No One Here Gets Out Alive: Burying Dead the American Way

No One Here Gets Out Alive: Memorializing, Mourning, and Reconciling the Vietnam War Dead

If you are able, save a place for them inside you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call this war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.
-Major Michael O’Donnell, 1970
Vietnam veteran Bill Hunt wrote that… “in the end, all wars are about dying. When the dying is about honor, it is somehow [ok].”[1] For the first time in American history, some questioned whether their soldiers, who lost their lives while in service to their country, were in fact, dying with honor. Far different from the “good wars” which preceded the Vietnam conflict, this new type of “limited war” was not familiar to those who lived through the war or those who lost their lives. Unlike their forbearers, the men and women who perished in the jungles of Vietnam fought in a “limited” and complex war that created new attitudes toward the war dead. Those who lost loved ones in Vietnam, found that, even in death, the role of their beloved in Vietnam and the collective memory of those who lost their lives remained ambiguous. The reasons for this vary in both complexity and scope, however, how Americans honored those who died in the war became controversial and less understood. For those who died in Vietnam, their deaths became symbolically attached to the unpopularity of the war and this attachment influenced private mourning and transformed the memorialization of the war dead. For the bereaved, this social reluctance to publicly honor the fallen meant finding new ways to legitimize the death of their loved one. By associating honor with all military service and separating the warrior from the war Americans established the deaths of their loved ones in Vietnam as one with dignity and meaning.
The process by which the dead are laid to rest is littered with complexities. Burial rituals and the way by which Americans bury the dead are steeped in traditions that are both social and cultural. Much like other American institutions, the United States Armed Forces and the way by which they bury their dead has evolved due to social change. How America should treat its service members who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country reflects a similar combination of tradition and new attitudes about handling earthly remains. From the early reforms that took place during and after the tumultuous era of the American Civil War through the social transformations that occurred through the tension-filled years of the Cold War and turmoil of the Vietnam era, American perspectives towards the soldier dead, how to dispose of their remains, and how to memorialize them have undergone a social upheaval. Masked, in part, by familiar and painful attitudes of grief and bereavement and the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, Americans transformed the way in which they mourned the deaths of those who were lost during times of conflict. This thesis aims to examine the relationship Americans have with death, the effects of the Vietnam war in the treatment of America’s military dead, the bereaved, and the role that cultural shifts have played in memorializing military casualties during the Vietnam era. (1955-1975) Arguing that doubts about the war and changing attitudes toward the dead resulted in a new way of handling and honoring the deaths of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.    
The Sixties were a time rife with social struggle, and Vietnam often defines the period. An unpopular war, the Vietnam conflict influenced immense social protest that helped to generate sweeping social and cultural change. Scholarship on the effects of the war has overlooked how the war transformed cultural attitudes and perspective towards death.[2] The disenchantment that many felt from the efforts to support the war led to protests against those who served in uniform. As a town with deep ties to the U.S. military and anti-war sentiment during the period, San Diego, California provides a unique perspective on the social division created by the war. Contemporary scholarship has failed to acknowledge how the deaths from the Vietnam War not only altered American perspectives on the dead, the deaths were themselves used in a myriad of ways to bolster an argument for both patriotism and protest. The views and perspectives of the Vietnam casualties differed greatly from those of previous wars and in doing so, they were influential in a cultural transformation which can still be felt today.
In The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, historian Thomas W. Laqueur argues that “the dead constitute a symbolic system that defies cultural nihilism and carries within itself a long, iterative, slowly changing history.”[3] Laqueur argues that through honoring the dead, the living remain civilized. One of the funeral industry’s favorite quotes “Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals” mirrors Laqueur’s sentiment.[4] Through The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, Laqueur provides a richly detailed account from which the development of American burial traditions and the relationship between the living and the dead can be determined.
It has long been customary for the surviving to disassociate themselves from death and the result has had multiple effects. Morality, social acceptance, and the status of the living have replaced the need for the salvation of the deceased. Historian Gary Laderman argues that American burial traditions have evolved, not by the institutionalization of the practice. Rather, the way in which Americans dispose of their dead is reflective of the cultural and social changes that took place during the latter portion of the twentieth-century.[5] Furthermore, Laderman contends that religious myths have played a crucial role in the validation of death because “they provide a sacred context for meaning and action in everyday life” both of which would become ambiguous during the Vietnam era.[6]
One way that Americans have sought to validate the deaths of soldiers is to memorialize the deceased by constructing monuments dedicated to the cause. As a “veterans monument,” the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is ambiguous at best, but the impact the monument had on attitudes towards the Vietnam war dead was clear. Unlike those who died in the “line of duty” during previous wars those who perished in Vietnam made the “ultimate sacrifice.” In doing so, their deaths evolved from a national duty to a personal sacrifice. Dying not for their country, rather, they died for both those who fought alongside them and those who were unwilling to serve in the war. For its part, the monument downplays the issues of the war and places individual sacrifice at the forefront.

Changing Perceptions and Honoring the War Dead
The rituals of burial that Americans have come to embrace are the result of over one hundred years of evolution and change.[7] The funeral industry was born just prior to the Civil War and the hostilities from the struggle would tragically create a greater need for its services. As a result, the war and the funeral industry also transformed the ways by which Americans memorialize their dead. The Civil War transformed the way Americans disposed of the dead in several ways.  First, it initiated the necessity to transport and preserve the dead body. Unlike previous wars, the combatants of the Civil War were all American. As the war took many men away from their homes and to new parts of the country the lifeless bodies of the war dead became isolated miles away from their loved ones. This isolation fostered a growing need for the safe transport of the dead. As Drew Gilpin Faust contends in her work, This Republic of Suffering, the need was for both the salvation of the deceased and the bereaved to honor their dead. Additionally, as war casualties steadily mounted, families became concerned with locating the remains of their loved ones. For those whose remains could be located and identified the logistical details of shipping a corpse became a priority. In doing so, comrades and kin could provide their deceased with the privilege of an honored and marked grave.[8] Thus, the Civil War helped to establish embalming as a burial ritual that would become unique to American traditions.
While embalming allowed for the safe transport of a body, even more important, embalming became increasingly significant to the psyche of the bereaved. Embalmed bodies allowed families to receive their dead and inter them in a way that provided eternal salvation in accordance with the religious ideologies of the period. Protestant belief patterns dictated that a physical body would be required for resurrection. This belief reinforced the family’s desire to locate, embalm and transport their deceased. In addition, Faust writes of the “Good Death” or the tradition of ars morendi. According to Faust, the art of dying, which was already widespread during the nineteenth-century, became even more so during the American Civil War. Faust contends that during the war Catholics, Protestants, and Jews all sought to perform these traditions in order to receive eternal salvation.[9] Faust describes ritualist conventions of a good death: that the deceased had been conscious of their fate, had demonstrated willingness to accept it, had shown signs of belief in God and their own salvation, and had left messages and instructive exhortations for those who had been at their side.[10]
 In Western Attitudes Towards Death Historian Philippe Aries points out that the transformation of the funeral industry coincided with other cultural phenomena such as hospitals displacing the home as a place for dying and the interdiction of medical staff and family until they, not the person dying, are ready to accept their fate.[11] The most significant changes to take place in American attitudes towards the dead can be ascribed to industrialization and the shifting social norms that occurred at the turn of the twentieth century. Furthermore, the establishment of the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) in 1882 marked the start of an ongoing attempt to professionalize the funerary industry. By the early twentieth-century, increased urbanization and interest groups such as life insurance companies, cemeteries, and Funeral Directors all began to play a significant role in influencing social change.[12]
 Ironically, the formalization of the death ritual resulted in a gradual loss of reverence for the dead and began to shape American attitudes towards death. Before the nineteenth-century, burial rituals typically involved immediate family members and clergy who prepared the body and oversaw the graveside service. Much different than a Funeral Director today, undertakers, as they were then known, had only a small role in the burial of the dead. Scholarly work, such as Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920 by James J. Farrell, highlights the role of the undertaker as someone whose primary focus is the construction of a coffin made from pine. According to Farrell, very often undertakers were cabinetmakers or carpenters who would construct a coffin only at the request of the bereaved. Additionally, at times, an undertaker might assume the duties of digging the grave for a small fee. Aside from these minor tasks, an undertaker had little to do with the burial of the dead during the nineteenth-century.
