ABSTRACT
War is an especially powerful organizing experience for men and women who come of age during a major conflict. The Vietnam War, like the two world wars before it, was a conflict that defined war for a generation. Despite the many books that describe the Vietnam War in political, moral, or strategic terms, what has caught the public imagination in recent years is how the war was experienced by American soldiers. For Vietnam veterans, even more than for non-veterans or era veterans, the caliber of their military' allies remains a central traumatizing element of the Vietnam conflict. The causes for the Americanization of the war were complex. An important reason was the years of dissatisfaction experienced by the American forces in Vietnam caused by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) inefficiency. The Vietnam War has clearly undermined the national consensus that emerged from World War II, making the burden for legitimating future interventions within the Vietnam Generation extremely difficult.
