Home from the War: Learning From Vietnam Veterans

by Robert Jay Lifton

In Home from the War, the award-winning author and noted psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton offers a powerful critique of American militarism during the Vietnam War. Recognized as the ultimate text for those working with Vietnam veterans, the book's insights have had enormous influence among psychologists and psychiatrists all over the world.

Lifton's new preface connects the experience of Vietnam veterans with that of veterans of the war in Iraq. Both were brought into the 'atrocity producing situations' that led to My Lai and Abu Ghraib. Lifton raises the possibility that Iraq veterans could experience the kind of healing transformation that many who fought in Vietnam were able to achieve.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Psychology

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Robert Jay Lifton was an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.

Reviews

[Steve Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably one of the most important books to come out of the Vietnam war. Lifton is a groundbreaking researcher and his viewpoint, the psycho historical, opens up ways of looking at the events that provide a wider context than that which is traditionally considered. He looks at the struggle of Vietnam veterans to come to terms with their experience and as he puts it, transform themselves through animating guilt and shame. This is a new way of looking at what are common responses to the "death immersion" that is common to all veterans of combat. He looks at the way in which these emotions can animate movement towards transformation and transcendence rather than being destructively trapped in the past. he argues that it is a necessary process since there is and can never be redempttion. His view is that these veterans light the way for the wider nation as it also comes to terms with the corruption of its own moral fibre that was a consequence of the war.

The book was written as a result of observations in Vietnam Veterans rap groups in the US. they took place while the war continued and they set the form for various types of veterans encounter groups that still function today. The poignancy of the book lies in a realization now, that the nation, and Americans generally missed the point. They lost a great opportunity for a true revolution of the spirit had they been able, as a nation, to face the consequences of their actions in Vietnam. They were not so able. Instead of transcendence of corruption what has happened is that the old forms of validation of the national sense of the moral high ground have been resurrected and used to fuel more recent fires taking the American solution to others, in Iraq and Afghanistan in ways not too different to those that prevailed in Vietnam. The whole nation has shifted to a more fundamentalist view of Americas right and role, the rise of the Christian right and its dominance in US politics through Bush's presidency the classic evidence of that happening.

That Vietnam still has a hold on the American psyche can be seen in the kind of desperate need to succeed in Iraq "shock and awe" and to strike with vengeance in Afghanistan. To what end. Iraq has only served to promote the position and interests of Iran, a far more potent enemy than Saddam ever was and Afghanistan for all the blustering about it being nothing like Vietnam carries so many similarities that it would be professional suicide for any soldier or politician to point them out. Whatever, the results will be the same, arrogance and over reliance on American technical know-how will see this once great country humbled again at the hands of a bunch of "stone age peasants'.

The tragedy is that the whole business will probably not teach them or any of their allies, who so obediently follow into every mindless blunder Americans can foster, anything at all. They all seem incapable of seeing. In the process another broken generation of soldiers, returning from yet another exercise in moral turpitude, contaminated by the cynicism of their leaders, and ultimately betrayed by their nation, which now, despite the lip service will still fail to provide what they need to transcend their experience of serving their country. 300,000 veterans living on the street in America in 2010. If you think that's bad, just wait till the full impact of the psychological trauma sustained in this process really begins to show up.

Those set up to help the veterans return, will be as clueless in what they attempt as the last lot were unless they take the lessons outlined in this book to heart and begin to incorporate them into their efforts. Unlikely since that would require facing up to the truths that show America tio be anything but what its people like to so stridently declare that it is.

A great piece of work, should be required reading for every citizen of voting age.

[Angela]

I’m adding all of these Vietnam War books to my tbr because I’m revisiting a podcast episode on the war & realized I never added any of the books being mentioned to my tbr. The podcast is called Revolutionary Left Radio. They have tons of good content but they re-uploaded this interview the other day so you don’t have to sift through tons of episodes to find it.

[Bill Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was home for the war and I heard about Dr. Lifton's book.

I got a copy and I read it in a few days. He met with many Vietnam Veterans and described how they were assimilating their experiences. Dr. Lifton consolidated the vets' search for understanding of their memories and impressions and his medical knowledge and his preternatural humanity.

He wrote about the process long before the concept of post traumatic stress disorder was widely understood. Indeed, his notion of "animating grief" helped me to internalize and transcend the experiences.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it hard not to feel sorry for the poor sods. Welcome home.