However, during times of immense struggle or chaos, humans seek solace in faith. In this way, then, the Civil War did more, perhaps, than anything else to alter American burial traditions. New technologies, the duration of the war from 1861to 1865, and the fact that it was strictly an American affair ensured that casualties piled up in excess of 600,000 American dead. The wanton destruction of the war influenced mourning practices and attire in an attempt to make death more palatable. According to Faust, these practices include a mourning period of two and a half years for widows (full, heavy, half), compared to three months for a widower. Also, men and women wore specific attire to signify that he/she was in a period of mourning such as wearing a black dress for women or a black crape on the hat of a man.[13] However, the most profound public transformation was the United States Government establishing Arlington as a national cemetery in 1864. In this way, the government not only oversaw the burial of service members, more importantly, those who would be interred at Arlington also consisted of both high-ranking officers, enlisted men, and freedmen. In doing so, the government emphasized that equity was achievable in a noble death while also promoting nationalism as being interred in Arlington defined not just their death but also their lives as dedicated citizens. Last, the large numbers of those who mourned the loss of their loved ones during the Civil War began to commemorate their death by placing flowers upon the graves of the deceased. This practice, which would help to eradicate regional division and influence national healing, is now known as Memorial Day.[14] 
Although the Civil War had a long shadow, as America entered the twentieth-century, war and economic expansion would again transform the way Americans interred their dead. With the funeral industry largely established by the twentieth-century, the United States would find itself at war once again. World War I would change military burials and the way in which Americans honor their military dead.  In previous wars abroad, such as the Spanish-American War, the War Department repatriated the bodies of those who lost their lives.[15] Having set a precedent, the expectation from the American public was that this would once again be the case. However, the Great War’s trench warfare, prominent levels of casualties, and limited resources made doing so during active hostilities difficult. This degree of difficulty is made clear by a World War I soldier who commented after the Battle of Passchendaele: “Well, the front-line dead, a lot of people won’t like this-they’re simply dead. You can’t do much about them. In most of the attacks, if they were killed they just had to lie there until they disappeared under the mud.”[16]  
Many casualties would remain, at best, buried in shallow graves until the end of the war. Repatriation of the war's dead became hotly debated for both social and political reasons. At the outset, survivors of the dead sought to have their deceased returned for proper burial, as with the Civil War, in order to reconcile themselves with the death of their loved one was a need to see the remains of their deceased. In this way, death is made tangible and helped survivors to find closure. However, the reluctance of the French government to appropriate needed resources for the disinterment and shipment of the dead further complicated matters. To thwart further division, the War Department decided to allow the next of kin to determine whether to repatriate their deceased or bury them in U.S. owned cemeteries abroad.[17]
 In 1918, former President Theodore Roosevelt asked that his son Quentin Roosevelt, who died in the war, remain in France, declaring “where the tree falls, there let it lie.”[18] This moving statement by a former President was symbolically striking and enabled some Americans to reconcile the death of their loved one even if this meant that their deceased would be interred in a foreign, yet, American owned cemetery. They could console themselves that their loved one’s death was ennobled by being interred in the foreign land because here their sacrifice became a symbol of freedom and democracy. As General of the Armies John J. Pershing reminded the nation “[t]he graves of our soldiers constitute, if they are allowed to remain, a perpetual reminder to our Allies of the liberty and ideals upon which the greatness of America rests.”[19] The decision to inter in place led to the creation of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) in 1923 to oversee the commemoration of American Military efforts during the war. Originally created for the purpose of erecting monuments and memorial chapels for American war dead overseas, today, the ABMC maintains 26 American burial grounds and 29 memorials, monuments, and markers on foreign soil.[20] With their rows of marble headstones in the form of a Cross or Star of David and the traditional design of other monuments, these places of reflection submerge visitors in the national ideologies of freedom, sacrifice, and service.
The cemeteries established during and after World War I remained inclusive without regard to rank while the uniformity of the headstones and neatly manicured landscape reflect this image.  In the end, though seventy-percent of the families chose to bring their sons back, the work of the Graves Registration Service (GRS) and ABMC set a precedent that would remain mostly intact until the Vietnam War. For the first time, field graves became the exception in burying American war dead. For their part, the GRS continued the practices of locating, identifying, preparing, transporting, and in some cases interring the dead that took shape during the Civil War. Also, World War I was the first time that other forms of burial rites began to take place such as the draping of a coffin with an American flag, and the use of military escorts to accompany the dead body during transport to the next of kin.[21]
The signing of the Armistice that ended the Great War on November 11, 1918 became a day of national reflection in the United States initially known as “Armistice Day” in honor of those who fought in the Great War (now Veterans’ Day). Along the home front, in an attempt to sustain morale, instead of wearing traditional mourning attire, Gold Star Mothers placed a gold star in their window to publically declare that they were in mourning.[22] In addition, the American Legion (1919) and American Legion Auxiliary (1919) were established and although other nations would follow, Americans entrenched the poppy as a symbol by which the soldier dead were remembered for their sacrifice.[23] These changes in recognizing and in memorializing death created a more unified legacy than the war itself, which did little to “end all wars.”
Compelled to enter another major international conflict less than twenty-five years after the first World War, American military burial practices and the internment of the war dead changed little while the GRS continued with the policies established from the previous war. Again, during World War II, next of kin were given the opportunity to decide whether they wished to have the remains of their deceased relatives repatriated or interred in one of the United States owned foreign cemeteries while others, who succumbed during the great naval battles in the Pacific would be buried at sea. Just as in the preceding wars, the sheer number of battlefield and war casualties made the logistical processes of locating, identifying, transporting, and interring the dead difficult during active hostilities. As with World War I, the war dead would be buried in temporary cemeteries to be disinterred and processed at wars end. However, U.S. involvement in World War II and the scale and scope of the war differed substantially from previous conflicts. The magnitude of the war's dead influenced the establishment of several new foreign cemeteries for the burial of American dead. Also, in time, the ABMC would create new monuments spanning the globe in honor of the men and women who lost their lives during the war. The volume of civilian deaths in Europe, a result of increased strafing and aerial bombardments complicated further the commemoration of the military dead in Europe, in contrast, the citizens of the United States remained largely unscathed and enjoyed the fruits of the “good war.”
While no substantial transformation in burial rites took place during or after World War II, the conflict did result in the consolidation and codification of practices. The handling of the dead continued the response to the large number of battlefield deaths during the Civil War when new methods were created by which the dead could be located, transported, and interred. World War II also continued the First World War practice of interring some American casualties in overseas cemeteries, and World War II mothers followed World War I practices of bolstering wartime morale by replacing mourning attire with the gold star.  The Civil War, World War I, and World War II all carried on the tradition of honoring the dead through marked graves and erecting monuments that presented the war efforts as nothing short of heroic or noble.
