The Vietnam Vet

His service, like that of many others, was full of tragedy and sometimes not even a choice!

"Thinking about Vietnam once in a while, in a crazy kind of way, I wish that just for awhile I could be there. And then be transported back. Maybe just to be there so I'd wish I was back here again."

— Anonymous U.S. Serviceman, quoted in "Nam" by Mark Baker

The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial wars fought in American history. It divided the nation, with conservatives backing what they saw as a battle against communism and liberals protesting what they saw as an immoral war. The conflict resulted in many veterans coming back shell-shocked and to a country that didn't always support them. Since this is such a large aspect in American society, many creators have factored it into their works.

The trope has different forms. In the most mild version of this trope, the character is simply just a veteran of the war. Little is brought up about it, save for perhaps a Very Special Episode on PTSD, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, or small references throughout the work.

In other instances, their service can be a major feature of the plot. Perhaps because of troubles after the war, they are working dead-end jobs, or perhaps even homeless, with the horrors of war causing them to be isolated from society.

Shell-Shocked Veteran exists for every conflict and event in history but it was with the Vietnam War that became the Trope Codifier in American culture (for Europeans, this was World War I). One reason for the wide prevelance and representation of tropes dealing with this particular war, and the American soldier's experiences with this war, is that it coincided with the counterculture of The '60s and several left-wing movements which framed the events of the Vietnam War in a context greater than that percieved by generals and policymakers. It was also a widely televised war so the impact of the images often had an impact disproportionate to the events that were happening on the ground. It was also the first instance, in American culture, of the unpopularity of a war entering the mainstream. Dissenters of earlier military interventions (such as the Mexican-American War) did exist but they were relatively marginal. The experience of the Vietnam veteran usually revolves around Broken Pedestal and disillusionment, they had signed up for what they believed was a worthy cause, only to later believe that it was a war with misguided motives, with their sacrifices seen as, somehow, less heroic than that of earlier wars, and finally they turn their anger at the government.

As can be seen in several of the examples below, any Vietnam vet character still around in the 21st century will be old and likely retired from service and any works made during and after it use this term as a short-hand for "experienced badass" (although how much of that badassery will truly become useful to the plot changes from work to work). Some characters who were at one time depicted as serving in Vietnam have had that element toned down, or receive a Setting Update to a more recent war.

