Your story is our story: Collective memory in obituaries of US military veterans

Abstract

Newspaper obituaries are carriers of collective memory, and researchers have found them to be a valuable source for discerning a society’s values. But obituaries are also about individuals, whose lives and identities they record—and for many people, they represent a unique instance in which their life story is told by a third party. In this article, I consider how collective memory of major public events is woven into the life stories told in obituaries by comparing recent obituaries of veterans of World War II and the Vietnam War. My findings suggest four interrelated ways that collective memory shapes these narratives: selection of defining life experiences, selection and emphasis of specific events and experiences, use of historical detail, and provision of cultural scripts. By influencing these components of the life stories told in obituaries, collective memory both occupies the narratives of individual veterans and maintains itself over time.

Keywords

journalism life stories narrative identity public memory Vietnam War World War II

Dale A. Gunther died in 2008, and Donald Chattin, Jr died in 2010. Both were US military veterans, and both were the subjects of obituaries in their hometown paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Gunther performed his military service during World War II. Here is the Inquirer’s remembrance of his war experience:

Mr. Gunther served for 2 ½ years in the Army. He was assigned to the 246^th Signal Operation Company, a communications unit, when he took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy at Omaha Beach. Mr. Gunther, who was qualified as an M-1 rifle sharpshooter, also took part in the Rhineland, Northern France, Ardennes and Central European campaigns.

When he was separated from active duty in 1945, he had earned a European-African-Middle-Eastern Campaign Medal with five Bronze Stars, an American Campaign Medal, a World War II Victory Medal and a Good Conduct Medal.

Chattin performed his service during the Vietnam War. Here is the entirety of the Inquirer’s remembrance of his experience:

In 1965, [Chattin] was inducted into the Army. On his second tour of duty in Vietnam, he was shot in the leg and earned a Purple Heart.

The difference between these two veterans’ obituaries reflects a larger difference between the way veterans of the Vietnam War and World War II are remembered in newspaper obituaries. That difference is the subject of this article.

Obituaries often take the form of idealized life stories. The individual stories they tell are shaped by dominant cultural values, and consequently, they have helped researchers discern what a society collectively idealizes (Fowler, 2007; Hume, 2000; Kitch and Hume, 2008). They have been called a “repository for collective memory” (Fowler, 2005: 61), which is to say a repository for “the collective beliefs about the past that inform a social group, community, region, or nation’s present and future” (Hume, 2010: 181). Halbwachs (1992 [1952]) proposed that societies carry memories beyond those lived experiences recalled by individuals, and Nora (1996) drew attention to how recollections of the past influence the present. Obituaries are one of the ways this collective grasp of the past, so important to the present, is revealed.

In this article, I ask how the collective memory of important public events affects obituaries’ telling of individual life stories. Collective memory has been understood by historians, narrative psychologists, and others to influence and shape the individual identities of the living—as people tell their own stories, they rely on cultural scripts about the past as guides, even boundaries (Green, 2004). A person’s identity is the product of a negotiation between his or her experiences, psychic needs, and understanding of cultural values, including collective memory.

Because obituaries often link their subjects to the public past (Hume, 2000; Kitch and Hume, 2008), their construction involves a similar negotiation. But the individual whose life story is being told is necessarily absent. Decisions about which scripts to follow and what story to tell become the domain of journalism. This is perhaps a common experience for public figures who are subjects of biographies and profiles. But for many people, an obituary is a unique instance in which their life stories and the role of collective memory therein are controlled by a third party. Because it comes at the end of life, it also represents a final social verdict on their worth (Fowler, 2005). Consequently, it is a potentially important part of an individual’s identity project.

How does collective memory make its mark on the individual identities presented in obituaries? I approach this question by comparing and contrasting how recent obituaries tell the stories of veterans of World War II and the Vietnam War—two events about which there are significant and well-known differences in America’s collective memory. I find that the final life stories told about Vietnam War veterans and World War II veterans differ from each other in ways that reflect collective memory of the two wars, sometimes even when there is reason to believe the veterans’ own versions of these stories would not have reflected these differences. The patterns I identify suggest four interrelated ways that collective memory shapes the life stories told in these obituaries: selection of defining life experiences, selection and emphasis of specific events and experiences, use of historical detail, and provision of cultural scripts.

By influencing obituaries in these ways, collective memory occupies the narratives of individual veterans, exerting its influence on their identities after they die. It also maintains itself over time, ensuring that when veterans pass on, America’s recollections of World War II and Vietnam are reiterated and refreshed.

Obituary as biography, biography as identity

The obituary has been a regular feature of the American newspaper for more than 200 years (Hume, 2000). Its most basic functions are to report a death and remember a life. This remembering includes both “chronicling,” the recording of events, and “commemoration,” the assignment of significance to those events (Schwartz, 1982). Commemoration “celebrates and safeguards the ideal” (p. 377). Schwartz develops this notion in the context of collective memory and offers a nod to Halbwachs.

