The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam

A sociological assessment of the attitudes and behavior of American combat soldiers over the course of the war in Vietnam suggests that primary-group interpretations of combat behavior must be modified, that combat groups were characterized by instrumental relationships and affected by latent ideological factors, and that the 12-month rotation cycle was the dominating feature of the Vietnam combat experience. Troop demoralization was accentuated by diverse sources of conflict, e.g., rank, generation, drug use, and race strife. The analysis concludes with a discussion of troop reprisals (“fraggings”) against superiors and the paradoxes of the antiwar movement within the military.