In this era, where technical, scientific and technological advances have transformed the face of the armed conflicts, it is legitimate to ask if the realities of modern warfare and the military ethos are still compatible. Since the Great War, the experience of combat seems to be expressed only through negative feelings. Many veterans, for example, have privileged the feeling of shame when it comes to telling their experience. It seems to us that the discursive ethos contained in the American novels
on the Vietnam War are designed to modulate and reorient the preconceived ethos that define American combatants within social discourse. That is why we will try to observe how – by attacking the stereotypes and preconceived ideas of the doxas of the time, by invalidating the traditional image of the warrior and by portraying their moral qualities – the veteran‐authors seek to transform the representations of the combatant who nourish the popular imagination.

In this era, where technical, scientific and technological advances have transformed the face of the armed conflicts, it is legitimate to ask if the realities of modern warfare and the military ethos are still compatible. Since the Great War, the experience of combat seems to be expressed only through negative feelings. Many veterans, for example, have privileged the feeling of shame when it comes to telling their experience. It seems to us that the discursive ethos contained in the American novels
on the Vietnam War are designed to modulate and reorient the preconceived ethos that define American combatants within social discourse. That is why we will try to observe how – by attacking the stereotypes and preconceived ideas of the doxas of the time, by invalidating the traditional image of the warrior and by portraying their moral qualities – the veteran‐authors seek to transform the representations of the combatant who nourish the popular imagination.