If obituaries contain collective memory, and collective memory contains a society’s beliefs, then obituaries should make good sources for identifying those beliefs. Indeed, Hume (2000) argues that obituaries reflect “what society values and wants to remember” (p. 12). Partly they do this through simple inclusion and exclusion: Several studies have found that American newspapers disproportionately publish obituaries about men (see, for example, Kastenbaum et al., 1976; Maybury, 1995–1996; Moremen and Cradduck, 1998–1999), reflecting a value system that privileges male accomplishment. Partly they do it through the stories they tell. Scholars like Hume (2000) and Fowler (2007) have used obituaries as windows into dominant cultural attitudes on subjects such as patriotism, consumption, and gender roles during different eras.

In this sense, obituaries carry collective memory. But they are also influenced by collective memory as it exists at the time of the writing. Hume describes how obituaries link the deceased to the public past by including stories of famous events or icons. For many years, for example, American obituaries mentioned George Washington whenever they could, connecting the deceased individual to a public icon. They also often linked American men to the nation’s wars (Hume, 2000; Kitch and Hume, 2008). Hume understands the inclusion of these linkages, as well as associated character attributes such as bravery and patriotism, as a form of “framing,” a process of selection and emphasis of pieces of an individual’s life.

My objective here is to build on this work by looking closely at the ways collective memory of an event gets woven into the fabric of a life story and potentially transforms individual identity. Obituaries, after all, are “mediated, abbreviated, stylized biographies” (Long, 1987: 965) that provide “factual information” and a “narrative” about the deceased (Bytheway and Johnson, 1996). A few scholars have used obituaries as tools for examining individuality: Long has examined obituaries as representations of claimed or attributed identity, and Lawuyi (1991) calls them “advertisement(s) of self.” Bonsu (2002) has shown how a person’s identity can continue to evolve after death through his or her obituary (p. 510).

This connection between identity and biography is important because in the world of identity, biography is important. One of the key aspects of a person’s self-conception, personality psychologists have found, is his or her “narrative identity”: “an individual’s internalized, evolving, and integrative story of the self” (McAdams, 2008: 242). This means that when we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” a big part of how we answer is with a life story: we select experiences from our lives to weave into a coherent story about where we’ve been and who we are. We also seek to present desired identities to others (Leary and Kowalski, 1990). Our stories matter when we do this, too. We can tell “self-narratives” (life stories or otherwise) that meet our “identity aims”—a process Ibarra and Barbulescu (2010) have dubbed “narrative identity work” (p. 137).

People do narrative identity work while alive, of course, and obituaries are published after death. But because an obituary tells a person’s story, it can represent an important contribution to his or her identity project—that effort to present a desired identity to others. Many people, it is safe to assume, have some investment in what their obituaries will say, although they won’t be around to read them. So to ask how obituaries work is to ask what culture does with the identities we care about after we die. If, as Hume (2000) writes, culture may “subsume” (p. 161) individuality in obituaries, the question becomes, “How does the collective memory in obituaries interact with narrative identity?”

Collective memory and individual stories

This question should not be taken to imply that an individual narrative identity can, at any point, exist apart from collective memory and culture more generally. Narrative identities are culturally inflected even when we construct them about ourselves, in our own minds: Hammack (2008) describes how individuals, as we construct narrative identities, can either recognize and accept or repudiate and reject various “master narratives” available in a culture.

Cultural historians have documented how powerful collective memory can be in the narrative identities people construct for themselves, often by looking specifically at memories of war. Dawson (1994) and Thomson (1994) use the term “composure” to explain how individuals “compose” their own stories using public languages and images and also seek “composure” in a psychologically comfortable past. For many people, this means a past that is acceptable by the standards of their culture. “Our memories are risky and painful if they do not fit the public myths, so we try to compose our memories to ensure that they will fit with what is publicly acceptable,” writes Thomson (1994), who interviewed former Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soldiers about their experiences in World War I (p. 242). Roper (2000) shows how one former British soldier, Lyndall Urwick, told his own war story differently at different points in time, depending on his psychological needs and changing social mores about war.

In both cases, the methods being used to make individual memories fit public narratives include the selection, emphasis and exclusion of facts, scripts, and meanings. For example, one of Thomson’s (1994) respondents, Bill Langham, de-emphasizes experiences he had that conflicted with a collective memory of the war focused on the national identity of the Australian as an exceptional soldier (p. 90). There can be resistance to public myths and nuance in their treatment—individuals can decide what version of public narrative works for them. But this is how living individuals have their narrative identities influenced by collective memory.

