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"United States. Army Military life History 20th century."
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Not a Gentleman's War
Wars are not fought by politicians and generals--they are fought by soldiers. Written by a combat veteran of the Vietnam War,Not a Gentleman's Waris about such soldiers--a gritty, against-the-grain defense of the much-maligned junior officer.Conventional wisdom holds that the junior officer in Vietnam was a no-talent, poorly trained, unmotivated soldier typified by Lt. William Calley of My Lai infamy. Drawing on oral histories, after-action reports, diaries, letters, and other archival sources, Ron Milam debunks this view, demonstrating that most of the lieutenants who served in combat performed their duties well and effectively, serving with great skill, dedication, and commitment to the men they led. Milam's narrative provides a vivid, on-the-ground portrait of what the platoon leader faced: training his men, keeping racial tensions at bay, and preventing alcohol and drug abuse, all in a war without fronts. Yet despite these obstacles, junior officers performed admirably, as documented by field reports and evaluations of their superior officers.More than 5,000 junior officers died in Vietnam; all of them had volunteered to lead men in battle. Based on meticulous and wide-ranging research, this book provides a much-needed serious treatment of these men--the only such study in print--shedding new light on the longest war in American history.
eBook
Armed with Abundance
Popular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, inArmed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war so that swimming pools, ice cream, visits from celebrities, and other \"comforts\" share the frame with combat.To address a tenuous morale situation, military authorities, Lair reveals, wielded abundance to insulate soldiers--and, by extension, the American public--from boredom and deprivation, making the project of war perhaps easier and certainly more palatable. The result was dozens of overbuilt bases in South Vietnam that grew more elaborate as the war dragged on. Relying on memoirs, military documents, and G.I. newspapers, Lair finds that consumption and satiety, rather than privation and sacrifice, defined most soldiers' Vietnam deployments. Abundance quarantined the U.S. occupation force from the impoverished people it ostensibly had come to liberate, undermining efforts to win Vietnamese \"hearts and minds\" and burdening veterans with disappointment that their wartime service did not measure up to public expectations. With an epilogue that finds a similar paradigm at work in Iraq,Armed with Abundanceoffers a unique and provocative perspective on modern American warfare.
eBook
Lessons in leadership : my life in the US Army from World War II to Vietnam
\"John R. Deane Jr. (1919-2013) was born with all the advantages a man needs to succeed in a career in the US Army, and he capitalized on his many opportunities in spectacular fashion. The son of one of George C. Marshall's closest assistants, Deane graduated from West Point with the first class of World War II and served in combat under the dynamic General Terry de la Mesa Allen Sr. After the war, he led a German espionage unit in operations against the Soviets, personally led the first foot patrol following the course of the Berlin Wall as it was being constructed, participated in the 1965 Dominican Republic intervention, and saw combat in Vietnam. In 1975, he received his fourth star and became commander of the US Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command. In Lessons in Leadership, this exceptional soldier not only discusses working with some of the Army's most influential and colorful leaders--including James M. Gavin, William E. DePuy, William Westmoreland, and Creighton Abrams Jr.--but also the many junior officers who helped him develop the leadership skills for which he became well known. Throughout, he offers eyewitness accounts of key Cold War-era events as well as wise observations concerning the leadership and management challenges facing the Department of Defense. Ably edited and annotated by Jack C. Mason, Deane's illuminating memoir also features interviews with several of Deane's contemporaries, whose comments and recollections are interspersed to provide depth and context to the narrative.\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Chewing Gum, Candy Bars, and Beer
Veterans of World War II have long sung the praises of the PX—a little piece of home in far-flung corners of the world. Though many books on that war tell of combat operations and logistics in detail, this is the first to tell the full story of the Army Exchange System. The AES was dedicated to providing soldiers with some of the comforts they had enjoyed in civilian life—candy, beer, cigarettes, razor blades, soap—whether by operating an exchange close to where they were fighting or by sending goods forward to the lines, free of charge. The beer may have been only \"3.2,\" but it was cheap and, unlike British beer, was served cold, thanks to PX coolers. And a constant supply of cigarettes and chewing gum gave GIs an advantage when flirting with the local girls. In chronicling the history of the AES, James J. Cooke harks back to the Civil War, in which sutlers sold basic items to the Yankee troops for exorbitant prices, and to the First World War, when morale-building provisions were brought in by agencies such as the Red Cross. He then traces the evolution of the PX through World War II from the point of view of those who ran the service and that of the soldiers who used it, blending administrative history with colorful anecdotes and interspersing letters from GIs. Cooke views the PX as a manifestation of American mobility, materialism, and the cultural revolution of mass consumerism that flourished in the 1920s, serving soldiers who were themselves products of this new American way of retail and expected a high level of material support in time of war. He emphasizes the accomplishments of Major General Joseph W. Byron, chief PX officer from 1941 to 1943, and his deputy, Colonel Frank Kerr. He also tells how the PX dealt with the presence of large numbers of women in uniform and the need to meet their demands in exchange offerings. By 1945, General Byron could boast that the Army Exchange Service operated the world's largest department store chain, serving the grandest army the United States had ever put in the field, and today the PX is still a central factor of military life. Yet as Cooke shows, the key to the AES's importance was ultimately the way it bolstered morale—and helped give our fighting men the will to keep fighting.