But if World War II sought to comfort the bereaved with established traditions, the Cold War and its new style of “limited” war in countries on the periphery created a different set of circumstances. Dramatically, the first open armed conflict of the Cold War, the Korean War put an end to the military policy of interring American dead in overseas cemeteries. Permanent burial in European countries suggested an enduring emotional bond and continued economic and political connections. In Korea, and later in Vietnam, soldiers fighting to “contain communism” were not fighting for the place in which they died, no matter how much the government tried to ennoble the South and demonize the North. Approximately 37,000 Americans were killed in Korea and the policy to repatriate all fallen service members was the Korean Wars single contribution to burial traditions, but this also shows that Cold War conflicts lacked the clear-cut justification of wars in support of traditional allies.[24] 

Transformative Experience of the Vietnam War
Coming on the heels of the publically unsatisfying stalemate of the Korean War, Vietnam was unlike any previous conflict in which Americans had been involved. First, what began simply as U.S. financial aid to South Vietnam morphed into an advisory capacity and finally full-scale combat. Far different from World War II, the United States did not come under attack by a belligerent nation. Many Americans were only vaguely familiar with the country of Vietnam and even fewer understood the economic importance of the region. During the early years of the conflict, many Americans approved of the aid given to the anti-Communist South Vietnamese as the scare of the red menace reached its peak. However, by 1968, the deadliest year of the war, public morale and support for the war appeared to wane considerably as a tired public became disenchanted by the long war. In brief, an uninformed public was less likely to support the casualties produced by a protracted war.[25]
The deaths in Vietnam not only differed from those of previous wars as public sentiment was less receptive to the human costs of war. However, the failure of the government to clearly state an inspirational objective influenced public sensitivity to war casualties in a way that was also different from previous conflicts. Although some might argue that the deaths in Vietnam were less important, it is quite the opposite. The importance of death surpassed that of the previous generation primarily because the bereaved could not state with clarity what their loved ones were dying for. Unlike World War II where the dead fought for American freedoms, those who succumbed to hostilities in Vietnam were not afforded the same opinion. Combined with the ambivalence of the public this led to the private mourning and individual reconciliation of Vietnam deaths. Public ceremonies became less common, and grief found private expression.
Even as the meaning of death in Vietnam fell into question, the military process of handling the dead became more efficient and less prone to error. During previous wars, the soldier dead were to be interred in temporary cemeteries until hostilities came to an end. In some cases, the dead were left in shallow graves with makeshift grave markers to indicate that a) a body was buried in this place and b) the identification of the individual buried. Yet, even when wars ended satisfactorily for the United States, the process of locating, disinterning, identifying, embalming, and transporting the dead was inefficient and painstakingly slow. When the dead remained in enemy territory, as in North Korea, recovery required a negotiated cooperation. Finding itself in another “limited” and frustratingly brutal war in South East Asia, these processes would be refined in Vietnam as modern medicine and technology decreased mortality rates in theatre while the expanded use of the helicopter made transport of the dead much more efficient.[26]
 As the Vietnam war progressed, a need to restructure mortuary affairs became apparent. Previously, an individual’s unit was responsible for handling the deceased which included locating, identifying, temporary internment, and keeping a record of such measures. As the war gradually escalated, increasing casualty levels led Army Officials to identify a need for centralized mortuary operations which included the processing and shipment of the deceased and his/her personal effects. To do so, the Army established division and command size collection points, and in addition to the mortuary aboard Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon, a second mortuary was established in the northern province of Vietnam at DaNang Air Base in 1967.[27] Having established physical locations for the collection of remains and personal effects, the Army introduced its Concurrent Return Program (CRP). Differing from previous wars, the deceased would now be processed in country and in a streamlined fashion. Instead of being interred in a temporary grave, once recovered, the body of the deceased would be evacuated from a collection point to either Tan Son Nhut or DaNang Mortuaries. Here, the bodies would be officially identified, embalmed, and shipped via airlift to the port of entry mortuaries located in Oakland, California or Dover, Delaware where they might receive additional cosmetic treatment before being casketed and transported for final disposition. In contrast to previous wars in which the disposition of the dead did not take place until the war had concluded, those who perished in Vietnam were typically processed in seven to ten days.[28]
More structured protocols helped with processing the bodily remains in country. But on the home front, the processes by which Americans buried their dead and those they hired to help facilitate these needs were enveloped in controversy. Prior to Vietnam, next of kin (NOK) were notified of the death of their loved ones by telegram and letters. However, reports of telegrams being left in mailboxes led to complaints by family members about the process in which they were notified. As a result, the process was formally revised by the Department of the Army in 1966.[29] Under the new protocol, the Army implemented a standard operating procedure for notifying family members of their loss. The directive provided that Casualty Notification Officers (CNO) would personally notify survivors of the death of their loved one. CNO’s were provided with strict rules determining the times and manner in which notification should take place. Even more significant, CNO’s were instructed with a script from which they were advised what to communicate and how to do so in a diplomatic and caring fashion. Accompanying the CNO, a Chaplain provided any moral or spiritual guidance that the bereaved may need during the short but painful process of notification. Once notified by the CNO, family members received an official telegram confirming the death of their beloved within forty-eight hours and were then assigned a Casualty Assistance Officer (CAO) who assisted them with funeral arrangements, beneficiary entitlements, legal assistance, and any personal matters arising from the death of the deceased.[30] In this way, then, the anxiety and grieving period connected with the death of a loved one during a time of war was lessened as the process of reconciliation, possession and identification of the body, and burial took place at a much faster pace. As a result, the bodies of the Vietnam dead were quickly and quietly returned their loved ones with little fanfare or public reflection. While these changes lent themselves in comforting the bereaved, they inadvertently individualized and helped to privatize the deaths of those who perished.
Beginning with the dedication of Arlington National Cemetery in 1864, and after, national cemeteries became emblems of American fortitude and the nation’s noble cause. As the war in Southeast Asia approached, concern for the nation's cemeteries mounted. An article from 1962 entitled “Closing of U.S. Cemeteries Asked” illustrates the consternation during congressional hearings that took place to discuss the closing of National Cemeteries as available space was rapidly declining. Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery located in Point Loma, California was placed on the watch list and expected to run out of space by 1966.[31] One observation that the article suggests is that the government expected large-scale deaths that would result in a reduction of available plots at national cemeteries. Much like other areas of national interest, operational planning for the war and the outcome of conducting warfare were part of the government’s plan well before American troops engaged with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) or Vietcong (VC). Yet again, the preponderance of death upon the American public is envisaged. Also, American traditions entail that a proper burial is essential to both honor the dead and comfort the bereaved. According to the National Archives, 58,220 American lives were lost in Vietnam, and the remains of ninety-one of those presumed dead have still not been recovered.[32] Furthermore, the state of California accounts for 5,575 of the total deaths in Vietnam, which is the most recorded from any state. Of those listed, 353 service members listed their home of record as San Diego and many more served in garrison among the cities various military installations.[33] With its strong military heritage, San Diego had its share of proponents who approved of the war. Young men and women came together to support their friends and family members who were being shipped to Vietnam. However, while the anti-war rhetoric would eventually fade and Americans moved past the albatross of the Vietnam War, the graves, headstones, and memorials put in place for the fallen of the conflict have remained.