For the deceased, there is a key difference, of course—they are deceased and so lack any control over their own stories. Does collective memory interact similarly with individual identity in this context? If a decedent were a public figure, his or her story can certainly be influenced by collective memory. Dawson (1994) discusses the case of Sir Henry Havelock, “who barely lived long enough to learn that he had been recognized as [a soldier hero]. The stories told about him were totally unencumbered by his own investments in their telling” (p. 7). His identity became, in a sense, collective property. Bodnar’s (1992) work suggests that collective memory can be a powerful force even in the identities of those who are not public figures when they lack control of their own stories: In a study of American memorials and commemorations, he finds that “official culture” (idealized, nationalistic, institutional) tends to overpower “vernacular culture” (local, everyday) in contests over the expression of “public memory,” with the latter being “incorporated” into the former (p. 17).

It stands to reason that collective memory plays a large role in obituaries, when a journalistic institution negotiates between official concerns and vernacular ones to construct a life story for the deceased. Collective memory is still likely somewhat constrained: Schudson (1989) has shown how “social memory” can only reconstruct the past to serve the present interest within limits, such as “the structure of available pasts,” (i.e. characteristics of the past that cannot be ignored). Such limits apply in the case of obituaries, too—a CEO can’t be remembered as a custodian or vice-versa. But considering the evidence from Bodnar (1992), Hume (2000), and others, some reinterpretation is likely. And the impulse for obituary writers and others to reinterpret should be especially strong if collective memory offers a compelling master narrative about a particular event or situation in which the decedent took part.

Reinterpretation would have repercussions for collective memory writ large because individual identities can have social effects. Stetsenko and Arievitch (2004) call the self “an instrument of social change”; selves can “either resist or reproduce the social order” (Hammack, 2008) and thereby facilitate changes in cultural norms. Thomson and Dawson both similarly discuss how the individual identities they consider help to construct and reconstruct ideals of nationality and identity. Kitch and Hume (2008) note that obituaries are “not only reflective, but instructive as well” (p. 76).

A narrative identity, as represented in an obituary, is a potential vehicle for sociality: It is an occasion for remembering, and perhaps reiterating or rethinking, cultural norms. If that identity is determined in part by collective memory, it can in turn help to maintain that memory over time. The question is how obituaries construct life stories in ways that make this possible.

Obituary conventions

Newspaper obituaries have been “remarkably consistent” for a remarkably long time in terms of how they go about performing their functions of reporting a death and remembering a life (Hume and Bressers, 2009–2010: 258). The conventions of including the deceased’s name and occupation, cause of death, personal attributes, and funeral arrangements date back as far as the obituary form itself and apply whether the obituary is written by a journalist or submitted to the newspaper by a party close to the deceased, an increasingly common practice (Starck, 2008).

With respect to the particular type of obituaries under consideration in this article—twenty-first century obituaries in major US newspapers, of military veterans who were not public figures, written by journalists—it is possible to be even more specific about conventions. In addition to name and occupation, these obituaries tend to include age; in addition to cause of death, they tend to include place of death. The “personal attributes” they cover include features of early life such as birthplace or hometown, schools attended and degrees achieved, military service, marriage and children, career, community affiliations such as churches or organizations, occasionally hobbies or personal characteristics (e.g. “gentleman”), predeceased and surviving family members, and funeral arrangements.

These obituaries are also consistent in tone. They are written in the past tense and are straightforward and often formal—not quite somber, but subdued, as in this passage:

Anthony P. Peleckis, 88, a retired Philadelphia Gas Works customer service representative and a World War II B-29 gunner who was rescued from the Indian Ocean, died of complications from cancer surgery Monday, March 7, at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Occasionally, they include light humor, lighthearted reflection, or fond remembrance, such as recollections of the deceased being “seen at least once leading a conga line at a restaurant.” They rarely include intense sentiment.

This tone is perhaps a reflection of the fact that these obituaries are a professional journalistic product and consequently adhere to certain journalistic norms. In a 2014 interview with The Paris Review, New York Times obituary writer Margalit Fox discusses ignoring family requests for the inclusion of certain observations because “the obituary as a form has moved beyond protecting the family’s narrative” (Ronan, 2014). Obituary writers must still grapple with “the old rule of ‘not speaking ill of the dead’,” and obituary page editors interviewed by Fowler (2007) said they “think of the widow” (p. 123) in constructing obits.¹ But journalism claims a broader responsibility and authority than simply reciting the preferred narrative of involved parties:

Journalism unifies readers into communities and nations, articulating and affirming group values and identity … journalists accomplish these goals by telling stories and creating characters who stand for something larger than themselves, something that is cultural and historical rather than personal and momentary. (Kitch and Hume, 2008: xv)

Obituaries can still vary within these constraints, and not just according to the factual details of individual lives. They vary, as Hume and Bressers (2009–2010) write, by “what attributes of the deceased were celebrated or ignored” (p. 259).

The Vietnam War and World War II

I will not devote much space to discussing the respective collective memories of the Vietnam War and World War II in American culture, both of which are well known. Of importance for this article is that memories of the two wars are both strong and meaningfully different.

