria.

Within comics, Vietnam was still mostly background detail, for characters like Deathstroke or The Punisher. War comics were mostly gone, with DC the last holdout, though most of theirs were laid to rest by 1985. Marvel had cancelled Sgt Fury in 1981, with the final handful of issues being reprints (with the series fequently reverting to reprints, before a new batch of stories).

In 1980, Larry Hama, who had worked as an assistant to Wally Wood and done penciling work for Atlas/Seaboard and Marvel, as was an editor for DC, came back to Marvel, as an editor. He was the editor on Crazy, the Conan titles and was the writer for the licensed GI JOE comic, where he had created backstories and names for characters used in the toy line, based on an unused Nick Fury proposal he had made, called Fury Force. In 1985, he was the editor of a newly relaunched Savage Tales magazine. the previous Savage Tales had been launched in 1971, as a companion to Conan and then became the home to Ka-Zar, lasting 12 black & white issues. This new Savage Tales was to be an anthology, focused on adventure and action stories, in the vein of the mens adventure pulps on bookshelves and spinner racks. The end result would be a mix of sci-fi/post-apocalyptic action, aviation pulp adventure, historical adventure and a pair of stories about the Vietnam War, written by a veteran, Doug Murray.

Doug Murray had been around the fringes of the comic book world, for a while, mostly in fandom, but he had written for Monster Times, some fan publications and a pair of novels in the Destroyer pulp adventure series. Murray had served in Vietnam, in 1968 (through the Tet Offensive, in the Da Nang area) and again, in 1971, on special assignment. In 1972, he tried to interest DC Comics into doing a Vietnam story; but the company declined, citing the atmosphere and the ongoing war, at the time. Larry Hama contacted him to do a Vietnam War story for the first issue of Savage Tales; and, what emerged, was "5th to the 1st," by Murray and artist Michael Golden, which was set in "the 'Nam, 1967."

The story is told from the POV of Lt Roger Young, frsh out of college and now with the 1st Cavalry Division. he introduces us to the rest of the platoon, including Sgt Rich Heidel (on his 3rd tour), Spc 5 Amil Pawley, the Quaker medic, Spc 4 Garland Bremby, the radioman, Sp4 Paul Hogan, an Australian actor....no, wait, wrong one....an M79 grenadier, PFC John Dufts, a rifleman. He then talks about heroes and tells the story of Santos, a Puerto Rican, from New York, who was their machine gunner. The platoon was sent up along the DMZ to set up an ambush on a VC jungle trail. They helo in to an LZ and then hump to the area and set up their ambush. The VC come along and hit the trip wires, setting off their claymore mines and the platoon unleashes on the VC.....

The team then heads out for their LZ, for extraction, passing though a remote village. The village is quieter than the journey in and we soon learn why, as the VC open up with heavy machine guns, taking out half the column. The rest are pinned down. the LT has Hogan fire his last HE (high explosive) round at the read gun position, but the range is too short and the grenade doesn't rotate enough to arm it. It embeds in the wall of the hut where the machine gun is firing. Santos, who is badly wounded, gets to his feet and charges the position, firing his M60, along the way.

He slams into the wall and the grenade, knocking it loose and it rotates enough to arm and explodes, destroying the machine gun and its crew. The survivors are able to hurl grenades and return fire on the other position and escape, then call in a medevac. Santos is put up for the Medal of Honor and wins, posthumously.

The story is brief, lasting 7 pages. It does the job of introducing us to the characters and placing us in the middle of a typical operation in Vietnam, an ambush on a suspected VC jungle trail. they engage the enemy and then run into their own ambush, where Santos sacrifices himself to save the platoon. In the course of the story, it mentions that Santos was keen to fight and prove himself a hero, to be considered a "real American." The others just want to survive their tour.

Doug Murray did an interview with Dwight Zimmerman, for David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview, issue #53. In it, he described his time in Vietnam and how it was different from WW2 and Korea. He remarked that in those conflicts, a soldier was "in for the duration." In Vietnam, a combat tour was 12-13 months, and soldiers counted down the days until they would leave. For the previous wars, one day was like the next and they got on with the job at hand. For the Vietnam soldier, it was about survival until you got your orders home.

Michael Golden provides a feast for the eye, capturing every detail, like the linked ammo belt for Santos' M60, the correct ammo pouches for the M-16, with the 20 round magazines, the grenades, a PRC-25 field radio. He captures how soldiers would carry some personal items in the retaining band of their helmet cover, like mosquito repellant, cigarettes, gun oil, etc. He has the men wearing the correct jungle boots, not the leather combat boots often depicted in the 1960s stories that were set in Vietnam. If that sounds nitpicky, imagine hiking for hours through jungle in leather boots, which retain water and don't "breathe." Imagine the foot rot that comes with constantly wet feet. Now, imagine wearing different boots, with hard rubber soles, leather lower sections, and canvas uppers, that are a couple of pounds lighter, have vents to drain out water and let air flow in them. Which would you rather wear all day, every day, in a tropical environment? The attention to the details lends an air of authenticity to the stories, as veterans, especially, or students will pick up on those things.

This is not a typical war comic. Yes, it does present a heroic character; but, most of them just do their job. A couple of them experiment with drugs, except in the field. the sergeant is an alcoholic, functional in combat, a mess in garrison. The officer is not a West Pointer and not a career man; he just wants to get home, after his tour, and get a nice paying job somewhere.

It captures the difference between even Korea and Vietnam. A lack of a definitive strategy and end goal, soldiers who are there for 12 months, then rotated home, just as they are becoming experienced enough to be a strong unit. Soldiers taking drugs to escape their reality. Officers who aren't in it for the glory or to gain promotion (though there were their share of them).

This is not the Vietnam of Shotgun Harker & Chicken, or Capt Hunter and his search for his brother. This is the way it was, for many. It isn't glorified, but it also doesn't portray the stereotypes of marauding soldiers killing villagers, drugged out killers, mental cases, or gung ho super soldiers, taking down a dozen VC as they die. There are no John Rambos.

The same issue also features a story by Archie Goodwin and John Severin, called "Avenger," about a man hunting a German SS officer, who joined the French Foreign Legion and served in Indo-China. he is hunted by a Frenchman, who joins to locate him an exact revenge, for killing his brother in reprisal for a resistance ambush. He ends up being saved by the man and brought out of the jungle, to safety. The German goes on to win the Legion of Honor, at Dien Bien Phu, but the Frenchman still murders him, in Paris, in 1955, to avenge his brother.

The issue receives praise from an Air Force NCO and another fan, looking for more accurate stories of Vietnam. Now, a generation too young to have experienced the war are of age and want to know more about that era, which so dominates recent history.

Issue #4 features a return of 5th to the 1st, with the story "Sniper."

LT Young and his team are returning from a recon mission, on a suspected supply route, which turned up empty. A call comes in from a group of marines under fire, in an area allegedly pacified.. Reinforcements are 30 minutes out, but the 1st Cav is closer and Young okays their re-routing to aid the Marines. As they come into the LZ, a sniper bullet hits the pilot, in the neck and the helo heels onto its side. Young is shook up, but okay.

The other helo provides covering fire as the 1st Cav platoon takes positions and returns fire. The sarge goes in to check things out, after the firing stops and returns with a single Springfield 1903 bolt action rifle, with sniper scope, a relic of the previous war. The sniper was a young woman and LT Young thinks of his little sister, back home...

This war makes no sense, to him.

