“He Drew the First Blood… Not Me”:

An Analysis of Rambo’s Representation of the Vietnam Soldier

By Madeline Troha

Brown University

Professor Omer Bartov

HIST2980W: First Person History in Times of Crisis

             “No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”[1] This statement by Richard Nixon is no truer than in the arena of American film and mass media. The Vietnam War was the first war to be broadcasted on news outlets, and the movie industry decided to capitalize on this newfound niche. In the years following the war, the movie industry experienced an unprecedented surge. Platoon. Full Metal Jacket. Deer Hunter. These movies have become household names, especially in the homes of those who lived through the era of the Vietnam War. One of these movies that seems to stray slightly from the stereotypical Vietnam films is Rambo: First Blood. Rambo blends together two distinct characters of Vietnam War films by framing the veteran as a psychotic, yet morally sound, individual who returns home from the war unable to adapt to his old environment. What’s most interesting about this depiction of the veteran character is that it could be considered, along with many other contrasting portrayals of the veteran, as a lie – a false memory. I seek to not only dissect this portrayal of the Vietnam veteran but understand why this image saturated the media and how it shaped societal perceptions of the individual soldier.

TREATMENT OF PAST SOLDIERS

            In order to understand how the Vietnam veteran differed from past military combatants, one must identify the roots of this comparison. The juxtaposition between these two soldiers is a consequence of the stereotypical American combatant that flooded the media prior to the Vietnam War. After serving in WWI or WWII, these soldiers were welcomed home with parades in the streets, with the entire country celebrating their victory, and with their fellow countrymen idolizing them. One of the most famous photographs in American history is a picture of a naval officer returning to the United States from World War II and embracing a young woman in the streets of New York with a celebratory kiss. In pictures and videos, these young boys saw soldiers being hailed as heroes, carried on others’ shoulders as they marched through the streets. The emblematic experience of soldiers in previous wars and their celebrated homecomings romanticized war, and this romanticism played a significant role in why the Vietnam veteran joined the military, as well as why they could not grasp the reality of their own homecomings.

            Not only did young children witness the homecomings of the World War veterans, but they heard about it incessantly. This era of the World War II veteran, known as the “greatest generation,” is the age in which many of these Vietnam soldiers grew up. Whether it was their fathers, grandfathers, or neighbors, these Vietnam soldiers grew up listening to stories about the Good War. They were told that war transformed boys into men, that the friends one makes in war are unlike any other bond, that one needed to perform their civic duty to protect their country. In the eyes of the future Vietnam soldiers, these stories deified the American soldier.

            Most importantly, these young boys grew up with the belief in their nation. They were repeatedly told that America was the greatest nation on earth and that they could do no wrong. Instilled in them was the belief that whatever America did was best for the rest of the world because America was a benevolent force. The United States was supposed to be the protector the world, so, whatever action they took must have been morally justified. However, the Vietnam War changed all these preconceptions.

Those who served in Vietnam and those who grew up listening to the war stories of their elders fantasized about the day in which they could prove themselves by doing what their fathers had done: fighting for their country. All they wanted was a chance to partake in this life-changing experience upon which their elders fondly reminisced. Their chance came in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first U.S. combat troops into Vietnam. The young men who chose to enlist in the war did so for numerous reasons. Some longed for approval and respect from their fellow countrymen, some simply wanted to serve their country, and others wanted to avoid disappointment from their elders. Upon their arrival home, these young men yearned for the experience that they had been hearing about for years. However, they would never get the chance. The American society they left was not the one to which they returned.

            When the Vietnam soldiers began coming home, they were greeted with chaos. Numerous social movements were in full swing, and one of the most popular movements spreading across the nation was the anti-war movement. Upon their arrival, these boys were hoping to receive thanks and to people being proud of them. Instead they were spit on, yelled at, and rejected. Those in the anti-war movement protested these soldiers, denouncing them as the enemy. In their eyes, the American soldiers were murderers who sold their souls to the United States government. Regardless of their personal stance on war, these returning soldiers came home to a world they no longer knew and to a society that could not process what had happened in Southeast Asia, nor could they accept it. These soldiers were the convenient target for society’s confusion and anger. There is no better way to look at –and, thus, seek to understand – how society perceived the Vietnam veteran than in the films produced during that period.

