American Soldiers
2
MODERN WAR STUDIES
Theodore A. Wilson General Editor
Raymond A. Callahan J. Garry Clifford Jacob W. Kipp Allan R. Millett Carol Reardon
Dennis Showalter David R. Stone Series Editors
3
American Soldiers Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam
Peter S. Kindsvatter
Foreword by Russell F. Weigley
University Press of Kansas
4
© 2003 by the University Press of Kansas All rights reserved
Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kindsvatter, Peter S. American soldiers : ground combat in the World Wars, Korea, and
Vietnam / Peter S. Kindsvatter; foreward by Russell F. Weigley. p. cm. — (Modern war studies)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-7006-1416-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7006-2659-5 (ebook) 1. Combat—History—20th century. 2. United States. Army. Infantry—
History—20th century. 3. United States. Marine Corps—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series.
UA28 .K55 2003 355′.00973’0904—dc21
2002012957
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in the print publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
5
Contents
Foreword, Russell F. Weigley
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Rallying to the Flag
2. The Environment of War
3. Immersion in the Environment
4. Coping with the Environment of War
5. For Comrades and Country
6. Failing to Cope with the Environment of War
7. The Joys of War
8. Closing with the Enemy
9. Leadership in Combat
10. Dwellers Beyond the Environment of War
11. Equal Opportunity in the Foxhole
Conclusion: Don’t Expect Too Much from War
Notes
6
Bibliography
Index
Photo Gallery
7
Foreword
John Keegan introduced his classic study of the experience of combat, The Face of Battle, with the lament that no military historian had hitherto succeeded in conveying that experience realistically.* Just what it felt like to place yourself in the way of numerous deadly missiles, blade strokes and bayonet thrusts, and clubbing weapons of various kinds and to persist in moving forward into the storm had, he believed, eluded previous historians. Keegan set out to offer a corrective, and he did so impressively, keeping sight of the simple, central point, amid a good deal of complex exposition, that the dominant emotion and experience in battle is to be scared.
Notwithstanding the classic stature of Keegan’s book, there is an element of the self-serving in his introductory remarks about how writers before him had failed to get matters right regarding combat. Disappointed by that apparent attitude, I myself initially put The Face of Battle aside. It required insistent friends to persuade me to pick it up again, conquer my distaste for what proved to be a small part of it, and discover that on the whole it is a great book. Putting aside, however, the self-satisfaction of Keegan’s contrasting his own work with other historians’ accounts of the nature of combat, his position is not without merit. It is exceedingly difficult to capture in writing the chaos of events and emotions that occur in combat. All descriptions of the climactic events of war dilute them.
A great virtue of the present volume by Peter Kindsvatter is that, by reading and passing on to us his findings in an extraordinary number of American soldiers’ narratives of combat during the four major conscript- army wars of the twentieth century, he has identified a surprisingly large
8
number of writers who have in some measure overcome this difficulty and who actually tell us what it is to be in battle. He presents generous samplings of such writings within his own interpretive analysis to create a major addition to that slim body of literature that does convey a sense of the reality of battle. Kindsvatter’s book is based firmly on the firsthand accounts of combat written by twentieth-century American soldiers and marines of the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Its author acts as a sensitive, skillful mediator between the writers and us.
One of the merits of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle is that Keegan provides so much insight into the social history of the British soldiers with whom he is concerned because he knows that without understanding whence the soldiers came the reader will not be able to comprehend properly how they behaved in combat. Similarly, Peter Kindsvatter leads up to the combat experience with detailed examinations of his writers’ accounts of the entire process of living in the armed forces, from induction through basic and advanced training. Through the soldiers’ writings he sympathetically explores their ambivalent relationships with their families and friends back home to whom they knew they could not adequately communicate what they experienced, and their less ambivalent, more often hostile attitudes toward the rear echelons of men who wore military uniforms but did not share the trials at the cutting edge.
Yet it is experiencing combat and how men could enter and endure it with which Kindsvatter is principally concerned. Similar issues of why men were able to enter the hell of combat and why they stuck to it have been addressed recently for the American Civil War by James M. McPherson in For Cause and Comrades.* As his title implies, McPherson found that the writings of Civil War soldiers indicate that they fought first for ideological reasons—for their cause and country—and secondarily for their comrades—for motives having to do with the bonding of friends and with unit solidarity. Kindsvatter finds the same scale of motivational values among his twentieth-century soldiers, which will cause some of us to rethink accustomed beliefs. We have had a tendency, drawn from impressionistic and insufficient evidence, to believe that the more worldly wise soldiers of the century just ended were more likely than the romantic rustics of the Victorian era to fight simply and cynically just to get an unpleasant job over with. Kindsvatter shows that combat motivation remained rooted in the same kind of ideological, patriotic, and comradeship values in twentieth-century American mass armies as in our first mass army, even if less sentimentally expressed.
9
Kindsvatter has used more self-consciously literary sources than McPherson; where the latter relied mainly on unpublished letters and diaries, Kindsvatter has drawn from published fiction, memoirs, and histories by combat veterans. Fiction and nonfiction have been of nearly equal value for his purposes, but if there is an edge, fictionalized memories of combat seem to come a bit closer to presenting a cogent version of the experience of battle. Perhaps feeling obliged to adhere to what can be confirmed as the literal truth interferes with capturing a fuller truth, even in memoirs, let alone in the work of historians, thus reaffirming the degree of accuracy within John Keegan’s complaint about military historians who preceded him.
We can hope that by introducing these literary sources—that approach about as closely as words are able toward conveying what it is like to be part of war—Kindsvatter will bring us all to a better appreciation of that uniquely intense experience. We can hope, too, that Kindsvatter will succeed in sending his readers to examine the best of his sources for themselves. Perhaps a better comprehension of the realities of war will help us stay away from warlike policies, but I do not intend this Foreword to convey any such simpleminded antiwar message, nor is that by any means the purpose of Kindsvatter’s book. Through the book, however, we learn that those soldiers who approached combat informed by the best literary descriptions of it, though they could not fully be prepared for what they were entering—nothing could accomplish that—were at least more ready than those who came only with romantic images from the movies. If we are to continue to engage in combat, as we will, even that slight advantage for those new to it might make them better soldiers. More than that, it surely must be of some value for policymakers and for those who vote for policymakers to possess a modicum of understanding of what war is. Peter Kindsvatter gives us more than that modicum.
—Russell F. Weigley
*John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), pp. 15–54, 72– 78.
*James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). McPherson deals with similar themes, although with more emphasis on why men enlisted in the first place and somewhat less on why they continued fighting, in What They Fought For, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994).
10
Acknowledgments
This book, substantial as it is, started out as an even longer dissertation that required considerable refining. The dissertation and resulting book would not have been possible without the help of my devoted and talented wife, Marty. She not only typed the dissertation and the revised manuscript that followed but also applied her editing skills and common sense to make them better. She did these tasks while working full time to support us.
That this dissertation had publication potential in the first place owes much to my committee at Temple University. I was yet another student fortunate enough to have his work receive the thoughtful criticism and close attention of Dr. Russell F. Weigley, who supported and encouraged me during the entire Ph.D. process, right through the job-hunting stage. Dr. Richard H. Immerman, a skillful editor, went beyond the call of duty to carefully read and thoughtfully edit my dissertation. Dr. David Alan Rosenberg added his considerable breadth of knowledge to the process. My outside reader, historian and retired U.S. Army colonel Dr. Henry G. Gole, shared my interest in the study of the soldier in combat, provided thoughtful insights, and shared his personal experiences as a combatant in two wars.
I must also thank Dr. Dennis E. Showalter, who not only read the manuscript I sent to the University Press of Kansas, twice (the long and longer versions), but also provided constructive criticism and comments while remaining steadfastly supportive. Finally, I want to thank Dr. Jack Atwater, the director of the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum, and his staff, Ed Heasley, Alan Killinger, Tim Tidwell, Judy Garrett, and Elmer Wymer. They have assisted me in my official duties as the Ordnance Corps
11
historian in myriad ways and have also provided moral support while I finished this project.
12
What it is that makes a man go out into dangerous places and get himself shot at with increasing consistency until finally he dies, is an interesting subject for speculation.
And an interesting study.
—James Jones, WWII: A Chronicle of Soldiering
13
Introduction
What, indeed, motivated novelist James Jones and his fellow GIs in World War II, or American soldiers in World War I or the Korean and Vietnam Wars, to go out into dangerous places? And once there—in the combat zone—what enabled them to persevere until all too often they did die, or were wounded or emotionally broken? These questions generate more than just interesting speculation. The answers are critically important. Men facing battle or charged with leading troops need to understand the nature of these “dangerous places” to be better prepared to deal with them. Civilian leaders who order American soldiers into harm’s way need to appreciate the potentially devastating effect that combat can have on those soldiers. The American people must realize how vital their unequivocal support is to soldiers trying to endure war’s hardships and dangers. Too often in the twentieth century novice soldiers, leaders, and citizens alike did not comprehend these basic realities.
Gaining an appreciation for the nature of combat involves an examination of why the citizen joined, or at least consented to serve in, the U.S. Army or Marine Corps; the role of training in converting the recruit into a soldier; the physical and emotional hardships and dangers of combat; how soldiers coped, or failed to cope, with the combat environment; what motivated them to carry the fight to the enemy; and the soldiers’ relationships with the home front.
Speculation on James Jones’s “interesting subject” thus encompasses a wide range of topics. The scope of this book, therefore, is necessarily broad but remains manageable because of several constraints. The discussion is limited to the experiences of American soldiers and marines.
14
This experience certainly invites comparison with soldiers in other armies, but such a comparison would be a book in itself. The focus is on ground combat at the individual and small-unit level. Central to this approach is the American infantryman and, to a lesser extent, other combatants such as tank crewmen, artillerymen, and engineers. The perspectives of noncombatants who were close to the fighting, such as war correspondents, medical personnel, and chaplains, are also included. This book is neither a combat history nor a tactical treatise but an examination of what the combat envronment was like and how soldiers reacted to it.
The American soldier is examined through the course of four wars— the world wars, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The soldiers’ experiences in these wars certainly varied in important ways, but these wars, despite their differences, also encompass a distinct period of American military history. They are the wars of the draft era, fought primarily, though by no means exclusively, by the conscripted citizen- soldier. They are also modern wars, largely fought conventionally, and of sufficient duration and violence to have a serious impact on the physical and emotional well being of those who fought them. These characteristics distinguish them from the wars that preceded or followed.
Where best to learn about the soldier’s experience in the wars of the draft era? From what the veterans themselves have to say. This book draws upon memoirs, novels, and oral histories. A few of these works were written by war correspondents, but most reflect the experiences of enlisted men and junior officers. Works by marines and soldiers have been consulted, and the term “soldiers” in this study includes marines, unless otherwise specified. Each war, and in the case of World War II the Pacific theater and Mediterranean/European theater, is represented by twenty-one to thirty works.
A wide range of secondary sources in military psychiatry, military sociology, literary criticism, and history supplements the direct testimony of the veterans. This secondary literature is invaluable for several reasons. The psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists provide useful insights, often based directly on their work with soldiers or veterans, concerning the causes of stress in combat, how men try to cope with that stress, and what motivates them to “stick it out.” The sociological studies and surveys also provide statistical support, at least from World War II on, for many claims made by the soldiers in their memoirs and novels. The literary critics, many of whom are also veterans, provide recommendations as to which memoirs and novels are most significant. More important, some critics go
15
beyond matters of style and structure to assess the themes, or messages, contained in these works. The historical studies either provide a narrative combat history told from the soldier’s perspective or specifically address soldier behavior.
As for the primary sources, the vast majority are soldiers’ memoirs or firsthand accounts written by war correspondents. Some of these books are based on thoughts and experiences recorded shortly after the fact, as in the case of memoirs based on diaries and letters and the accounts written by the correspondents. Historian William L. Langer explains that such contemporary accounts can be refreshingly straightforward and unaffected, as was his combination memoir and unit history, written immediately after the Armistice in November 1918: “As I reread this simple narrative after a lifetime spent in the teaching and writing of history, I found its immediacy rather appealing. It has nothing of the sophisticated rationalization that invariably creeps into reminiscences recorded long after the event.”1
Soldiers’ diaries and letters may possess this virtue of immediacy, but men in combat did not have much time to record their thoughts and experiences in detail, and they often had little pocket space for more than a small notebook. Not surprisingly, most memoirs were written after war’s end, sometimes many years after, and the authors relied on recollections. Even memoirs based on diaries and letters were often fleshed out with added-on commentary. Critics argue the pros and cons of these after-the- fact recollections. The most obvious problem, as historian Ronald Schaffer points out, is the potential for distortion: “Postwar reconstructions of what happened were subject to distortions of memory and reflected not simply immediate wartime experiences but later thoughts and occurrences as well.”2
Another concern, voiced by James Jones, is that memories fade with time, especially memories of war’s unpleasantries: “Thus we old men can in all good conscience sit over our beers at the American Legion on Friday nights and recall with affection moments of terror thirty years before. Thus we are able to tell the youngsters that it wasn’t all really so bad.”3
Jones’s conventional wisdom aside, however, the reality is that long- term memory of traumatic, unusual, or dramatic events remains vivid and constant. One memoir in this book is unique in doubling as a research device to measure memory. Alice M. Hoffman, an oral historian, interviewed her husband, Howard, an experimental psychologist who had been a mortarman in World War II, about his wartime experiences. A series of interviews, conducted in 1978 and 1982, were checked against
16
unit histories, photographs, and corroborating testimony from other unit veterans. The Hoffmans discovered that Howard’s memories about “unique happenings” or the “first occurrence of an event” were remarkably clear and accurate: “The forty-year-old memories that Howard retains are extraordinarily resistant to change. They appear to have been protected from decay by rehearsal and reinforced by salience so that they have become fixed in the mind.”4
Put in less clinical terms by Paul Boesch, a veteran of the bitter fighting in the Huertgen Forest in World War II, memories about details may fade, but traumatic events remain indelibly etched in the mind: “It is difficult to recall the sequence in which events occurred. Each episode appears to claim precedence over the others. But though it is hard to recall exactly when a thing happened, it is impossible to erase the events themselves, for the sheer, stark, exhausting terror burned them inextricably in our memory.”5
Given this book’s focus on the soldier’s experience in combat, it is exactly these sharply recalled events, not the details of date, time, and place, that are important. Nevertheless, the nagging suspicion remains, as literature professor and onetime combat pilot Samuel Hynes explains, that veterans’ memoirs contain “failures of observation . . . , the confined vision of witnesses, the infidelities of memories after the events, the inevitable distortions of language.”6 Thus the only sort of truth that can be gained from after-the-fact accounts is collective. Hynes takes this approach in his own excellent study, The Soldiers’ Tale, the plural “soldiers” indicative of his use of multiple experiences to reconstruct memory. This book proceeds in a similar vein, citing numerous examples in the text and notes to support a point.
This book also draws upon war novels in the search for collective truth. The use of fictional works in a historical study is bound to raise eyebrows, but these novels were included for two reasons. First, although some of them are obscure, others are well known, such as the works of Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Norman Mailer, and James Jones. In any discussion of the influence of war literature on successive generations, a topic addressed in the conclusion, these popular fictional works cannot be left out. Second, and more important, these fictional works speak directly and eloquently to the soldier’s condition in war. Every author whose fictional work is included is a veteran or seasoned war correspondent, and many of these works are semiautobiographical. In short, they are realistic, or “mimetic” to use a term common to literary
17
criticism, meaning they accurately imitate or represent human behavior. These novels, to paraphrase the literature professor Stanley Cooperman, dramatize rather than invent historical reality.7 Historian and veteran Henry G. Gole believes that this literature is as important to seeking the truth about man’s condition in wartime as is historical analysis:
The historian’s attempt at detachment stands in sharp contrast to the artist’s passionate personal involvement and raises the question of truth and who comes closer to it—the historian or artist. We are well advised to rely upon both the artist and the historian, one for “essential truth” produced by the creative imagination so the reader has a sense of being there, and one for analysis of known facts available. It should be clear that both artist and historian demand from us a leap of faith as the former invents the plausible, while the latter ultimately uses analysis to take us from what is known to what is probably true.8
Nevertheless, though novels are valuable for their portrayal of soldiers’ responses to war, they should be used with caution concerning matters outside the human experience. For example, war-novel plots tend to be tactically illogical, often involving the physical isolation of a small unit to an unrealistic degree. This technique allows the author to keep his cast of characters within reasonable bounds and free from outside interference. As historian Roger A. Beaumont points out, these plots are not only unrealistic but also leave out many aspects of the military picture: “The fiction writer . . . is faced, as is the historian, with shaping meaning. It is not surprising that the dullness of mass bureaucracy is ignored in favor of colorful if improbable microcosms. . . . Fictional accounts most often fall flat treating the complexities of command, logistics, and organization, and show a vague sense of the administrative realities of military life.”9
While the microcosms established by the novelist may sometimes be improbable, within that microcosm, the reactions of the characters to the stress and hardships of combat usually ring true. But there can be a problem here as well, not in the portrayal of specific incidents, but in cumulative effect. Some novelists have heavily weighted their presentation of events in the direction of brutality, negativity, and immorality to support an antiwar theme. Thus it is possible to have a novel, like Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, that provides powerful and plausible examples of soldier behavior in combat, yet the overall effect is sharply, and unrealistically, skewed to the negative. Literature professor and Vietnam veteran Tobey C. Herzog notes that Mailer’s novel is “devoid of
18
heroes”: “Values—personal and religious—crumble; positive actions result in failure; integrity, concern for others, noble struggles for survival, and heroic actions are absent; and rare moments of personal insight are quickly dismissed.”10
Mailer’s novel is every bit as negative in overall theme as Herzog’s assessment indicates, yet The Naked and the Dead has provided valuable excerpts, and eloquent ones at that, for this book. The problem of imbalance in any one novel can be avoided by using multiple examples from different sources to illustrate a point and by not relying solely on fiction—in sum, the collective memory approach.
A final issue raised by historians concerning memoirs and novels involves representativeness. Soldier-authors tend to be better educated and from a higher social standing than the average soldier and hence are potentially “unrepresentative.” Though this observation has validity, some of the memoirists in this study are not atypical, in that their education and social backgrounds are modest. Their accounts are not polished, and often someone has assisted in editing their memoirs or diaries. In other cases, authors may have gone on to successful careers in business, journalism, or academia, but they were relatively young and unsophisticated, and hence fairly typical, soldiers when they recorded their experiences. Thus, the memoirs are probably not as unrepresentative as some critics suggest. In any case, twelve oral histories have been included to help ensure representativeness. Veterans who were neither sufficiently educated nor motivated to write down their war experiences were often at least willing to talk about them to oral historians.
