>
> Dan,
>
> I'm not sure that Chris' response was necessarily a "feel-good" conclusion
> so much as a more refined, "interesting question."  The next step would
> be to go out and try to confirm or deny his suggested interpretation
> through ethnography and ethnohistoric research.  The former would be
> particularly easy here.  I don't think post-modern archaeologists screw up
> so much in asking these kinds of questions, but in not going far enough to
> answer them.  Obviously, archaeology alone has its limitations.
>
> The whole resistance and re-appropriation of symbols also got me thinking
> about my dad, a PTSS Vietnam Vet.  He and his buddies wore their dog-tags
> well into the eighties, while spitting venom at the U.S. govt. and military
> that betrayed them.  What does that mean?
>
> -- Shannon Dawdy
>
Shannon,
 
I'm a Vietnam Vet, too, and these days we refer to it as PTSD--it's
been promoted from a syndrome to a disease. And like all powerful
material-culture symbols, my guess is that the tags represent the
ambiguity--and the anger of that ambiguity--many of us experienced. In
my case, I left my dogdags and service ribbons on the Tarmac at the
greater Pittsburgh Airport when I came home. An act which, 30 years
later, I regret in some ways. By the way, I'll be in New Orleans for
the first-ever reunion of my VN unit next month. I am presently giving
some serious thought about "recontextualization" and interpretation of
offerings left at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial ("The Wall") as my
next substantial archaeology project.
 
Dan