Sub-Trope of Shell-Shocked Veteran. See also Phony Veteran, who's often associated with this war.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Area 88 manga and OAV has Mickey Simon and Nguyen Van Com, veterans in the U.S. Navy and in the VNAF, respectively. Both pilots were recruited to work alongside Asranian military forces as mercenaries, and both men had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. While Mickey is friendly and approachable despite having signs of PTSD, Nguyen shows off his sadistic side when he takes out enemy fighter planes and even kills the pilots after they bailed out.
• Black Lagoon:
  • Dutch, the leader of the Lagoon Associates team, is or claims to be a Vietnam swift-boat veteran, which is probably where he got his combat and boat-handling skills. Except that Maj. Shane Caxton, the commander of a Delta Force unit they encounter in the "Baile de la Muerte" Story Arc and himself a Vietnam vet (as seen in a flashback where he fired on his own unit to protect civilians from a My Lai-style massacre), tells Benny that Dutch didn't recognize Vietnam-era Army slang and claims to have served in an offensive that his cited unit wasn't assigned to and he therefore suspects that Dutch may actually be a Phony Veteran.
  • Bao was an ex-South Vietnamese soldier who saw action in the Vietnam War. He had fought in the defense of Tan Son Nhut Air Base before he fled Saigon when the North Vietnamese Army captured it. He later settled in Roanapur and founded the Yellow Flag bar.
• Blood+: George Miyagusuku was a soldier in the Vietnam War, and personally witnessed Saya's berserk rampage during that time. It ended with David's mortally wounded father entrusting him with Saya's care as she went back into hibernation.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • One-time Batman villain the Ten-Eyed Man was honorably discharged after a fragment from a Viet Cong grenade went off and hit him between the eyes. He tried to find legitimate employment after returning home, but complications plus further injuries led to his Start of Darkness.
  • Played with in the case of the first Bloodsport, a DC Comics villain best known for fighting Superman. Robert DuBois was supposed to fight in the war, but his brother Micky took his place and became a quadruple amputee as a result; this news did not go down well, to say the least. Lex Luthor took this as a chance to manipulate Robert indirectly (exacerbated by his mental health) and convince him that Superman was an enemy of America. His subsequent rampage was brought to a stop when Micky showed up to talk him down.
  • The Black Racer (a sort-of villain for The Flash who is The Grim Reaper with Super-Speed) has the corporeal form of Sergeant Willie Walker, who was paralyzed while in the Army and bedridden until taking up the position.
  • Slade Wilson, better known as Deathstroke, is a Vietnam veteran in the DC universe; unlike many examples of this trope, he averts Comic-Book Time and is typically portrayed as an Old Soldier. His Battle Butler William Wintergreen also qualifies, having saved Slade's life there a couple of times. This also applies to his counterpart in Batman: Arkham Series, with Batman: Arkham Knight bringing this up a few times, most notably when he compares Batman to a particularly troublesome Vietcong member.
• Marvel Universe:
  • The first incarnation of The Avengers character Libra (member of the Zodiac) is a German soldier (who signed up with the French) named Gustav Brandt. His backstory has him fight in the war, fall in love with a woman in Saigon, and eventually have a child with her... only for her violently racist brother to kill her and blind him, since the idea of an interracial couple disgusts him.
  • Supporting Spider-Man character Flash Thompson was sent to Vietnam at one point in the comics, notably volunteering instead of being conscripted. This was later retconned as a different overseas deployment due to Comic-Book Time (see below re: Siancong).
  • Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, has his history as a Vietnam vet and what they went through once they came back as a key part of his backstory and why the murder of his entire family rattled him particularly badly as he was just getting back to normalcy. As a result, the character was a Frozen in Time for many years and was depicted (especially in the MAX continuity) as realistically aging.
    • The Punisher MAX revisits Vietnam quite often: Frank (and Nick Fury) actively ended attempts to blackmail a CIA drug-trafficking operation during Vietnam because it had the potential to end the war due to public backlash, The Punisher Platoon shows his first tour of service, and The Punisher: Born shows the tour that turned him into The Punisher.
    • The 2011 main-continuity series, however, without explicitly naming the war he fought in textually, showed his military service in a single-panel flashback that appeared to depict 21st-century combat gear and an arid environment, suggesting that his military service may finally have been updated to the first or second Gulf War. In 2019, it was definitely changed as History of the Marvel Universe retconned a war with (the Fictional Country of) Siancong and moved Frank's military record (as well as War Machine's, originally the Korean War and later unnamed conflict, and Mr. Fantastic and the Thing's after years of ignoring the two of them were earlier presented as vets of World War II) to it.
  • The first incarnation of the henchman "Hitman" was a soldier named Burt Kenyon, who saved Frank Castle's life in the Vietnam War. After returning home, he adopted the alias and worked for a group called the People's Liberation Front. Tragically, he would end up dying in a fight with Spider-Man and The Punisher, despite the latter's attempts to save him.
  • The Ultimate Marvel version of Nick Fury is listed as having fought in the Vietnam War.
  • The supervillain Nuke, a.k.a. Frank Simpson, ended up fully losing his mind as a result of his time in the Vietnam War. Having suffered from a disturbed childhood to begin with, he was abducted by Wolverine (not the most moral person at the time) and tortured into becoming a Manchurian Agent. His subsequent PTSD leaves him to think that he is still fighting the war, not helped by his mental state worsening to the point that he can only follow orders. He has since antagonized Wolverine, Daredevil (in Born Again) and Captain America. His depiction in Jessica Jones (2015) notably averts this and changes him to an unspecified spec-ops veteran from The War on Terror.
  • As mentioned above, Wolverine was a veteran of the Vietnam War.
  • Arclight, a member of the Marauders and antagonist of the X-Men, served on the ground in Vietnam and is supposedly haunted by her memories of the conflict. X-Men member Forge was also a veteran, as was Abraham Kieros, the first Horseman of War under Apocalypse.
• Bloom County has Cutter John, a disabled Vietnam (in the original, at least; in the reboot he's an Iraq vet) veteran who befriends opus and romances Bobbi Harlow. Though a generally friendly guy, people always seem uncomfortable around him either due to his wheelchair or because they think all 'Nam vet are shellshocked and expect him to fly off the rails at any moment. One strip has him confronting a young college student who seems to thing he always wants to destroy or kill something.
• Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool: Steelgrip's friend Flynn "Flyin'" Ryan was a POW during Vietnam and has a reverse "R" scarred into his forehead from when he was in a POW camp and being forced to make Anti-American videos.

