Strick,

I don't know whether you've read Tim O'Brien's The Things they Carried. It's a good story collection about his experiences in Viet Nam. He makes the same point you make above, in a slightly different way. He recounts a moment when he could have fled to Canada, then thought about the reaction from his father and his community, and didn't do it.

He concludes by saying "I was a coward. I went to the war."

It's a good book if you're interested in folklore and in the Viet Nam war.