Vietnam, the Veterans, and the Veterans Administration

Armed Forces & Society

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 1976, Pages 435-467

  Ladinsky, Jack ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84965874590     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X7600200309     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. Educational Testing Service. FINAL REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE TO VETERANS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THREE G.I. BILLS. Submitted to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Third Congress, First Session, Senate Committee Print No. 18. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 20, 1973, 443pp. $3.05.
2. Helmer, John. BRINGING THE WAR HOME: THE AMERICAN SOLDIER IN VIETNAM AND AFTER. New York: Free Press, 1974, 346 pp. $12.95.
3. Levitan, Sar A. and Karen Cleary. OLD WARS REMAIN UNFINISHED: THE VETERAN BENEFIT SYSTEM. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973, 190 pp. $10.00.
4. Levitan, Sar A. and Joyce K. Zickler. SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES: OUR G.I. BILL. Salt Lake City: Olympus, 1973, 103pp. $5.95/$2.50.
5. Levy, Charles J. SPOILS OF WAR. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1974, 172pp. $5.95.
6. Lifton, Robert Jay. HOME FROM THE WAR: VIETNAM VETERANS, NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973, 478pp. $3.95.
7. Robins, Lee N. THE VIETNAM DRUG USER RETURNS. Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, Executive Office of the President, Special Action Office Monograph Series A, No. 2. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, May, 1974, 74 $pp.
8. SOURCE MATERIAL ON THE VIETNAM ERA VETERAN. Prepared by the Staff for the Use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Third Congress, Second Session, Senate Committee Print No. 26. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 12, 1974, 935pp. $6.15.
9. Starr, Paul. THE DISCARDED ARMY: VETERANS AFTER VIETNAM. New York: Charterhouse, 1973, 304pp. $7.95/$3.95.
10. THOSE WHO SER VED. Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Policies Toward Veterans. Background Paper by Michael K. Taussig. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1974, 55 pp.
11. Norma Juliet Wikler, “Vietnam and the Veterans Consciousness: Pre-Political Thinking Among American Soldiers”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Berkeley: University of California, 1973), p. 8.
12. Wikler, pp. 1-29.
13. Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), February 22, 1971, p. 1, col. 1.
14. Catherine Breslin and Mark Jury, “America's Human Time Bombs”, Philadelphia Enquirer, Today (August 20, 1972). Quoted in Starr, The Discarded Army, p. 36.
15. Unemployment and Overall Readjustment Problems of Returning Veterans, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Veterans' Affairs of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Ninety-First Congress, Second session, November 25 and December 3, 1970 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), pp. 38-58 and 204-218.
16. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today's Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970).
17. Unemployment and Overall Readjustment Problems of Returning Veterans, p. 342. For similar views see Starr, p. 36.
18. Unemployment and Overall Readjustment Problems of Returning Veterans, p. 208.
19. “Discussion”, 1972 Annual Convention of the American Psychiatric Association, Audio-Digest Foundation, Psychiatry 1 (September 4, 1972; tape cassette).
20. Robert Jay Lifton, ‘The Scars of Vietnam”, Commonweal (February 20, 1970). Reprinted in Source Material on the Vietnam Veteran, p. 874.
21. Jonathan F. Borus, “Incidence of Maladjustment in Vietnam Returnees”, Archives of General Psychiatry 30 (April 1974): 554-557.
22. An early work by Polner, a social historian, leaned heavily on Lifton's views. See Murray Polner, No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971). Chaim F. Shatan, a psychoanalyst at New York University, who also had experience with veterans' rap groups, held views very similar to Lifton's. Shatan called it “Post-Vietnam Syndrome”, a term that has been used widely to refer to a variety of adjustment problems. See Chaim F. Shatan, “Post-Vietnam Syndrome”, New York Times (May 6, 1972): 35, col. 5.
