The New Winter Soldiers: GI and Veteran Dissent During the Vietnam Era (Perspectives in the Sixties) (Perspectives on the Sixties) [Paperback]

Richard Moser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0813522420 | ISBN-13: 978-0813522425

Richard Moser uses interviews and personal stories of Vietnam veterans to offer a fundamentally new interpretation of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement. Although the Vietnam War was the most important conflict of recent American history, its decisive battle was not fought in the jungles of Vietnam, or even in the streets of the United States, but rather in the hearts and minds of American soldiers. To a degree unprecedented in American history, soldiers and veterans acted to oppose the very war they waged. Tens of thousands of soldiers and veterans engaged in desperate conflicts with their superiors and opposed the war through peaceful protest, creating a mass movement of dissident organizations and underground newspapers. Moser shows how the antiwar soldiers lived out the long tradition of the citizen-soldier first created in the American Revolution and Civil War. Unlike those great upheavals of the past, the Vietnam War offered no way to fulfill the citizen-soldier's struggle for freedom and justice. Rather than abandoning such ideals, however, tens of thousands abandoned the war effort and instead fulfilled their heroic expectations in the movements for peace and justice. According to Moser, this transformation of warriors into peacemakers is the most important recent development of our military culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Moser (history, Middle Tennessee State Univ.) conducted 75 interviews with those involved, to varying degrees, with the substantial protest against American involvement in Vietnam. Drawing on additional unpublished archival material and taking into account the considerable Vietnam antiwar canon, Moser provides a vigorous analysis of the protest movement among veterans as well as within the military establishment. He chronicles well the operations of the influential Vietnam Veterans Against the War, as he does the now-familiar activities in the combat zone that fueled antiwar feelings, including interracial hostility, drug abuse, and mutinies. His study complements An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (LJ 4/1/90) and Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (LJ 9/15/95). Highly recommended.?Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813522420
• ISBN-13: 978-0813522425
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #450,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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