Return to Vietnam

Between 1981 and 2016, thousands of American and Australian Vietnam War veterans returned to Vi&&&7879;t Nam. This comparative, transnational oral history offers the first historical study of these return journeys. It shows how veterans returned in search of resolution, or peace, manifesting in shifting nostalgic visions of 'Vietnam.' Different national war narratives shaped their returns: Australians followed the 'Anzac' pilgrimage tradition, whereas for Americans the return was an anti-war act. Veterans met former enemies, visited battlefields, mourned friends, found new relationships, and addressed enduring legacies of war. Many found their memories of war eased by witnessing Vi&&&7879;t Nam at peace. Yet this peacetime reality also challenged veterans' wartime connection to Vietnamese spaces. The place they were nostalgic for was Vietnam, a space in war memory, not Vi&&&7879;t Nam, the country. Veterans drew from wartime narratives to negotiate this displacement, performing nostalgic practices to reclaim their sense of belonging.

'The return journeys to Vietnam of American and Australian war veterans raise complex questions involving memory, responsibility, and repentance. In this first-rate work of historical scholarship, Mia Martin Hobbs expertly addresses them. Perceptive, sophisticated, and engagingly written, Return to Vietnam is a book I've been waiting for years for somebody to write.' Scott Laderman, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Table of Contents: