Estrangement of Vietnam War and Its Veterans from Korean Society in White Badge by Ahn Junghyo
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Abstract
During Vietnam War, South Korea sent troops to South Vietnam as an ally of the United States. According to White Badge, although Korean government and people supported this action, Korean society did not consider the Vietnam War as its own problem or a significant issue. Vietnam War veterans were treated as persons with psychic problems. Korean society only focused on the beneficiary side of Vietnam War; that is, Vietnam was imagined as an exotic, underdeveloped country, a place where Korean soldiers had a chance to show their heroism, a place where Koreans could make profits from the US Army as well as from their own business. Korean society did not care about casualties and trauma of the veterans, as we can see, in the text, from a scripted war documentary which was not based on facts and from the pressure towards veterans to quit their regular job. In some cases, veterans’ trauma caused self-alienation in terms of morality and way of life. Veterans’ sterile production made them useless for the development of the country.
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