23. See, e.g., Haynes Johnson, “The Veterans-Aliens in Their Land”, Washington Post (January 27, 1971); ‘The Vietnam Vet: ‘No One Gives a Damn’”, Newsweek (March 29, 1971). Both are reprinted in Source Material on the Vietnam Era Veteran, pp. 37-39, 48-51.
24. William S. Allerton, “Army Psychiatry in Viet Nam”, in Peter G. Bourne, ed., The Psychology and Physiology of Stress, With Reference to Special Studies of the Viet Nam War (New York: Academic Press, 1969), pp. 1-17.
25. See Robins, p. 32; and the Louis Harris Survey, A Study of the Problems Facing Vietnam Era Veterans on Their Readjustment to Ovilian Life, Committee on Veterans Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Second Congress, Second Session, Senate Committee Print No. 7 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 1972), pp. 169-171. It should be noted, however, that the responses men give are not uniformly high for relief of stress as the primary reason for drug use. In the Harris survey “boredom” outranked “pressures”, “escape”, or other more direct tension-producing causes. The Robins study shows “boredom” in third place after “more tolerant of Army rules and regulations”, and “less homesick and lonely.” This was in response to an open-ended question. When asked directly, “less bored” ranked first. Thus, it is not at all clear that drug use was a direct response to the pressures of service in Vietnam such as combat. Indeed, most drug users began before their first combat experiences, as Robins notes. However, one might argue that this merely shows drug use during the buildup of tensions in anticipation of combat. There is no way to resolve this dilemma from the data available. For what it is worth the Harris Survey shows that 40% of men serving in Vietnam agreed that drugs made it easier for men to tolerate abuse from officers, but only 15% agreed that the only way to face the killing and violence of combat was to use drugs. Twenty-five percent agreed that without drugs military life would have been unbearable (p. 171).
26. See Allerton, pp. 1-17; Peter G. Bourne, Men, Stress and Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 27-46; and Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today's Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970), pp. 134-156.
27. C.R. Sanders, “Doper's Wonderland: Functional Drug Use by Military Personnel in Vietnam”, Journal of Drug Issues 3 (1973): 65-78. Starr also implies that the crackdown created a shift from smoking marijuana to smoking heroin (p. 116), and the GAO suggests it “may” be a factor. See “Drug Abuse Control Activities Affecting Military Personnel”, U.S. General Accounting Office, Report to the Congress B-164031(2), (August 11, 1972), p. 14.
28. A Study of the Problems Facing Vietnam Era Veterans on Their Readjustment to Civilian Life, p. 173.
29. Helmer argues from family income figures that one in three came from a “severely deprived environment” (p. 58). Neither the income breakdown nor other background characteristics support this claim. Moreover, levels of education and rates of utilization of G.I. Bill benefits, especially in Groups I and III, do not suggest that these are highly disadvantaged youths (pp. 58, 225). Indeed, middle class would seem to be a better title for many, despite their subjective identifications.
30. See James W. Davis, Jr. and Kenneth M. Dolbeare, Little Groups of Neighbors: The Selective Service System (Chicago: Markham, 1968); Bernard D. Karpinos, “Mental Test Failures”, in Sol Tax, ed., The Draft (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 35-53.
31. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man, p. 116; Steven L. Canby, Military Manpower Procurement: A Policy Analysis (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath, 1972), pp. 72-248; M. Zeitlin, K.G. Lutterman and J.W. Russell, “Death in Vietnam: Class, Poverty, and the Risk of War”, Politics and Society 3 (Spring 1973): 313-328; John Willis, “Variations in State Casualty Rates in World War II and the Vietnam War”, Social Problems 22 (April 1975): 558-567.
32. See Canby, pp. 67-72.
33. Starr provides an accurate and succinct review of Project 100, 000 at pp. 184-197.
34. See Department of Defense Appropriations for 1972, Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Second Congress, First Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), Part 3, pp. 86-87, 525-526, 786-787, 933, 1152; Part 9, pp. 577-582.
35. Hearings, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1972, p. 87.
36. Project One Hundred ThousandCharacteristics and Performance of “New Standards” Men, Office Secretary of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs; December 1969), p. 66.