In an article on collective memory and the Vietnam War, focused on the discussion surrounding the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz (1991) call Vietnam “the least prestigious war in American history” (p. 416). Vietnam was “controversial, morally questionable, and unsuccessful,” a “painful event” in collective memory (p. 381). At the same time, the war’s participants exhibited “traditional virtues of self-sacrifice, courage, loyalty, and honor” (p. 381), and society has taken measures to commemorate them. The “commemorative formula” for the war, summed up nicely by Mayo, has been “honoring the individuals who fought rather than the country’s lost cause” (Mayo, 1988: 170). There have always been people, many of them veterans, who wished to remember the war differently—with a focus on valor, patriotism, and victory. But Bodnar (1992) has shown how the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, for instance, represents a triumph of those who prefer to remember the war by mourning the dead, over those who prefer a more celebratory tone.

Biesecker (2002), in a similar (though with quite different conclusions) exploration of collective memory and World War II, considers World War II in popular texts such as Saving Private Ryan and The Greatest Generation, just after the turn of the millennium. She finds recollections of the war used as a “civics lesson” about unity in what was becoming an increasingly fractured America. Biesecker quotes President Bill Clinton, speaking about World War II veterans: “Let me urge all of us to summon the spirit that joined that generation, that stood together and cared for one another.” Later, Clinton said a World War II memorial would be “a permanent reminder of just how much we Americans can do when we work together instead of fighting among ourselves” (p. 394). It was not always thus—Bodnar (2010) writes that “the memory and meaning of that war was actually a matter of contention among Americans who lived through those times” (p. 1) and that

there were always those who could never forget the suffering war had brought, who were never completely comforted by patriotic rhetoric, and who resented the fact that they had to relinquish some of their most basic rights to liberty and life. (p. 3)

Many of “those” were veterans. But in this case, a different kind of commemoration won out; the war is now remembered with “tales about extraordinary patriots who protected their nation out of a sense of love and duty … Acts of killing and dying were transformed into heroic deeds and cherished memories” and “the sweet sounds of valor ultimately eclipsed the painful cries of loss” (pp. 8–9).

The obituaries in this study

The observations that follow are based on a sample of 100 recent obituaries, 50 of World War II veterans and 50 of Vietnam War veterans. These obituaries were drawn from 12 US newspapers via searches on LexisNexis and Newsbank. I found the first 40 obituaries in the sample by searching for “obituaries and vietnam” and then separately “obituaries and world war II” in the “Newspapers” category of LexisNexis. These searches returned lists, in reverse chronological order, of articles using both terms from 350+ newspapers, and I selected the 20 most recent applicable obituaries from each war. Because not all newspapers submit obituaries to LexisNexis, and because my search terms were not exhaustive, a disproportionate number of these obituaries were from the The Philadelphia Inquirer. To offset this imbalance, I added a strategic sample, selecting the 10 most recent obituaries of veterans from each war from the Orlando Sentinel, The Dallas Morning News, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer archived on Newsbank, using the same search terms and process as for the LexisNexis search.

I selected only storied obituaries of US military veterans who served overseas in one of these wars. This means I left out brief death notices that lacked a narrative structure. I excluded obituaries of major public figures, such as that of Sgt Major Basil Plumley, who was depicted in the film We Were Soldiers, although several minor and local public figures are included. I also left out obituaries of veterans who served in both wars and obituaries that were unclear about whether or not the veteran had served in a war zone.² Finally, in order to limit the factors that might influence my comparison, I selected only obituaries written by professional journalists, as indicated by a by-line on the piece, an attribution to a family member as a source of information in the journalistic style (e.g. “He milked cows to earn spending money and rode horses whenever he could, his daughter said”), or a format similar to other journalist-authored obituaries in the same newspaper.

In the resulting sample, of the 50 obituaries about Vietnam War veterans (published between 20 June 2003 and 28 November 2013), 16 were from The Philadelphia Inquirer; 10 each from the Orlando Sentinel, The Dallas Morning News, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; and 1 each from The New York Times, New Hampshire Union Leader, San Pedro Valley News-Sun, and New York Daily News. Of the 50 obituaries about World War II veterans (published between 22 August 2007 and 16 October 2013), 9 were from The Philadelphia Inquirer; 10 each from the Orlando Sentinel, The Dallas Morning News, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 3 from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; 2 from The New York Times; and 1 each from The Baltimore Sun, Akron Beacon-Journal, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Sacramento Bee, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

There are limits to what can be culled from a systematic but admittedly unscientific sampling procedure of the sort I employed. For example, I cannot say anything about how often either war gets mentioned in veterans’ obituaries; if a veteran is the subject of an obituary but the war he fought in isn’t mentioned, he is not part of this sample. Nor can I say much about the process of collective memory being written into obituaries? We won’t know, for instance, whether it does its work through obituary writers and their norms, or through friends, family, and other sources who inform the writers, or even through the decedent himself, who may well have composed his own story with collective memory in mind.

