Like other nations that have engaged in the bloody wars of the twentieth century, the United States honors those who have risked their lives for their country. Official holidays of remembrance for those who saw combat in the armed forces include Veteran’s Day November 11, commemorating the armistice ending of World War I, and Memorial Day, in May. Meanwhile, politicians of the post-Second World War era, especially, have used their status as veterans to help catapult them into positions of importance in Congress or the presidency (e.g. Eisenhower, Kennedy and Bush). John McCain’s surprise performance in the 2000 Republican primaries owed a great deal to the candidate’s experiences as a navy pilot and POW in Vietnam, which gave him a degree of gravitas not shared by his younger and non-veteran opponent.

In a country reluctant to provide social welfare benefits to its citizens, the reverence paid to veterans is shown by the support available to them since the Civil War. Indeed, one of the largest departments in the federal government, given Cabinet status by Reagan in 1988, is Veterans Affairs (VA), which coordinates a range of benefits from provision of housing and education loans, healthcare and funeral assistance (including burial in specially designated cemeteries). Eligibility for veterans’ benefits requires ninety days of active service in combat or two years of enlistment, and discharge or release from active duty under conditions that are not in any way dishonorable. Those in the Reserve or National Guard currently (Congress must extend eligibility past 2003) need to complete a total of six years to receive the same benefits.

These benefits were dramatically increased by President Roosevelt in the GI Bill of 1944, intended to counteract the problem of readjustment many veterans returning from the First World War had faced (including great class turmoil). The GI Bill helped fundamentally to alter American society When the Department of Veterans Affairs was established in 1930, there were 4.7 million veterans alive, and the department ran fiftyfour hospitals around the country with as many as 31,600 employees. By 1993 the number of employees at the VA had grown to over 266,000; only the Department of Defense is a larger federal agency That the readjustment act reflected reverence for veterans, needs some qualification.

Indeed, the emergence of the VA occurred at a time when many veterans were facing considerable hostility. Those who came back from fighting “to make the world safe for democracy” and complained that the war had not done so, faced the vigilantism of the American Legion, with its 100 percent Americanism campaigns. Further, while the Second World War was “The Good War”and most veterans were welcomed home (although Wyler’s Best Years of Our Lives, 1946, challenges this), the Korean conflict became a protracted “police action” and many veterans returning from the “Forgotten War” felt that their struggles were neglected. The greatest hostility met those who fought in Vietnam, as the popularity of the war waned and as atrocities came to light. Vietnam veterans often felt reviled. In addition, fighting in conditions for which they often were not prepared, sensing the futility in the way the Pentagon prosecuted the war, they often suffered acute difficulties overcoming the trauma of their frontline experiences. Media depictions of the crazed or addicted Vietnam vet became ubiquitous during the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the Rambo movies suggested that the Vets themselves would have been able to take care of the Vietcong and/or rescue MIAs (missing in action) and POWs (prisioners of war), if the government had let them.

African Americans and other minorities (including female veterans, for whom the VA hospitals were unprepared) often were not revered alongside white veterans, whether or not the war was popular. A frequent cause of the lynching of African Americans in the South was the treatment meted out to the returning soldier. Nor did African Americans generally reap the benefits from the GI Bill, since they could not buy newly constructed suburban houses. The prominence of African American soldiers in the armed forces in Grenada, Panama and the Gulf, however, has begun to change this experience.