Book Reviews : Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After. By JOHN HELMER. (New York: The Free Press, 1974. Pp. 346. $12.95.)

• Author: Ronald Frank Lehman
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297502800127
• Published date: 01 March 1975
• Date: 01 March 1975
• Subject Matter: Articles

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Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After. By JOHN
HELMER. (New York: The Free Press, 1974. Pp. 346. $12.95.)
In Bringing the War Home, John Helmer alters Marxist social theory to ex-
plain why, in a sample of Vietnam veterans he interviewed, some became radical-
ized by the war while others did not. In typical Marxist accounts, awareness of
social injustice, if raised to true class-consciousness by a crisis such as war, will lead
to political radicalism in the proletariat. However, Helmer’s veterans were radi-
calized before they became class-conscious, even though all were drawn from
working-class occupations. The original source of their radicalization was not a
discovery of class exploitation during the war, but, rather, an increased sensitivity
to social injustice which the author traces to military suppression of drug use among
the future radicals. Since primary-group oppression rather than class exploitation
was the first political issue, group affiliation, rather than exposure to class ideology,
determined who would be radicalized.
Helmer selected his subjects from three...