DEPICTIONS OF THE VETERAN

            Beginning in 1964 with A Yank in Vietnam, the American film industry saw the potential in war films, and they decided to capitalize upon this territory. From 1964 until 1990, at least 51 movies were made in America based on the Vietnam War. Two waves of film will be further dissected in this paper: that which occurred in the 1970s and that which began in the 1980s. The first of these waves, that of the 1970s, began around the time of the United States’ withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The depiction of the veteran present in these films has been given the name of the “psycho vet.” The second wave of soldier depictions began in the early 1980s, and they presented the Vietnam veteran as a “wounded hero.” Both waves of movies and their corresponding depictions of the veterans undoubtedly shaped the perception of the returning soldier in the post-Vietnam society.

The Psycho Vet

            The first wave of Vietnam War films, debuting in the 1970s, characterized the returning veteran as one known as the “psycho vet.” Upon his return from combat, this soldier suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he was mentally unstable and/or psychotic, and he was potentially suicidal. The veteran was associated with “barely repressed rage and the ever-present threat of unhinged violence [that] almost certainly reflected anxieties within the larger society about the war and the damage it had done.”[2] These characters were victims of the war; they were ordinary men who went into battle and were transformed into murderous machines. Then, once they returned home, everything was expected to go back to normal. But how could they simply forget the brutalities they witnessed? How could they forget the sight of their best friend being blown up by a hidden land mine? The simple answer is that they could not. The mental anguish that these characters faced upon their return to the real world was nearly impossible to cope with. Thus, in movies that portrayed the veteran this way, many of the characters’ lives resulted in suicide or murder. Overall, these men were seen as “an emasculated casualty of the war who has been denied the chance to recover from his war-wounds.”[3] These depictions were exemplified in movies such as Deer Hunter and Platoon.

Wounded Heroes

            In the 1980s, the portrayal of the veteran drastically shifted. Now, veterans more closely resembled the character of a wounded hero. This character was shown after his return home from war and during the process of his resocialization. As with the other veteran representation, these veterans may have experienced psychological damage from the war, and they, too, were seen to be victims. However, their story did not culminate the same tragic ending as that of the psycho vet. This is because the wounded hero possessed traits that were not present in the earlier representations, such as strength, honor, and independence. A key element to these wounded heroes is their staunch sense of morality and justice. They were dedicated to doing the right thing, whatever that may be. These attributes allowed the hero to overcome his psychological struggles and defeat the memory of the past.

            In order to understand the role of the protagonist, one must look at who he is fighting: the antagonist. In the majority of wounded hero films, the enemy is depicted as uncivilized, vicious Vietcong soldiers whose goal is to kill as many Americans as possible. The wounded hero’s “status as a victim generated the terms of his moral legibility while casting a morally dubious light on his abusers.”[4] Although the hero was injured by the war physically or psychologically, his sense of morality has not been damaged. The presence of morality is what truly sets these two characters apart and what precipitates their eventual climactic confrontation.  

            The final differentiating element of the wounded hero films is the setting. Because the historical setting was the Vietnam War, it is only natural that the physical setting be set in the jungles of Vietnam. How these films depicted the land of Vietnam is heavily based upon how the film visualizes the antagonist. Since these films portray the enemy as cruel Vietcong fighters, the home of these enemies is depicted as “a cruel, brutal landscape littered with mutilated bodies and booby-traps… it is a land in which no limits are placed on aggression or violence unless by the individual soldier.”[5] These films seek to portray Vietnam as the anti-America: as a godless place without freedom and without morality.

            Overall, the character of wounded heroes was a response to the psycho vet image. After the excitement and anger of the war died down, society no longer wished to dwell on the defeat in Vietnam. Instead, they wanted – needed – a opportunity to redeem themselves. They wanted to return to a time before the defeat, a time in which the American soldier could, once again, emerge victorious. That is what these wounded heroes are meant to do. They are meant to take the focus off of the consequences of the war and redirect the focus to the soldier himself. The wounded heroes are an attempt to return a sense of glory back to the soldier and his actions in war, while, at the same time, ignoring the loss in Vietnam. The most captivating, and most deviant, of these wounded hero characters is that of John Rambo in Rambo: First Blood.

RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PLOT

            Rambo: First Blood was released in the United States in 1982. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, this film starred Sylvester Stallone, one of the film industry’s biggest stars of the 1980s. The film was originally based on a 1972 novel of the same name, written by David Morrell. Given this film’s box office success, the franchise subsequently produced three sequels and an animated series. However, for the purpose of this paper, I will only be focusing on the first film, Rambo: First Blood, of which I will now provide a synopsis.

The film opens. John Rambo walks along a highway in the rain. From his army paraphernalia, the audience can infer that he is Vietnam veteran. He travels to the small town of Hope, Washington, in search of one of his best friends and comrades from the war. When he arrives at his friend’s home, Rambo is coldly greeted by his friend’s wife who informs him that the friend passed away from cancer last year – a cancer that was attributable to Agent Orange poisoning. Rambo leaves the home, clearly distraught, and continues to wander downtown. 

            While strolling through town in his army jacket, keeping to himself, the town’s sheriff introduces himself and offers Rambo a ride. Once in the car, the sheriff warns Rambo that he needs to leave the town; he says that the town does not need any more trouble or any more people like him. When Rambo refuses to leave the town, the sheriff arrests him and brings him back to the stationhouse. While at the station, handcuffed, Rambo is physically brutalized by two officers, one of which was the sheriff himself. During these beatings, Rambo experiences flashbacks to the torture he encountered in Vietnam at the hands of the Vietnamese enemy. When the officer holds a razor to Rambo’s neck under the guise of shaving his facial hair, Rambo snaps. He overpowers the officers, assaults them in his escape, and flees into the nearby woods.

            Once the officers realize where Rambo has fled, the sheriff leads an armed search party for him. It seems as though this search scene comprises the majority of the movie. At one point during the search, an officer uses a helicopter to gain a better vantage point. When the officer spots Rambo, he attempts to shoot Rambo. In self-defense, Rambo throws a rock at the helicopter, throwing it off balance. The helicopter weaves, tossing the officer out of the air. The officer falls into a bed of rocks and is killed upon impact. Rambo attempts to tell the rest of the search party that the death was an accident – that he did not mean to hurt anyone – but the rest of the officers intensify their search efforts. It is at this point that the national guard and state troopers are called in to assist the search party.

            In the commotion of the organization of the party, one officer – one of the few that did not partake in the beatings of Rambo – is told that Rambo was a green beret in Vietnam and received the medal of honor for his service. Around this time, a mysterious authority figure joins in the search, and it is soon revealed that he was Rambo’s commanding officer from the war. His name is Colonel Troutman, and he attempts to warn all those involved of Rambo’s deadly capabilities. After a period of searching, one group spots Rambo in an abandoned mine. They decide to blow the mine up, allowing everyone to think that Rambo was murdered in the explosion. However, Rambo secretly escapes, steals a truck going back into town, and causes chaos. He blows up a gas station and a gun store, and proceeds to shoot out all the power boxes in the downtown area.

            Once word of the destruction gets out, the search parties realize that Rambo has survived, and he is now in town somewhere. The sheriff decides to station himself atop the roof of the police building to look for Rambo. Rambo sees the sheriff, stealthily approaches him, and a confrontation ensues. The sheriff falls through the ceiling, and, as Rambo walks up to him to kill him, the audience hears the voice of Rambo’s commanding officer telling him to refrain. This leads to the climactic moment of the film. It is at this moment that Colonel Troutman attempts to convince Rambo to stop partaking in the violence. Rambo engages in a verbal battle with his superior, shouting about how he came home to a place that hated him and how he could never simply “get over” the war. He goes on to talk about how he has nothing anymore: no one will hire him, and he has no family or friends left. Rambo collapses upon the floor, crying, telling the colonel about how he witnessed his friend die in an explosion in Vietnam. He sobs, saying that he cannot get these images out of his mind. Troutman then walks Rambo out of the police station, at which point Rambo is taken into custody, and the film abruptly ends.

