Buckeye

War looms large over Buckeye, and one of its most important thematic projects is its examination of the devastating impact of armed conflicts on both the soldiers who fight in them and the families they leave behind. Everett Jenkins has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his experiences in World War I and does not fully recover until very late in life. Cal feels that he missed out on the chance to have his identity shaped by life as a combatant, but he does not realize how lucky he was until his own son Skip dies in Vietnam during the ill-fated Tet Offensive. Because so much of Buckeye unfolds against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and explores the way that it shaped the characters’ lives and an entire generation of Americans, it is helpful to have a better sense of the conflict as a whole and of the Tet Offensive and the My Lai massacre, in particular.

Vietnam was part of a Federation of French Colonial Possessions, known as French Indochina, that existed between 1887 and 1954. It included portions of what would become Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. French involvement in the region began during the 17th century, with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries, but it was largely limited to religious activity and trade until the 19th century, when fighting began to protect French interests in the region. After the establishment of official French occupation, relations between the occupying forces and the locals were uneasy, and the colonial period was marked by conflict, uprisings, and rebellion. The French often suppressed opposition violently, and they destabilized the region to such an extent that famine was rampant, and Vietnam struggled with poverty and underdevelopment.

World War II brought further conflict to the region when the French Vichy government (which was allied with the Nazis and came to power during Germany’s occupation of France) collaborated with Japan, allowing their occupation of its territories in Southeast Asia. Japan’s surrender at the end of the war created a power vacuum in the region, and bickering arose between French, American, and British forces about who would control Vietnam. The situation reached an inflection point in 1946, when a coalition of communists and Vietnamese nationalists, led by Ho Chi Minh, began the fight to regain control of their country. They were ultimately successful, and the French were officially defeated in 1954. In the West, this conflict is known as the First Indochina War (in Vietnam, it is known as the French War).

However, because Ho Chi Minh’s agenda lacked country-wide support, the nation remained mired in conflict. Ho Chi Minh’s forces represented the north of Vietnam and were opposed by the Republic of Vietnam, a southern regional government that the US supported as part of its general anti-communist foreign policy. Ryan notes this support at multiple points during Buckeye, foreshadowing the way that the war will come to impact not only his characters but also their communities and American society as a whole. Skip and many of his classmates die in Vietnam, but even the characters who remain at home are changed by the conflict: Tom becomes active in the anti-war movement, and that involvement shapes both the course of his career and his romantic life.

Initially, American support for the South Vietnamese was financial in nature, but by the mid-1960s, American troops arrived in South Vietnam. The US would continue to send waves of military personnel to Vietnam and would eventually institute a compulsory military draft. The lottery (a draft that assigned each American man over the age of 18 a number), in which Tom narrowly escapes being sent to Vietnam, is historically accurate and marked a key turning point in American support for the war. The draft was unpopular and was widely protested. Eventually, the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese seized the entire country, instituting communist rule.

Although the war in Vietnam shapes much of the novel, Ryan provides greater detail about two of the conflict’s most bloody, notorious events: the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre. The Tet Offensive of 1968 was one of the largest military campaigns of the entire war, launched during the annual Tet ceasefire. The North Vietnamese People’s Army and the Viet Cong launched a surprise attack at the end of January (during Tet, the Vietnamese holiday to celebrate the lunar new year) against South Vietnamese and American forces. The attacks largely targeted cities and towns and were meant to shock both the American military and the American public. North Vietnam wanted to demonstrate its ability to damage civilian infrastructure.

Although North Vietnam ultimately suffered heavy casualties as a result, the Tet Offensive became a strategic victory because it led to heavy American casualties, shifted US public opinion, and led to US policy changes. The American public had been led to believe that the US was winning the war in Vietnam, but after the Tet Offensive, it became apparent that winning would require far more military personnel than most American citizens or politicians were willing to send. Buckeye mentions several characters who die during the Tet Offensive, and the author’s depiction of the way that those losses reshaped how Americans thought about the war is historically accurate.

Ryan’s depiction of the My Lai Massacre of 1968 is also accurate. War crimes were common in the Vietnam War, but My Lai is one of the conflict’s most notorious examples of wartime atrocity. US soldiers from multiple companies went into a small village expecting to encounter enemy combatants. When they found only civilian villagers, they did not retreat. Instead, they rounded up the villagers, subjected the women to brutal sexual assault, and murdered everyone they could find before killing the villagers’ livestock and burning their homes.

Initially, the massacre was covered up by the US military and represented in the American media as a small battle between US and enemy forces. As Ryan notes, the truth about the massacre (which occurred in March of 1968) was not fully revealed until November 1969. A number of soldiers were charged for their role in the massacre, but only one was convicted, and his sentence was commuted from life to three-and-a-half years, which he served on house arrest rather than in military prison. Like the Tet Offensive, the massacre at My Lai eroded American support for the war in Vietnam. Although American troops would not fully withdraw from the country until 1973, and the war would not end until 1975, My Lai stands as one of the important turning points in public opinion about the war and remains one of the most shameful atrocities committed by the US military on Vietnamese soil.