Here again, a basic mission and a brief, but violent engagement with the enemy, and a discovery that one sniper held down a platoon of Marines. The soldiers try to make sense of it, both that the VC can be so dedicated, and the idea of a young girl, killing their buddies. It's madness.

This all belies the fact that several Russian women fought as snipers, in WW2 (as well as combat pilots) and that there were unsubstantiated stories of French women, lovers of German soldiers, sniping at Allied soldiers. These stories spread quickly and were picked up by reporters, though there was no evidence to support such claims. Still, a woman can kill as easy as a man.

That was it for 5th to the 1st, in Savage Tales. The magazine only lasted 8 issues; but, towards the tail end, Jim Shooter presented Larry Hama with a mock up of a cover, with the title The Nam, using a repurposed GI JOE cover. He asked Hama to develop a proposal for a series, set in Vietnam and Hama used the 5th to the 1st stories as a template. The end result was greenlit and it became a surprise hit, garnering outside media attention, when DC seemed to get the lion's share, with things like Dark Knight and Watchmen. However, a third story had been draw and lettered and it ended up being printed in the 8th issue of The Nam, titled "The Tunnel Rat."

The 1st Cav are testing the new 20 mm Vulcan gatling gun, on an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) and have been tasked to check out some VC rest and supply points, along with the weapon....

Leaflets are dropped over the villages, to warn them that the Army is coming. The village is deserted, when they arrive, but they mow it down, with the Vulcan, to make sure. A search of the remains finds nothing and they start to move out, when PFC "Fats" Duff falls through an entrance to a tunnel. They call it in to intelligence, who is sending people to check it out. LT Young tasks Duff and Sp5 Frank "Fudd" Verzyl to stay and mark the entrance, while they move to the next village. Fudd was a tunnel rat and loved going down holes, after the "Wascally Wabbits." While Duff catches some Zs, Fudd takes his sidearm and a flashlight and goes into the tunnel complex, but finds nothing. He comes across a door and hears sounds behind it. Thinking it must be a map room, with an intelligence NCO still there, he kicks through the door and is confronted by hundreds of rats. They charge out, having been shut in what had been food storage and the food was gone. Fudd comes screaming out of the hole, firing his weapon back at the rats. It takes time for Duff to calm him down and get the story. By that point, intel has shown up, in the form of a green 2nd lieutenant, who gets a shaky report from Fudd and decide he wants to go down and look and wants Fudd to guide him. Fudd starts to panic and explain, but the "butter bar" threatens to court martial him if he disobeys his order and Fudd does the only thing he can.....

He shoots the lieutenant. he is arrested and faces court martial, but is an obvious Section 8. He is strapped to a gurney for flight back to the US. He sees the ramp lower from the C-130 and the tunnel inside and lets out an ear-shattering scream.

In part, this story was inspired by Hama, who had been a tunnel rat, at times, in Vietnam. Tunnel Rats were usually small guys, who could slip into the tunnels and move around, armed with a pistol or shotgun and a flashlight. The tunnels were often part of major bunker complexes, complete with sleeping quarters, map rooms and food and ammo storage. It was part of the system that the VC used to disappear and then reappear and attack again. Some soldiers spent months living in those tunnels, periodically launching attacks.

Although the magazine didn't sell well enough, The 5th to the 1st garnered enough positive feedback that Jim Shooter thought there was a potential audience for more stories of Vietnam and turned to the editor, Larry Hama, to put together a book. Using the team from these stories, Doug Murray and Michael Golden, he came up with The Nam, our next subject.

The 5th to the 1st really sets the template for what would come, in The Nam; but, with less of a conceptual vision behind it. These were more like random war stories, from a veterans memories. Although a group of characters are presented, we never really get to know any of them. In the first story, we are introduced to several, but only Santos is a major participant. The second has the LT and sergeant as main actors, but mostly reacting. Tunnel Rat features a new character. The Nam took these disparate stories and them gave the idea a linking device to drive the series: each issue would take place at one month in a character's tour of duty. 12 issues would equal a whole tour. The series would begin in 1966 and continue until the series was cancelled or they reached 1972, when the drawdown began. So, it was a limited concept, from the offing. As we will see, next time, it struggled to stay relevant, after that first year.

One thing you will notice in these stories is little talk of the politics of the war, whether it was right or wrong; just the frustration of fighting an enemy that disappeared and the repetitive nature of their missions. Military Intelligence is treated as an oxymoron (that's by definition) and authority has no idea what it is doing, as superior firepower isn't stopping the VC attacks and the situation doesn't seem to change. To many of these veterans, that was the experience of Vietnam, short, fierce engagements and a lot of repetition, with no clear end in sight, other than tick off the days until their tour was over and they flew back home, to finish out their 2 year stint in the military, at some stateside duty station (or in Europe). Doug Murray served in Vietnam, then rotated to Korea, before he was brought back to Vietnam , for a 4 month stint, on special duty.

One final note about the title to the feature, 5th to the 1st. This is Army speak (specific to cavalry) of the 5th Battalion of the 1st Division, or 5/1. Consider it in terms of Band of Brothers. The soldiers portrayed in the story were part of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

Last Edit: Dec 3, 2023 23:34:09 GMT -5 by codystarbuck

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 21:40:01 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 3, 2023 21:40:01 GMT -5

ps That second volume of Savage Tales has some really good stuff in there, including the aforementioned Archie Goodwin and John Severin story, "Avenger," plus several other stories featuring Severin's art, including ones looking at Pancho Villa and other turn of the century historical stories. Sam Glanzman drew a couple of stories and Wayne Vansant, probably the Russ Heath of his generation (in terms of his details in his historical comics), has some early work in there, before he would become first the fill-in artist on The Nam, then the regular artist, as well as his own historical work.

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 22:35:10 GMT -5

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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 3, 2023 22:35:10 GMT -5

Nice write-up, codystarbuck .

A couple of points regarding Grenada. It may be said that the Defense Department learned at least one lesson from Vietnam. The American press had been allowed almost complete freedom in covering that war. The only obstacle the press encountered was that they had to to sign a pledge to acquire credentials in which they averred that they would not disclose future troop movements and specific casualty totals.

Because the Vietnam War was the first war Americans could watch in near-real time on their television screens during the evening news, Americans got a bellyful of uncensored, filmed reports of what was happening. In addition to those reports and the daily reporting in the newspapers, the mass-market magazines like LIFE, TIME and Newsweek, among others, also gave people plenty of raw information that proved to be instrumental in the decreasing support for the war.

Grenada was an entirely different story. The press was precluded from going onto the island for their own protection, according to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Photos and film were all from DOD cameramen. The only way Americans got uncensored reporting was thanks to ham radio operators and a few reporters who essentially smuggled themselves onto the island. Once discovered, they were quickly removed to an aircraft carrier. It was clear that the DOD and the military regarded a free press as a nuisance and an enemy.

The DOD's refusal to allow the press in worked. The invasion of Grenada started two days after the bombing in Lebanon bombing and helped to keep the deaths of those 241 Marines out of the spotlight. Jingoism always wins.

Also, Doug Murray was wrong about draftees being in for the duration in Korea. Thtey served a two-year hitch, to the day, and in fact, they rotated out just as the guys in Vietnam did. In fact, because the war was unpopular, the point system was adjusted to speed up that rotation to get guys home more quickly. This jumped out at me b/c of a project I'm working on involving a Korean War vet.