Fan Works

• Shaggy the Handler is a Scooby Doo fanfic series that reinterprets Shaggy as having been in Vietnam during college. He hides his past from his friends but he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran, with several of his quirks being related to his time as a soldier.
• There Will Be Brawl treats Snake in a manner similar to a stereotypical homeless Vietnam veteran.
• His History Revealed: A Dr. Robotnik Biography: Robotnik is a Vietnam vet. In 1971, one of his hippie friends was drafted. Robotnik decided to go in his place. That was the first time he went bald. After returning from the war, he began wearing gloves because his hands hurt too much. Robotnik's robotic expertise stems from his time as a Shell-Shocked Veteran revitalizing his interest in science.

Films — Animation

• The titular character of Boogie is an ex-veteran of the Vietnam War before becoming a private investigator. Unlike other examples of this trope, Boogie's past instead makes him a crazed Blood Knight who enjoys killing a little too much. The film even ends with Boogie returning to an unspecified South American warzone and absolutely enjoying himself.

Films — Live-Action

• Boyz n the Hood: Furious Styles mentions partaking in the Vietnam War at one point during his time in the Army because he wanted to be somebody his son could look up to. However, he dissuades Tre from joining as he claims that black men have no place in the Army.
  "I knew you was gonna be a boy. I wanted to be somebody you could look up to. So I guess that's why I went to Vietnam. Don't ever go in the Army, Tre. Black man ain't got no place in the Army."
• Born on the Fourth of July tells the story of veteran Ron Kovic who accidentally killed a squad mate, got paralyzed from the waist down, and returned home to a life h no longer recognizes.
• At least one incarnation of Jason Bourne was a veteran of Vietnam, although the newer films have noticeably avoided this.
• The Park Is Mine. A mentally unstable Vietnam veteran forcibly takes over Central Park in New York City to honor those who served and died in the Vietnam War and call attention to veterans' issues. This was the Film of the Book based on Stephen Peters' novel of the same name.
• This was played with for laughs in Teen Movie where the protagonist's father keeps having flashbacks.
• S.W.A.T. (2003) brings up Hondo's backstory as a Marine vet with two tours in Vietnam (in addition to four teaching combat survival) as a way of establishing his badass cred.
• Rambo: John Rambo is a major example. Most of his detachment from society is because of this trope. His monologue at the end of First Blood highlights his feelings towards the world.
  Rambo: It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me, huh? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!
• Forrest Gump: Both the titular character, and Lt. Dan. For the former it was just a period in his life, whereas for the latter, it ruined much of his life, and he was nothing but a bum until he ran into Forrest who gave him a job as first mate on his vessel.
• Walter in The Big Lebowski is a Vietnam vet and the experience obviously knocked a few screws loose, since he brings it up even in situations that have nothing to do with the war. The original screenplay revealed him as a Phony Veteran — which only raises even more questions about the guy's sanity.
• Jacknife: De Niro plays a Vietnam vet who has come through reasonably well, although things could be better. However, a comrade of his that he runs into that begins the plot hasn't done so well.
• ''Jarhead towards the end of the movie, after the Scout Snipers return home, a man in dirty fatigues with a plethora of badges jumps on their bus to congratulate them, but also needs to immediately sit down as he's seemingly suffering from a mental health crisis. Also brought up in the boot camp sequence, when Drill Sergeant Nasty Fitch asks the protagonist, Swofford, about his family history.
  Fitch: You the maggot whose father served in Vietnam?
  Swoff: Sir, yes, sir!
  Fitch: Out-standing! Did he have the balls to die there?
  Swoff: Sir, no, sir!
  Fitch: Too fucking bad! He ever talk about it?
  Swoff: Sir, only once, sir!
  Fitch: Good! Then he wasn't lying!
• Both Wolverine and Sabretooth are shown fighting in Vietnam in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This conflict in particular is shown to be where Victor gives into his Blood Knight tendencies and ends up getting into a fight with his fellow GIs.
• Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from X2: X-Men United was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam (though Wolverine doesn't remember due to the bullet Stryker put in his head many years ago) and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into his anti-mutant politics and military plans as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really Mystique as Kelly died in the previous movie):
  Stryker: I was piloting Black Ops missions in the jungles of North Vietnam while you were suckin' on your mama's tit at Woodstock, Kelly. Don't lecture me about war. This already is a war.
• The Giver: While the work is set an unspecified number of years after the Vietnam War, and quite possibly none of the characters were around for it, one of the memories that The Giver (and later Jonas) has is of a brutal jungle shootout in the Vietnam War. The memory causes PTSD flashbacks exactly like someone who actually experienced the war first hand. (This is a departure from the book, which used The American Civil War instead.)
• Taxi Driver has Travis Bickle who claims in the opening scene to have served in the Marines and on the basis of which, a Taxicab owner (himself a marine) gives him work. Since the film is visibly set in 70s New York, the general implication, confirmed by Word of God is that Travis is a Vietnam War veteran, and the film shows how he slowly becomes a Vigilante Man.
• Four Leaf Tayback from Tropic Thunder wrote a book about his deeds in the Vietnam War that the movie's protagonists attempt to adapt into a film. He is actually a Phony Veteran who never participated in the war.
• 1978 film The Deer Hunter is about a group of three friends from the same humble steel mill town who go off to fight in Vietnam. Michael used to hunt deer, hence the title, but after getting back from Vietnam he can't bring himself to kill anything again. His friend Stevie lost both of his legs. His other friend Nick is left an Empty Shell and Death Seeker who stays behind in Saigon. In other words, Shell-Shocked Veteran: The Movie.
• Zig-zagged in Good Guys Wear Black. In Vietnam, the members of the Black Tigers, that were led by John T. Booker were actually C.I.A assassins who were sent into the jungle under the guise that their mission was to liberate P.O.W.s held by the North Vietnamese. In the film, ARVN Major Mhin Van Thieu is the only Vietnam veteran in the film.
• Enter the Dragon: Williams and Roper knew each other back in 'Nam.
• Green Eyes is a 1970s film about a vet going back to Vietnam after finding out he fathered a child with a prostitute. There, he befriends an orphaned boy. His kid actually died years ago as an infant, but he adopts the boy he befriended.
• The Karate Kid: John Kreese is stated to have been a Captain in the US army and a Green Beret in Vietnam. While not explored at any point in the trilogy, Season 3 of Cobra Kai would eventually reveal his history as a Vietnam veteran and the hell he endured during his time in the Vietnam War that warped him into the ruthless man he is now.
• Parker in The Final is a Vietnam veteran who blames himself for getting his squadmates killed, hiding while the rest of them got wiped out, and feels that he doesn't deserve his medals. He becomes an Unwitting Instigator of Doom when he teaches Dane how to construct traps like the ones he encountered in Vietnam, but once Dane's plan against his classmates comes to fruition, he helps Kurtis strike back against them. Ultimately, in a case of Death by Irony, he gets taken out by one of Dane's punji stake traps, though he still manages to kill two of Dane's guards before succumbing to his injuries.
• Da 5 Bloods is about four Vietnam vets in the 2010's who return to Vietnam to settle some unfinished business involving their fallen comrade and buried treasure. All are haunted by the war, but Paul best fits the stereotype, a Shell-Shocked Veteran who's suffering from PTSD and proudly wears veterans' insignia.
• Deborah Solomon in Purple Hearts served in 'Nam as a Navy nurse.
• Most of the protagonists in VFW are Vietnam veterans save for Shaun Mason, who just got back from service in Iraq, and Abe Hawkins, an older veteran of The Korean War. The protagonist Fred, when explaining the wars to Lizard, describes Vietnam (his war) as having been fought in the mud, Korea as having been fought in frozen mud, and Iraq as having been fought in the sand.
• The Marksman: Jim is a Vietnam Vet himself, specifically a former Marine Corps scout sniper, revealing he served two tours of duty. He still has medals he earned as a result, but doesn't talk much of his service. Jim however does tell Miguel that there's nothing good about killing other men (he does it presently only to protect himself or others).
• The Postman: The Postman runs into a man who's an old Vietnam veteran and operates a radio he tries reaching out to people with (he's had no luck so far, but still keeps trying). Realizing he has valuable combat experience and training, the Postman enlists him to teach his followers. The guy later participates with them in an ambush on a Holnist patrol.

Literature

• In Brian Keene's The Rising, it is revealed that Badass Preacher Martin was an army chaplain in Vietnam, and these skills save his life after a deserting soldier attempts to use him as cannon fodder and a distraction to escape.
• In Country: Emmett and his friends are Vietnam vets, and much of the story is dealing with the post-war world, and the lasting effects the war had on veterans.
• The Executioner. When the series started in 1969, Vigilante Man Mack Bolan was a Vietnam veteran. More recent novels have stopped mentioning this as it would make him seem too old for the job.
• Parodied in the Discworld novel Monstrous Regiment, where the vampire soldier Maledict has "flashsides" - a PTSD-like condition affecting vampires under great psychic strain - which basically means the sufferer has "flashbacks" to somebody else's trigger-events. These can come from anywhere across the vast Multiversal gulfs of space and time. Maladict hallucinates scenes from the Vietnam War which are not wholly unlike those seen in films like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. These are so powerful that anyone nearby is also drawn into them and, lacking the frame of reference, wonders what those insect-like metal things in the sky are that go "whokka-whokka-whokka". Maldict also talks of fragging the officers and uses other 1960's GI slang.
• LAPD detective Harry Bosch, hero of most of Michael Connelly's mystery novels, was a "tunnel rat" who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the VC and the NVA in underground tunnels. This is most relevant in the first Bosch novel, The Black Echo, in which Bosch discovers that the murder victim he's investigating was another member of his unit. Bosch further finds out that said murder victim was putting his experience as a Vietnam tunnel rat to use by participating in a conspiracy to tunnel into and rob a bank.
• Several of the older uptimers in the 1632 series were veterans of Vietnam, and as such were often involved in military training for Grantville residents defending the town. One, Frank Jackson, managed to smuggle an M60 machine gun home after the war, which was instrumental in breaking rampaging mercenaries attacking the college town of Jena. Jackson later serves on Gustav Adolph's staff as an adviser on the new hardware being introduced into the 17th century courtesy of uptime knowledge.
• In the Legacy of the Aldenata series, thanks to rejuvenation tech from the Galactics many Vietnam vets are returned to service against the Posleen. On seeing the utter chaos at the Indiantown training facility caused by monumental personnel screwups, Gunny Sgt Papas is uncomfortably reminded of the mess in Vietnam caused by, among other things, low morale among the troops.
• The Running Grave: Posthumous Character Rust Andersen (an early Chapman Farms resident) was a Vietnam veteran who never returned to America, looks prematurely aged in a picture Robin sees, and spent decades living in a tent and avoiding crowds. He still comes across as having been more benevolent and grounded than most of his neighbors, both before and after the Waces’ takeover of the farm).
• Without Remorse: In this Tom Clancy novel set in the beginning of the Ryanverse, John Kelly starts out as a SEAL veteran of the Vietnam War, coping with both his wartime experiences and the death of his wife and unborn child.