The more important, though generally overlooked, issue concerning representativeness is not that these soldier-authors are somehow different from the average soldier but that they represent only the successful soldier. Deserters, soldiers who inflicted wounds on themselves to escape combat, or men who broke down in their first firefight did not write memoirs. Some of the soldier-authors cited in this book were unenthusiastic draftees or only average performers, or they suffered bouts of combat fatigue, but on the whole they acquitted themselves satisfactorily. The secondary sources, especially the sociological and psychiatric studies, are thus essential for providing insight into desertion, self-inflicted wounds, and psychological breakdown.
Ultimately, although the use of memoirs, novels, and oral histories raises legitimate questions about representativeness, accuracy of memory, and objectivity of perspective, the fact remains that this written and oral
19
testimony is the primary available source for learning about the combat experience. Hynes, after raising typical concerns about distortions in memory that could compromise after-the-fact recollections of battle, concedes that these accounts are essential: “What other route do we have to understanding the human experience of war—how it felt, what it was like—than the witness of the men who were there?”11 Whatever their shortcomings, these eyewitness testimonies, including those recreated in fictional form, reveal a great deal about what prompted men “to go out into dangerous places” and what enabled them to carry on in the face of danger and grievous hardships. This book synthesizes and assesses what those testimonies have to say.
Beyond the issue of the general relevance of memoirs, novels, and oral histories is the question of which specific works to consult from the hundreds available. Certainly the number of sources used in this book is not sufficient to satisfy any scientific criteria for a statistically significant sample. There was some method to the selection process, however. Each war received roughly equal representation. A balance between army and marine memoirs was also sought, one not easily struck in the Pacific theater in World War II because most of the memoirs are by marines, despite the large number of soldiers who also fought there. Availability was thus a factor, as it was in the case of World War I and the Korean War, for which far fewer published primary sources exist than for World War II and Vietnam. Sources are more than adequate, but less selectivity was involved in choosing works. The same is true for accounts by African- American soldiers and, in the days of the segregated army, their white leaders, although again the number of available sources is sufficient.
For those wars where primary sources are plentiful, I chose memoirs and novels deemed significant by literary critics and historians. Noted professor of literature and World War II combat veteran Paul Fussell, for example, praises the memoirs of World War II marine Eugene B. Sledge and Vietnam War marine William D. Ehrhart, and rightly so; hence, these works are included, as is Fussell’s own memoir. Moreover, chance entered in as a factor. For example, I stumbled upon Paul Boesch’s obscure but superb World War II memoir at a used bookstore—a memoir long overdue for reprinting.
While reading and assessing these memoirs, novels, and oral histories, a revelatory process occurred that, in retrospect, should have been obvious. Combat is a human experience, and because individuals react to it in typically human ways, the student of soldier behavior first notices the
20
remarkable similarities in soldiers’ attitudes and motivations. Historian Peter Karsten, in preparing a book of documents and narrative excerpts on the effects of war on American life, “was struck by the degree to which the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth- century American soldiers were more alike than they were different.”12 Literature professors such as Herzog, who study soldiers’ memoirs and novels, are also struck by the consistencies in human reactions to war: “In spite of obvious differences involving the nature, conduct, and perceptions of the Vietnam War and other modern wars, the best stories from these conflicts suggest a fundamental universality among wars: emotions, combat experiences, battlefield rituals, and changes soldiers undergo.”13
The more that one compares soldiers’ experiences, however, the more obvious it becomes, as the historian Richard H. Kohn points out, that individual reactions to war are as complex and diverse as humans themselves: “The problem, in both scholarship and popular thinking, is our propensity to search for typicality, to think in terms of stereotypes, and to aim for universal generalizations that fit across all of American history. The truth of the matter is that the ‘American soldier’ never existed; the most pernicious myth of all is that there has ever been a prototypical American in uniform.”14
Thus, each soldier experiences his own war, as the psychiatrists Herbert Hendin and Ann Pollinger Haas discovered in talking with Vietnam veterans: “The unique personal and social characteristics that each individual brought to combat played a role in shaping his combat experiences, in influencing his perceptions of traumatic combat events, and in determining the specific meanings that such events had, and continue to have, for him.”15
What complicates the study of the soldier’s experience in war is that both Karsten and Herzog on the one hand, and Kohn, Hendin, and Haas on the other, are correct. Generalizations can be made about soldiers’ attitudes and behavior, but they must allow for any number of individual differences. For example, the closest thing to a truism about soldiers in combat is that they are afraid, and what they fear most is death or mutilation; but even this truism must admit to exceptions, such as the psychotic soldier who knows no fear, or the rare individual who never loses his belief in his own invulnerability and hence does not fear death. This book, therefore, draws conclusions about soldier behavior and motivations while allowing for numerous exceptions and variances.
And what conclusions can be made concerning American soldier
21
behavior in the wars of the draft era? Chapter 1 examines why men volunteered to serve or honored their draft notices. The common perception is that doughboys marched off to World War I enthusiastically, that the GIs of World War II and the Korean War donned their uniforms reluctantly albeit with a certain grim determination, and that the young men of the Vietnam War era, if they answered the call to serve at all, did so only with thinly veiled resentment. These perceptions are not without validity, but they also oversimplify. The reality is that myriad factors, positive and negative, motivated young men to rally to the flag in each of the wars of the draft era.
New recruits then went through basic training or, for marines, boot camp. They were literally and figuratively stripped of their civilian identities and rebuilt into soldiers. This “soldierization process,” as the U.S. Army calls it, produced a physically fit soldier skilled in basic tasks and confident in his new profession. This process did not produce, its critics notwithstanding, some sort of automaton or amoral killer. Nor did all recruits react the same to the soldierization process. The degree to which they rallied to the flag either enthusiastically or reluctantly influenced the degree to which they responded positively or negatively to their training.
Following training, these newly minted soldiers found themselves en route to the war zone. To appreciate the soldier’s behavior in combat, it is first necessary to understand the environment in which he fought and struggled to survive. Chapter 2 examines the harsh physical and emotional environment of war. The green soldier had learned in training that he needed to be physically fit, but he was unpleasantly surprised to learn just how hard, dirty, and exhausting soldiering could be. When not on the move, and often carrying a staggering load, the soldier prepared defensive positions and maintained vigilance. He did not get enough sleep, often did not get enough to eat or drink, went without a bath or clean clothes for weeks at a time, and suffered the effects of climatic extremes.