From the US Army Center of Military History's account: The Korean War: "Years of Stalemate July 1951-July 1953"

In September 1951, a soldier earned four points for every month in close combat, two points for rear-echelon duty in Korea, and one point for duty elsewhere in the Far East. Later, an additional category - divisional reserve status - was established at a rate of three points a month. At that point, enlisted men needed to earn 43 points to be eligible for rotation back to the States. In June 1952 these requirements were reduced to 36 points. Earning the required number of points did not guarantee instant rotation, but it did mean you were eligible to go home, and most soldiers did return home shortly after they met the requirement.

This was of some consequence in helping to maintain public support for what was an increasingly unpopular war. Yet, [as in the case of the Vietnam War], for all of its psychological and political benefits, the program was not without its costs. The constant turnover generated by the policy - approximately 20,000 to 30,000 men per month - was terribly inefficient from the vantage point of manpower administration and created tremendous strains on the Army's personnel and training systems. The program also hurt military proficiency by increasing personnel turbulence and by producing a continuous drain on skilled manpower.

Yet another example of Korea's status as the forgotten war.

Last Edit: Dec 3, 2023 22:35:30 GMT -5 by Prince Hal

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 23:31:36 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 3, 2023 23:31:36 GMT -5

Dec 3, 2023 22:35:10 GMT -5 Prince Hal said:

Nice write-up, codystarbuck .

A couple of points regarding Grenada. It may be said that the Defense Department learned at least one lesson from Vietnam. The American press had been allowed almost complete freedom in covering that war. The only obstacle the press encountered was that they had to to sign a pledge to acquire credentials in which they averred that they would not disclose future troop movements and specific casualty totals.

Because the Vietnam War was the first war Americans could watch in near-real time on their television screens during the evening news, Americans got a bellyful of uncensored, filmed reports of what was happening. In addition to those reports and the daily reporting in the newspapers, the mass-market magazines like LIFE, TIME and Newsweek, among others, also gave people plenty of raw information that proved to be instrumental in the decreasing support for the war.

Grenada was an entirely different story. The press was precluded from going onto the island for their own protection, according to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Photos and film were all from DOD cameramen. The only way Americans got uncensored reporting was thanks to ham radio operators and a few reporters who essentially smuggled themselves onto the island. Once discovered, they were quickly removed to an aircraft carrier. It was clear that the DOD and the military regarded a free press as a nuisance and an enemy.

The DOD's refusal to allow the press in worked. The invasion of Grenada started two days after the bombing in Lebanon bombing and helped to keep the deaths of those 241 Marines out of the spotlight. Jingoism always wins.

Also, Doug Murray was wrong about draftees being in for the duration in Korea. Thtey served a two-year hitch, to the day, and in fact, they rotated out just as the guys in Vietnam did. In fact, because the war was unpopular, the point system was adjusted to speed up that rotation to get guys home more quickly. This jumped out at me b/c of a project I'm working on involving a Korean War vet.

From the US Army Center of Military History's account: The Korean War: "Years of Stalemate July 1951-July 1953"

In September 1951, a soldier earned four points for every month in close combat, two points for rear-echelon duty in Korea, and one point for duty elsewhere in the Far East. Later, an additional category - divisional reserve status - was established at a rate of three points a month. At that point, enlisted men needed to earn 43 points to be eligible for rotation back to the States. In June 1952 these requirements were reduced to 36 points. Earning the required number of points did not guarantee instant rotation, but it did mean you were eligible to go home, and most soldiers did return home shortly after they met the requirement.

This was of some consequence in helping to maintain public support for what was an increasingly unpopular war. Yet, [as in the case of the Vietnam War], for all of its psychological and political benefits, the program was not without its costs. The constant turnover generated by the policy - approximately 20,000 to 30,000 men per month - was terribly inefficient from the vantage point of manpower administration and created tremendous strains on the Army's personnel and training systems. The program also hurt military proficiency by increasing personnel turbulence and by producing a continuous drain on skilled manpower.

Yet another example of Korea's status as the forgotten war.

Yeah, I was going to mention about the press in Grenada, but had already gone on a bit too long. I served during the Gulf War and my training, through the late 80s brought up a lot of talk about the post-Vietnam Navy, which was a mess. From what I've heard, the other services were similar, except the Marine Corps. Throughout my time, strategy still revolved around the notion of fighting a war on two major fronts, as in WW2 and a focus on technology and superior firepower, rather than more mobile and highly adaptable forces. It was very clear that the main lesson learned was to control the media narrative, which filtered to Hollywood in the form of DOD cooperation being contingent on script approval, leading to recruiter wet dream films, like Top Gun and denial, in the case of accurate films, like An Officer and a Gentleman.

In the Gulf War, the press pools took care of the complaints about access to the battlefield of Granada, but, continued the program of controlling the press by placing them in specific areas and feeding them officially sanctioned information, rather than letting them wander the battlefield. Embedding allowed friendly journalists to have major stories that toed the DOD line, while more suspect journalists were stuck in rear areas or had to find their own way to the troops. the press conferences during the Gulf War were an exercise in comedy, and I used to see message traffic that told a better picture of things than CNN.

By the same token, Murray and some other veterans have brought up how journalists in Vietnam often concocted stories that didn't happen, or took rumors and reported them as fact, or exaggerated them because they sounded better than truth. many felt the reporting didn't reflect the truth of the battlefield and that many stories contributed to negative images for veterans, either by making isolated incidents sound common place, or by not sampling enough areas to find a clearer picture. For instance, reporting made drug use sound rampant; but, according to a large number of vets, drug use was mainly at rear areas and bases and not in the field. Meanwhile, that same reporting only focused on narcotics, but avoided legal substances, such as alcohol. Murray described some NCO who were drinking by 10:00 am and completely hammered by afternoon, in rear areas. Given the journalism professions own well deserved reputation for hard drinking, one can see why.

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 3, 2023 23:50:48 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 3, 2023 23:50:48 GMT -5

pps An interesting film to see, to document the evolution of the Vietnam narrative, is Francis Ford Coppola's 1987 film, Gardens of Stone. Previously, Coppola's Apocalypse Now had presented a military that was either sinister or insane, with no real middle ground, other than perhaps the crew of the swift boat. This film depicts The Old Guard, the 3rd Infantry Regiment, who conduct military funerals and perform watchstanding and caretaking duties at Arlington National Cemetery. In the film, DB Sweeney is an idealistic young soldier, itching to be in Vietnam, where the war is, rather than playing toy soldier. He is the child of a non-com and in love with the daughter of a senior officer. James Caan is a senior non-com, who would rather be in an instructor billet, trying to teach young soldiers how to stay alive, rather than burying them far too young. James Earl Jones is the senior NCO and a bit more pragmatic and worldly about the situation. Caan meets a newspaper reporter/editor (Anjelica Huston), who has a different view of the war, but is infatuated by Caan. A romance blossoms, while Sweeney continues to desire to go to Vietnam and proves to be a natural leader. He quickly rises to the rank of sergeant but aims for OCS and achieves it, then deploys to Vietnam, after marrying his girl, despite her parents' objections.

The film shows a respect for the soldiers and the duties they perform, honoring the dead and caring for their final resting place, as well as those sent to Vietnam. It shows how experienced soldiers were often torn by being away from combat, not because they missed the thrill; but because they felt they could do more good by helping bring the young ones back, alive. It recognizes the bond between soldiers, who fight for their buddies more than for country, yet is also fair to the anti-war movement, as Caan and Huston have their differences in approach, but, ultimately, have the same goal. Huston expands Caan's view and vice versa.

It's not a perfect film, by any stretch of the imagination; but, it is well done, for the most part, with a mostly excellent cast and some great scenes. It was no Platoon; but, it does show how even filmmakers changed how they told Vietnam stories.

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 13, 2023 21:29:15 GMT -5 foxley, zaku, and 1 more like this

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 13, 2023 21:29:15 GMT -5

Time for the one that most people have been waiting for.....

With the feedback on The 5th to the 1st, in Strange Tales being universally positive and with things like Platoon hot at the box office, Jim Shooter showed a mock-up cover of a new comic, with an image from a GI JOE cover, and a title logo, The 'Nam. He asked Larry Hama to develop a pitch for a series and he conceived the idea of telling the story of a tour of duty in Vietnam, with each issue representing one month's time. He again got the team of Doug Murray and Michael Golden involved and they launched a surprise hit. In 1986, war comics were pretty much done. DC's long run of titles had mostly ceased, apart from the odd special or mini-series. Marvel had put Sgt Fury to bed earlier, in 1981. Meanwhile, those that had lasted had primarily been focused on World War 2, which was seen by the general public as a "just war," if there is such a thing and had used a recurring character or feature. With the conceit that this would be a single tour of duty, you automatically limit the potential lifespan of a character, within the series, to 12 or 13 issues; fine for a mini-series; but this was to be ongoing. Still that's the way they went.

The first year of The Nam is seen through the eyes of Pvt Ed Marks, who as the first issue opens, is boarding a plane to South Vietnam, to start his one year tour of duty. His parents are there to see him off...

"Aw, Mom; not in front of the airline lady!"

The year is 1966. The US is engaging in offensive military operations in Vietnam. The entire 25th Infantry Division is deployed to Vietnam. It is in this division that Ed Marks is assigned. He is first sent to Ft Lewis, Washington, where he is run through a physical, given 3 different injections for various diseases, issued his gear and put on a military plane, bound for Saigon. Ed has trouble with air sickness and doesn't get much sleep. They arrive in the dark and Ed notices some green lights in the sky....

Welcome to Viet-f@#$%&g-Nam!

The men are rushed off the plane to trucks, to take them to the "Repo Depot," (replacement depot), where they will be assigned to their new unit. Ed is given malaria pills, then put on another vehicle to his final destination, the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry (Mechanized). He reports to the 1st sergeant who asks him what kind of duty he wants. Ed doesn't know how to answer and the Top (1st sergeant) is less than happy, calls over another soldier and tells him to show ed to Sgt Polkow. Ed is then educated on how things are, in The nam, instead of "The World." The 1st sergeant wanted a bribe to have him assign Ed to cushier duty. Ed's naive response made him think that Ed was being funny, so he assigned him to Polkow's platoon, which he hates. Ed meets the others and his platoon sergeant and is told to get settled in, as they will be going into the bush at 0430 (that 4:30 am, for you civilian pukes......we do more killing before 5:00 am than most people do all day.....except for McDonalds, who do a steadier business in poisoning!)

All around the base (which is surrounded by razorwire, has sandbagged observation posts with machine guns, and helos landing and taking off, we see men going about their business, like an APC (armored personnel carrier) with a crane arm, removing a wrecked Huey.

The next morning finds Ed humping through his first rice paddy, with a stop along the way to show him an anti-personnel mine, laid on the trail, waiting for some inattentive GI t step on it and lose a leg...or worse. Ed is sweating bullets, from both the tropical heat and the intensity of concentration. They take a break and fill canteens, where Ed's new buddy, Mike Albergo, shows him how to skim off the pondscum at the top and fill the canteen, then drop iodine purification tablets into it and shake it up, letting the tablets dissolve before drinking any. He warns Ed of the lousy taste. They are on a search-and-destroy mission: flush out Charlie and shoot him. They come to a village and spread out, so that they aren't bunched together in a column, that could easily be mowed down. Someone notices the locals bugging out and yells a warning. They take incoming fire and return it. Ed is stunned, at first, but reacts to the sergeant telling him to open fire and he does. They move out to chase down Charlie and Ed encounters his first dead body and leaves his breakfast on the ground.

They stop for a break, then meet up with APCs, transporting Australian soldiers, who are there to reinforce their patrol. They come across the area marked as potential VC territory and search for signs in what looks like a quiet clearing, until a trapdoor pops open...

The men hunt for other openings and drop grenades into any they find. The sergeant then radios in and marks an LZ (landing zone) and in come the Hueys, with reinforcements and transport. Ed is still a bit squemish, about heights and flying and riding with an open door isn't helping. Mike tells him to get used to it, fast.

Back at base, they unwind over a few beers and Ed is still numb, from his first taste of combat. Mike takes him to see a movie...Army style....

There are sounds and flashes as the VC fire rockets at the base, but too far away t bother the men at the movie. Mike tells Ed not to worry; Charlie doesn't get much R & R and attacking them would mean they don't get to see the movie. It's different here, than in The World.

The issue ends with an editorial that although the series is fiction, events within are based on actual events, like a contingent of the 23rd Infantry meeting up with Australian soldiers and searching through a system of tunnels. We are told that the passage of time will match the schedule of the comic, one month for each issue. It then ends with a glossary of terms, such as what the 1st sergeant meant when he read out Ed's personnel file: LPC, been through AIT, 11 Bush MOS. LPC=Leadership Potential Candidate, AIT=Advanced Infantry Training (combat training, after Basic), 11 Bush=light weapons specialist, meaning infantry weapons, ie a "grunt."

Doug Murray was a veteran of two tours in Vietnam (one full tour, one temporarily assigned duty, of about 3-4 months) and brought to it his experiences, along with editor Larry Hama's. Murray served in 1968-69, in the post-Tet Offensive, when things were really hot. Hama had served from 1969-1971, with an engineer unit. They brought an immediate authenticity of the veteran. Michael Golden never served in the armed forces; but, it was an area of interest for him and he did his research. he has a cartooniness that some decried; but, he had every piece of gear and every vehicle looking the way they did. he had the defensive positions displayed as they were, and he could tell a story. A vet could look at the comic and say, yeah, that's how it was.

So, we see the war, for the first time, from people who were there; warts and all. This isn't the gung ho stuff of the early-mid 60s, when the US was primarily in the advisor role and everyone talked about defending democracy from Communist aggression, ignoring that there was no democracy in the Republic of Vietnam, because they did not hold free elections, which led to the VC uprising. The Army isn't this grand, glorious group of crusaders. Ed sees that corruption undermines things, in the rear area, via the crooked 1st sergeant. We also see that the South wasn't particularly secure, as even the Saigon airport was the seen of rocket and mortar attacks.

This first issue features an FNG (Nis New and G is Guy...you can work out the F part yourself), on his first patrol, after landing in The Nam, over the course of his first month in-country. He is green as grass, prone to airsickness, has a fear of heights, and finds himself in a combat zone, probably not long out of high school. malt shops and fumblings in the back seats of cars to humping through rice paddies, sucking down treated paddy water, and a short, intense firefight That's a hell of a transition for anyone.

