Ideologies of Forgetting: Rape in the Vietnam War

3. “Already Bullets”: American Witnesses to Wartime Rape and Sexual Abuse

3 “Already Bullets” American Witnesses to Wartime Rape and Sexual Abuse Although the stereotype of the Vietnam veteran frequently involves his dysfunctional silence about the war, in reality many veterans spoke very publicly about the worst of their experiences. Often the most traumatizing aspects of their war experience were haunting memories of wanton aggression they or their comrades had committed, especially against women. Their reasons for testifying openly about such atrocities were complex. Many veterans saw their testimony as a contribution to ending a war they now felt was unjust and immoral; they hoped to save would-be draftees and volunteers from the war as well as alter government policy. Some wished to open the eyes of the American public, to force the “silent majority” to recognize the Vietnam War for what it was—a “genocide,” as they themselves named it.1 While these political motivations certainly drove the public revelation of atrocities, the catharsis of guilt veterans hoped to derive from witnessing to their personal sins cannot be overstated. In many self-reflective moments during the Winter Soldier Investigation, for example, participating veterans spoke of their wish to expiate the overwhelming guilt they felt by making a public confession and to achieve healing through communion with veterans like themselves. Therefore, this chapter has two main purposes. The first of these is to demonstrate that there is an abundance of veteran and other eyewitness testimony proving that the sexual mistreatment of Vietnamese women did occur. In fact, this assembled testimony makes evident that the rape and sexual abuse of women was not a rare occurrence but actually took place on such a large scale that many veterans considered it standard operating procedure. The second purpose of this chapter is, 47 48 Ideologies of Forgetting in considering the reasons veterans felt compelled to speak about their brutality, to analyze the particular trauma of aggression from which veterans suffered. Unlike popular images of the veteran that emerged in the 1980s, the veterans highlighted in this chapter revealed that it was their aggressive acts against the Vietnamese, whom the military had taught them to violently loathe, that caused much veteran postwar suffering . And, unlike recent notions of “healing” Vietnam veterans through welcome-home parades and the like, these veterans sought expiation through public recognition of their atrocities and crimes. By setting an example, they hoped America and its military would take responsibility for its part in these criminal acts, just as individual veterans were prepared to take personal responsibility. I will also argue, however, that prominent among veterans’ motives for testifying is relief from the mental anguish and trauma of guilt, which is the context out of which the rehabilitation of the veteran, with a focus on his psychic trauma, occurred in later years. This chapter will be especially attuned to the veterans’ struggle to understand how they came to commit barbaric acts; they reveal the dehumanizing, misogynist tactics of basic training and the way militarized masculinity created dangerous group dynamics, which demanded that soldiers display loyalty, even in despicable crimes, or be subject to death. Focusing on veterans’ perceptions of women and gender relations, I will also demonstrate how the budding women’s movement lent its rhetoric to the antiwar movement , giving veterans the language with which to name their damaging understanding of and behavior toward women. Additionally, I will suggest that the mounting vociferousness of the women’s movement probably inadvertently helped to squelch publicization of the abuse that women in Vietnam were suffering at the hands of American men, as authorities hesitated to fuel the fires of women’s protest. Beginnings: The Stockholm International War Crimes Tribunal Some of the earliest veteran testimony occurred at the International War Crimes Tribunal, sponsored by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and held in Stockholm, Sweden, from 2 through 10 May 1967; its sponsors conceived the tribunal as a forum to expose the detrimental consequences of U.S. policy in Vietnam. Presided over by Jean-Paul Sartre, its twenty-one “tribunal members” included such notables as James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, and Peter Weiss. While critics then2 and more recently3 decried the tribunal’s reliance on North Vietnamese statistics and evidence, the panelists’ admitted antiwar stances, their sup- 49 “Already Bullets” port of the NLF, and the lack of defensive testimony by the United States, the tribunal provides an important point at which to begin an examination of veteran testimony. For...