The Guys in the Rear, with the Beer

My uncle rarely mentions his tour of duty in Vietnam. As kids, my cousins and I were warned not to ask him about it, but there was one story we all knew—while stationed in Chu Lai, he saved his pay, perused a manufacturer's catalog, and ordered a car. It was a sporty 1968 Chevelle SS 396, and it was waiting for him in rural Kentucky when he got home. This story seemed strange to me, somehow incongruous with what I thought war was supposed to be. Were men really able to shop for and purchase such lavish items while in a war zone? According to Meredith H. Lair's expansive study Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War, my uncle's sports car was only one small part of the U.S. military's efforts to placate soldiers with morale-boosting consumer goods.

While the mythology of wars from the Revolution to the present day privileges narratives of deprivation and austerity that allow Americans to understand war as a reluctant undertaking conducted by sacrificial citizen-soldiers, Lair argues that, for most troops stationed in Vietnam, the myth bore little resemblance to reality. In her reframing of the Vietnam War landscape, soldiers enjoyed a "degree of comfort unparalleled in military history" that was born of mid-century consumerism, growing military bureaucratization, the increasing privatization of warfare, and most especially, the military's attempts to exchange goods and comfort for compliant service (p. 8). Shot from the vantage point of the PX (post exchange), dining hall, service club, and even the bowling alley, Lair's work offers a probing look at a neglected part of the American war effort, challenges popular images of soldiering and warring, and introduces new questions and sources for scholars to consider.

From the outset, Lair's work differs from the standard narrative of the Vietnam War in that it focuses predominantly on the experiences of the majority of soldiers who served in noncombatant positions. Between seventy-five and ninety percent of soldiers served in support roles and lived relatively comfortably on large bases where they enjoyed fixed living quarters, plentiful and varied meals, a fairly regular work schedule, and easy access to recreation facilities and the PX. As the war effort mushroomed, the bases that housed them grew to unprecedented proportions. For example, Long Binh Post, the largest American base in South Vietnam, included the headquarters of the U.S. Army Vietnam, the Army Chaplaincy, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Judge Advocate General's Office, a sixteen-bus transportation route, two miniature golf courses, a skeet range, twelve swimming pools, eighty-one basketball courts, sixty-four volleyball courts, three football fields, and a go-cart track. While some of the amenities—such as Red Cross clubs, libraries, and the basic athletic facilities—would have been familiar to soldiers in earlier wars, the sheer number and variety of venues speak volumes about the American war effort in Vietnam and highlight a stark contrast in the experiences of combat and noncombat soldiers that is seldom acknowledged in narratives of the war.

Although many soldiers appreciated the comfort and security of their rearward posts, others expressed dissatisfaction that they did not face the trying circumstances they expected, and they deplored their lost opportunity to prove themselves men. And while Lair points out that the dangers of the war could come to any place at any moment, she finds that soldiers understood the line between the front and the rear as a straightforward distinction between those who had and those who had not. Indicative of their contempt for such disparities, combat personnel employed the derisive term REMFs ("rear echelon motherfuckers") for the clerks, plumbers, electricians, social workers, and other personnel who lived and labored on bases with showers, private bunks, televisions, and, occasionally, even air conditioning. More than just a reference to wildly different experiences, however, the...