The second issue find Ed on an ambush of a VC supply route, as they hit a column of VC and their oxen with Claymore anti-personnel mines (a block of C4 plastic explosive, with ball bearings embedded in it, which are then fired in an arc, when the explosive is detonated, causing beaucoup damage) and small arms fire. Sgt Polkow has to put a foot up the ass of a reluctant medic to do his job and earns the wrath of the 1st sergeant, because the medic is one of his boys. The patrol gets 4 hours rest at base, after 3 days in the bush and then is sent out on APCs, along with a tank, to patrol another sector, where mine disables an APC and they end up in another firefight. When they return to base, Polkow goes looking for the Top and Rob, his clerk (who showed Ed to his platoon) calls for the platoon commander to try to defuse things. He finds Polkow confronting the Top, in the club and offers to buy him a drink, for the way his platoon acted on their mission. Polkow lets the Top go, for now, During their initial confrontation, when Polkow learns that they are headed back into the bush, after 4 hours sleep, we se the Top cleaning his Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver and then loading it, lest Polkow try anything. Later, when they have returned, Polkow hand his gear to a soldier and starts to head off with his weapon, then stops and tells the GI to take it, too. he knows he is in a dangerous frame of mind. Later, he goes looking for Top and Rob is seen calling the lieutenant, to keep Polkow, who the men respect, from killing the 1st sergeant.

Here we see that the enemy wasn't just the PAVN or the Viet Cong; sometimes it was the people in green uniforms, sitting in the rear. Just as petty minded managers an co-workers can sabotage chances at promotion at work, the same could get you killed, in a combat zone.

issue 3 sees Ed and Mike get Lonnie Crews, who is a short timer, a 3 day pass to Saigon, to celebrate his impending departure. first, they have to win enough in a poker game to bribe the Top for the pass; then, they have t survive Saigon. They take in a movie, where Lonnie stops Ed from buying what he thinks is popcorn, but is actually snails (escargot). During the movie, a terrorist tosses in a satchel charge, via an exit door. The three men leave before MPs arrive, so they don't spend the day helping to clear rubble and hunt for VC. they go to a nightclub, where they are soon joined by some "hostesses", who drink Saigon tea (tea, but at champagne prices) and they have a friend, for Ed. Ed is nervous and awkward and she suggests taking a walk, which makes Ed more relaxed...too relaxed to see it is a set up, for a mugging. Luckily, Mike and Lonnie followed and saved Ed from getting worse than a headache. They go to the Queen Anne hotel and get rooms and spend the night on real sheets. however, the hotel is bombed by the VC and Loonie is trapped under rubble. Mike and ed work to get him out from under it and get help from the fire brigade and get Lonnie to a hospital. He is injured, but alive and will get to go home early, as a result. Mike and Ed decide to head back to the base, when they are waylaid by "journalists," from Stars & Stripes.....

They return to base and crash in their bunks, just in time for the nightly rocket attack. They need an R&R from their 3-day pass!

Issue 3 also contains the first letters, including two from veterans, praising it, and a couple from sons of or brothers of veterans. Jane Fonda gets hauled out by one of the vets.

Here, we see that even a pass to Saigon wasn't an escape from danger, as Saigon was a target for bombings and assassinations, plus your basic street crime. A naive young GI, his first time away from home and the US, is a ripe target. We also see the disdain that many vets had for the media. This is an area of great controversy, in regards to the Vietnam War and the experiences during this period shaped how the military deals with the media, as well as how the government manages an alleged free press.

In Vietnam, the press was mostly free to cover the war, as they saw fit. Much of it was done from Saigon, sitting in hotel bars, writing copy to go along with Army infromation press releases and briefings; but there were also young, ambitious journalists who went out on patrols with GIs, looking to be the next Ernie Pyle. In previous wars, they were newspapermen and newsreel crews; in Vietnam, they were NBC and CBS News, as well as print and other journalists. Vietnam was the first war where families could see wounded soldiers being medevaced, on the 6 O' Clock News, with commentary from Walter Cronkite. In many ways, that was a good thing, as the populace could see the reality of the war and compare it to what was coming from Washington and decide for themselves if they wanted to see their sons and brothers fighting in a war that was essentially an internal struggle. For the military, it revealed how often they made mistakes and how costly they could be; but, it also brought them additional scrutiny beyond their superiors, as suddenly others wanted to weigh in on how they should conduct the war. They got enough of that from the Pentagon and the White House, let alone Congress; now, they had journalists and Mom & Pop weighing in. Imagine every conversation about what the coach should have done after your team lost a football game and then apply that same level of expertise to civilians telling trained soldiers how to fight a war.

A free press is necessary for a democracy to function; but, there were elements of that press in Vietnam who were more interested in selling a story than reporting the truth. journalism is rarely objective because it is always filtered through the eye of the reporter and their camera or illustration. Just as two eyewitnesses can see the same event and tell two different recountings, so can two jourbalists tell a story with their own biases and agendas. Major defeats become mild setbacks and bad momentary judgement becomes mass slaughter, depending on the story the journalist sends home. Sometimes it was true and sometimes it was like a Hollywood biopic, where minor elements have a basis in fact and the rest was made up to tell an entertaining story.

GIs were trying to stay alive another day and then seeing things like Stars & Stripes feeding propaganda, or newspapers from home where they might be painted as stormtroopers of a repressive regime. Then, they see images of protesters who are safe and sound at home, attacking them, rather than the politicians and opportunists who sent them there in the first place. It built up strong resentments in veterans, as they felt like the media painted everyone there as killers; or, alternatively, cheered on the slaughter. It was a lose-lose situation. The military and government learned that if they wanted to control public opinion and steer it in their favor, then they needed to control press access to the battlefield. In Grenada, they denied them access to it until well after there was a story to tell, other than the government press releases, which were carefully stage managed. In the Gulf War, it meant press pools, where reporters were given daily briefings that said nothing and had gun camera footage narrated to them, like it was a video game. When CNN reporters showed footage of rubble in Bagdad, they were labeled as traitors or victims of Iraqi propaganda, as the US would never bomb a "milk factory," ignoring the number of times it had bombed civilian targets or misidentified civilian areas as military locations. Laser-guided "smart bombs" are only as precise as the men who point the designators at the target.

From the other side of things, the footage from Vietnam woke up a lot of people to the idea that their government was lying to them and their children, siblings or neighbors were the ones coming home in boxes, for very murky reasons. They started to react to this situation and reject the government narrative. In 1968, it drove Lyndon Johnson from seeking re-election and it would play a major part in bringing down Richard Nixon's administration
It could be said that the free rein of the journalists allowed for a better democracy.

Issue 4 plays further on the idea of journalists in the field and finds a camera crew joining the 23rd on an operation. it also find the 1st sergeant joining them, in the field, to be seen on camer, while he leaves Polkow behind, to man the fort, rather than lead his platoon, in the field. They are choppered in to what is supposed to be a pacified village and run right into VC, with a quad .50 anti-aircraft battery....

Ed's helo goes down in the woods, but he, Rob and a couple of others are unharmed. The group is pinned down and Top calls in a "fast mover' (fighter bomber) airstrike, of napalm, on the village. We see F-4 Pahntom IIs fly over and incinerate the village, while the news camera records. The troops are choppered out, but no one is tasked to search for Ed and Rob, despite Mike Albergo telling Top they can't leave them behind. The missing men trek through the jungle towards the coordinates of a First cavalry (Airmobile) base. Along the way, they encounter VC and Ed reacts like veteran, hitting a michine gun position with grenades and then treating Robb's wounds. they make it to the First Cav base and back home, while Rob tells of serving with the Top on a previous tour of duty and that he had been wounded twice before. When they return, he tells off the top and demands to be put with a line platoon or he is going to the captain with Top's corruption. Top sends him on his way, then puts Ed and Rob up for Bronze Stars. he also relays that the footage of the napalm attack was lost and only the shots of the briefing remained.