Rambo As a Wounded Hero

            While First Blood more closely fits within the wounded hero category of Vietnam movies than that of the psycho vet, it still seems to stray from the stereotypical convention in a few ways. As previously articulated, the antagonist in wounded hero films is usually the Vietcong enemy army. However, in Rambo, this is not the case. Instead, the villain is a corrupt police sheriff who abuses his power. While these two antagonists may seem as though they have nothing in common, this is incorrect. In both situations, the enemy is the obvious bad guy; he is doing something morally wrong and unjust, and someone must stop him. Thus, in accordance with the wounded hero tradition, the protagonist and antagonist battle over what each perceives to be morally just.  

            Secondly, there is a difference in setting between Rambo: First Blood and many wounded hero movies. Instead of portraying Vietnam as a cruel landscape, Rambo paints America – Rambo’s own home – as the place of brutalization and aggression toward the American soldier. This highlights the fact that many soldiers returning home from Vietnam felt unwelcome amidst the anti-war protests and the chaos in which America had seemed to fall. They felt betrayed by the very people for whom they risked their lives, and many soldiers experienced extreme difficulty upon their return home in coping with their experiences and how society had changed. Due to the neglect many soldiers experienced, a common trope appeared amongst those who served: no one can imagine what they went through or what Vietnam was like unless they had served there themselves.

            Thirdly, Rambo differs from other wounded veteran images by means of his victimization. Like both the wounded hero and the psycho vet, Rambo is a clear victim of the war, as evidenced by the flashbacks to his torture and the homelessness he endures upon his return home. However, Rambo’s victimization went a step further. Not only was he victim to the brutality that they experienced in war, but he was a victim of a selfish, ethically-inept government. This film asserts that the blame for the soldier’s actions in war, as well as the war’s outcomes, should be placed upon those who commissioned the Vietnam War. It was the American government’s fault being in Vietnam in the first place, and it is their fault that the United States suffered the eventual defeat. Thus, Rambo takes on the image of “a tragic anti-hero, betrayed by his own country, simply trying to survive his 365 days in country.”[6] In this film, the wounded hero comes home from the war unable to cope with the knowledge of this betrayal, only to be betrayed again by the very people for whom he was fighting.

            Finally, Rambo strays from this genre of movies in the fact that, throughout the entire movie, Rambo’s masculinity is never challenged or limited. He does not have to overcome any obstacles in order to achieve the desired goal. Instead, his strength is maintained, and he never has to prove that he deserves the honor or respect of others. With the exception of the sheriff, respect is simply handed to Rambo by the other officers once they realize his ranking within the Green Berets.

DEPICTIONS AS FALSE MEMORIES

            Despite what many audiences want to believe, most Vietnam veterans do not equate themselves or their experience in war with those of John Rambo. Nor do they believe that they fall into the categories of the psycho vet or the wounded vet. These characters are just that: characters. The real veterans, those who faced inconceivable trauma, cannot be easily sorted into one category or the other. Instead, true depictions of the veteran would include aspects of both characters, as well as many other characteristics that are not present in these two roles.

            To the film industry, it did not matter that these portrayals of the soldier were distorted or incomplete. These films only provide one part of the veteran story, and it is the part that will attract an audience. These films deliver a protagonist that the audience wants to see: someone to root for, someone who people want to see win. Given their victim status both during and after the war, the Vietnam veteran was the perfect target. However, what if the victim status of the veteran was not historically accurate? Would this render all illustrations of the character based off such a status wrong?  

What is False Memory?

            Psychologists define false memory as a “fabricated or distorted recollection of an event.”[7] A common example of such a memory occurs within the literary genre of memoirs. When one reads a memoir, one assumes the events in the story occurred in the way in which they are presented. If the events never happened or the depiction of the characters is distorted, then the factuality of the work is brought into question. Although films do not have the same pretense of authenticity (unless explicitly stated), this logic applies to movies as well. Unlike memoirs, the majority of films are not based upon true stories, nor do they claim to be.

            However, many films do use the general context of a historical event to frame their story, such as the Vietnam War. Around this time, many films were focusing upon the subject of recent U.S. history, and some “have… been characterized by elliptical, fragmented narratives, a mix of fact and fiction.”[8] Rambo is one of these films. However, I argue that it is not the film’s plot that should be considered false or distorted. Instead, it is the representation of the protagonist John Rambo that exemplifies just one of the many fragmented views of the Vietnam veteran.

            How can a character be considered a false memory? By denouncing Rambo as a false memory, I am simply asserting that the way in which the Vietnam veteran is remembered in the film is not one of historical accuracy. However, John Rambo is not alone in his distorted representation of the Vietnam veteran. In fact, I argue that two characters in Vietnam War films, those of the psycho vet and those of the wounded hero, both represent a fictional version of the war and its effect on those who endured it. There are many reasons for this, and these reasons will be expounded upon later in this paper. But first, in order to understand why John Rambo’s portrayal of the veteran is a false memory, one must recognize that many portrayals of the Vietnam veteran character – not merely those of Rambo – are also fictional.

The Scorned Vet

            The dominant narrative in Vietnam discourse of the veteran’s treatment upon returning home is that of the soldier being scorned, spat-upon, and betrayed by his own country. This view is the first image that pops into the minds of many when the topic of Vietnam soldier is introduced; however, this notion of a rejected veteran is not factual. In reality, “the evidence indicates that the Vietnam veteran has not, in comparison with veterans of prior American wars or his civilian contemporaries, been unusually neglected, scorned, or disadvantaged.”[9] Furthermore, “for Vietnam veterans themselves, pride rather than shame is the most common characteristics, and seventy-seven percent of Vietnam era veterans felt they received a very friendly reception from family and close friends upon their return home from the service.”[10] According to this research, the Vietnam veteran was not the reviled victim that he was made out to be. The soldier returning home from Vietnam was not brutalized by society. In fact, this image of the scorned vet never existed outside of the media and society’s imagination. Thus, due to its historical inaccuracy, the popular notion of the scorned vet should be considered yet another falsified portrayal of the Vietnam veteran.

            This false memory emerged for two reasons. The first of which originated with the anti-war movement. By painting the returning soldiers as “corrupted, tarnished, and ruined innocents, critics of the Vietnam War could condemn the war [and] demand full American withdrawal.”[11] The anti-war movement sought to show society what the war was doing to their own children in the jungles of Vietnam. If they could convince American society that thousands of young men were being psychologically broken by their time in Southeast Asia, then, hopefully, more people would protest the war and demand these young men to be brought home.

            The second reason for this image was propagated by the opposite end of the political spectrum. In the 1980s, right-wing conservative politicians used the false memory of the rebuffed veteran as a contrast to the Prisoner of War Movement led by Ronald Reagan. This movement juxtaposed the parades and television specials held for Prisoners of War with the lack of celebrations dedicated to soldiers in the preceding years. By doing so, conservatives were able to promote their agenda of revitalized nationalism and acquire the support of those veterans who may have felt as though they were treated unfairly upon their arrival home.

            Despite the difference in motivations, both political parties reinforced this image of the scorned veteran for their own personal agendas, and this is the image that has permeated American culture to this day. This image has become a historical truth in our nation’s collective memory. However, this historical image of the Vietnam veteran is itself a false memory – a fabrication to sway political opinion. If the foundation upon which a memory is built is false, then anything that is birthed out of this memory would also be false; a memory cannot be true when based upon a faulty premise. Thus, if the film industry saw this scorned veteran as the historical truth and based their characters upon it, then it was inevitable that the portrayals of the Vietnam veteran in film would be false memories as well.

Complex Situation Simplified

            In Vietnam veteran movies, two images of the soldier have been identified: the psycho vet and the wounded hero. The key commonality between these two depictions is the fact that they are both fabricated memories. While there are veterans that fit into either one of these roles, no generalization can be made amongst those who returned home from the Vietnam War. Neither depiction tells the full story, and neither depiction provides a comprehensive view of the soldier and the intricacies associated with the experience of trauma. The notion that a veteran can be characterized in these simplistic terms removes any complexity or depth of the characters.