While this harsh physical environment was wearing the soldier down, he was simultaneously forced to cope with enormous emotional stresses. Danger and the fear of death were ever present. During air or artillery attack, when the soldier could not retaliate, the feeling of helplessness could be overpowering. Soldiers were dismayed to discover that they were expendable cogs in a huge war machine. Chance more than martial prowess determined a soldier’s fate, and he was alarmed at the prospect that not only might he be killed by the enemy, but he could also die in a
22
senseless accident, perhaps at the hands of his own comrades. Over time, the soldier found himself immersed deeper and deeper in
this malevolent environment. Chapter 3 describes the immersion process. The soldier first entered combat either as an individual replacement or as part of a green unit, and his experiences varied accordingly. Relief, even elation, replaced anxiety after surviving first combat. The soldier had proven himself. He began functioning effectively, gaining experience and confidence in his martial skills. Sooner or later, however, perhaps following a wound or the death of a comrade, the soldier’s confidence was shattered—it could happen to him. He was not invulnerable. He became increasingly aware of the many dangers around him, and his fears grew accordingly. At the same time, the harsh physical environment wore him down physically. The soldier became shaky. Eventually he could not take it any more—psychological breakdown or even suicidal fatalism ensued.
Immersion in the environment of war was thus an inevitably debilitating process, yet some soldiers endured it for an amazingly long time without losing their sanity or their humanity. Chapter 4 examines the various ways a soldier coped. Perhaps most important was removing him from the malevolent environment as often as the situation permitted. Breaks in the action, be it a rotation into reserve or the granting of leave for rest and relaxation (R and R), afforded the soldier a chance to recover physically and emotionally. He also learned to resist a military environment that he often perceived of as uncaring, unnecessarily hierarchical, and inefficient by rebelling in various ways, from going over the hill to enjoy a drink at an off-limits establishment to carrying out midnight requisitions for needed or desirable supplies.
When soldiers could not physically escape the environment through minor rebellions or a break in the action, they resorted to various mind games that provided mental escape. Soldiers were notorious daydreamers, dwelling on prewar good times and swapping stories about plans for their postwar futures. At the same time, they learned not to dwell on present circumstances, such as yesterday’s costly firefight or tomorrow’s sure-to- be-grueling road march. Soldiers learned to live in the moment and focus on the mundane tasks at hand. Some soldiers found comfort in religious faith; others did not. Some put their faith in good luck charms. Humor, often black, provided relief from stress. Ultimately, soldiers clung to the hope of a departure from the combat zone by way of a non-lifethreatening “million dollar wound” or, in the cases of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, by reaching the end of their tour of duty.
23
One coping mechanism was so complex and so important that it warrants special consideration. Chapter 5 addresses the role of comradeship, not just as a means of coping but as an essential element in motivating the soldier to fight. The varying bonds of friendship that formed within the soldier’s squad and platoon, his “primary group” to use a sociological term, cannot be viewed in isolation. The group’s relationship to its parent unit (company and higher) and, most significantly, its members’ attitudes toward their country and its war aims must also be considered. Morale and effectiveness declined sharply if the soldier’s belief in cause and country began to fade, as it did during the latter stages of the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
Despite the various means of coping with the environment of war, some soldiers just could not bear the strain. They broke down. Chapter 6 examines how, during the wars of the draft era, psychological breakdown became recognized as a serious casualty producer, and means of treatment were devised. Many soldiers were treated successfully and returned to duty. Some never fully recovered. Psychiatrists and sociologists have debated why men “cracked up,” as the soldiers call it. Individual personality traits and characteristics affected a soldier’s susceptibility— indeed, some broke down in their first fight or even before reaching the front. The harsh physical environment and the exhausting nature of combat also contributed to psychological breakdown. The determining factor for most men, however, was the constant fear of death or mutilation and the enormous stress that it produced, although other fears often added to the strain.
Some soldiers who couldn’t take it any more, many of whom were on the verge of cracking up, opted out of combat through self-inflicted wounds or desertion. Their comrades might be expected to take a dim view of such “cowards” who abandoned the group, and often they did, but surprisingly the group sometimes accepted the fact that many of these men had reached the end of their rope after making a sincere effort to do their part.
At the other extreme from the shaky soldier who couldn’t take it anymore was the soldier-adventurer, who seemed to thrive on war. Chapter 7 describes these soldier-adventurers, whose impact on the battlefield far outweighed their numbers. They were neither avid killers nor psychotics, but they did not mind killing as part of their job and excelled at soldierly skills, for which they were recognized and admired. This recognition was a powerful motivator for the soldier-adventurer, but as the term “adventurer”
24
implies, these soldiers were also thrilled by the excitement. Combat was a fascinating if lethal game. Besting the enemy was a challenge.
Certainly only a minority of soldiers thrived on war, but even the average GI discovered that war was not without some redeeming qualities. Even veterans who denounced the brutality and senselessness of war often noted, with some nostalgia, that the friendships formed were intense and unforgettable. Soldiers also took pride in a job well done. Defeating the enemy was cause for satisfaction. A firefight could be deadly but also an exhilarating experience against which humdrum peacetime activities paled in comparison. On occasion soldiers were tourists, enjoying sights unlike anything in their hometowns. And the spectacle of war itself could be breathtaking. Awestruck soldiers were fascinated by aerial dogfights, off- shore naval battles, artillery barrages, and the sight of massed men and machinery.
That the soldier could take considerable satisfaction in defeating his enemy indicates the extent to which he had accepted his new profession of trained killer. A few students of soldier behavior have claimed, however, that American troops were so fear-ridden or guilty over the prospect of taking human life that they literally failed to pull the trigger. Chapter 8 debunks this theory. There were as many attitudes toward killing as there were individual personalities, and certainly some soldiers were reluctant to kill, but in the kill-or-be-killed catalyst of the battlefield, few hesitated to pull triggers. Some enjoyed it. The degree to which the enemy was dehumanized by propaganda and racial hatred enhanced the soldier’s willingness to kill, as did the extent to which he perceived that his enemy committed atrocities or refused to fight “fair.” Hence the Asian foe, more than the German foe, was considered an enemy to whom quarter was not to be granted.
The extent to which soldiers stayed within the acceptable bounds of conduct in warfare, albeit bounds that varied by war, enemy, and situation, was influenced in no small part by the small-unit leader. Chapter 9 reviews the leadership traits and skills essential for junior officers and noncommissioned officers: possessing tactical and technical competence, ensuring that soldiers are cared for, and sharing in the hardships and dangers. Morale and cohesion in units without such leaders suffered accordingly.