Live-Action TV

• Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is implied to be one. In the latter show, a conversation between him and an Arms Dealer about the M40 rifle changing from a wooden stock to a plastic stock and his familiarity with the weapon implies that he served.
  Mike: Wood, warped like hell. You get it wet, you put it in the sun, gone. Somebody probably should've figured that out before they sent it into a damn jungle.
• Angus MacGyver of the eponymous series served as a bomb disposal expert in Vietnam War.
• J. R. Ewing from Dallas is mentioned as having fought in Vietnam, but it doesn't factor into his backstory that much.
• Joe Dawson from Highlander: The Series is mentioned as having served in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. His career was subsequently brought to an end after he stepped on a landmine.
• Simon & Simon: Rick, the elder Simon brother, served in Vietnam as a Marine, something that he keeps buried beneath his happy-go-lucky attitude, and makes him wary when the government is involved. As part of the Sibling Yin-Yang between them, A.J. was actually a Vietnam protester.
• Emergency!: Roy Desoto is but never had problems with it. Also there was an episode with a vet who seemed to be having a PTSD episode, thinking he was back in the war. But the doctors aren't immediately sure it's psychiatric, and the tests and exams show he actually had a brain tumor causing it. He was doing better after surgery.
• Fargo:
  • Lou Solverson served in Vietnam. While he doesn't appear to be shell-shocked, it's given him a somewhat dark view of human nature.
  • Det Ben Schmidt is also a Vietnam vet and he and Lou bond over their shared experiences. While Ben is a lousy cop and portrayed as a bit of a Dirty Coward, when bullets start flying he proves to be a capable fighter and does not hesitate to back up Lou.
  • Hanzee Dent was a tunnel rat in Vietnam and received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his actions in the war. He is the Gerhardts' best fighter, a great shot and extremely deadly with a knife. It is implied that his experiences in Vietnam were one of the catalysts for his decision to betray the Gerhardts.
• Forever: Abraham. As a teen, he was eager to serve his country as his parents had done in World War II. After returning from the war Abe became involved in anti-war protests. In "The Wolves of Deep Brooklyn" Abe gets back together with men he served with to help solve the murder of the son of one of them.
• Admiral AJ Chegwidden the Judge Advocate General of the US Navy in JAG served in Vietnam as a SEAL platoon commander. He mentions having been “banged up” during a tour, and his marriage fell apart because his then wife felt that “Vietnam changed him” and he had become a little too violent.
• Night Court: Mac is a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who met his wife when he was serving, he married her after she came to the US to keep her from being deported. He claims to be a hardened veteran but after volunteering to be Christine's birthing coach, when she shows him a brochure about it he faints.
• Quantum Leap: Al is a Vietnam veteran who was held for several years in a prison camp, during which he was declared dead and his wife remarried. In "The Leap Home" where Sam and Al trade places (Al is leaped back to before Sam was born, while Sam is a hologram in their present) Al's brain is scrambled because of the leap and he talks about being fed half a bowl of rice a day - which is weird to the people he's talking to since the person he leaped into was a World War II vet who had been held in a German POW camp, not Japanese.
• The main cast of The A-Team were Vietnam veterans and forced to go on the run after one of their missions was mistaken for a crime. Many members of the military police that chase them were also involved in the war, including Colonel Decker who was mentioned to have perpetrated some actions that the army tucked him away in disgrace for before resurrecting him to capture the A-Team.
• Madam Secretary: President Dalton served in Vietnam. He uses an anecdote of having several men under his command killed to help comfort a despondent Bess when she's upset over the death of several military personnel in a spec ops mission.
• NYPD Blue: Andy is a Vietnam veteran. After he came home and joined the police, his first assignment was to infiltrate a left-wing anti-war group. He is very pissed off if anyone lies about being a Viet Nam vet.
• Hill Street Blues: Lt. Howard Hunter and Officer Joe Coffee both served, and are clearly haunted by it. Several even more badly affected veterans show up during the series, one of whom ends up causing a hostage situation.
• Magnum, P.I.: Magnum, T.C., and Rick originally met in Vietnam. Magnum was a Navy SEAL, T.C. was a chopper pilot, and Rick was apparently a grunt. Their backstory is sometimes directly relevant to the episode's plot, such as a two-parter where they tangled with a KGB operative they had encountered in Nam.
• Tom Croydon of BlueHeelers was a Vietnam War vet who fought with the Australian Army. Most of the suspects/persons of interests encountered by the police are Vietnam War vets who had a hard time integrating back to civilian life.
• Subverted in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where Frank claims that he saw a lot of good men die in Vietnam. Dennis then states that he went to Vietnam during the 90s to open up a sweatshop, to which Frank states that many good men died in that sweat shop. He's also claimed that he did an actual tour, returned home, and was hounded by state troopers, which usually provokes the response that he's confusing First Blood with his own life.
• Columbo: In "Publish or Perish", Miles Greenleaf hires a Mad Bomber Vietnam vet to commit murder for by promising to publish the vet's book How to Blow Up Anything in Ten Easy Lessons.
• NCIS: Retired Agent Mike Franks was a Marine in 'Nam.
• Taken: In "Acid Tests", it is revealed that Jesse Keys joined the US Army under the pseudonym Frank Pierce and commanded a unit in Vietnam. When his unit came under attack from the Viet Cong in a temple in the Quảng Ninh Province, the aliens abducted Jesse in order to protect him. In his absence, 27 of his men were killed. Jesse became addicted to heroin after the war because of the guilt that he felt over not doing more to save his men when he knew that the aliens would not let anything happen to him.
• Jim Brass and Ray Langston’s dad in CSI. Ray’s dad is indicated to have succumbed to his genetic tendency toward violence after he came home. He started fighting and liked it.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a traumatized Vietnam veteran who has the ability to manifest any person or object that he can imagine.
  • In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Billy Kinetta is a Vietnam vet who is haunted by the fact that a Marine whom he didn't even know died saving his life while he was hiding from the Viet Cong during an ambush in Da Nang.
  • In "The Road Less Traveled", the Alternate Universe Jeff McDowell went to fight in Vietnam in 1971 instead of dodging the draft and lost his legs when he stepped on a landmine. He has spent most of his life since then in a VA hospital wondering what his life would have been like if he had crossed the border to Canada.
• John Kreese from the Karate Kid franchise is a proud veteran and villainous, sociopathic example, with Cobra Kai actually having extended flashbacks to The '60s in Season 3 to show exactly how his time there affected him. Later Kreese recruits his old squadmate Terry Silver, although there's very little attention given to Silver's service aside from the life debt he owes to Kreese (which Kreese won't let him forget).
• In Cold Case, Lt. John Stillman is a Vietnam veteran. Any case related to other veterans are very personal to him specially in the episode, "Honor", where his team deals with a cold case about a P.O.W. who was found dead after coming home from the war.
• Young Sheldon: In "A Financial Secret and Fish Sauce," it's briefly mentioned that George was in Vietnam. This also applies to Tam's father, who "was sent to a re-education camp because he fought on the wrong side."
• Booth's dad in Bones is indicated to have become abusive due to being this trope.
• Parodied, as with everything else, in Garth Marenghis Darkplace, where a couple of the characters claim to have fought in the 'Nam, despite the show being made and set in Britain, which never sent troops there; chalk this one up to Rule of Funny (and in-universe, Garth Marenghi simply copying stuff he'd seen/read in various US-created media).
• Saturday Night Live: One of the stories told about Bill Brasky is that he served three tours in Vietnam. The character telling the story mentions seeing an eight-foot-tall young Asian man while in Vietnam, "and sure enough, his name's Ho Chi Brasky!"
• Played for Laughs in S Club Seven TV show, when the band has to pretend to be Americans when immigration officials inspect the hotel they work at, and Bradley claims to be a Vietnam veteran which the inspector notes that he's quite young for.