            Lack of available space in America’s national cemeteries induced a public reaction to expand privately owned and public cemetery space. Many worried that the prolonged war would fill the limited amount of space available. Those who would be left without an option to be interred at a national cemetery would be dishonored by no fault of their own. Instead, a concerned mother, Pauline V. Zeller, argued in the Union-Tribune that Congress should appropriate a portion of war spending towards new burial sites stating “House and Senate members see fit to appropriate billions to escalate the war. Part of this should be earmarked for additional burial sites.”[34] In the eyes of Zeller and many other next of kin, the government was at fault for the unpopular war, and the least the government could do was restore national cemetery plots available to past and present service members.
This need for burial space prompted privately owned cemeteries such as Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego to create 1500 additional plots reserved for the burial of service members. The new section of the Catholic cemetery was adorned with a statue of St. Michaels the patron saint of warriors in keeping with traditions of faith and symbolism among the privately owned Catholic cemeteries. To promote the additional space, the church promised that Catholic casualties of the war would be buried at no cost.[35] Holy Cross was not the only San Diego cemetery to expand as others such as Cypress View Mausoleum and Mortuary created the “Chapel of Honor” which they deemed “an exclusive sanctuary for Veterans.”[36] While it is clear that private funerary providers such as Cypress View Mausoleum and Mortuary were capitalizing on the loss of a families loved one and wrapped their services in the flag, nonetheless they were fulfilling a need. It was in this way, then, that the privatization of military deaths advanced. Additionally, these privately-owned cemeteries attempted to honor the Vietnam War dead in ways that the government was failing to do.
            As private cemeteries and funeral providers looked to expand in order to meet the growing requirements of the country’s military dead, municipally owned cemeteries which were open to the public such as San Diego’s Mount Hope were falling victim to the continued growth of post-war San Diego. The debate began in 1969 when the city placed a ballot measure for which, if approved, the city would relegate approximately fifty acres of cemetery land for low-income housing. The development which planned for a racially integrated housing complex was meant to provide low-cost rental schedules for lower-income families and the elderly. In addition to housing, community plans included a child care center, community building, play areas, and a strip mall.[37] Although the initial measure was not approved, the city would eventually award the cemetery land to a development firm in 1970. The arguments against the sale or lease of city-owned cemetery land varied. Some opposed the sale along strict economic lines, such as local commentator Barbara Marsh, who objected that the low-income housing would be subsidized by the taxpayers. In other words, middle- and upper-class taxpayers would incur the cost of the development. And yet, Marsh also highlighted the unique status of San Diegans for having a city-owned cemetery while also calling for the land to be replaced, if, indeed the cemetery land was sold.[38] City Councilman Floyd Morrow voiced similar objections. Opposing the Mayor of San Diego and fellow council members, Morrow publicly stated his belief that by supporting the sale of public land for the housing development, the result would be the loss of access to low-cost burial options that the city had provided.[39]
This debate over Mount Hope was revealing. First, the dispute substantiates David Sloane’s theory that cemeteries were beginning to lose their importance in American society.[40] Once both a sacred and recreational space, cemeteries were becoming merely a place to dispose of the dead and were no longer considered adequate outdoor space for recreational purposes such as they had been in the past.[41] The living were escaping the trappings of death and also losing reverence for the dead as space was deemed more suitable for the living and less so for the dead. As Sociologist Richard Hogan highlights in The Failure of Planning: Permitting Sprawl in San Diego Suburbs, 1970-1999, because of the rapid growth and increased suburbanization of post-war San Diego, city planners failed during the mid-seventies to meet the demands of growth. The result was that many San Diego families were left without a geographical option for cemetery burial.[42]          
The loss of low-cost burial space hit poorer communities of color the hardest, and yet just as the war was transforming San Diego, in other parts of the nation, the war dead were transforming long-standing traditions of de jure segregation. To be sure, the Vietnam War was one factor of much broader social changes taking place in the United States. In addition to the war, civil unrest at home defined much of the era. Although President Truman signed Executive Order-9981into law as early as 1948, ordering the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, all-black units such as the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company served in the Korean War.[43] Not just a war of the young and the poor, Vietnam was also the first fully integrated war in which Americans joined each other on the battlefield in a racially diverse climate. Furthermore, African-Americans accounted for a substantial thirty-one percent of combat troops.[44] Because of this, death rates for African-Americans were disproportionately high until 1966 when the military adjusted assignments to achieve racial balance. Although many African-American and minority service members enlisted rather than being drafted, the war did little to change racist ideologies and assumptions along the home front. Much like the redlining that took place in urban centers across America, so too, did some cemeteries practice long established traditions of racial segregation.
As a direct consequence of the racism, some of the war’s young casualties found themselves involved in a battle for civil rights posthumously such as soldier PFC Bill Terry whose short life ended on the battlefields of Vietnam. Before his death, Terry had requested to be buried close to his childhood home if he were to become a war casualty. However, the sale of a burial plot at the all-white Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, Alabama was denied because Terry was African-American.[45] Not far from the Alabama home of Terry, fellow soldier Pondexteur Eugene Williams’ family found themselves in the same predicament. Upon seeing an ad by Hillcrest Memorial Gardens in which the funerary providers offered a free burial for the wars dead, Williams’ mother requested to have the body of her son interred at Hillcrest Memorial Garden. However, just as Terry had been denied based on his race, so too, then was Williams burial denied. [46]    
It would take action by the Federal Courts to ensure that Terry and Williams would be interred at the formerly all-white cemeteries. In this way then, the deaths of young men such as Terry and Williams in Vietnam transformed established burial traditions. In doing so, the families and supporters of these casualties of the war helped to eradicate some of the traditional racial barriers that African-Americans faced. In fact, Terry’s parish priest asserted that “this may be the last barrier of discrimination.”[47] That Reverend Eugene Farrell would highlight the occasion as a possible end to discrimination is telling. Here, death is viewed as the final transition in life so Farrell assumed, incorrectly, that if equality can be determined in death, so too, will it be determined in life. Often referred to as “the Mississippi of the West and “Selma of the West” by local African-American leaders, San Diego was not immune to the racial discrimination that plagued the rest of the nation.[48] Much like the cemeteries in the southern states, San Diego’s Mount Hope Cemetery racially segregated the dead and the city practiced established modes of racial discrimination.[49]
Feelings of helplessness, despair, guilt, and denial are emotions that riddled the minds of those serving in Vietnam. Opponents of the war and their efforts during the Vietnam years placed a considerable emotional strain on those fighting abroad, but the debate at home also affected their friends and relatives, some of whom then had to face an enormous loss. Retired Marine Major, Ken Bourgeois recalled his time serving as the Funeral Director of the Marine Corps the lowest point of his twenty-five-year career. Furthermore, Bourgeois served as the Funeral Director of the Marine Corps during the deadliest years of the war 1967 and 1968.  Coincidentally, it was also during these years that domestic discord peaked at home. According to Bourgeois, it was around this time that he was “spit at, punched at, [and] had the flag thrown in my face”[50] and this was done by those next of kin who were distraught at their loss. Bourgeois understood, though, that “you’re dealing with emotions.” Aroused by personal tragedy amidst a controversial war.[51] Mirroring Bourgeois’ sentiments, Sergeant Major Olejo H. Cruz, U.S. Army Retired stated that working as a Death Notification Officer (DNO) during the war was rife with emotion.[52] Declaring that he was “nearly mobbed by a group of angry family members in Los Angeles, only to be saved by older members of the family who brought sanity to the situation,” Cruz further frames the notification process as one full of volatility when referring to the treatment of DNO’s by family members of the bereaved. In addition, Cruz contends that a lack of public support for the war diminished the relationship between notification personnel and family members of the deceased. However, Cruz posits that the treatment he received as a DNO during the Vietnam years ceased to exist… “once Vietnam was behind us.”[53]
Collectively, Bourgeois and Cruz place death, social upheaval, and the Vietnam conflict within a binding context. Unlike their civilian counterparts, Bourgeois and Cruz were placed in the roles of Funeral Directing and DNO under orders from the United States military and there is no clear pattern suggesting that civilian directors were met with the same sentiment from an increasingly anti-war faction of the public. Still, taken together, the treatment Bourgeois and Cruz received by family members of the deceased highlights the degree to which public opinion was divided regarding the war and how a changing social order sought to cope with the untimely deaths of their loved ones. These emotions were not confined to the families of those killed, those in the battlefields, or the home front.