Nonetheless, using a qualitative narrative analysis approach, the sample does provide the textual material needed to identify themes or structures in texts (Riessman, 2005), particularly with respect to the construction of the decedent’s “public” narrative identity. It allows us to hint at indications that collective memory has altered an individual’s story in a way that makes it different from the tale he might have told—indications that, as Hume (2000) puts it, individuality is “subsumed by the needs and values of the collective society” (p. 15). And it allows us to say something meaningful about how individual biography, collective memory, and journalistic norms combine to shape how we remember the veterans of each war.

What the obituaries say

Obituaries of World War II and Vietnam veterans appear broadly similar at first glance, in the sense that both are faithful to journalism’s traditional obituary conventions. But a close look at what is emphasized, downplayed, celebrated, and ignored about the decedents’ lives, particularly with respect to discussion of military experience, reveals dramatic differences—differences that reflect the presence and influence of collective memory in the obituaries. Based on my close readings of these obituaries, I suggest that the ways collective memory is woven into these life stories can be split into four broad, interrelated categories: selection of life-defining experiences, selection and emphasis of specific events and experiences, use of historical detail, and provision of cultural scripts. I discuss each in turn.

Selection of life-defining experiences

The construction of a life story requires the selection of memories to treat as self-defining—events and experiences that “reflect recurrent life concerns” (Singer and Salovey, 1993 in McAdams, 2008). When a life story is told in an obituary, such selections become extremely powerful and defining because obituaries are often so short and, significantly, have headlines. The things that are foregrounded can become practically the whole story.

One of the ways collective memory surfaces differently in obituaries of Vietnam and World War II veterans is in the selection of what gets remembered first and foremost about the deceased.

“John Doe, World War II veteran” versus “John Doe, plumber.”

Obituary headlines typically include the name of the decedent, followed by one or two key facts about him, either in the form of a phrase or a short list, for example, “Abraham Lincoln, 56, President, honest man,” or “Abraham Lincoln: 1809–1865—President kept Union together.” These key facts are key facts, the first thing obituary readers read, and for some, certainly, the only thing.

Among the obituaries in this study, World War II is treated as a headline-worthy life experience much more often than Vietnam. Veto Iavecchia is summed up as a “print superintendent, World War II airman” and William Hesser as a “World War II glider pilot.” The key traits identified about Jesse W. Naul, Jr are “salesman” and “decorated Navy pilot in WWII” and about Robert Marion Soule are “Decorated WWII pilot” and “patriarch of large family.” Nearly half (23) of the 50 obituaries of World War II veterans explicitly mention World War II in the headline. Fewer (11) of the 48 Vietnam veteran obituary headlines mention Vietnam,³ referring more often to military service without mentioning the war by name, as in “Paul V. McCullough, Jr: Peco retiree, veteran, 59.” In total, 14 Vietnam veterans’ obituaries take this more general approach, while only 6 of the World War II veterans’ obituaries do so.

This tendency signals a comparative inclination to use obituaries of World War II veterans as an occasion for remembering World War II and to define the veterans’ lives in large part by their participation in the war. Vietnam veterans are less often defined this way. If their service is a headline, the war may well not be mentioned.

War stories versus just the facts

Below the headlines, in the bodies of the obituaries, the different treatment of the two wars in the lives of the veterans continues. Some obituaries include detailed war stories; others take a “just the official facts” approach to recounting military experience, that is, a description that includes no details about a veteran’s military experience beyond branch of service, job or rank, medals, and time and place of service.

Here is a typical passage about military experience from a “just the facts” obituary. This is the entirety of the obituary’s discussion of Richard McMillan’s military service:

Mac was a veteran of the Vietnam War and served with the U.S. Air Force and was the recipient of the Vietnam Service Medal and Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Among Vietnam veteran obituaries, 18 of 50 take this approach, and several more come close, mentioning only a minor additional detail, such as an injury. Among World War II veteran obituaries, however, only 8 of the 50 are so cursory. World War II veterans’ obituaries tend to spend more time on the war. While there are obituaries of Vietnam veterans that go into great detail, there is an overall tendency to treat war as a defining event in World War II veterans’ lives more readily than in Vietnam veterans’.

Taken together, the patterns found in both the headlines and bodies of these obituaries reflect the predilections of collective memory: to embrace the remembrance of World War II and simply to honor service in the Vietnam War without focusing on the war itself. They also demonstrate an important, potent way collective memory can occupy a life story in an obituary: by deciding which aspects of a person’s life define him.