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A Nation Forged in War
World War II shaped the United States in profound ways, and
this new book—the first in the Legacies of War
series—explores one of the most significant changes it
fostered: a dramatic increase in ethnic and religious
tolerance.
A Nation Forged in War is the first full-length study
of how large-scale mobilization during the Second World War
helped to dissolve longstanding differences among White
soldiers of widely divergent backgrounds. Never before or since
have so many Americans served in the armed forces at one time:
more than 15 million donned uniforms in the period from 1941 to
1945. Thomas Bruscino explores how these soldiers' shared
experiences—enduring basic training, living far from
home, engaging in combat—transformed their views of other
ethnic groups and religious traditions. He further examines how
specific military policies and practices worked to counteract
old prejudices, and he makes a persuasive case that throwing
together men of different regions, ethnicities, religions, and
classes not only fostered a greater sense of tolerance but also
forged a new American identity. When soldiers returned home
after the war with these new attitudes, they helped reorder
what it meant to be white in America. Using the presidential
campaigns of Al Smith in 1928 and John F. Kennedy in 1960 as
bookend events, Bruscino notes a key change in religious bias.
Smith's defeat came at the end of a campaign rife with
anti-Catholic sentiment; Kennedy's victory some three decades
later proved that such religious bigotry was no longer an
insurmountable obstacle. Despite such advances, Bruscino notes
that the growing broad-mindedness produced by the war had
limits: it did not extend to African Americans, whose own
struggle for equality would dramatically mark the postwar
decades. Extensively documented,
A Nation Forged in War is one of the few books on the
social and cultural impact of the World War II years. Scholars
and students of military, ethnic, social, and religious history
will be fascinated by this groundbreaking new volume.
eBook
The girls next door : bringing the home front to the front lines
The emotional toll of war can be as debilitating to soldiers as hunger, disease, and injury. Beginning in World War I, in an effort to boost soldiers' morale and remind them of the stakes of victory, the American military formalized a recreation program that sent respectable young women and famous entertainers overseas. Kara Dixon Vuic builds her narrative around the young women from across the United States, many of whom had never traveled far from home, who volunteered to serve in one of the nation's most brutal work environments. From the \"Lassies\" in France and mini-skirted coeds in Vietnam to Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, Vuic provides a fascinating glimpse into wartime gender roles and the tensions that continue to complicate American women's involvement in the military arena. The recreation-program volunteers heightened the passions of troops but also domesticated everyday life on the bases. Their presence mobilized support for the war back home, while exporting American culture abroad. Carefully recruited and selected as symbols of conventional femininity, these adventurous young women saw in the theater of war a bridge between public service and private ambition. This story of the women who talked and listened, danced and sang, adds an intimate chapter to the history of war and its ties to life in peacetime.-- Provided by publisher
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Steel Helmet and Mortarboard
As a young officer candidate in the Austrian army in 1938, Francis Heller refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler. Had he stayed in Vienna, he would have been arrested by the Gestapo. He subsequently made his way to America and earned a law degree but was drafted into the U.S. Army. Heller opted for service as an enlisted man in a combat unit and so distinguished himself in combat in the Pacific theater that he received a battlefield commission and served in the occupation of Japan. Escorting German nationals home from the Far East, he witnessed evidence of the horrors at Dachau that he had barely escaped.
eBook