            All told, the events that unfolded left Vietnam’s veterans bitter and isolated. Not only did this deprive Americans of the traditional ways to mourn their dead, because of this, the deaths in Vietnam changed the way Americans grieved as Vietnam’s war dead were seldom mourned publicly. Instead, Vietnam casualties were mourned privately and personally by those who were closest to them. By doing so, this also allowed loved ones to protect and honor their memories while personally reconciling an untimely death. Families who lost loved ones during the war sought ways to cement the memory of their dead among the names of previous war heroes. However, unlike the wars in which their fathers and grandfathers fought, those who died in Vietnam were met with ambiguous public opinion. Because of this, many pursued various avenues on their own to demand public approval of their dead. Hurt by the public outcry against the war and the burning of draft cards, Jessie R. Hernandez of San Diego exclaimed that “[she] did not think it fair when our boys are dying over there doing something for them and ourselves, dying for them and thousands of others.”[54] Dismayed by displays of civil unrest, the grieving mother sought to persuade local youth by highlighting her deceased son's commitment to his country and the democracy for which he fought stating... “if his friends [knew] what he did for them, it may make them think a little.” However, a closer look suggests that Mrs. Hernandez’s sentiment was also fraught with personal strife. Her son, a decorated soldier, Hernandez proudly boasted of his accomplishments and claimed that …. “she held no regrets as he was fighting for his rights, for us, for his children and for other people’s children.” Because Hernandez aligns her son’s role in the war with that of a noble cause, she finds the ability to accept his death, “Oh, how proud I am of him.”[55]
            Much like Hernandez, others found meaningful ways to publicly honor their deceased while also finding personal comfort in the woes of death. PFC Tom Durbin of Escondido fought gallantly and was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for his actions. Leaving an indelible impression among his comrades, so much so, that Durbin’s comrades honored his life by dedicating a scholarship in his name to help fund a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine. Even more, the funds presented to Durbin’s mother were donated by the men with whom Durbin had fought alongside. Considering the meager pay enlisted troops received, the battlefield donations must be seen as a substantial measure of love for their departed. Furthermore, Durbin’s cohorts saw to it that the funds were hand-delivered by one of their own to Durbin’s mother.[56] The accompanying letter, which was written by the company’s First Sergeant and stated “this will never replace the guy we miss and knew” informs us that that the efforts of the bereaved were twofold.[57] At the same time that those serving or having served in Vietnam continued to make contrasts between themselves and the treatment of World War II veterans, inaction and ambivalence by the government fostered a need for Vietnam veterans and the bereaved to honor the fallen of Vietnam privately.
            In an op-ed entitled “Family Grateful to Military Escort,” a grieving mother writes of her inability to adequately thank the Marine escorts who accompanied the body of her son home. Unable to find the words to accommodate the occasion the mother asked the editor of the San Diego Union to print the letter in an offering of thanks. Conveying the magnitude of loss that she felt, the op-ed describes the comfort that the escorts brought by ensuring a proper burial was in place for the fallen Marine. However, more striking are the final two paragraphs of the letter in which Mrs. D.O.C. exclaimed that “there should be a special ribbon for this kind of courage. Some men would rather face the enemy than rooms full of grieving, weeping, and even bitter people. He is our boy now, but we are his 16th family.”[58] Mrs. D.O.C. reconciled the death of her son by replacing the deceased with something tangible and publicly honors his death by writing to the local newspaper. In doing so, Mrs. D.O.C. does for her Marine what the government will not, honor him publicly, while her use of a pseudonym illuminates her decision to mourn the loss privately.
            While bereaved parents and friends often viewed protest as dishonoring their loved one’s death, others used death as a means by which to protest the war. The Student Mobilization Group and New Mobilization Committee to End the War planned to create placards listing the names of the war dead to be read at anti-war demonstrations in Philadelphia and Washington. However, their plan was met with denunciation by several mothers of the deceased.[59] In 1971 as Washington D.C. braced itself for yet, another large-scale protest the associated press captured Gold Star Mothers ascending upon the nation’s capital with war protesters. The protest called for the return of war medals in opposition to the war. In the physical absence of their sons, the war medals had become tangible symbols of grief and even more, their sons. Therefore, to discard of these symbols in protest, equated to choosing politics over a loved one. Despite their plans to do so, in the end, the Gold Star Mothers could not return the medals.[60]
            Opinions among America’s youth regarding the war varied, as did their attitudes about how to memorialize the fallen of Vietnam. In 1969, a group of high school and college-aged kids from San Diego’s smaller communities (La Mesa, Spring Valley, Jamul, Lemon Grove, El Cajon, Santee, and Lakeside) organized the group “Heartland Youth for Decency” and sought land to erect a war memorial dedicated to service members from the local area who had died in the Vietnam War. San Diego State University student Denise Evers led the group and went before the La Mesa City Council on Tuesday, Oct 14, 1969, to ask the city to donate a small parcel of land for the memorial that the group planned to erect.[61] Denise Evers and the Heartland Youth for Decency Group erected their memorial in 1970 with donations of money, labor, and materials from local residents. The Heartland area memorial would become one of the first in the nation to be erected specifically for the Vietnam dead. During the same year graduating seniors at Hilltop High in Chula Vista left a memorial plaque as a class gift.[62] Less than a year later, veterans in El Cajon planted sixty cypress trees at the Veterans Memorial Hall in El Cajon as a “living” memorial to those who had perished in the war. Although the memorials differ in size, cost, theme, and even by the age of those who planned them, there is a prevailing narrative throughout about the relationship between the working class and the Vietnam War. That the memorials were erected in the working-class suburbs of San Diego follows established scholarship informing us that the Vietnam war was a war of the working class. However, for those who lost loved ones in the war, memorializing them became ambiguous.
