The Formation of Christian Soldiers for the Vietnam War

The young men who entered the military during the Vietnam War, whether draftees or volunteers, came of age during America’s religious revival of the 1950s. During their boyhoods, Congress etched “In God We Trust” onto the nation’s currency and Father Fulton Sheen took home several Emmy Awards for his talk show, Life is Worth Living. Christianity and nationalism coalesced.

Veterans of the Second World War turned to Christianity after the struggle against Hitler and Hirohito as a means to wage – and endure – the Cold War. It was a simple step, then, to bring a Communist enemy into focus. This presentation first explores the assumption held by mid-century Americans that Christian formation made young men vigorous anti-Communists, preparing them to become good soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Historians have studied how religion informed Cold War policy and numerous studies on how Christianity invigorated the anti-war movement now line our book shelves. Less well known is how soldiers, chaplains, officers, and generals acted on religious commitments during the actual course of the war. No attempt has been made to understand how religious formation shaped the mundane and extraordinary aspects of military life after the invasion of Vietnam. The second goal of this paper is to weigh the anti-Communist Christian formation of the 1950s against the lived realties of soldiering during the Vietnam War. The central question addressed in this paper is whether or not religion should be considered an asset or a hindrance in waging war against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. This paper brings the analysis of religion, both as theology and lived experience, into conversation with the main question driving the historiography of the war.