The making and unmaking of an unknown soldier

Abstract

For 18 years, from 1984 to 1998, the Vietnam crypt of the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery housed the remains of a soldier whose anonymity helped shoulder a nation's grief and fuel its memory. They were those of First Lieutenant Michael J. Blassie, an Air Force pilot shot down over hostile territory in southern Vietnam in 1972. On 14 May 1998, Blassie's thenunrecognized remains became the only set at the memorial to be disinterred and identified -an act that signaled an important shift in forensic practice and the state's means of commemorating its missing and unknown members of the military. Tracing the story of the Vietnam Unknown's (de)identification, this article examines the gradual though foundational reframing of the connection between national memory and identity expressed through care for those who 'made the ultimate sacrifice'. Whereas memorials of the past, such as the Tomb of the Unknowns, emphasized collective or anonymous groupings of war dead in articulating national identity, the changing technology of identification, particularly brought about by advances in DNA testing, has enabled individuated memorializing. Naming each dead soldier, returning each set of remains to surviving families, no matter how partial or delayed, personalizes the ideals of sacrifice and honor embodied in the fallen soldier and invites localized, communal remembrance. The shifts in technology and memory that have rewritten the story of the Vietnam Unknown not only altered modes of national commemoration, but also lay bare the connections between how war itself is waged, death justified, and a nation defined through its care for war dead.

Bones of contention

“…In the decades that followed, the bones and their spirit were never simply a blank canvas for political agendas—they defied various attempts at definition and identification while people continued to treat them as objects of care and devotion. Following these bones and the multiple roles they have played reveals various modes of interaction between the living and the dead, between the state and its citizens, and between subjects and objects (Wagner 2013, 2015). In the few accounts of Vietnam's recovery of war dead (Kwon 2008; Sorrentino 2017), the focus is on the spiritual organizations that conduct the searches rather than on the agency of the bones themselves.…”

“…These events were nationally televised and embellished with a full set of official ceremonies for the decorated fallen hero. One could call this a veneration of a Known Soldier, an inversion of the well‐known state cult of the Unknown Soldier, who stands for the anonymous collective of the nation's war dead (Anderson 1999; Wagner 2013). In this case, all the unidentified soldiers of the Sino‐Vietnamese border war were memorialized by one Known Soldier.…”

A Curious Trade: The Recovery and Repatriation of U.S. Missing In Action from the Vietnam War

“…Some 15 million tons of bombs were dropped over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and the United States and its South Vietnamese allies spread 73 million liters of chemical agents there, 62 percent of it Agent Orange, whose full impact, particularly with its deadly dioxin, is still unknown today (Martini 2012: 2-3). Sites of memory and mourning (Winter 1998) have garnered particular attention: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. (Hagopian 2009;Sturken 1991;Tatum 1996;Berdahl 1994) and the Vietnam crypt at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery (Allen 2011;Wagner 2013) are known for their emotive force, and in Vietnam memorials to fallen heroes, military campaigns, and sites of atrocity likewise shape national imaginaries and collective memory (Kwon 2006;Schwenkel 2009a;Malarney 2001;Tatum 1996). 18 An additional 1,652 U.S. service members are still missing.…”

“…Just as the war's tolls defy easy summary, postwar reckoning has its own tangled history, as the American public recalls the “Vietnam War” and the Vietnamese make sense of “The War of National Salvation against the Americans” (Chiến Tranh Chống Mỹ Cứu Nước), or simply the “American War.” Sites of memory and mourning (Winter 1998) have garnered particular attention: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. (Hagopian 2009; Sturken 1991; 1997; Tatum 1996; 2004; Berdahl 1994) and the Vietnam crypt at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery (Allen 2011; Wagner 2013) are known for their emotive force, and in Vietnam memorials to fallen heroes, military campaigns, and sites of atrocity likewise shape national imaginaries and collective memory (Kwon 2006; 2008; Schwenkel 2009a; Malarney 2001; Tatum 1996). In seeking to understand the war and its legacy, scholars have also focused on the circulation of war images and art (Schwenkel 2008; Hagopian 2009; Rowe and Berg 1991; Tai 2001), film (Dittmar and Michaud 1990; Bradley 2001; Martini 2007: 46–76, 121–61), and culturally freighted artifacts and war relics bought and sold in local markets (Walters 1997; 1999; Alneng 2002; Schwenkel 2009a: 82–88; Corey 2010; Lair 2011; Curtis 2011), and their intersection with Vietnam's expanding tourist industry (Kennedy and Williams 2001; Curtis 2003).…”

“…There they enter yet another value regime as forensic staff probe them for osteological and molecular clues of individual identity. State authority is demonstrated through scientific means when the symbolic worth of the specific missing service member is re-engaged, his individual identity is restored, and individuated commemoration is made possible (Wagner 2013: 645–49).…”