            Many years after the war had ended Evers contended that she felt the war so controversial that it influenced a lack of empathy towards the wars dead. Evers asserted that many of the widows and family members were not greeted with the same compassion as those from previous wars. Because of this lack of compassion, Evers argues that many widows who were bereft of public respect for their respective losses shrunk from public view for fear of being insulted.[63] An op-ed from the August 24, 1969, Sunday Morning edition of the San Diego Union mirrors Evers stance. In the “Readers Viewpoint” section, a grieving mother writes to ask if people care about the Vietnam casualties. Dismayed by the lack of interest in her son’s death she requests that her son and others like him be publicly memorialized.[64] In the piece entitled “Roses and Markers Help Erase Grief” Ruth C. Smith of Pacific Beach wrote in response to the grieving mother that “people do care about the casualties of this Vietnam War.” She declared “we should think of the grieving and appreciate their feelings.”[65] However, it was not that the national conscience did not feel the enormous loss of life. Rather, public reconciliation of the war dead was not as easily attainable for the unpopular conflict. As the work of Scott Sigmund Gartner and Gary M. Segura posits, the failure of the federal government to state a strategy and set forth clear aims and goals for fighting and winning the war decreased public support for what the American public viewed as “sunk costs” and the loss of nearly 60,000 American lives.[66]  
An Anti-War Memorial
            Traditionally, war monuments and memorials were erected to honor the “great men” who served during particular wars and battles. In the case of the Civil War, a large number of the monuments were erected by former Confederates who sought to propagate their “lost cause” ideologies in order to ennoble southern virtues and honor those who fought against the Union. In part because of the proliferation of monuments after the Civil War, the creation of the Commission of Fine Arts in 1910 institutionalized the practice of erecting national monuments and transformed the aesthetic design of future developments to coincide with national ideologies. Nowhere is this more apparent than the National Mall.[67] Rather than limiting memorialization to specific leaders or battles, monuments were designed with a utilitarian approach. This approach continued through World War II. Thus, designs of monuments such as the Iwo Jima War Memorial (1954) promoted nationalism, warrior ethos, and unity. Also, other memorials such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (1921) created solemnity and a hero culture that insinuates that dying while serving one's country exemplifies the virtues of democracy. In other words, the tomb attempts to showcase the death of American service members as a noble, if not a moral cause. Last, war monuments and memorials not only valorize those they honor, but they also expand the spatial and temporal appeal of the periods for which they highlight. In this way, war monuments and memorials promote nationalism, patriotism, provide justification, and perhaps most important, portray the deaths of service members as deaths that should have meaning. For veterans of the Vietnam War, this justification remained elusive. Memorializing a war in the wake of a defeat was something that was new to Americans.
            The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was approved and funded by Congress during the Harding administration three years following the end of World War I and boasts classical architecture and design elements. The sarcophagus of this traditional monument is constructed of white marble signifying purity. Greek statues representing peace, victory, and valor are accompanied by six wreaths representing the major campaigns of the First World War.[68] In this way, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier promotes the national ideologies of freedom, democracy, and patriotism. In addition, the monument frames the deaths of service members based on Protestant principles of service and ennobles the dead. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier provides meaning for those who are lost during times of war and particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
            The Vietnam Memorial was built with funds raised through the efforts of a grassroots movement and private donations. Although accounts vary, most contend that Jan Scruggs conceived of the idea to create a Vietnam memorial after viewing the 1979 film The Deer Hunter which detailed the return of a group of friends from Vietnam. In early 1980, legislation to authorize the Vietnam Veterans Memorial passed unanimously through the Senate. Once approved, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) members held a competition in which the winning design was selected by a jury. As Pielher describes, while some of the contributions came from millionaires such as H. Ross Perot, the majority of funding was raised by donations from middle-class Americans.[69] Small donations of ten dollars or less significantly bolstered the funding for the memorial. That these contributions came from average Americans shows an effort to reconcile the war in an attempt to move on. Although the memorial would not heal all the wounds left by the war, it would provide a starting point.
The aesthetic of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is in striking contrast to traditional monuments such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Celebrating a much more private form of grief, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is composed of black stone instead of the white marble traditionally used in the nation's memorials making the Vietnam Memorial notably distinct from other monuments honoring America’s lost service members. Between the names of the dead, the reflective black wall permits the visitor to see his/her reflection in the stone. The names, which are listed chronologically according to the time of death, make the individual the central focus of the memorial. This differs significantly from traditional memorials whose focus remains fixed upon national purpose, the promotion of patriotism, and service to the country.
Sonja K. Foss has argued that the design of the memorial provides substantial anti-war rhetoric. Foss speculates that by violating conventional forms of war memorials and focusing its attention on the casualties from the conflict, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial influences visitors to reflect on the loss of life, and in doing so the memorial becomes an effective anti-war symbol.[70] Whereas, sociologists Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz claim that the overall design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial showcases the conflict American’s still feel over the war. Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz assert that the different elements of the memorial such as Maya Lin’s wall and Frederick Hart’s sculpture of The Three Soldiers are representative of the contrasting opinions towards Vietnam.[71] Last, Historian Robert K. Brigham argues that the memorial has become the focal point of elitists and politicians who use the memorial as a way to erase the negative connotations of the government's involvement during and after the conflict.[72] Instead, the memorial implies individual agency and in doing so alters Americans collective memory of the conflict by making those who “sacrificed” the focus. The failure of scholarship to provide a collective understanding of the memorial illuminates the degree to which American opinions of the Vietnam War remain conflicted. Furthermore, current research fails to showcase how the enumeration of the dead, a central focus of the memorial, has helped to change attitudes toward the deceased during times of conflict.
While the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’s primary focus is to promote nationalism, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial signifies the enormous human cost of the war and the individual sacrifice of those who perished. In this way, those who tour the memorial find themselves immersed in personal accountability and reconciliation as they reflect upon the deaths of 58,220 individuals who were subjected to a war that was widely misunderstood. Without the political ideology of traditional monuments, the Vietnam Memorial enables visitors to reflect and mourn the war and those who lost their lives without the tensions that the politics of the war in Vietnam often incite. As James M. Mayo attests, Vietnam veterans had been stigmatized by a lost war, but the war for their memorial was a battle they would stop at nothing to win.[73] 
            The Vietnam memorial will not be the last monument required to honor American war dead, and just like Vietnam, American involvement in contemporary wars such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq have once again created a hailstorm of controversy. The attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, transformed the daily lives of Americans and altered the course of United States foreign policy. Much like Vietnam, public opinion initially supported the War on Terror. However, the preemptive attack on Iraq and the failure to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people appeared all too familiar. As a nation, America’s attempts to come to terms with what went wrong in Vietnam did not appear to dissipate until the U.S. led coalition stormed to victory and successfully ousted Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard from Kuwait in early 1991. After the Persian Gulf War, it appeared as though Americans had regained their confidence and once again saw themselves as the stewards of democratic ideologies, having finally moved beyond the tensions of the war, President George H.W. Bush declared “It’s a proud day for America. And, by God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”[74] However, the failed intervention in Somalia and ambivalence towards the Bosnian genocide during the Clinton administration suggested otherwise.[75] As Arnold R. Isaacs contends, the national hangover left by the Vietnam War after the last Americans were evacuated from Saigon in 1975 continues to cause doubt among American leaders and mistrust among the public, and it remains to be seen how the dead of the contemporary wars will be memorialized.
Conclusion: Death with Honor
            The burial traditions that were established during the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries were not static. Rather, the processes by which the U.S. military and American public honors, buries, and memorializes their military dead has changed over time. Domestically, burial rites followed the traditions formed in the initial years of the funeral industry, and funeral services continued to cater to the needs of the living while the salvation of the deceased seemed less of a priority. In addition, the war also changed Americans’ perspectives towards death. While Cold War doctrine propagated fears of nuclear warfare, it was the Vietnam War dead who became the silent influence in transforming the way Americans honored those who sacrificed their lives. Misgivings about the nature of the war as portrayed by the government divided a grieving public who turned inward in an attempt to find moral justification for the deaths of American soldiers. The most significant legacy of Vietnam for America is not the war itself. Rather, it is what we learned after the carnage had stopped.