37. Project One Hundred Thousand, Characteristics and Performance of ‘New Standards “Men, pp. 14, 32.
38. Canby, p. 35.
39. Wikler, ‘Vietnam and the Veterans’ Consciousness: Pre-Political Thinking Among American Soldiers”, pp. 315-334.
40. M. Kent Jennings and Gregory B. Markus, “Political Participation and Vietnam-Era War Veterans: A Longitudinal Study”, University of Michigan, unpublished paper, n.d., p. 14. The authors also reported on participation in public protests by period of service, but were not able to separate respondents by tour in Vietnam due to small numbers. Protest activity was highest among those who served during the later periods (1969-1970 and 1971-1973). Many of them had engaged in antiwar protest in an earlier, civilian period (p. 25).
41. Much of it is summarized in congressional hearings. See The Vietnam Veteran in Contemporary Society, pp. iv, 160-194; Helmer lists numerous studies at pp. 328-330; also see Starr, pp. 134-166.
42. Lee N. Robins, Darlene H. Davis, and David N. Nurco, “How Permanent Was Vietnam Drug Addiction?” American Journal of Public Health Supplement 64 (December 1974): 38-43.
43. Lee N. Robins, “Veterans' Drug Use Three Years After Vietnam”, Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, unpublished paper, 1975, p. 17.
44. Starr, pp. 150-151; Jonathan F. Borus, “Reentry I. Adjustment Issues Facing the Vietnam Returnee”, Archives of General Psychiatry 28 (April 1973): 505.
45. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, The United States Budget in Brief, Fiscal Year 1976 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 49-50.
46. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Special Analysis, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1976 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 140, 195, 198, 203, 207-208, 223.
47. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1976 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 144.
48. Title 38-United States Code, Veterans' Benefits, ch. 11, Section 314, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Ninety-Third Congress, Second Session, House Committee Print No. 167 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 62.
49. The Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1976, p. 146.
50. Title 38-United States Code, Veterans' Benefits, ch. 15, Section 521, pp. 86-87.
51. For a description of the theory, see Gilbert Y. Steiner, The State of Welfare (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1971), p. 242.
52. A Study of the Problems Facing Vietnam Era Veterans on Their Readjustment to Civilian Life, p. 243.
53. Other readjustment benefits (excluding services for the disabled) include home, farm, and business loans; job counseling; reemployment rights; veterans' preferences in civil service employment and manpower training programs; job placement; and unemployment compensation based on service. Activities related to employment are carried out by the Department of Labor through its state employment service offices. See Title 38-United States Code, Veterans' Benefits, ch. 37, 41, 42, and 43. Unemployment compensation for veterans is contained in Title 42-United States Code (Title XV of the Social Security Act).
54. Veterans Administration, Veterans' Benefits Under Current Educational Programs, Department of Veterans Benefits, Information Bulletin DVB IB 20-75-3 (November 1974), p. 20.
55. VA's rebuttal does not appear, unfortunately, with the Senate Committee Print of the Final Report. It is Veterans Administration Analysis of Findings and Conclusions; Presented in Chapter 1 of a 1973 Report on “Educational Assistance to Veterans: A Comparative Study of Three G.I. Bills”, a Report of the Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Third Congress, First Session, House Committee Print No. 85 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 27, 1973).
56. Veterans Administration Analysis, pp. 30-34.
57. Veterans Administration Analysis, p. 43.
58. David E. Rosenbaum, “Congress Overrides Veto of Veterans' Benefits Bill”, New York Times (December 4, 1974): 1, col. 7.
59. Veterans' Benefits Under Current Educational Programs, pp. 23, 55. VA gives a participation rate of 55.7%, but it is inflated by close to 539, 000 active duty service personnel who qualify for educational assistance. Many come under the Predischarge Educational Program (PREP). Most training by active duty service personnel is through correspondence courses. I subtracted them from the total to get a figure of 52.2% participation for veterans.