            Though distinct, the two waves of Vietnam veteran depictions do overlap in some ways. The first instance includes the presence of violence. Whether it is a movie depicting a psycho vet or a movie glorifying a wounded hero, each movie is filled with gore and brutality. However, in both waves, there is always a reason for this violence. In the psycho vet films, the veteran was mentally ill. In the wounded hero films, the veteran was either wronged or provoked by an outside source. Either way, the simplification provided by these films eliminates all moral responsibility of the veteran’s actions. In both types of films, there was a clear reason for the soldier’s violence or aggression, and soldier was reacting in a manner that seems empathetic, perhaps even understandable, to the audience. However, this view can be dangerous. It mimics the claim that stemmed from World War II that stated the Holocaust was committed by only one man.[12] In the case of Vietnam veteran depictions, moral responsibility is removed from anyone else who has complied or partaken in the violence simply because there was a greater evil at play. Neither version of the character takes into account that each individual soldier made their own choices, regardless of the pressure that may have been placed upon them, and they must live with these consequences.

Lack of Negative Depictions

            Similarly, another example of these depictions’ inaccuracy stems from the fact that neither account depicts every aspect of the Vietnam War, including those that reflect negatively upon the soldiers. Minimal, if any, dominant Vietnam narratives recognize the brutalities of the war, such as the My Lei Massacre. In this event, an American Lieutenant and his platoon entered into a Vietnamese village, murdered approximately five hundred innocent Vietnamese civilians, raped many of the women, and plundered the village before setting it on fire. Although this is only one notorious incident, it points to the larger issue that Vietnam narratives tend to fall into: depicting the soldier as a blameless victim rather than as someone with their own agency and capacity to do wrong.

            While this type of massacre was not common during the Vietnam War, other atrocities were committed as well. Accordingly, minimal films reflect the sadistic tendencies shown by some soldiers in war. For example, the act of “fragging” is rarely brought up, and many do not know what this means. Fragging refers to the deliberate killing of a senior officer by his subordinates, and, according to one recent statistic, there were over 800 confirmed attempts of fragging in both the Army and the Marines.[13] The reason that these statistics were not well known is simple: they would blemish the image of the American military as the supposed “global defender of freedom and democracy.”[14] At a time when American society was on the brink of destruction, the film industry could not afford to further divide the country. Thus, they decided to highlight the positive aspects of war and of the soldier, despite the fact that they were not giving the audience a realistic portrait. Because, unlike real soldiers, these protagonists were explicit good-guys. Unlike real soldiers, characters portrayed as the wounded hero would never commit atrocities such as the massacre or fragging without a justifiable reason.

            In the case of Rambo, John Rambo does not hurt innocent people or kill indiscriminately. When provoked in the police precinct, he does not respond to the abuse of the officers until he is threatened with a razor blade. Throughout the entirety of the movie, Rambo makes it a point to only resort to violence in the case of self-defense.[15] This is exemplified in Rambo’s most recognizable quote from the movie: “He drew the first blood… not me.” Furthermore, First Blood never mentions the actions taken by Rambo and his fellow Green Berets while they were in Vietnam. The Colonel asserts that Rambo has killed before, but there is no further explanation. The character of John Rambo and how he treats violence is yet another way in which the character of the Vietnam veteran is overly simplified in these films.

            Finally, despite the prevalence of violence in both waves of film, neither focus on the actions of these men during the war. Instead, they concentrate on what war does to men and how these veterans are coping with the memory of war. By showing these characters as physically removed from war, the sense of accountability for their actions during war disappears. These films do not allow for the possibility that the actions of some soldiers may have put them in the role of the aggressor rather than the victim.

Rambo as a Western Pastoral 

            Finally, there is one more reason why the image of the wounded hero veteran, personified by John Rambo, is a false memory. In fact, this depiction mimics another false memory of American past which takes its roots from a specific genre of literature. The genre is known is pastoral literature, and the character is the Western cowboy. In this type of literature, emphasis is placed upon “the image of the self-reliant man… the man who rejects not only government and its bureaucracy, rejects not only military organization, but who rejects technology to return to a more primal and virile state of being.”[16] John Rambo fits this description precisely. His self-reliance is displayed through the fact that he feels as though he has no one left to depend on and through his ability to live in the woods while in hiding. By fighting against the injustice of the sheriff, Rambo takes a stance against unjust government institution. He opposes military organization through his tenure as a Green Beret: a group that did not succumb to the traditional military hierarchy and followed their own set of rules. Furthermore, his rejection of technology is displayed by his retreat into the woods, by his wielding of a knife rather than a gun, and by the reversal into a “survival of the fittest” mentality in their search for him.