            The war compelled Americans to question their mortality and by what means their life and the lives of their loved ones would be justified in death. It is to this end of moral accounting that the actions and memorials erected on behalf of the Vietnam dead sought national reconciliation. Due to the turmoil in Vietnam, attitudes towards death changed public, civic, and private perceptions of American war dead. First, those who lost loved ones during the war mourned their war dead in private and personal terms. In doing so, the memories of their war dead were protected from the exploitation of politicians and anti-war groups.[76] Second, political discourse was permanently transformed by the deaths of those serving in Vietnam. The rhetoric used to describe those who died in Vietnam transformed the collective memory Americans have of the conflict. Memories of the war have created what Benedict Anderson has called an imagined community, built upon national symbols which “like religion, are rooted in the grave.”[77] The dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial and the rhetoric used by then-President Ronald Reagan highlights this transformation. Speaking at the dedication of the memorial, Reagan called the monument “a symbol of sacrifice” and stated that those who served “fought for freedom in a place where liberty was in danger,” sacrificed their own lives, and...[they] were patriots who lit the world with their fidelity and courage.”[78] For its part, the memorial became the first national symbol of reflection for the Vietnam War dead, acknowledging publicly, for the first time the sacrifices of those who died.
During a campaign speech before the Veterans of Foreign Affairs in 1980, Reagan called upon the American people to… “recognize that [in Vietnam] ours, in truth, was a noble cause. We dishonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt.”[79] Whether the war was noble or not, Americans began to perceive of the Vietnam dead in a different way. Old terms such as “doing his duty” which applied to the dead of previous wars gave way to “thank you for your service.” Whereas it was the “duty” of a man to die in support of World War II, it was a service that the dead provided for the unpopular war in Vietnam. Cynically, one could say that the Vietnam dead provided a service not for dying in a war that many saw as unjust, but rather for taking the place of those who did not want to serve. Even though it was delayed, public acknowledgment and celebratory political rhetoric, combined with private mourning to keep the memory of those who died in Vietnam alive.[80] Unlike World War II, which was celebrated as triumphant, those who died in Vietnam became national symbols of sacrifice and sorrow. Placed in this perspective, their deaths are given meaning. The casualties in Vietnam created a new reverence for the war dead, even if at times the reverence was a disingenuous “sunshine patriotism” expressed when it cost nothing. The deaths in Vietnam are a constant reminder of why the American public must fight for transparency within the government, a reminder of what can go wrong when the checks and balances guaranteed by the Constitution are not enforced, and above all, a reminder that even undeclared wars carry an enormous cost in human lives. By framing their deaths in this way, those who died in Vietnam will not have died in vain.  

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[1] Andrew Carroll, "The Vietnam War, The Persian Gulf War," in War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars (New York: Scribner, 2005), pg. 445.
[2] For further reading see: Christian G. Appy, Working-class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill, N.C: University of North Carolina Press, 1993)., Patrick J. Hearden, The Tragedy of Vietnam (New York: Routledge, 2018)., Arnold R. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts and Its Legacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)., Clarence R. Wyatt, Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)., George Herring, America's Longest War, 5th ed. (New York: Mcgraw-Hill Education, 2014).
[3] Thomas Walter Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).
[4] Although disputed, the statement has been accredited to British Prime Minister Sir William Gladstone (1809 – 1898) See also: Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989; Bartleby.com, 2003. www.bartleby.com/73/. [2/22/2018]
[5] Gary Laderman, Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[6] Ibid., 110.
[7] Among the main traditions unique to American burial ritual are: care and containment of the body, creating a physical space suitable for the holding of a funeral, and embalming. Moreover, American burial rituals became more about the bereaved escaping the trappings of death opposed to the salvation of the deceased. Collectively, the rituals by which Americans inter their dead involve social, cultural, and psychological rituals that are meant to comfort the living.
[8] Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).
[9] Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, 7.
[10] Ibid., 17.
[11] Philippe Aries, Western Attitudes Towards Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (London: John Hopkins University Press, 1974).
[12] James J. Farrell, Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980) In addition to Farrell and works cited, other collections have extensively illuminated the formative years of the American funeral industry and the burial rites that have become unique to American burial practices. See also: Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein, Mortal Remains: Death in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)., Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981)., Pamela R. Frese, "Anglo-American Mortuary Complex and Cultural Heritage," in Celebrations of Identity: Multiple Voices in American Ritual Performance (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1993)., Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisited (New York: Vintage Books, 1998).
[13] Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, 146-153.
[14] Originally known as Decoration Day for the way in which graves were decorated during the Civil War the origins of the holiday are contested. For more info see: "History of Memorial Day," PBS, accessed February 16, 2018, http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/memorial-day/history/., David W. Blight, "Decoration Day: The Origins of Memorial Day in North and South," in The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
[15] G. Kurt. Piehler, Remembering War the American Way (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2004).
[16] Leonard Wong, "Leave No Man Behind: Recovering America’s Fallen Warriors," Armed Forces & Society 31, no. 4 (2005): 599-622, doi:10.1177/0095327x0503100408. See also: Elizabeth D. Samet, "Leaving No Warriors Behind: The Ancient Roots of a Modern Sensibility," Armed Forces & Society 31, no. 4 (2005), accessed July 12, 2017, doi:10.1177/0095327x0503100409. In the article, Samet contends that current efforts to repatriate American military dead is rooted in the divisiveness of the Vietnam war.
[17] Piehler, Remembering War the American Way, 95.
[18] Letter from Emily Selinger to Theodore and Edith Roosevelt. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o276684. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
[19] "Leave Our Dead In France, Advises General Pershing," New York Times, August 21, 1919, accessed October 20, 2017, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [ProQuest].
[20] "Cemeteries & Memorials," Cemeteries & Memorials | American Battle Monuments Commission, section goes here, accessed October 24, 2017, https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials#.WfqAhohryUl.
[21] Michael Sledge, Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).
[22] G. Kurt Piehler, "The War Dead and the Gold Star," in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 170.
[23] "History," The American Legion, accessed April 30, 2018, https://www.legion.org/history., "The Poppy Story," The American Legion, accessed April 30, 2018, https://www.legion.org/poppyday/history.
[24] John D. Martz, Jr., "Homeward Bound: Grave Registration and Recovery in the Korean War," Army Quartermaster Foundation Inc, accessed April 10, 2018, https://www.qmfound.com/article/homeward-bound/.
[25] Adam J. Berinsky, "Assuming the Costs of War: Events, Elites, and American Public Support for Military Conflict," The Journal of Politics 69, no. 4 (2007), accessed February 19, 2018, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00602.x.
[26] Jack Anderson, "For Mothers and Wives a Reassuring Medical Report From Vietnam," Parade, July 31, 1966 .
[27] "Memorial Affairs Activities – Republic of Vietnam," Army Quartermaster Foundation Inc, March 2000, accessed October 22, 2017, https://www.qmfound.com/article/memorial-affairs-activities-republic-of-vietnam/. For further interest see also Ralph Blumenthal, "Staff of the U.S. Mortuary in Vietnam Works With Care and Reverence," New York Times, August 28, 1970, accessed November 11, 2017, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [ProQuest].
[28] Ibid.
[29] "Reporting Deaths A Grim Army Task," New York Times, April 21, 1968, accessed November 12, 2017, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [ProQuest]. See also: "Pentagon Says Casualties' Kin Get Immediate Notification," New York Times, August 27, 1966, accessed November 11, 2017, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [ProQuest]., Jean Heller, "Tough Job: Tell Wife She's a Widow," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1968, accessed November 14, 2017, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [ProQuest].
[30] United States, Army, Casualty and Mortuary Affairs, Army Regulation 638-8 Army Casualty Program (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army) For further information regarding the procedures and practices see United States, Army, Casualty and Mortuary Affairs, Army Regulation 638-2 Army Mortuary Affairs Program (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army) and
[31] Brian Duff, "Closing Of U.S. Cemeteries Asked," San Diego Union, March 6, 1962, Morning ed.
[32] "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War," National Archives and Records Administration, April 29, 2008, DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by CASUALTY CATEGORY, accessed February 6, 2017, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html#paygrade.