Here, we see how bad leadership can turn things into a fiasco and how troops often became self conscious when camera crews were in the field. it often endangered the men, as they became more conscious of the camera than potential danger. meanwhile, the Army tries to stage manage the footage to put themselves in the best light.

The events in the issue are centered on Operation Paul Revere/Than Phong 14, a combined US and ARVN mission to pacify large areas of the country, between May and September of 1966. When I was busy gestating.

Issue #5 finds Rob leading the squad , in the filed, as a new sergeant, while Top gets a new cler typist, one actually trained for the job. We also see new arrivals and one who isn't green and rebuff's Tops attempt at a bribe. We later see the new guy return, with the bribe Top was fishing for and receive, just as he is arrested for taking bribes. the clerk typist is an investigator, from CID, who set the new guy up with marked bills, to pass onto the Top. It's sort of entrapment; but it gets the job done. Turns out, Polkow arranged it, to finally deal with Top. Rob says it was working a desk that turned Top into what he became, after time in the field.

Issue 6 finds Ed experiencing the monsoon season, where everything is wet all day, every day, to the point of rotting his jungle boots. We also see Kakas, the medic who was in with Top, try to frag Sgt Polkow. he gets his payment in the field, after getting hit in a VC ambush. Rob continues to show that he is a good field leader.

Issue #7 is a departure, as it features a Kit Carson Scout. these were VC turncoats, who then worked for the Army, as interpreters, much like the Native American scouts who served with the US Army, during the Indian Wars of the late 1800s. The issue also features the first art from Wayne Vansant, as fill-in artist. Doug Murray adds a note that Duong, the Kit Carson Scout, is a composite of 3 actual VC, not all of whom were KCS.

Through Duong's eyes, we see the history of the Vietnam War. First, in 1940, the Japanese come, after the French surrender to Germany and are forced to accept Japan as "co-rulers" of Indochina. Duong was a farmer, but the woman he loved, tried to resist and was executed. Duong joins the Viet Minh and fights a guerrilla war against the Japanese. After the war ends, their leader takes over the district and Duong goes back to farming and finds a new love. Then the French return, determined to reclaim their colony. Duong fights the French, but they bring in the Legion, with ex-Nazi soldiers among them....

The Legionnaires come to the village and question Duong, by stringing up his woman on their half track, threatening to kill her if he does not talk. The Viet Minh attack and Duong shows the Legionnaires the same mercy they showed his wife. The French are defeated at Dien Bien Phu and now they will be free.

Except it wasn't. The country was split, with the South controlled by French collaborators, like Diehm. they held a snap election and used violence to wipe out opposition. Te VC fought the oppressors, but Duong saw his brothers become oppressors, targeting those who were educated and using their might to get back at those they perceived as enemies, mostly for petty reasons. Then, the Americans came....

They weren't safe and secure. They got better at fighting, over time and some actually tried to help people....

Duong became disenchanted with his war, as his brothers spend more time killing Vietnamese than outsiders. in the end, he decides to join the Americans and try to save some of them.

It's a powerful issue and one that harkens back to Archie Goodwin's story of the Vietnamese farmer, in Blazing Combat, who loses everything, when he just wants to be left alone to grow his crops. We see how the French, who controlled Indochina, were forced to allow in the Japanese, who exploited their resources for their war machine. A revolt broke out, led by people like Ho Chi Minh. The Japanese are defeated and the people who fought want to live their own lives; but the French return and the fighting begins again, until Ho Chi Minh's troops defeat the French, at Dien Bien Phu. the French were desperate to hold onto their empire that they even took former Nazi enemies into the Foreign Legion, and sent them to use the same tactics in Vietnam. Even in defeat, Vietnam is not free, as the Diehm faction, in the South, stifles any dissent and his "free elections" are a farce, leading the the rise of the National Liberation Front, or, as they were better known, the Viet Cong. The US sends advisors, then combat troops, hoping to control this part of Southeast Asia, as check against China and the Soviet Union. Duong and his people suffer; but Duong also see that his own people used their grievances to wage war on anyone who slighted them. Teachers and the educated are ideological targets, because they question the teaching s of Mao and Ho Chi Minh. The VC take what they want from innocent peasants, just as the Diehm government does. One group of thugs or another, it all seems the same. America adds a new outsider; but also programs to try to help people, to win "hearts and minds." Duong sees this as a better alternative to killing people because of inferiority complexes and ideologies that mask a system where a certain elite is still above others, no matter whose philosophy governs.

Troops like the Kit Carson Scouts were always outsiders, as they were turncoats and who is to say they wouldn't turn again? As such, they become men without a country; and, at the end of the war, they became targets. Once Saigon fell, old scores were settled, furthering an already exploding refugee crisis.

Wayne Vansant had done bits here and there, including a little work in the dying days of the Dc war books. He had done a couple of stories for Savage Tales and had a keen interest in the history of the French Foreign Legion. He was brought in to give Michael Golden a break and keep him on deadline; but, when Golden quit the series, Vansant found himself the regular artist. He did have Golden's flash; but, he was an excellent storyteller, with an eye for detail and thorough research.

Issue #8 finds the platoon coming across tunnels and a tunnel rat has to go down and check them out. He needs someone to act as communication and Ed volunteers. the tunnel rat shows him the dangers, beyond just the normal ideas of boobytraps...

...venomous snakes, set up to be angered by some enemy, stumbling through the tunnel. They move on and run into a VC, who Ed shoots, but nearly gets hit, himself. They find a wider portion, which housed sleeping areas and work rooms and find a body and the tunnel rat shoots it. The flashlight shows it to be a woman and Ed is horrified, then more so when the rat shows his that she had a grenade taped to her belly, to go off when they approached. She was a deliberate boobytrap. They return to the surface and the tunnels are destroyed. The tunnel rat, Verzyl, talks of leaving soon and re-upping to join the Airborne.

The second part of the issue is the unpublished 3rd story of the 5th to the 1st, with the tunnel rat, Verzyl, and what happens to him, as seen in the last installment.

Issue 9 finds Ed in his last quarter of the war; but we learn that we shouldn't feel safe, as we watch the 23rd move into to reinforce a push on on area alive with activity. it turns out to be a VC command post and they are determined to hold it and the fighting gets down to the last magazines for their M-16s, before help comes. Just as things seem safe, a sniper kills Mike and Ed suddenly learns what it is like to lose a buddy...

All along, we had seen Ed and his buddies survive and come back. Now, we know what it is like when they don't.

Issue #10 finds Ed a mess, on a bender after the death of Mike. They are assigned to back up the ARVN Rangers on security duty, in Saigon, on National Day. Ed witnesses an attack and the ARVN Ranger response of firing into a crowd. Back at base, he gets an education and we get the first hints of the racial inequality in the US draft system....