            Rambo does not solely reflect the western pastoral through the values of which they both prize; appearance plays an important role as well. Rambo’s physical appearance – long, unkempt hair, head band upon his forehead, shirt unbuttoned to display his bare chest – reflects this type of literature. However, instead of focusing upon the cowboy as inspiration, his physical appearance seems to resemble more of the outlaw Native American character. Furthermore, Rambo’s opening scene even imitates that of the classic western movie with the arrival of a stranger to a small town, though instead of appearing on horseback, Rambo arrives on foot.[17] This specific look of the hero, one in which the hero is physically strong, sun-tanned, and seems as though he has worked off the land his entire life, represents the type of masculinity American society has considered ideal since the early twentieth century. By aligning the character of John Rambo with this classic American hero, the Vietnam soldier is granted those same qualities of strength and integrity. Portraying the Vietnam veteran in this light permits only one, simplistic, unambiguous view of the soldier and allows no room for the audience to question the character’s actions as unjust, immoral, or unheroic.

WHY WE CONSTRUCT FALSE MEMORY

            After the loss in Vietnam, the American psyche crumbled. Society felt as though they were more polarized than they had ever been, and they could see no end to the chaos that plagued the nation. However, deep down, every citizen seemed to be yearning for the same thing. On one hand, they wanted a clear consensus on what happened in Vietnam and what went wrong. They needed to understand why and how they lost the war. On the other hand, they needed a figure that could unite the divided nation. They needed a hero: a hero whose morality and sense of justice were so impartial that he could be cheered on by all sides. They needed someone who endured the tragedy of the Vietnam War, just as they did, but who could rise above the tragedy. They needed someone whom they could all agree to get behind. With the rise of President Ronald Reagan’s new nationalism and the attempt to revitalize this tragic image of the soldier, it only makes sense that this hero would come in the form of the Vietnam veteran. Four years after Reagan’s inauguration, John Rambo emerged as the perfect candidate to unite a once broken society through the values all Americans hold dear: bravery, morality, and strength.

Struggle with National Identity

            In the decades following the Vietnam War, the American consciousness struggled to grapple with the fact that they had lost in Vietnam. This was the first military loss in the history of the United States, and, for a society that placed much of its importance and self-worth on their military, America knew not how to respond. However, the years following the war demanded introspection on what may have gone wrong in Vietnam. Not only was the country wondering why America had lost the Vietnam War, but they had to contemplate why America was involved in the Vietnamese conflict in the first place. In the 1980s, questions regarding the reasons for our involvement were silenced and forgotten.

            In 1980, President Ronald Reagan was elected to the United States presidency and with him came a new wave of conservative patriotism. He was tired of this debate on the U.S. military’s involvement that only further fragmented the nation. In order to change the direction of the Vietnam War discourse, Reagan decided to refocus society’s attention on another topic: the Vietnam veteran. Instead of viewing the Vietnam veteran through the lens of the psycho vet, this new scorned veteran “came increasingly to symbolize the antiwar movement’s betrayal of the troops, whose sagging morale due to this widespread victimization hastened the United States’ defeat.”[18] Reagan’s re-emergence of nationalism asserted that not only was the veteran a victim of the brutalities in Vietnam, but he was a victim of his own countrymen upon his return home. In order to make up for how they treated the veterans in the past, American society was asked to apologize and, subsequently, embrace the Vietnam soldier as a new symbol of national honor and respect. The “nationalist triumphalism” that was shunned and discredited after Vietnam was resurrected during the Reagan administration, and it was resurrected in the body of the Vietnam veteran.[19]

            Another aspect of Reagan’s call to patriotism was the emergence of the Prisoners of War (POW) movement. This movement claimed that there were still American soldiers being held captive in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and they needed to be brought home immediately. By making this claim, the POW movement re-established American veterans as the innocent victims and declared the Vietnamese as the enemy. The notion that veterans were still in Vietnam implied that the Vietnam War was not over, and it allowed the country to feel as though, perhaps, by bringing these troops home, the war could still be salvaged in some way. In fact, “Vietnam’s alleged actions in presently holding American prisoners serves as an index of our essential rightness in fighting such an enemy in the past.”[20] Therefore, not only was America getting a second chance at winning in Vietnam, but they were encouraged by the notion that the evil enemy holding these troops has always existed and, thus, our fighting in the war was justified all along.

