Millennials in Vietnam: Lock and Load, Rock and Roll

Indianapolis, IN

As members of the millennial generation, the tools we used to illuminate the personal and global effects of the American War in Vietnam could only speak to our assumptions of the characters and stories defined by the 1960s. Our ethnographic studies were the foundation for the field study, as we would later attempt to create a narrative from our interactions with five Vietnam veterans in a country forty years removed from war. Our processes for gaining data changed as we realized unearthing the complexities associated with the study dealt with global and personal wars, individual identities, and Vietnam as a changing milieu. Though our prior education on Vietnam explained what we would see, our stories, as qualitative inquiries, combined with the veterans' returning perspectives to create a generational discourse. Through our individual narratives, we express a broadened perspective on bridging the divide between our generations.