ABSTRACT
American troops rotated home from Vietnam throughout the war, and the last combat troops came home in 1973. The American military presence ended when the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon in 1975. Conflicts over and frustration with the Vietnam War itself shaped attitudes towards those who fought it. Significant numbers of Vietnam veterans experienced problems of readjustment. The politics of readjustment counseling aroused strong emotions among participants in the debate and would not be fully resolved until 1979. The issue dredged up conflicts between generations of veterans and laid bare differences among groups divided over the conduct of the war in Vietnam. The successful challenge to the homosexuality entry in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II) opened a floodgate of inquiries about additional changes in the list of diagnoses. The news that DSM-III was in the works appeared in the June 1974 edition of Psychiatric News.
