Abstract

This paper examines the United States' search for the remains of its servicemen missing in action (MIA) from the Vietnam War. I argue that the fragmentary and imprecise nature of the MIA body metonymically indicates the fluid borders of the American body politic. The complexity of the MIA body means that it must be reconstituted, achieved in this context through a massive effort at remains identification. This process not only reinscribes the borders of the MIA body but also fill the gaps in the borders of the body politic by ensuring that none of `us' are left `over there.' Fortifying the borders in turn serves to rejuvenate American domestic and international sovereignty eroded by the Vietnam War. So reinforced, the American body politic can begin to move beyond the ambiguities occasioned by the war and its aftermath. The essay concludes with a critique of this typically Hobbesian understanding and suggests that we remain skeptical of the notion of an unambiguously rejuvenated body politic.