Vietnam veteran

The Vietnam veteran has been depicted in fiction and film of variable quality. A major theme is the difficulties of soldiers readjusting from combat to civilian life. This theme had occasionally been explored in the context of World War II in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and The Men (1950). However, films featuring Vietnam veterans constitute a much larger genre.

The first appearance of a Vietnam veteran in a film seems to be The Born Losers (1967) featuring Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack. Bleaker in tone are such films as Hi, Mom! (1970) in which vet Robert De Niro films pornographic home movies before deciding to become an urban guerrilla, The Strangers in 7A where a team of former paratroopers blow up a bank and threaten to blow up a residential apartment building, The Hard Ride (1971) and Welcome Home, Soldier Boys (1972) in which returning vets are met with incomprehension and violence.

In many films, like Gordon's War (1973) and Rolling Thunder (1977), the veteran uses his combat skills developed in Vietnam to wage war on evil-doers in America. This is also the theme of Taxi Driver (1976) in which Robert De Niro plays Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle who wages a one-man war against society whilst he makes plans to assassinate a presidential candidate. This film inspired John W. Hinckley to make a similar attempt against President Ronald Reagan. In a similar vein is First Blood (1982), which stars Sylvester Stallone in the role of John Rambo, a Vietnam vet who comes into conflict with a small-town police department.

Such films as Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972), and The Ninth Configuration (1979) were innovative in depicting veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder before this syndrome became widely known. In Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Tom Cruise portrays disenchanted Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic who, wounded in action and requiring the use of a wheelchair, leads rallies against the war. A more recent example is Bruce Dern's portrayal of a down-and-out veteran in the film Monster (2003). B-movies that feature Vietnam veterans with an emphasis on action, violence, and revenge, belong into the exploitation subgenre called "vetsploitation."

In television, the first Vietnam veteran to be a regular character in a U.S. dramatic series was Lincoln Case on Route 66. Case, played by Glenn Corbett, was introduced in 1963, long before the major U.S. buildup in Vietnam. "Linc" Case was initially portrayed as an angry, embittered man, not only because of his harrowing wartime experiences (which included being taken prisoner and escaping a POW camp) but also because of his grim childhood and continuing estrangement from much of his family. The show depicted his effort to make peace with himself and others.

In the 1980s and 1990s, service in Vietnam was part of the backstory of many TV characters, particularly in police or detective roles. The wartime experiences of some of these characters, such as MacGyver, Rick Simon of Simon & Simon, or Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice, were mentioned only occasionally and rarely became central to story lines. To a degree, writing in a Vietnam background provided a logical chronology, but also served to give these characters more depth, and explain their skills, e.g. MacGyver having served in a bomb disposal unit. China Beach, which aired in the late 1980s, was the only television program that featured women who were in Vietnam as military personnel or civilian volunteers.

Thomas Magnum of Magnum, P.I., Stringfellow Hawke of Airwolf, and the characters of The A-Team were characters whose experiences in Vietnam were more frequently worked into plot lines. They were part of an early 1980s tendency to rehabilitate the image of the Vietnam vet in the public eye.

The documentary In the Shadow of the Blade (released in 2004) reunited Vietnam veterans and families of the war dead with a restored UH-1 "Huey" helicopter in a cross-country journey to tell the stories of Americans affected by the war.

An example in print is Marvel Comics' Punisher (Frank Castle). Castle learned all of his combat techniques from his time as a Marine as well as from his three tours of combat during Vietnam. It is also where he acquired his urge to punish the guilty, which goes on to be a defining trait in Castle's character.