Millennials and Veterans: The Final Chapter

Indianapolis, IN

Typical ethnographic fieldwork requires "a cultural interpretation of data" regarding the group being studied, in this case, American veterans returning to Vietnam. However, as the student chosen to write the concluding chapter, I produced a different product than originally envisioned. We began the process by outlining a set of historic themes, including "brotherhood," "faith," and "rebirth," designed to result in an ethnographic study of the experiences of Vietnam veterans during their return to Vietnam. Our experiences as millennials in a strange land with our subjects caused us to reconsider and abandon our pre-planned framework "in country" in favor of a collaborative narrative that incorporated our experiences with our subjects. Our own stories became an integral part of the narrative process, resulting in a generational discourse of place. Rather than an analysis of subjects, the concluding chapter then became a narrative explanation of collaboration.