[33] "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War," National Archives and Records Administration, April 29, 2008, DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by HOME OF RECORD STATE CODE, accessed February 6, 2017, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html#paygrade.
[34] Pauline V. Zeller, "Action Demanded On Burial Sites," editorial, San Diego Union, January 10, 1967, Morning ed.
[35] Frank Rhoades, "Reporter On The Run," editorial, San Diego Union, June 13, 1967.
[36] Cypress View Mausoleum and Mortuary, "We Want To Help," advertisement, San Diego Union, April 7, 1971.
[37] "City Awards Firm Option On Ground," San Diego Union, September 30, 1970.
[38] Barbara Marsh, "Cemetery Land Sale Is Opposed," editorial, San Diego Union, September 11, 1969, Morning ed.
[39] Bill Long, "Cemetery Land Lease Plan Still On," San Diego Union, September 21, 1969, Morning ed.
[40] David Charles. Sloane, The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), xxii.
[41] Ibid., 243.
[42] Richard Hogan, The Failure of Planning: Permitting Sprawl in San Diego Suburbs, 1970-1999 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003).
 
[43] Gerald F. Goodwin, "Black and White in Vietnam," New York Times (New York), July 18, 2017. See also: Helen K. Black, "Three Generations, Three Wars: African American Veterans," The Gerontologist 56, no. 1 (2015):, doi:10.1093/geront/gnv122., African Americans in the Korean War, , accessed April 30, 2018, http://www.nj.gov/military/korea/factsheets/afroamer.html.
[44] James Roark et al., The American Promise: A History of the United States, 764.
[45] Associated Press, "Negro Killed In War Breaks Cemetery Curb." San Diego Union, January 4, 1970.
[46] United Press International, "Burial Site Controversy: Rites Held For Negro GI." San Diego Union, August 24, 1970, Morning ed. For more information see also "Court Opens Cemetery: Negro GI Rests Among Whites," San Diego Union, August 30, 1970.
[47] Associated Press, "Negro Killed In War Breaks Cemetery Curb." San Diego Union, January 4, 1970.
[48] Seth Mallios and Breana Campbell, "On the Cusp of an American Civil Rights Revolution: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Visit and Address to San Diego in 1964," San Diego History Center | San Diego, CA | Our City, Our Story, accessed April 02, 2018, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/cusp-american-civil-rights-revolution/. See also: Seth Mallios and David M. Caterino, Cemeteries of San Diego (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2007).
[49] Ibid.
[50] Ken Bourgeois, interview by Chuck Archuleta, July 9, 2003, transcript, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego Command Museum, San Diego, CA.
[51] Ibid.
[52]Olejo H. Cruz Collection, (AFC/2001/001/83634), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
[53] Ibid.
[54] Homer Clance, "He Died Fighting For Us," San Diego Union, May 8, 1967, Morning ed.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Peter H. Brown, "Buddies to Keep GI's Dream Alive," San Diego Union, December 8, 1967, Morning ed. Also, Durbin was further distinguished by having his last letter which was interrupted by the sniper’s bullet entered into the Library of Congress.
[57] Ibid.
[58] San Diego Union, "Family Grateful to Military Escort," editorial, March 22, 1969, Morning ed.
[59] Associated Press, "Sons Died In Vietnam: Mothers Assail Antiwar Groups." San Diego Union, November 9, 1969.
[60] Associated Press, "A Mother's Conscience And A Dead Son's Medals." San Diego Union, April 24, 1971.
[61] "Land Wanted For War Memorial," San Diego Union, October 11, 1969.
[62] Jerry Reeves, "Hilltop High Class Leaves Memorial," San Diego Union, June 7, 1970, Morning ed.
[63] "Denise Evers." E-mail/Phone interview by author, March 14, 2017.
[64] S. D. M, "Do People Care About Casualties," editorial, San Diego Union, August 24, 1969, Morning ed.
[65] Ruth C. Smith, "Roses and Markers Help Ease Grief," editorial, San Diego Union, September 7, 1969, Morning ed. See also M. Whitaker, "Flag Flies Daily For Boys In Vietnam," editorial, San Diego Union, September 4, 1969, Morning ed. For more information in the development of flowers supplanting the skull and crossbones and becoming a symbol of death see: James J. Farrell, Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), pg. 82, 135-136, 174.  
[66] Scott Sigmund Gartner and Gary M. Segura, "War, Casualties, and Public Opinion," The Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 3 (June 1998), accessed February 19, 2018, doi:10.1515/9781400830091.fm.
[67] "History of the Commission of Fine Arts," History of the Commission of Fine Arts | Commission of Fine Arts, section goes here, accessed October 27, 2017, https://www.cfa.gov/about-cfa/history.
[68] "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," Arlington National Cemetery, accessed November 21, 2017, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Tomb-of-the-Unknown-Soldier.
[69] Piehler, Remembering War the American Way, 173.
[70] Sonja K. Foss, "Ambiguity as Persuasion: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial," Communication Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1986), accessed October 22, 2017, doi:10.1080/01463378609369643.
[71] Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz, "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past," American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 2 (1991), accessed October 22, 2017, doi:10.1086/229783.
[72] Robert K. Brigham, "Monuments or Memorial? The Wall and the Politics of Memory," Historical Reflections, Spring, 25, no. 1 (1999), accessed October 24, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299138.
[73] James M. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and beyond (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1988).
[74] George Bush: "Remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council," March 1, 1991. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=19351.
[75] Arnold R. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts and Its Legacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
[76] Kyle Longley, "Between Sorrow and Pride," Pacific Historical Review 82, no. 1 (February 1, 2013), accessed February 14, 2018, doi:10.1525/phr.2013.82.1.1.
[77] Michael J. Allen, "Sacrilege of a Strange, Contemporary Kind: The Unknown Soldier and the Imagined Community after the Vietnam War," History and Memory 23, no. 2 (2011), accessed February 16, 2018, doi:10.2979/histmemo.23.2.90. See also, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1998). Various scholarship examines how the Vietnam war is reflected in Americans political participation, alignment, and voting habits, for more info see: Michael T. Koch and Stephen P. Nicholson, "Death and Turnout: The Human Costs of War and Voter Participation in Democracies," American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 4 (2015), doi:10.1111/ajps.12230, Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen, "Limited War and American Political Engagement," The Journal of Politics 71, no. 4 (2009), accessed February 17, 2018, doi:10.1017/s0022381609990090., Scott Sigmund Gartner, Gary M. Segura, and Michael Wilkening, "All Politics Are Local," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no. 5 (1997), accessed February 20, 2018, doi:10.1177/0022002797041005004.
[78] "Ronald Reagan: "Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue," The American Presidency Project, accessed April 02, 2018, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/. See also: Reagan, Remarks at dedication ceremonies of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, II November 1984, Public Papers, 1984, Book II, 1820-22.
[79] Robert J. McMahon, "Contested Memory: The Vietnam War and American Society, 1975-2001," The SHAFR Guide Online, accessed February 18, 2018, doi:10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim170230139.
[80] Caron Schwartz Ellis, "So Old Soldiers Don't Fade Away: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial," The Journal of American Culture 15, no. 2 (1992), doi:10.1111/j.1542-734x.1992.t01-1-00025.x. See also: William A. Boettcher and Michael D. Cobb, "Don't Let Them Die in Vain: Casualty Frames and Public Tolerance for Escalating Commitment in Iraq," Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 5 (October 13, 2009), accessed February 19, 2018, doi:10.1177/0022002709339047.