History Main / TheVietnamVet

-->-- Anonymous U.S. Servicemean, quoted in "Nam" by Mark Baker

* General Gum on ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' was a Royal Lao Army general during the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotion_Civil_War secret war]] in Laos.

* ''Film/TheKarateKid'': 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, it is not unlikely that Vietnam shaped both his extreme martial arts philosophy, his aversion to losing and his verbally and physically abusive nature. Season 3 of ''Series/CobraKai'' 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.

-->''"I knew you'd 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."''

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''[[Film/X2XmenUnited X2: X-Men United]]'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam (though Wolverine [[EasyAmnesia doesn't remember]] due to [[spoiler: the bullet Stryker put in his head many years ago]]) and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[ShapeshiftingSeducer Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from [[Film/X2XmenUnited X2: X-Men United]] was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[ShapeshiftingSeducer Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''Film/X2XmenUnited'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[ShapeshiftingSeducer Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''Film/X2XmenUnited'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[Main/Shapeshifting Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''Film/X2XmenUnited'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[Shapeshifting Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''Film/X2XmenUnited'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[Shapeshifter Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* Similar to the above, Col. William Stryker from ''Film/X2XmenUnited'' was Wolverine and Sabertooth's CO in Vietnam and, even long after the war is over, he carries his brutal philosophy into politics as he speaks with Senator Kelly (who is really [[Main/Shapeshifter Mystique]] as Kelly died in the previous movie):

* ''Film/TheKarateKid'': John Kreese is stated to have been a Captain in the US army and a Green Beret in Vietnam. While not explored in-universe yet, it is not unlikely that Vietnam shaped both his extreme martial arts philosophy, his aversion to losing and his verbally and physically abusive nature.

ShellShockedVeteran exists for every conflict and event in history but it was with the Vietnam War that became the TropeCodifier in American culture (for Europeans, this was UsefulNotes/WorldWarI). 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 TheSixties and several ongoing social 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 UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar) did exist but they were relatively marginal. The experience of the Vietnam veteran usually revolves around BrokenPedestal 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.

* General Gum on ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' was Royal Lao Army general during the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotion_Civil_War secret war]] in Laos.

* Zig-zagged in ''Good Guys Wear Black''. In [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar 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 [[POWCamp P.O.W.s]] held by the North Vietnamese. In the film, ARVN Major Mhin Van Thieu is the only military veteran in the film.

* Frank Castle, aka ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'', 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 FrozenInTime for many years and was depicted, especially in the MAX continuity, as realistically aging. 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 FictionalCountry of) Siancong and moved Frank's military record (as well asComicBook/WarMachine's--and ComicBook/MisterFantastic's and ComicBook/TheThing's after years of ignoring the two of them were earlier presented as vets of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII) to it.

* Frank Castle, aka ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'', 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 FrozenInTime for many years and was depicted, especially in the MAX continuity, as realistically aging. 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.

* The ComicBook/UltimateMarvel version of Nick Fury is listed as having fought in the Vietnam War.

* Marvel supervillain Nuke, AKA Frank Simpson, ended up fully [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope 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 ManchurianAgent. 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 antagonised Wolverine, Daredevil and Captain America. His depiction in ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' notably averts this and changes him to an unspecified spec-ops veteran from the War on Terror.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', [[BlackBestFriend 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 [[DeskJockey desk job]] 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.

* Parodied in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'', 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 ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' and ''Film/FullMetalJacket''. 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.

* ''Series/{{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 nothing doing more to save his men when he knew that the aliens would not let anything happen to him.