Introduction

Early in my research for this book I was sitting in a coffee shop absorbed in my thoughts on how to write about the trauma of the Vietnam War through the eyes of the second generation—children of Vietnam Veterans (COVV). As I struggled with these thoughts, I was interrupted by a conversation between two men. Their conversation, initially, held nothing of interest to me. They were complaining about their jobs and local politics and gossiping about their mutual friends. They captured my attention, though, when I heard one of the men say, “He’d have to of been in Vietnam—nutty as he is.” His friend tacitly agreed. Actually, it was not a tacit agreement: he laughed. I wanted to ask the man what he meant by his remark, but did not feel comfortable intruding on their conversation. So I silently reveled in the serendipity of this interruption. The resonance of the man’s comment and his friend’s response exemplifies the innocuous way social memory infiltrates our everyday lives and expressions. His remark is an example of how we can read the social meanings at work in the subject position of the Vietnam Veteran and how they are inscribed onto our hearts and minds. And in relation to my research, it exemplifies the complex traffic at work in memories of a historically traumatic event such as the Vietnam War.