The good junior officer shared the hardships and dangers with his men, and together they resented, and complained about, those soldiers and civilians who did not have to suffer with them. Chapter 10 explores the
25
combat soldier’s attitude toward the rear echelon that provided his logistics and supporting arms. The frontline soldier believed, sometimes not without reason, that the rear echelons lived in safety and comfort, kept the best supplies for themselves, or even profited at his expense through black- market operations. The soldier likewise resented homefront slackers who made a comfortable living in war-related business and industry or who even, in the case of the Vietnam War, denigrated the fighting soldier while they obtained educational, medical, or occupational draft deferments.
At the same time that the soldier resented the home front, however, he also sought its support and acceptance. The home front represented, in the tangible form of friends, neighbors, and family, the country that had sent him off to war. The memory of loved ones, reinforced by letters from home, helped the soldier cope. He also scanned the hometown newspapers he received for any mention of himself or his unit. He wanted recognition for his efforts and, more important, appreciation for his sacrifices. When that recognition was not forthcoming, the results could be devastating to morale.
One group in particular sought their country’s recognition and acceptance—African-American soldiers. Chapter 11 addresses the black soldier in the wars of the draft era, a period that witnessed a shift from a segregated to an integrated army and Marine Corps. The inherent flaws in the segregated “Jim Crow” army ensured not only relative obscurity for black troops but also inequalities and inefficiencies that forced black units to operate with distinct disadvantages. Integration during the Korean War ensured that blacks and whites would fight side by side in Vietnam, and African-American performance under fire shattered forever the myth that blacks did not make good soldiers. Black grunts also garnered an overdue measure of recognition for African-American contributions in war. Integration did not erase all vestiges of real and perceived discrimination within the military, however.
Despite overwhelming evidence of war’s brutality and how devastating to mind and body sustained combat can be, the phenomenon remains that in all the wars of the draft era, a substantial number of men, especially early on in each of those conflicts, volunteered or accepted their draft notices with enthusiasm. Their positive, even cavalier, approach to wartime service can be explained only by the circumstance that their notions about what combat would be like were wrongheaded. The Conclusion briefly examines how each generation’s roseate notions of combat were propagated by the memorialization process and the popular
26
media. Conversely, some young men went to war with a more realistic idea of what it would be like, and while the truism remains that no green soldier fully understands what he is in for, those young soldiers fared better than their comrades whose heads were full of romanticized images of glorious combat. Perhaps this book, and certainly the memoirs and novels cited, can provide new generations with a more realistic appraisal of what war is all about.
27
1
Rallying to the Flag
Before 1917, America relied primarily on volunteer soldiers in wartime. Upon signing the Selective Draft Act on May 18, 1917, however, President Woodrow Wilson ushered in the draft era.1 The draft, or Selective Service System as it was officially designated, would be the tool for conscripting American manpower in four wars, ending only in 1973 with the adoption of an all-volunteer force. The draft was introduced because, unlike volunteerism, it allowed for the efficient, centralized management of manpower. Men with jobs critical to the war effort, in fields such as agriculture and industry, were exempted from military service, but the rest were subject to call-up based on various categories of age, marital status, and health. What should not be forgotten, however, is that multiple avenues remained for entering military service, despite the draft. For example, though draftees constituted 72 percent of the army by the end of World War I in November 1918, voluntary enlistments outpaced draft inductions throughout 1917. These volunteers were urgently needed to bring regular army and federally activated National Guard units up to strength while the draft apparatus was still being established.2 These volunteers were the first into combat in France.
While the specifics varied, this pattern was repeated in each of the wars of the draft era. Regular army or marine units, consisting solely or mostly of volunteers, often saw action first, usually followed by federalized National Guard units containing a large proportion of volunteers. Units formed primarily from draftees followed, at least during the world wars, and in all the wars individual replacements were most
28
often draftees. These various paths to service accommodated a wide range of motivational levels, from enthusiastic volunteer to resentful draftee.
COMMON PERCEPTIONS: ENTHUSIASTIC DOUGHBOYS, RESIGNED GIs, AND RESENTFUL GRUNTS
Historians have drawn generalized conclusions about how willingly Americans served in time of war. The perception is that young men rallied to the colors in 1917 with an enthusiasm that reflected contemporary, middle-class, Victorian mores. “The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” notes the historian Michael C. C. Adams, “created a cultural milieu in which war could be seen as an intrinsically valuable human endeavor.”3 War would cleanse and strengthen American society, which had become soft and decadent. Duty to country and wartime selfsacrifice would curb the sordid materialism of a rapidly expanding industrial society. Indeed, nothing less than a moral renaissance would occur, both in America and, thanks to American influence and intervention, in Europe as well.4
War was also considered an exciting, chivalrous pursuit that would provide young men “a liberating release from the stultifying conventions of civilized society,” according to historian David M. Kennedy.5 The Great War would allow an escape from boring, petit-bourgeois work and female-dominated home life while also providing an opportunity for a young adventurer to prove his courage and manhood.6 Many young men volunteered in 1917, or served even earlier with Allied forces, in search of excitement.
