Fighting for a Just Cause in a War Without Fronts? Official Justifications For War and Combat Motivation in the Vietnam War

Abstract

This paper explores whether the American combat soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War were motivated by the cause. The paper analyzes the soldiers´ attitudes towards the war in the years 1965-1967 and 1968-1973. By comparing these attitudes with the official justifications for the war, the paper discusses whether the soldiers were committed to the cause. The analysis is based on wartime letters by soldiers in combat and postwar interviews with veterans, and employs a grounded theory methodology to identify the different patterns of thought in the sources. Current research has generally downplayed the importance of the cause as a motivator for American soldiers in the Vietnam War. However, based on the different patterns of thought expressed by soldiers, this paper seeks to elucidate that the cause was actually an important motivator for many soldiers, particularly in the years 1965-1967, when many soldiers believed they were fighting a war against communist expansion, which had to be stopped before it reached American soil. On the other hand, after 1968, defeatism had found its way into the ranks of the military, and many soldiers no longer believed in the cause.