Selection and emphasis of specific events and experiences

In addition to the selection of defining life experiences, the construction of a life story requires selection on a smaller scale. Within the broad subject outlines of a life story are smaller stories, and the stories chosen and the way they are told steer the larger story toward a particular meaning. Recall that Thomson (1994) shows how Anzac soldiers used these kinds of selections (such as whether to emphasize comradery or fear) to square their own stories with the Australian story of military masculinity. This sort of editing in the interest of collective memory is apparent in these obituaries as well.

On the attack versus being attacked

World War II veterans are frequently on the offensive in their obituaries. Veto Iavecchia goes on a “bombing run to destroy the synthetic fuel supplies in Politz, Germany.” John Alison shoots down seven Japanese planes, while James Morehead shoots down three in one day. Jesse W. Naul, Jr sinks three Japanese warships, and “he would have sunk a fourth one … but the torpedo hung up.” Siegmund “Sig” Goldman flies 32 bombing missions over enemy territory, and Joseph Stoerrle flies 33. Other World War II veterans destroy enemy planes and trains, shell beaches, and score direct hits. World War II veterans are victims of violence, too—they get both shot down and taken prisoner. But their enemies are on the receiving end of a great deal of punishment.

The Vietnam veterans, meanwhile, are almost always on the receiving end of Viet Cong attacks. Stephen Murr is “the first to draw enemy fire” because of his radio antenna; David Delay, Jr is attacked in a supply convoy; John F. Baker goes on a mission to rescue trapped soldiers and is ambushed; Melvin Lee Brewer survives a night attack; George Cruse is shot in the leg and then returns fire;⁴ Sidney Chernin is shot down over a thick forest; James Downey comes under mortar attack; Ted Jacoby is fired on during a rescue. Not one of these events is preceded by aggressive action by the decedent.

Out of 50 Vietnam veteran obituaries, only three can be construed as showing the decedent on the attack, and even these are more subtle than many World War II obits: John P. Russell flies fighter-bombers, Paul Bergondy flies combat missions, and George Petrie takes part in an assault—although, notably, the attack is an attempt to liberate American prisoners of war (POWs) from a prison camp. Indeed, whereas World War II veterans’ obituaries occasionally celebrate destruction, heroic acts in the Vietnam veterans’ obituaries generally involve saving fellow soldiers. John Cunningham, for instance, aids injured fellow soldiers during an intense firefight, and John M. Mjoseth pulls a fellow serviceman to safety. Only John F. Baker is explicitly depicted killing enemy soldiers, and that is in the context of the aforementioned ambush, with 3000 Viet Cong “hiding in trees, bunkers and in tunnels,” yelling at Baker’s company of 200, “Come on, G.I., come and get us!” No one ever scores a “direct hit” in the Vietnam veterans’ obituaries. It is difficult, after reading a few of them, to even imagine this type of imagery appearing in one.

To some extent, this disparity may reflect different actual combat experiences. Again, as Schudson (1989) notes, the past has characteristics that cannot be ignored; World War II and Vietnam were different wars, with different military realities, and some of those differences may help account for the fact that World War II veterans are recalled on the attack, while Vietnam veterans are remembered for coming under fire. But US forces were certainly sometimes aggressors in Vietnam—the historical disparity cannot be as wide as these obituaries represent. So why the difference? Bodnar’s observation that remembrance of World War II has successfully turned violence into virtue is relevant here. Life stories of World War II veterans can include aggression and killing because these acts do not present an ethical conflict in the World War II context. The meanings such actions impute are not problematic, and in fact speak well of the decedent in mainstream American culture. Collective memory of Vietnam is preoccupied with the immorality and failure of US military actions (Hariman and Lucaites, 2003). McMahon (2002) observes that whereas World War II movies generally depict a heroic American character, films about Vietnam almost always include an “atrocity scene.” In the case of Vietnam, American collective memory has not transformed violence into virtue.

Recall that obituaries are “idealized” life stories. To achieve idealization, obituaries of Vietnam veterans select war stories in which the subjects do not aggress or do so under only the most understandable circumstances. In fact, given the context of collective memory of the Vietnam War, to describe a decedent on the attack might violate the proscription against speaking ill of the dead, by associating him with atrocity or failure. Collective memory here lends contextual meaning to specific events and experiences, thus influencing which experiences are selected for inclusion and how they are described. This is another important way collective memory can influence the construction of individual identity in an obituary.

Use of historical detail

Hume (2000) found that obituaries connect the deceased to the past with references to historical events or figures—“symbols associated with American public memory” (p. 124). That practice is evident in this sample, though not uniformly. What stands out about the use of historical information in the obituaries of these two groups of veterans is how differently it is done in each.

