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The poetry written by combat veterans and other witnesses to the Vietnam War is a testament to what they saw and felt in Southeast Asia. Through their poetry they build 'monuments' to their traumatic experience, piecing together memories in order to heal themselves and teach future generations about the horrors of Vietnam. These poems function in much the same way as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., both poem and Memorial requiring the effort of the 'reader' in order to propagate the legacy of the Vietnam War. By bearing witness to the Vietnam experience, the poem and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial facilitate questions; questions through which the reader and the visitor are able to construct their own imaginary monuments to the Vietnam War.

Using a representative sample of the literature, both fiction and nonfiction, written by former American soldiers and correspondents between the years 1969 and 1981, this study analyzes the literary responses of those Americans most intimately involved in the Vietnam wax. Viewed collectively, these commentaries offer insights into the war that take us beyond its surface history and tend to refute the emerging apologist interpretation. Like the current historical analyses, their central concern is the war's morality and its connection to our national self-concept. They approach the issue, however, from the complex perspective of the writer/participant vividly recreating the actual experience on one level; probing, however unconsciously, its complex moral and metaphysical issues on another. Ultimately this literature is a powerful attack not only on the war in Vietnam but also on the American myths of innocence and mission which underlay it.Chapter one defines some of the major component of the cultural myths that shaped the idealized vision of America that these accounts bring into question. It defines the word myth in a cultural and historical context and examines three revealing works on American culture: R. W. B. Lewis' The American Adam, Ernest Lee Tuveson's Redeemer Nation, and Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden. In a further attempt to elucidate this cultural mythology, chapter two examines Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.Analyzing content and form, chapters three, four, and five turn to the accounts written by the war's participants and observers. Using selected nonfiction accounts of the war that deal with the reactions of myriad participants and observers--Gloria Emerson's Winners and Losers, Michael Herr's Dispatches, Mark Baker's Nam, and Al Santoli's Everything We Had--chapter three defines and documents this war's wound. Chapter four analyzes two fictional accounts of the war, Gustav Hasford's The Short-Timers and Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers, and examines their relationship to the themes and techniques used by classic American writers to probe the underside of the American experience. Chapter five examines Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July and Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, which attempt to move beyond the war's disillusionment to a "wise accommodation."

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, committee chair; Ted Friedman, Angelo Restivo, committee members. Electronic text (115 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Mar. 28, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-105).

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, U.S. Army, 1968. / "April 1968." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in microfiche.

Thesis(M.A.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references.

Thesis (M.D.)-- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Medicine, 1974.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 2, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Youngstown State University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [100]-[104]).

Thesis (M.S.)--School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2008. / "June 2008." Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68). Also available via the Internet.