Beer, Napalm & Hookers: Vietnam War & Hedonism with Meredith Lair

Today, Meredith Lair, professor at George Mason University and the author of&#160;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Abundance-Consumerism-Soldiering-Vietnam/dp/0807834815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;qid=1370727917&#38;sr=8-1&#38;keywords=armed+with+abundance">Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War</a> examines the consumerist side of war that is hidden from most American&#8217;s views. <br/><br/>During the episode, we mention the Long Binh Post, which currently looks like this:<br/><br/>Excerpt from &#8220;Armed with Abundance&#8221;<br/><br/>Traditional war stories foreground suffering, not satisfaction, enabling readers or moviegoers to indulge their appetites for sentimentality, and to romanticize&#8212;and cheapen&#8212;the sufferings of soldiers and civilians at war. The Vietnam War I have re-imagined in these pages instead foregrounds satisfaction, pressing suffering into the background, like a shadow cast by something ominous and far away. In this new telling of the Vietnam war story, soldiers arrived in-country with expectations of storming the beaches, but found instead a vast network of heavily fortified and elaborately adorned American bases.<br/><br/> Cold beer and clean sheets, not foxholes and firefights, were&#160;&#160;often the norm, and most of the meals were served hot, except, of course, for the ice cream. At work, they settled into wearisome routines, shuffling paper and equipment from one side of Vietnam to the other, and at night, they looked for ways to while away the hot, sticky hours until dawn. Just like the folks at home, they relaxed to music or in front of the T.V., and time off was given to sports and home improvements, though many also found satisfaction in the seedy bars and brothels that sprang up all around them. For most, R&R was a reprieve not from danger but from hard work and boredom, and some lucky G.I.s stationed near the beach got to have it all the time. <br/><br/> Beach on Da Nang, March 1966<