Ed also witnesses Ramnarain, one of the recently arrived guys (on a second tour) acting strangely, talking about making money. Later Rob sees that the gift of a chocolate bar is just feeding the local economy and everything is up for sale. Ramnarain is making money off of it by selling chocolate and cigarettes fromt he PX to the civilians, at inflated prices. We see an attack on Ton Son Nhut Airbase and Ramnarain is missing. Back on security duty, Ed witnesses a prostitute attacking an airman, who tried to stiff her on payment. The guy smacks the woman and Ed hits him in the gut with his rifle butt and lets the womantake her money. he then gives a kid chocolate. They return to find Ramnarain, facing an Article 15 (Non-Judicial Punishment), where his fine is likely to match his earnings. Ed has come out of his funk, but has seen the corruption of Vietnam. He also realizes that he has broken 90 days and is officially "short."

The issue also conatins a letter from a woman, whose brother was drafted (yup) into the Marines and stationed in Da Nang, while she was too young to understand the war. She praises the book for helping her understand what he went through and tells of giving copies to her brother and her niece and nephew, so they know what their father experienced.

Issue #11 has one of the best covers....

It captures the look of veteran soldiers, in a quiet moment. Ed is no longer the green FNG, fresh from Ft Lewis, who gets airsick. he is a seasoned combat veteran, nearing the end of his tour.

The issue is set in December of 1966 and I am in diapers, literally enjoying mother's milk. The guys decorate the barracks with A-wipe and whatever else they can find. Ed has "42 and a wake up;" Rob has extended. Ed questions why. There is no college for him and another year and he will be an E-6 and can return to the states as an instructor. For him, it makes sense.

Rob and Ed go to hear Cardinal Spellman speak and hear him claim that Vietnam is a war to preserve civilization. Ed is troubled, as that is not the message he was raised with, in his church. rob tells him to forget it, that Spellman is an Army lifer and just like the rest. They take in the club and find out there are American dancers from the USO, of the female persuasion. Needless to say, the club is packed (as are the dancers). Christmas Eve sees the VC violate a truce and launch an attack. Santa comes to their aid with gunships and Christmas morning sees the smoke rising over the killing ground. The return to find their barracks hit by rockets and Ed's Christmas card destroyed. ed is down, but Rob tells him to get a shower before the kids arrive for Christmas dinner, from the village.

As they sit down to a turkey dinner, one of the kids pulls out a grenade and pulls the pin. Ed asks the question on all our minds...

Ed receives bright moment, as mail call arrives, with a cake from his mother. He passes it around to the squad. They go out on a fruitless op, then celebrate New Year's Eve with another attack on the base. they finish the year by see their radioman, Thomas, off on his journey back home. It will be Ed's turn, next.

The letters page also gives a shout out to other Vietnam comics out there, such as Vietnam Journal an In Country In Country was an indie comic, which I never saw and do not have issues for, nor have I found scans. i will get to Vietnam Journal, soon.

Issue #12 finds John Severin on art, and Ed about to go home. We see a letter he has written home, about his time in Vietnam, juxtaposed against images of an operation to clear a suspected VC village. The troops mount up in Hueys and artillery unleashes a barrage on the village, then the choppers land troops....

They clear the village, then the A-4s come in to level it. The soldiers go in and search and find caches of supplies and arms. They also find trapdoors and tunnels and a firefight ensues. A prisoner is taken and is shot in the head, by an intelligence officer. They withdraw and the arms and ammunition are blown up and the only sign there was a village there is a scroched patch of earth, seen from a helicopter.

Issue 13 is the end, as we see Rob send of the captain, back to the states and pick up the new guys. he brings them back to barracks and they are introduced to Ed (12 days and a wake up) and the others. Ed is the veteran. now. Ed finds himself re-experiencing his first days, fromt he other side. he also finds himself in the bush again and he isn't happy. he just wants to get home. As they patrol, the air force drops defoliant, and Ed remarks that it feels cool, as they pass through it. Ed goes out on another op, then falls to within one week of leaving and is held off of ops and must sit at the base, waiting for his buddies to return. Ed and Rob share a beer, then Ed packs his gear. When Rob and the others return, they take him to the club to celebrate, then to the nearby village, where a surprise has been prepared. Ed wakes up in the village with no memory of how he got there, though the lady was very nice to him. Sgt Polkow says goodbye to Ed and Rob takes him over to Tansonnhut airbase.

This was Michael Golden's last issue and it was a fitting end, as Ed ends his tour, says goodbye to his buddies and returns to "The World."

Over 13 issues, we watched Ed Marks, young kid from Philadelphia grow from a wide eyed kid, into a seasoned veteran, of a war where kids are used as weapons, villages are leveled to save them, and the people they fight with would just as soon kill their own people as the enemy. The question becomes, how will Ed adjust? How do you go from insanity to "civilization," in the course of an airline flight? What kind of wounds do you carry with you.

The Nam went a long way in showing the average reader what the Vietnam experience was like for those who were sent over to fight. It doesn't represent everyone's experience, but it is fairly typical of many.

The series continued without Michael golden and without Ed. we first get an intro to the new guys in Rob's squad, then issue 15 checks in on Ed's arrival home...

This cover caused a bit of a stir, as Eclipse editor cat yronwode felt that the hippie, was a caricature of herself. It wasn't meant to be; but, it sure fit.

The issue features Rob reading a letter from Ed, about his time back home. Ed is a drill instructor, at Ft Jackson, South Carolina. he describes returning to McChord air base and no welcome. They were ushered off a plane, taken to a room and told to dump out their gear, as they were searched for contraband (drugs). Ed then gets his orders, back pay and leave to visit home....

De sees protests of Dow Chemicals, about napalm and can't under stand; napalm had saved their butts, in the bush. he visits some old friends; but they had changed...or he had. A visit to an old girlfriend finds her now a mother. Ed watches the news, but can't believe his eyes....

Ed travels to his new duty station and gets acclimated. some of the other members of the cadre were in-country and some are having problems adjusting. The new troops include a misfit kid, who can't qualify on the range and nearly shoots the DI. he gets discharged and is beside himself because he believes in the war. Ed thinks the country is going crazy and no one is telling what really goes on in Vietnam and makes the decision to become a writer and journalist, to tell the story.

The Nam continues as a series, but it never tops these first 13-15 issues. This gives us the story of what it was like, through Ed's eyes, from arrival, to returning home and trying to readjust to a world that was different than a year before. Issue 15 features how some of the protests seemed unbelievable to veterans. protesting the makers of weapons that saved their lives? little did they know how some of those were used and how that cool defoliant would kill so many. Ed sees people who got on with their lives while he was gone for a year and people who wanted to go to war, but weren't suited. It is no wonder he thinks the world had gone crazy. he remarks of an attack at Da Nang that is reported like massacre, rather than a violent, but short fight.

Finally, someone was telling the story from the POV of those who were there, a phenomena that was happening in books and film, and even television documentaries, as veterans started to speak and to write. maybe time just needed to pass before people were ready to listen, or maybe the vets needed time to speak. Maybe it was the change in the culture or maybe people came to realize that they had done a disservice to those who were sent to war, many without choice and then were treated like leppers when they returned, or were made to feel that way, in their own heads. A lot of guilt started to come to the surface in the 80s. Some turned it into revisionism of having won the battles but lost the war due to leadership not having the will to win. Others saw it as a political mess that destroyed a generation of lives, through death and physical and mental scars, political divisions, economic turmoil, refugee crises and bad drama. maybe now, some healing could commence.

