An International Struggle


African-American / Vietnamese Relations

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Kroll, Jerome. (February 1976). "Racial Patterns of Military Crimes in Vietnam." Psychiatry, 39(1), 51-64.

The abstract provided in the article reads:
"As part of a larger study of U.S. soldiers who committed offenses while serving in Vietnam and were sentenced to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, certain patterns emerged concerning the racial incidence of the types of crimes committed. Twice as many white soldiers as black soldiers were incarcerated for AWOL, while twice as many black soldiers as white soldiers were incarcerated for refusal to go out to the field for combat. Twice as many black soldiers as white soldiers were incarcerated for violent crimes against other U.S. soldiers, while six times as many white soldiers as black soldiers were incarcerated for violent crimes against Vietnamese persons. In terms of incidence of incarcerations per 100,000 soldiers in Vietnam, the incarceration rate of black soldiers greatly exceeded that of white soldiers, except for the category of violence against a Vietnamese national.

It would appear that the black and white soldiers perceived and reacted differently to the Vietnam experiences. A thesis will be developed here that the bases of the differential perceptions are the different background experiences which these groups brought with them to Vietnam. The white soldiers generalized certain racial prejudices to include the Vietnamese, and consequently viewed the Vietnamese with a mixture of suspicion, fearfulness, and disdain. The black soldiers tended to view the Vietnamese with greater sympathy and when not in actual combat looked upon the white soldiers as enemies and the Vietnamese as allies and fellow sufferers. The impact of combat pressures, maintenance of buddy relationships, and the terror of being passive in combat are discussed as they relate to the racial issues."
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