AGAINST THE WAR is a historical novel examining the response of the Vietnam War generation to the Vietnam War and the effect of the war on American society. The effect described is a broad phenomenon extending from the theater of war overseas to the growing response to the war at home, as evidenced in the “war on poverty,” the anti-war movement, and the counterculture that arises from the anti-war movement.
The military draft, AGAINST THE WAR shows, was the underlying reason why this phenomenon of effect spread so widely. All military-eligible men of the age group studied in this novel (graduating from college in the years 1965 to 1970) were required to reply to the draft in some form. Some of these young men volunteered for service or were drafted (with about 38 percent winding up in Vietnam, composing a third of the forces there, while leaving the remaining 62 percent within the Armed Forces but without an experience in Vietnam); others of this same pool of young men (about 6 million compared to the 2.6 million in Vietnam) sought to position themselves with respect to the draft though obtaining a “deferment” (hardship, student, and service were the main types); still others (smaller in number but greater in influence) sought to “resist the war” through refusing induction, leaving the country, or “dropping out;” and out of this collective reaction emerged not only an extensive and often horrible encounter with the war,—for those who served in it,—but also a challenging of the authority that demanded response to the war and a questioning of the society that made such authority possible.
Had it not been for the war and the draft, Against the War shows, the young men of this generation would not have had the exposure to take such questioning far; but conditions were soon at hand, as the novel describes, to widen their exposure. Draft-deferrable programs like the Teacher Corps and VISTA (amply available in the “war on poverty” of this era) pushed many out into assignments among poor and excluded Americans;—in effect, enlisting these men (and soon their female peers) as advocates for social change against institutions like local governments that impeded such change, Oopposition to the war brought interactions with other bulwarks of the status quo like draft boards and schools; and the ensuing confrontations, intended to force social change or oppose the war, provided a real-life education in the intricacy of societal control. The scope of questioning thereby expanded beyond the social structures initially identified with the war to the whole fabric of society.
Adding to this expanding inquiry, the novel shows, was the shared experience,—for both men and women,—of demonstrations, marches, concerts, defiant speeches, appeals to solidarity, invitations to drugs, cross-cultural contacts, and itinerant “searching,” coalescing into a counterculture of societal opposition, and bringing—for this generation raised in the complacency of the 1950’s—a new mentality toward cultural expression: new taking serious of politics, music, and art; new fervor in exchange of ideas; new “lifestyles;” new disregard for propriety and long-held norms.
On the war side of the growing cultural divide, as also documented in this novel, another experience shared by many members of this generation, the war itself, forced a mentality change of a different kind. Accommodations to the slaughter of combat, personal danger and deprivation, contemplations regarding the ambiguities of an impugned war, and the comradery engendered by the war situation, combined to form this mentality. As the novel demonstrates, however, for many like the character Jim Morris, this was a mentality ineffectively applied to making sense of the war and returning with no problems to civilian life.
The four main characters of AGAINST THE WAR,— Morris, Tom Steward, Matt Brandt, and Bill O’Rourke,—in the historical record of this novel, represent the young men of this era, the choices they made under pressure of the war and the draft, the ways they conducted themselves on both sides of the societal gulf of the war, and the results of their choices in terms of individual conscience, the indictment of the war, attitudes toward authority, distribution of political power, fulfillment of democratic ideals, changes in gender roles, and other facets of American life. These actions, when done in opposition to the war, were described as “against the war” in the jargon of the era. But all actions performed by this generation, for the war or opposed to it, were done “against the war” in the sense that the war was an undismissable backdrop. Such is the wider meaning of the title and the overall theme of this novel.
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NOTE (2026): Admittedly, as observed by critic David A. Willson in his 2014 review on the Vietnam Veterans of America website, the four main men of this novel could not possibly represent the entire generation purported to be examined. As Willson remarked in his review (he himself served as a rear echelon stenographer in Saigon and Long Binh): “I did not recognize myself in the book. I did not share the assumption that if drafted I would go to Vietnam, and if I went to Vietnam, I would be at risk, most likely in the infantry. Or that it was likely I would die there. That simply never occurred to me.”
It could be argued, however, with respect to this charge, that, while the novel does indeed focus on a subset of this generation including only its most idealistic and intentional members, the novel—in its totality,— portrays an immensely wider range of behaviors than shown by its main characters alone.