The notion that war was an adventurous and intrinsically valuable endeavor was not unique to America. European society displayed a similar attitude when war broke out in 1914.7 The war literature that Americans read from 1914 to 1917, much of it originating in Europe, reinforced the idea that war was chivalrous and uplifting. This literature, overwhelmingly pro-Allied, nurtured the growing belief that America must act to save the culture and democratic heritage of England and France from the evils of Prussianism.8
29
Perhaps even more influential than the literature was the stance taken by America’s opinion leaders in championing the Allied cause and condemning Teutonic barbarity. These “custodians of culture,” as the historian Henry F. May calls them, included leading men of letters, college presidents, conservative politicians, and editors.9 Kennedy notes the impact of these opinion leaders, coupled with the pro-Allied, romantic literature: “An affirmative and inspiring attitude toward war, preached by guardians of tradition like [Oliver Wendell] Holmes and [Theodore] Roosevelt, nurtured by popular war writers like [Alan] Seeger and [Arthur Guy] Empey, filled men’s imaginations in 1917.”10 The result was enthusiasm for the war and the Allied cause, especially among young idealists from the Ivy League colleges and exclusive prep schools.11
The custodians of culture and the purveyors of popular war literature proved to be wrong, however. The Great War did not cleanse and uplift society, American or European, nor did it prove to be chivalrous. Americans were thoroughly disabused of any notion of war as a positive force. Thus, when the United States was pushed into war in December 1941, the “naive idealism” and “noisy confidence” of the World War I doughboy were no longer in evidence, according to historian Lee Kennett.12 Americans donned their uniforms with “a certain grim determination,” writes literature professor William E. Matsen, “far removed from the innocent idealism displayed in 1917 by the Great War’s doughboys.”13 Romanticized, prowar literature would be notably absent during World War II.14 Marine private Robert Leckie’s farewell to his mother before heading off to the Pacific encapsulates America’s attitude toward World War II: “It was not a heartrending leave-taking, nor was it brave, resolute—any of those words that fail to describe the thing. It was like so much else in this war that was to produce unbounded heroism, yet not a single stirring song: it was resigned.”15
While the resigned GI rejected his doughboy predecessor’s lofty goal of making the world safe for democracy, he nevertheless believed that America’s involvement in World War II was necessary and just. When the specter of a North Korean takeover of South Korea by military force loomed large in 1950, a residual faith in the nation and its leadership left over from World War II came into play. Americans equated Communism with the recently defunct Nazi regime and uncritically assumed that the cause of defending South Korea was just. Robert Lekachman, a World War II veteran, commented on this residual fervor: “I think everybody still
30
felt good about the war in ’47, ’48, ’49. One wonders: could Truman have unilaterally committed American troops to Korea unless there had been the lingering romance of the Second World War? I rather doubt it.”16
Once the Communist Chinese intervened in the Korean War, however, victory in the World War II sense of totally defeating the enemy became an impossibility. As the war dragged on, disillusionment grew, and American draftees were increasingly reluctant to fight in an unwinnable war. A few historians and journalists warned that a new type of army, a professional, Cold War “legion,” would be needed if America was to fight any more such wars. War correspondent Marguerite Higgins advised as early as 1951 that the “Third World War is on. It began in Korea.” Therefore, in the future, “American leadership is going to have to impress on every potential GI that there are strong odds that he’s going to fight some dirty battles to keep the vanilla-ice-cream kind of world he has been brought up in.”17
Historian and Korean War veteran Theodore R. Fehrenbach argued the case for a new type of army even more vehemently in 1963, pointing out that “Korea was the kind of war that since the dawn of history was fought by professionals, by legions.” America must take to heart a critical lesson from the Korean War: “In Korea, Americans had to fight, not a popular, righteous war, but to send men to die on a bloody checkerboard, with hard heads and without exalted motivations, in the hope of preserving the kind of world order Americans desired.”18
Yet, except for the establishment and expansion of the Special Forces, with their famous green berets, no special legion emerged. Thus when President Lyndon B. Johnson committed major American ground forces to what proved to be the quagmire of Vietnam and failed to call the reserves to active duty, as had occurred in previous wars, manpower requirements could be met only by greatly increased draft calls. The Vietnam-era draftee was not merely resigned, as were his counterparts in World War II and Korea, but downright resentful. The perceived inequities of the Vietnam- era draft were a major source of this resentment. As Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss, both of whom served on the Presidential Clemency Board established by Gerald R. Ford, observe: “The draft . . . worked as an instrument of Darwinian social policy. The ‘fittest’—those with background, wit, or money—managed to escape. Through an elaborate structure of deferments, exemptions, legal technicalities, and noncombatant military alternatives, the draft rewarded those who manipulated the system.”19 As the war dragged on and the foxholes were
31
increasingly filled by draftees, the Vietnam War grunt’s level of resentment over having to fight while others avoided serving only increased.
THE REALITIES OF RALLYING TO THE FLAG
This overview of motivations, or lack thereof, for serving in the wars of the draft era certainly contains much truth. It is also simplistic and therefore misleading. In reality, a mix of enthusiasm, resignation, and resentment can be found among those serving in each of the wars in question. David M. Kennedy’s concept of “coercive volunteerism” provides a useful starting point for a more sophisticated examination of wartime motivations. Kennedy rejects the common perception of Victorian, middle-class American men enthusiastic for war in 1917. He concedes that many were eager to join up, but this reservoir of enthusiasts was far from bottomless. Thus, the governing bureaucracy and its elite supporters, while ostensibly championing volunteerism, increasingly resorted to social pressure and stricter regulations to keep the ranks filled. Indeed, if World War I had continued, Kennedy believes that coercive measures would have been even more necessary: “Had the crisis continued to deepen, and the government been forced to sift the population ever more finely for men to send to France, it was altogether likely that ballyhoo would have increasingly given way to bayonets.”20 With variations, this process occurred in all the wars of the draft era. When the supply of prewar regulars and enthusiastic volunteers gave out, the country coerced growing numbers of reluctant, even resentful, draftees into serving.