Music

• Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. the singer is a young man from a factory town who gets sent to Vietnam and returns to find everyone indifferent to his service.
• In "Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle, the narrator, the grandson of a Hillbilly Moonshiner, volunteers to join the Army and gets sent to Vietnam. Afterwards, he starts growing marijuana on his grandfather's land and uses bushcraft and booby traps that he learned from fighting the Viet Cong to defend himself against the Feds.
• "Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story" by Jedi Mind Tricks and R.A. The Rugged Man is a Historical Biography Song based on the experiences of Staff Sgt. John A. Thorburn, the father of the rapper R.A., who came back with severe Agent Orange poisoning that ended up causing birth defects with many of his children.

Tabletop Games

• Champions
  • The following NPC characters are Vietnam veterans.
    • Lazer (Emil Nelson) was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam, where he experienced the corruption and villainy of the conflict. When he returned he used his illegal contacts and GI Bill money to become an arms smuggler.
    • Death Commando (Henry Wadsworth) was a highly aggressive soldier in Vietnam, which earned him fast promotions and good pay. After the war ended he joined the UNTIL anti-supercrime organization. However, in UNTIL his overzealousness was a liability and he was fired. He was so angry that he became a supervillain.
    • Bullet (Randolph Bullet) served in the Vietnam War for many years. After he got out he became the best mercenary in the Third World. He created an organization of superpowered mercenaries and started hiring them out to whoever paid the highest price.
  • Supplement PRIMUS and DEMON. After the end of the Vietnam War large numbers of U.S. military personnel were no longer needed for active combat and many were recruited into the rapidly expanding PRIMUS. Thus, many of these new PRIMUS personnel were Vietnam veterans.