            The POW campaign, paired with unbridled patriotism that prized honor and service to one’s country, combined to frame the veterans into a new role. This role consisted of the veteran soldier as a man defended his country to protect his fellow Americans and returned to a home that rejected him. Thus, the soldier returned home as misunderstood, abandoned, and guilty only of putting the lives of his fellow citizens above his own. With this new view of the soldier as a victim of the government institutions came a change in the discussions surrounding the Vietnam War. No longer were people asking how or why America failed in Vietnam. Now, society seemed to recognize, “neither lack of will nor lack of ability on the part of the individual U.S. soldier was responsible for the loss of war. Instead, an overweight and institutionally cumbersome governmental policy which failed to use the materials it had and which was unable to perceive the limitations of its own positions was responsible.”[21] Thus, the responsibility of the war was, once again, taken from the individual and placed upon the institutions that involved the United States in the war in the first place. In this way, the veteran was able to be portrayed as yet another victim of an unjust war.

Psychological Effects

            Movies in which the Vietnam soldier was depicted as the invincible hero, including Rambo: First Blood, were not solely a means to project this new nationalistic pride and conservative political policy that Reagan brought with him to the oval office. These movies served a psychological function for American society as well. America, like many other modern societies, “are cognizant of a past, but frequently find it filled with unpleasant truths and half-known facts, so they set about rewriting it.”[22] By creating movies in which there was a new conflict between an American soldier and a clear evil enemy, the American people were able to focus solely upon this new battle. The framing of these movies allowed the nation to re-frame and, essentially, re-fight the Vietnam War. An entirely different fight needs an entirely new victor, and, in this wave of film, the victor was always the American soldier.

            In theory, Vietnam veteran movies were meant to serve a psychological function not just for American society as a whole, but for the veterans themselves. In the new conflicts presented by these movies, the opportunity was given to veterans to “win” back what they lost in the war. This loss differed for each individual soldier; it could have meant pride, innocence, friendship, honor, empathy, humanity, morality, or self-control. Contrary to how they felt when they arrived home from the war, these movies wanted to make veterans feel as though their actions and their sacrifices in war were appreciated and admired. The movies framed the soldiers as heroes, as people to look up to rather than people who were spat upon. The wounded veteran characters “gave birth to a new man whose strength redeemed a people from the ashes of defeat and disorder.”[23] Instead of being ashamed and scorned for their actions in Vietnam, soldiers were finally being praised and thanked. This wave of film sought to apologize for how society had treated veterans when they first arrived home by glorifying them now. Whether consciously acknowledged or not, these movies wanted the veteran to feel as though he was, once again, welcome into his own home. However, what the film industry did not realize was that, more than anyone else, these veterans were the ones that recognized that this character – the one of the wounded hero – was, indeed, a false memory.

CONCLUSION

            Who is the Vietnam veteran? If one were to look at movies made following the war, then one could come up with two different answers: the soldier would either be a psychotic murderer or hypermasculine god of justice. John Rambo in Rambo: First Blood most closely perpetuates the image of the latter. However, neither answer would be historically correct. If one were to look at the news media following the war, one would assume the veteran was a scorned, innocent soldier who served as the scapegoat for the entirety of the war. This view, too, would be incorrect. Instead, the Vietnam soldier cannot be pigeonholed into one of these categories; he is a complex individual, comprised of elements found in each of these descriptions. So why did the media fixate on these specific characters instead of providing a more historically accurate and realistic representation of the soldier? The images of Vietnam veterans served a political function in the rise of Reaganism, as well as a psychological function in the coping of American society with the military’s loss in Vietnam. However, the people that these depictions helped least were, ironically, the very same people they were trying to portray.

REFERENCES

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Cherry, Kendra. “What Is a False Memory?” VeryWellMind.Com. May 18, 2017. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-false-memory-2795193.

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Radstone, Susannah. “Cinema and Memory” in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates. New York: Fordham University, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1c999bq.26.

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