Specific moments versus general danger

World War II veterans’ obituaries are filled with references to specific historic events—instances of concrete time or place. Famous events like D-Day and Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and Pearl Harbor come up repeatedly in this sample. There are also mentions of less well-known events such as the first Allied invasion of Africa, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the last raid on Ploesti, Operation Thursday, and more. In addition, the obituaries contain trivia, such as the names of planes like “Mistah Chick” and “Touch of Texas.” Zeney Sucharski’s experience is described this way:

He served as a medic with the First Infantry Division, nicknamed the Big Red One for its distinctive shoulder patch. He participated in the landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day and later saw action in the Battle of the Bulge.

Here is Robert Laprade’s experience:

Laprade served as a lieutenant aboard the amphibious ship LST 31 in the Pacific.

In Navy parlance, LST is Landing Ship, Tank. Laprade liked to say it stood for large, slow target.

In late 1943, LST 31 participated in the attack at Tarawa Atoll, the first time in the war that the U.S. faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing. He served through numerous battles, including at Okinawa and Saipan.

The details in these excerpts call to mind the historical context of the decedent’s service by focusing remembrance in part on specifics of the war. About half of the World War II veterans’ obituaries in this sample reference a historic event, and several more include further details (like the names of planes or geographic specifics).

As noted earlier, Vietnam veterans’ obituaries include fewer details than World War II obits generally. But even when they go beyond a “just the facts” approach, the Vietnam obits tend not to include these types of specific references. In the 50-obituary sample, only 7 include mention of a historic event, such as the Tet Offensive. A few more include details such as the nickname of a brigade (the “Redcatchers”) and broad geographic descriptions, such as Qang Nam province or South Vietnam. But generally, Vietnam veterans are described on the “front lines,” doing “jungle operations” or flying over “dangerous territory.” Theirs is a vaguer history.

The practice Hume identifies, then, of linking decedents to the public past through reference to historic events is deployed differently depending on collective memory of the public past in question. For World War II veterans, being linked to the public past means their individual life stories become vessels for detailed remembrance of the war in which they served. For Vietnam veterans, it means their experiences are recalled with less vivid historical context, as their service is honored without as much focus on the war itself. This use of historical detail is another way their individual identities are filtered through collective memory.

Provision of cultural scripts

The final way collective memory works its way into these veterans’ obituaries is by providing cultural scripts to inform interpretation. Cultural scripts are assumptions about the way the world works, which inform our understanding of events and behaviors. “Remembering always entails the working of past experience into available cultural scripts,” writes Roper (2000). It is inevitable, then, that a remembrance of a life would have cultural scripts in evidence. But in one aspect in particular, the cultural scripts at work in these obituaries appear to be strongly associated with collective memory of the wars in question.

“Haunted” versus “didn’t talk much about the war.”

The majority of obituaries, from both groups, don’t mention the effects of the respective wars on the veterans. But when the obituaries do discuss this matter, they do so differently depending on the war in which the veteran served. Six Vietnam veterans are described struggling to cope with the aftereffects of witnessing the horrors of combat. Richard Powers “struggled to live a full life because of a psychological disability triggered by wartime experiences.” George Cruse had flashbacks and issues with helicopters. Paul McCullough, John Beal, and Paul Hinde all suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and James Downey was “haunted” by his experiences. (Two veterans are also described as being proud of their service.) One veteran, Mike Dixon, was disturbed by the poor treatment of veterans upon his return.

Two World War II veterans’ obituaries use language along these lines: Arthur Kennedy, who was taken prisoner by the Nazis, “took home the spoon he ate with as a POW, an aversion to German shepherds and nightmares about his wartime experiences.” Joe Sanford suffered from PTSD. A few World War II veterans are described as being patriotic or proud and one as talking about his missions often. But the World War II obituaries that stand out in this regard are the eight that describe the veteran as not talking about his experiences. Anthony Peleckis “never discussed his harrowing experience”; Zeney Sucharski and Thomas Shaw Greenwood both “rarely spoke” of theirs. Bryghte Godbold “didn’t talk much” about the war, nor did Eugene Morgan, until his wife died. Ralph Monteleone’s obituary begins this way:

Ralph S. Monteleone was like so many other men of his generation: he fought in World War II, said little about it and came home to work hard and raise a family.

Similarly, William Hesser was “a quiet member of the Greatest Generation—a veteran of numerous campaigns of World War II”:

It is possible that the difference between how these obituaries treat post-war effects is attributable, at least in part, to a difference in experience. PTSD was first added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980 (Friedman, 2007). The factual biographical experience of living with a diagnosis, and in a culture open to discussing such matters, might account somewhat for the disparity in references to the disorder (and associated language). But the very distinct, repetitive framing of some World War II veterans’ post-war experiences suggests the influence of cultural scripts on the obituaries as well (scripts that may themselves have been influenced by historical cultural differences in the treatment of veterans). When Vietnam veterans struggle with memories of war, they are understood as being “haunted” by the war, victims of that “painful event.” When World War II veterans wish not to discuss the war, they are sometimes troubled, but also sometimes just stoic heroes who did their jobs. The power to influence choice of cultural scripts, then, is another way collective memory can influence the life stories in obituaries.