Many examples can be presented including: the Good Thunder band (friends of Kristine Desolt), veterans in their early 20’s, who spent their entire time in Vietnam entertaining the troops by an official agreement; Orin Brown, the intelligence officer who avoids combat while indulging in a “history buff” interest in the war (he it is who makes the distinction between ordinary soldiers and “true believers”); Tom Pitt, the pilot friend of Morris, a bona fide true believer, who has been home, after a hundred missions, and of his own accord has come back to Southeast Asia for a hundred missions more; Dennis Nolan, the former stroke oar of the St. Thomas crew, who after getting drafted and serving in combat, is back in Minnesota, whole in body but fractured in mind; Gordy Evans, the cynical student, paired briefly with Ellen Kass, who has avoided Vietnam through service in the National Guard. In just the one base, Chu Lai, where O’Rourke is first assigned, there were more than 30,000 soldiers performing duties as disparate as in any small city.
It could be argued, also. that the four main men of this novel, despite their unique level of idealism, exhibit a mental attitude and mode of inquiry, and a degree of collaboration, common to many members of their “Vietnam War generation,”—a true “zeitgeist” extending not only through the counterculture at home, but also through much of American armed forces and related groups such as mercenary soldiers also present in Vietnam, where drugs and counterculture sympathies were present. Air America pilot Bryan Zastrowski, whom Morris meets in captivity, is an example of such commonality.
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Men, as said, were the ones directly challenged by the draft, but the women of this generation also became involved in the war effort, sometimes as spouses or lovers of soldiers, committed to supporting them in their war experience or in their resultant injuries, such as the character Ellen Kass Morris in this novel; and sometimes as voluntary participants in the war, such as the character Army nurse Barbara Carpenter O’Rourke. Women were also the earnest soldiers of the counterculture, as it developed, active in the war resistance, feminism, and political, social, and cultural change, as well as in the great flowering of music, writing, and art that the counterculture brought. Mary Kass Brandt, in this novel, represents the best of these women. Kristine DeSolt Steward is an example of the courageous women ofhe era, not consciously feminist but influenced by feminist ideas, who struggled for personal independence in face of cultural restraints. As the double surnames given here indicate, these female characters are the eventual spouses, within the story, of the four male characters listed above.
As also described in this novel, the broad phenomenon of war and response had repercussions at home and overseas far beyond the transformative experiences of the young men and women that are the focus of the central story of the novel. At home, the placement and activities of these educated idealists amidst previously ignored and desperate people created an expectation of democratic participation, civil rights, economic advancement, and educational opportunity. This expectation, in turn, led many in these populations to assert themselves, as exhorted to do by their young volunteers, creating a chain reaction that, over the course of the four and a half years described in this novel, activated individuals and communities all across America. Overseas, an effect of like magnitude occurred, in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, as the result of the insertion into these countries of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and the American machinery of war, bringing contact with American concepts of democracy and civil rights (as well as with the demonstrated belief in martial coercion), capitalization of local economies to provide goods and services to military bases and soldiers, corruption sowed by the free flow of Yankee dollars to illicit activities like prostitution and sale of drugs, and the societal burden of recovering from the widespread damage inflicted by carpet bombing and defoliation.
“The war was a lie,” decides Jim Morris, patriot, combat pilot, prisoner of war, “true believer;”—one who, in the story, starts out with the highest of ideals;—and, indeed, as the record contained here reveals, this was a war prosecuted for many years without a hope of being won while actual people, such as Morris represents, were risking their lives for the purpose of winning the war. This was a war, as the record also reveals, involving atrocities perpetrated by American forces and kept secret, while heroic soldiers, such as depicted in this novel, were sacrificing their lives for fidelity to their nation and devotion to one another.
The counterculture of this era was, also, in the final analysis, revealed to be flawed, as it rose in what seemed at first a single voice of protest and cultural promise, then crumbled upon itself as the conflicts between its inconsistencies grew: peaceful vs. violent “revolution;” “egalitarianism” vs. the desire for possession; serious inquiry vs. “letting things be;” self-discipline vs. self-indulgence; social participation vs. dropping out. AGAINST THE WAR documents this arc of the early counterculture in the period described.
In not only this, but in all aspects, AGAINST THE WAR is meant to be historically correct. For this reason, the novel includes a comprehensive bibliography giving sources for all facts presented, and many developments in the story are tied by accurate dates to political, social, and military events. The case made here is conveyed with a documentary exactness to permit a fair judgment of the ways this generation’s response to the war and building of the counterculture should be emulated or corrected by future generations.
Roland Menge (2026)