The first paper, by Madison Lyonhart, explores the intersection of religion, masculinity, and militarism at Wheaton College, a flagship institution of American evangelicalism. Focusing on the campus’s mandatory ROTC program, it traces how the Vietnam War destabilized long-standing assumptions linking Christian virtue, national service, and male authority. While ROTC initially symbolized patriotic commitment and moral formation, opposition intensified after the Tet Offensive in 1968, exposing deep divisions over theology, ethics, and political engagement. The paper argues that Vietnam precipitated a broader crisis of evangelical masculinity, prompting postwar realignments that increasingly fused religious identity with partisan conservatism as a means of preserving patriarchal authority.

The second paper, by Dror Goldberg, shifts to a political-economic perspective, demonstrating how the Vietnam War directly precipitated the legal end of the gold cover for U.S. currency in 1968. It shows that massive wartime spending strained the United States' gold reserves and threatened the government’s capacity to finance the conflict. Although Democrats held congressional majorities, the legislation narrowly passed amid intense resistance, exacerbated by the Tet Offensive and the rapid erosion of Lyndon Johnson’s political authority. By situating monetary reform within the political crisis of Vietnam, the paper reveals how wartime uncertainty reshaped domestic governance and laid the groundwork for the inflation and economic instability of the 1970s.

The final paper, by Zachary Tayler, examines U.S. policy toward diplomatic relations with Vietnam between 1991 and 1995 through the lens of the “Road Map” framework. It argues that normalization was not an abrupt post-Cold War breakthrough, but the culmination of a phased strategy linking humanitarian cooperation, regional security developments, and shifting geopolitical incentives. By tracing the institutionalization of POW/MIA negotiations, Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia, and the gradual lifting of economic and diplomatic barriers, the paper demonstrates how the war’s unresolved legacies structured U.S.-Vietnam relations decades after combat ended.

Collectively, these papers recast the Vietnam War as a prolonged historical process whose effects reverberated through American society, state power, and global diplomacy. The panel contributes to scholarship on the war and society by foregrounding Vietnam’s enduring capacity to reshape institutions, identities, and international order long after the guns fell silent.