Collective memory, obituaries, and the individual identity project

When you Google the phrase “first line of my obituary,” you find numerous examples of people using it as shorthand to talk about the thing for which they will best be remembered or the aspects of them that best sum them up. How we get remembered after we die is important to us, and obituaries are a concrete, public vessel for that remembrance. They matter.

This article has examined how collective memory of a major event can influence the way an individual’s story is told in an obituary and thus how he is remembered. Obituaries of World War II veterans reflect collective memory of that war by emphasizing valor and victory. The collective memory evident in obituaries of Vietnam veterans is equally apparent but quite different—these obituaries focus less on war than those of their World War II counterparts, and when they do, emphasize danger and victimization. This difference is not simply historical: historical differences can’t wholly account for the fact that US veterans are never portrayed on the offensive in Vietnam, for example. Rather, the obituaries echo Biesecker’s (2002) description of World War II as the subject of “cherished memories” and Mayo’s (1988) observation that Vietnam is remembered by “honoring the individuals who fought rather than the country’s lost cause.” The stories differ because of society’s choices about how to remember the wars.

My analyses suggest that there are four major ways collective memory gets woven into the lives these obituaries portray. It appears in the selection of defining life experiences, in the selection of specific events and experiences that give stories their meaning, in the nature and volume of historical detail included in a story, and in the choice of cultural scripts to explain behavior. To some extent, these categories are consistent with the ways living individuals use collective memory in constructing their own stories. Studies of collective memory in the stories of individuals have highlighted the selection or emphasis of events and experiences. But it is worth understanding how these dynamics work specifically in the obituary context because obituaries are different than first-person narrative identities. They are shorter, include headlines, are public, and they are told by someone other than the person who lived the story. Because they have a pretense to social authority and finality, they can be an important point in the individual’s identity project.

There is reason to believe that, at this important point, the people who construct decedents’ identities, whether journalists or the deceased’s friends and family, at least sometimes make different choices than the deceased would have made and do so in a way that privileges collective memory. Consider again the World War II veterans who preferred not to talk about the war, and particularly this passage from William Hesser’s obituary:

His children said Sunday that their father, who was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant, didn’t talk much about the war—or what he did in it—but his military record shows he was awarded seven battle stars for his efforts in the U.S. Army from Jan. 6, 1943 to Oct. 19, 1945. He participated in campaigns that included Normandy, Sicily, Naples, Rome and Germany.

Mr. Hesser piloted supply gliders, which were used to airlift troops, a jeep, an artillery gun or even a small bulldozer over enemy lines to areas unsafe to land a plane.

This is reminiscent of Bodnar’s (2010) observation that World War II veterans who preferred to mourn the war lost the battle over collective memory. Hesser didn’t like to talk about the war but the obituary does anyway. Although it’s possible that this difference is explained, at least in part, by social proscriptions against self-aggrandizement, the fact that the obituary insists on grafting onto him a war hero’s biography still suggests that collective memory is informing the obituary’s version of Hesser’s story.

Similarly, one can imagine at least some Vietnam veterans telling war stories in which they attack and kill Viet Cong. Again, Bodnar (1992) shows that many Vietnam veterans wanted to be remembered triumphantly. But the demands of collective memory appear to preclude such stories from appearing in their obituaries.

Nor is this the only way collective memory “subsumes” individuality in these obituaries. By writing collective memory into life stories in the same several ways, obituaries make veterans of each respective war seem more like one another. Were you a World War II veteran? You were probably a patriot and a hero. Did you serve in Vietnam? Probably just another victim caught up in that ugly war. In this way, obituaries help Bodnar’s “official culture” overpower his “vernacular culture” even in the arena of individual identity. This is not at all to say that the entirety of a person’s identity is dictated by collective memory in obituaries. But in instances such as wars, when the demands of collective memory are great, “official culture” becomes a very strong negotiator.

The categories outlined in this article are powerful tools obituaries can use to make decedents’ life stories fit, and indeed promote, collective memory. In using these tools, they fulfill the larger purpose of journalism articulated by Kitch and Hume (2008), to create something “cultural” rather than “personal,” and not only to recite collective memory but also to maintain it going forward. Readers of obituaries are reminded of the wars in which deceased veterans served—and they are reminded of specific versions of the wars. This study considers how American collective memory of these two wars is preserved through the obituaries of the men who fought in them. But the four ways these veterans’ stories are influenced may be applicable in other contexts, such as remembrances of social movements, tragedies, and other society-defining events. Future research might consider those contexts, and attempt to compare obituaries of the people who lived through such events to the stories they told about themselves, because the two versions may well be different. When individuals’ stories intersect with collective memory, we lay claim to them.

Footnotes

Notes

Author biography

Doron Taussig is a PhD student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the role of life stories in political and social discourse.

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