Then, Plummer began using the story in his public lectures. He was featured on ABC s Nightline. But the story wasn t true. Plummer had been a junior officer in Vietnam with no authority to order air strikes. The need felt by some veterans to fabricate their combat record is understandable.
War is a rite of passage for men, something akin to children for women.
The society demands an account of the men it sends to war. With masculinity and military prowess linked, the latter can become a pump to inflate the former. Circumstances peculiar to the post-Vietnam era have accentuated the identity crises felt by many veterans. The loss of the war was experienced as a loss of manhood. And the damage extended well beyond the population of men who served in Vietnam.