Hi everyone,

I think this would be the right place to post a thread regarding history, since this is my reaction to reading Gen. Petraeus's dissertation so far, which explores the use of military force in the Vietnam war. I'm only on the first part of it, which explores how the Korean war influenced the thinking of senior military leaders in the Vietnam war.

First off, it is insightful and refreshing to read a scholarly work that is outside the typical liberalism of academia. I've been learning how traumatic isolated land conflicts were to the esteem of American forces caught up in them. The trauma then becomes a part of the collective memory the armed forces, internalized even by those who did not experience them directly, according to Petraeus. Not just the military, but other institutions have memories that define them.

The literature I have read for school talks about how museums, libraries and archives have insituitional memory as well. But never in my entire academic career have I heard the words "military" and "institutional" memory together in the same sentence. Yes, a lot of the anti-war protesters had trauma in their lives during the 60s, and many, no doubt, became the liberal professors in universities today, but through Gen. Petraeus's work, I have learned there is another side to the story. That is the trauma internalized by the senior military leaders who became cautious, if not indecisive, unless they were fighting conflicts they were positive they could win.

I think the reason why senior military leaders were hesitant to use counter-insurgency/unconventional war back when the invasion of Iraq first began, was due to painful memories still left over from Vietnam. Gen. Petraeus describes the inclination of "an all or nothing victory" in warfare as a reaction to avoiding another Vietnam. That might be why the US first went in with the heavy artillery and tanks back in 2003/4.

I am still studying the effects of Vietnam on US culture and Iraq today in this series on global conflict. I do not know as much as someone who lived through Vietnam, because I was not even born then. I am trying to understand the perspective of my professors, as well as my parents' generation as a whole. To me, it is 9/11 that holds real significance. Gen. Petraeus said that if an individual experiences a traumatic event in their formative years, then it impacts their psyche deeply throughout life.

I was studying at the University of Hawaii when 9/11 happened. I saw my fellow students cry at a candlelight vigil held in the dorms that day, when they discovered some of their loved ones had died in the World Trade Center. Even now, as they shed their tears, reciting the Lord's Prayer, their pain as fellow students of my generation is burned into my memory. I felt helplessness, pain and anger at those who attacked America. I saw that Waikiki was completely empty and tourists were stranded in Hawaii. Commerce in Hawaii was completely dead. No airplanes flew after 9/11 hitting Hawaii hard, as it is an island. Those were the firsthand effects of terrorism I experienced in my formative years, in Hawaii.

I can only imagine that is what my parents' generation experienced in Vietnam. About 1 month ago, when I mentioned being an Army civilian at a local coffee shop where I live, this man in his 60s got so angry at me, when he heard the word "army," and nearly yelled at me, I was guessing because it was anger at the Vietnam war. He didn't understand 9/11 is to my generation, what Vietnam was to his. I could mention many reactions I had while reading Gen. Petraeus's dissertation, but I thought I would share what I felt.

Naomi