Video Games

• Most of the American cast from Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War qualify, although Vietnam does not take up the whole campaign and the war is only seen through flashbacks in the latter two games. Woods in particular is badly affected after being trapped in a container with the butchered remains of his squad and the entire experience turns Adler from easygoing and playful soldier to grizzled and ruthless CIA operative.
• In Dead Rising, one of the psychopaths you face was Cliff Hudson, who became insane in a Zombie Apocalypse after seeing his granddaughter get killed by zombies. He has since had PTSD, believing the war never ended, and when Frank West confronts him, he believed he was a Viet Cong. Probably one of the more sympathetic psychopaths in the series.
• Bill from the Left 4 Dead series is a Vietnam vet. Gameplay wise, this doesn't impact anything. In the story, he has a couple trademarks of this trope, such as the green beret uniform, and the background story of being lost and adrift until the beginning of the outbreak.
• In Crash Tag Team Racing, it is implied that Neo Cortex served in the Vietnam War, judging by one of his quotes after hitting an opponent with a weapon during a race:
  Cortex: Ha ha ha! Just like back in Da Nang!
• Lincoln Clay in Mafia III served in the 223rd Infantry since 1964, and later in the 5th Special Forces Group. Two years later he would befriend CIA agent John Donovan, who was more than glad to assist Lincoln by providing him with the necessary resources in his personal vendetta against the Marcano crime family.

Web Animation

• Happy Tree Friends: Flippy/Fiqpy. While he didn't fight in the actual Vietnam War rather fighting in a in-universe war, his character is heavily inspired by such veterans. He frequency has flashbacks to the war, which cause him to become very violent.

Webcomics

• In Joe vs. Elan School, while Joe is on the run from the titular school, he gets picked up by a Vietnam vet that tells him a story about the Vietcong attacking his platoon in the middle of the night, slitting the throats of every other soldier.

Western Animation

• Subverted in Hey Arnold!, Gerald's dad was a Vietnam War veteran, but never saw combat due to being sick during basic training and never learning to use a rifle properly. They stuck him in a desk job in Saigon for him to serve his tour. He did however save the life of a soldier that he came across after a battle, whom he reunited with in "Veteran's Day" and the soldier thanked him for it.
• Principal Skinner in The Simpsons. He was in a POW camp in North Vietnam, and it is shown throughout the series he suffers from PTSD. Like Abe Simpson’s service in World War II, this makes him an increasingly aged Refugee from Time, but his being shaped by the war is such an integral part of his no-nonsense character, it will stay the way it is. "The Principal and the Pauper" episode reveals that he was actually born Armin Tamzarian, and met the real Skinner during the war. The real Skinner was believed dead, and he came to assume his name. However, Word of God has disowned the Armin backstory for Skinner, but the Vietnam part still applies.
• South Park has Uncle Jimbo and Ned, a pair of the titular town's residents who are seemingly Heterosexual Life-Partners. The two met in the war, and Ned lost one of his arms when a grenade went off in his hand. One episode has them tell Stan stories about the war, claiming that their base had a water park and that they took on the entire Viet Cong army all by themselves on horseback. It's implied that part about the water park was true.
• General Gum on King of the Hill was a Royal Lao Army general during the royal government vs communist Pathet Lao war in Laos.
• Coach Buzzcut on Beavis And Butthead was a Marine in Vietnam.
• In the Family Guy episode "No Meals on Wheels", when Joe's handicapped friends come to Peter's restaurant, Peter says he hopes that there isn't one of those "angry handicapped Vietnam guys with a bandanna on his head" with them, but to Peter's dismay, there is.
  Handicapped Vietnam Vet: I've seen some things, man! And some stuff! I wouldn't recommend it!
• Psycrow from Earthworm Jim revealed to have served along with the Great Worm Spirit.

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