It was this period that ultimately led to the Vietnam Veterans memorial wall, in Washington DC. In 1979, a fund to establish a memorial was established. A competition was held to design the memorial, won by Maya Lin. Lin was the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who grew up in Ohio. he submission was of a black granite wall, rising out of the earth, like a knife, bearing the names of those who died in Vietnam, rising to the heart of the war and dropping off to the end of the conflict. A simple design that is unbelievably striking. There, people can reach out and touch the name of a friend or loved one, taken in the war. People make rubbings on the names and leave tributes to their friends and family. It is a place of healing.

When I was a midshipman, the moving version of the memorial was brought to the Univ of Illinois campus, and we midshipmen and other ROTC cadets acted as guides and stood vigil over the names of those who proceededus. We helped guide people to the names of friends and family and stood buy as they made connections. It was a very moving experience.

The granite of the actual memorial has a reflective polish that allows people to be seen with the names, as they become a part of the fallen. Items left behind have been preserved and cataloged to tell those stories, for future generations.

The series continues, first using Rob as a POV character, then switching to others. It eventually moves to the Tet Offensive and the fighting that ensued to retake the areas that the VC hit. Sales dropped off after Michael Golden departed and there was pressure more and more to make the book more commercial. For a time, it focused on a special operations force. Some editorial forces wanted to put superheroes into the book and set it within the Marvel Universe. this was fought and a compromise of Marvel comics being read there, imagining if superheroes were in Vietnam. Larry Hama stepped away from the book and Doug Murray found himself more and more getting into fights over the direction of the book, as they wanted to put the Punisher into it. Finally, things came to a head an Doug Murray left the series and was replaced by Chuck dixon, a writer who never served in the military. Dixon at least did his research; but, it became something else and lost its core.

Eventually, the Punisher was inserted in the comic and it was decried by fans. it didn't help that he is shown chained up in a cave, tortured, then snaps the enck of his torturer, with his legs and escapes. It was Hollywood BS and it had nothing to do with the reality that had been a hallmark of the series.

After that fiasco, veteran Don Lomax, creator of the indie comic Vietnam Journal, was brought in to try to turn things around. however, Lomax was operating under Code restrictions that did not inhibit his own series.

Ed Marks was brought back as a journalist, reflecting Lomax's character Journal, who was the POV in his own stories. We check in with rob, back in Baltimore. Lomax tried, but the end was in sight.

The Nam proved to be arguably Marvel's best book of the 80s, as it dealt with real life, with real drama and educated a new generation of what their fathers and older brothers went through. It doesn't cast one side of the debate as right or wrong, just presented the experiences of those that were sent to Vietnam and let you come to your own conclusions. They knew what they saw and what they saw stayed with them the rest of their lives.

Next time: We aren't quite done with Doug Murray, as he had one more Vietnam Story to tell and would do so, in a graphic novel, for Marvel. next time, we look at Hearts and Minds, a graphic novel of the Vietnam War.

Last Edit: Dec 13, 2023 21:34:14 GMT -5 by codystarbuck

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Prince Hal
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 14, 2023 0:03:47 GMT -5 Confessor likes this

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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 14, 2023 0:03:47 GMT -5

Dec 13, 2023 21:29:15 GMT -5 codystarbuck said:

Issue #12 finds John Severin on art, and Ed about to go home. We see a letter he has written home, about his time in Vietnam, juxtaposed against images of an operation to clear a suspected VC village. The troops mount up in Hueys and artillery unleashes a barrage on the village, then the choppers land troops....

When I read this page, with its juxtaposition of reality and the sanitized version for the folks at home, I immediately thought of the Bill Mauldin cartoon that won the 1945 Pulitzer...

Last Edit: Dec 14, 2023 0:07:02 GMT -5 by Prince Hal

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-- Charles Pierce

codystarbuck
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 14, 2023 1:11:34 GMT -5

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 14, 2023 1:11:34 GMT -5

I've been reading Anthony Beevor's D-Day, recounting the entire Battle of Normandy, from the D-Day landings through the Falaise Pocket. It covers not just the military actions, but the political side of things, the civilian experiences, the friendly fire incidents, the Resistance, the wholesale slaughter. It doesn't just talk of silencing pillboxes, it talks of cooking out the inhabitants with flamethrowers and dropping hand grenades down ventilation shafts. I am up to Operation Goodwood, where Montgomery again tries to take Caen, after it is first leveled by bombardment and artillery. The irony is that all of that devastation inhibits their chase of withdrawing SS Panzer troops. Civilians were hiding in cellars, buried under the rubble. It talks about battle fatigue casualty rates and how a doctor developed a system to assess and separate out the real mentally damaged from those who just needed a rest and also led to changes in how replacement troops were integrated into their new posts. It pretty much wipes away the idea of a "just war" and gets into the pure slaughter of it and the toll on French civilians as much as the Germans and the invading Allied forces. It is far closer to something like The World At war, which covered both sides, from a military, political and social standpoint, with first hand accounts from people at all of those levels, from senior generals like Brian Horrocks (head of XXX Corps, in the Battle of Arnhem and the push on the Rhine), Albert Speer, the British wife of a German resistor of the Nazis who speaks of how she, even in an act of compassion, was made complicit with the Nazi's atrocities. It was a powerful documentary series which opened with Laurence Olivier narrating the events of the destruction of the village of Oraduur-sur Glane, in reprisal for Resistance attacks.

That is the kind of history that needs to be told to make later generations understand the true horror of war and the pointless destruction and to seek peaceful solutions, rather than knee-jerk military responses. Too often, the history is sanitized and glorified....and politicized. You have to know the mistakes to learn from them; you can't just avoid them because they are difficult.

"An 'homage' is when you press CONTROL-C on your keyboard and then CONTROL-V"

zaku
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 15, 2023 5:50:51 GMT -5

Quote

Post by zaku on Dec 15, 2023 5:50:51 GMT -5

Fun fact: The 'Nam was also published in Italy by the publisher Play Press in 1989 and had moderate success here too.

(Yes, in every issue there was a Wolverine's adventure from MCP - don't ask...)

There were some Italian epigones, including this one.

The cover graphics so blatantly recalled the American series that it was almost embarrassing, I still remember it today after 30 years.

These are the only images I found on the net.

If you're interested, I'll try to find an issue of the comic and try to post a mini-review (obviously not as in-depth as yours!!!)

Last Edit: Dec 15, 2023 5:54:10 GMT -5 by zaku

codystarbuck
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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics Dec 15, 2023 22:42:29 GMT -5 zaku likes this

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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 15, 2023 22:42:29 GMT -5

Dec 15, 2023 5:50:51 GMT -5 zaku said:

Fun fact: The 'Nam was also published in Italy by the publisher Play Press in 1989 and had moderate success here too.

(Yes, in every issue there was a Wolverine's adventure from MCP - don't ask...)

There were some Italian epigones, including this one.

The cover graphics so blatantly recalled the American series that it was almost embarrassing, I still remember it today after 30 years.

These are the only images I found on the net.

If you're interested, I'll try to find an issue of the comic and try to post a mini-review (obviously not as in-depth as yours!!!)

That helicopter cover is a ripoff; but, not from The 'Nam; it's a swipe of the first issue of Don Lomax's Vietnam Journal.....

However, that wasn't an uncommon sight, in Vietnam. Lomax also used this image.....

...based on an actual extraction method, where there was no LZ available. They used rope ladders and cables to pull out guys, especially LRRP and SOG teams, operating deep into enemy territory.

I will be getting to Vietnam Journal, soon.

"An 'homage' is when you press CONTROL-C on your keyboard and then CONTROL-V"

The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics

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The Vietnam War, as Depicted in Comics