The first to rally to the wartime colors were the volunteers, and despite the workings of the Selective Service System, various channels remained available for them to enter service. During World War I many volunteers did indeed conform to the generalization about idealistic crusaders. They were Francophiles or Anglophiles who feared that Europe would be crushed under the Prussian boot heel.21 None were more idealistic than the thousands of Americans who volunteered to serve in the Allied armies or in American volunteer ambulance and truck units, even before the United States entered the war. Amos N. Wilder was one such volunteer, joining more illustrious compatriots such as John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway in serving as an ambulance driver. As did many of his
32
colleagues, he transferred to the American forces following the U.S. entry into the war, serving as a corporal in an AEF artillery battalion. Wilder saw himself and his fellow volunteers as ideological bellwethers: “Thus when it came to motivation of whatever elements and ranks in the armed forces, one should recognize the leavening influence of those with a more grounded perception of the issues at stake and a more enlightened dedication.”22
More than a few Americans volunteered to serve because they believed the stories, actively fed by Allied propaganda, of German atrocities and worried that America might share the Allies’ fate. Private Alphonso Bulz quit high school in Texas to enlist, fearing the war was going so badly for the Allies that they might lose and that the Kaiser’s next target might be America. Then there were “all those awful things the Germans were doing to the Belgians—cutting the fingers off the men so they couldn’t pull the trigger on a gun and raping all those nuns and all that.”23 Corporal Horatio Rogers joined his local National Guard outfit in Massachusetts out of similar concerns: “The papers were full of German atrocities and Allied unsuccess. Each ‘great drive’ the Allies made seemed to accomplish nothing. Then Russia was overthrown, and I had visions of a Prussianized world.”24
The accepted wisdom is that such idealistic concerns did not figure so prominently in later conflicts, given the disillusionment with war as a force for good generated by the Great War, but belief in the cause continued to motivate some volunteers. GIs in World War II considered Nazism more evil than its Prussian predecessor and were proud, as Lieutenants Harold P. Leinbaugh and John D. Campbell put it in their memoir about a World War II rifle company, to be “part of the mighty endeavor, the Great Crusade to free Europe.”25 Or put more prosaically by marine private Robert Stiles, “There was no question who wore the white hats—we did.”26
Korean War soldiers equated Communism with Nazism and believed America was justified, even obligated, to save South Korea. Historian Henry Berry noted the prevalence of this attitude among the Korean War veterans he interviewed. One of his interviewees commented, “The Communists seemed just as bad as the Nazis to us. I think my age group had been bred on the patriotic fervor of World War II. You either went into the service or you were a bad guy.”27
Ideological motivations are rarely discussed as a factor in why the
33
Vietnamera soldier served, but many who enlisted believed in the cause— a far cry from the perception that most grunts were resentful draftees. A significant minority of soldiers, at least early in the war, believed in stopping the spread of Communism, defending the fledgling Republic of South Vietnam, and heeding their charismatic president John F. Kennedy’s call to serve one’s country.28
Marine corporal and Vietnam veteran William D. Ehrhart believes that “those who went to Vietnam—well into the 1960’s and contrary to popular perception—were largely young volunteers, eager and idealistic.”29 Marine sergeant Ron Kovic was one such volunteer. He and others joined so “that we could serve our country like the young president [Kennedy] had asked us to do.”30 Both Ehrhart and Kovic, like others, eventually became disillusioned with the war, but their beliefs provided a strong incentive for initially volunteering.
While some men volunteered out of a genuine belief in the cause, even more joined up looking for excitement, or at least for a change of pace from their boring civilian lives. Many World War I volunteers conformed to the generalization about middle-class, Victorian-era men seeking adventure in the chivalrous, masculine arena of combat. Corporal William L. Langer spoke for the men in his unit, the all-volunteer First Gas Regiment: “I can hardly remember a single instance of serious discussion of American policy or of larger war issues. We men, most of us young, were simply fascinated by the prospect of adventure and heroism. Most of us, I think, had the feeling that life, if we survived, would run in the familiar, routine channel. Here was our one great chance for excitement and risk. We could not afford to pass it up.”31
Even some of the self-proclaimed idealists like Amos N. Wilder admitted that, beyond their “crusading spirit,” they were animated by “a sense of high adventure.” The “main idea,” he added, “was to be where the action was, and with this was mixed the romance of adventure.”32 Will Judy, a clerk in the Thirty-third Division, noted a similar combination of eagerness and idealism in his called-up National Guard outfit: “The spirit of great adventure is upon us and we compare ourselves not too modestly with the crusaders of other centuries.”33
Of course, these eager crusaders soon discovered that modern warfare was not so much adventurous as deadly and impersonal; hence the perception that American GIs went to war reluctantly in World War II and even less enthusiastically in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In reality,
34
however, thousands of volunteers went off to those later wars with as much eagerness and naïveté as did their doughboy predecessors. Most of these adventure seekers were young, without family responsibilities, and a war promised more excitement than going to school or getting a job.
Novelist James Jones, a World War II veteran, believes that the lure of adventure drew many to the colors: “There is always that exciting feeling about the beginning of a war. . . . All restraints are off, everyday life and its dull routines, its responsibilities, are scratched and a new set of rules take over.”34 Audie Murphy, who received a battlefield commission in World War II and survived the war as America’s most decorated soldier, was a classic case of a young man attracted to war as an alternative to life’s “dull routines.” One of nine children born into a family of poor sharecroppers, Murphy dreamed about the glories of combat as his “one escape from a grimly realistic world.” On reaching his eighteenth birthday, he wasted no time in joining up, finally being accepted into the infantry after being rejected by the marines and the paratroops because of his small size and weight.35
John L. Munschauer came from a background quite different from Murphy’s. The college-educated son of a comfortably middle-class family, he had by 1944 received a commission in the army’s Medical Service Corps and was safely ensconced as a training company commander in Colorado. Yet he decided to transfer to the infantry and was soon in combat in the Philippines, because sitting the war out in Colorado meant “missing out on the greatest event of the century, and deep down that was the strongest pull. I did not want to miss the show.”36
A sense that they had, indeed, “missed the show” in World War II, usually because they were too young, motivated some men to jump at the chance for action when the Korean War erupted in 1950. John A. Sullivan was too young to serve during World War II, but the war had “left a strong impression” on him: “Our young men were fighting the twin evils of German and Japanese dictatorship, and the entire nation seemed mobilized to support them.”37 In 1950, Sullivan was old enough to seek the adventure he had missed out on a few years earlier: “Boyhood dreams from military school and the Second World War flooded back. Could I now lead troops in combat? Could I ever earn the right to wear the Combat Infantry Badge?”38
By the time that President Lyndon Johnson decided to commit substantial ground forces to Vietnam in 1965, a new generation of young
35
men, weaned on romanticized accounts of World War II provided by authors, historians, and especially filmmakers, was ready for its share of wartime adventure, or at least escape from a humdrum civilian existence.39 Ron Kovic, who saw in the Vietnam War a chance to meet President Kennedy’s challenge of service to America, also sought to escape a dead-end civilian life: “I didn’t want to be like my Dad, coming home from the A&P every night. . . . I didn’t want to be like that, working in that stinking A&P, six days a week, twelve hours a day. I wanted to be somebody.”40 Lieutenant Alfred S. Bradford and his fellow Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps comrades volunteered with visions of future glory: “Even before we (ROTC officers) had gone to war, we imagined ourselves back, telling our own stories to an awe-stricken audience. After all, Vietnam was our generation’s great adventure and we had volunteered for it; we wanted to go to war.”41
Thus, each new generation sought its “great adventure,” and for the American youth of the twentieth century, that adventure was as often as not a war. Yet each generation also produced, along with its would-be heroes and crusaders, a large contingent of men content to forgo adventure for the security and prosperity of peacetime, no matter how boring. Historian Peter Karsten notes that in an ideal democratic society, “young men, conscious of the freedoms and rights they possess . . . , will freely consent to military service with a sense of political obligation.”42 While some Americans served out of just such a sense of obligation, Karsten adds that many more men “acquiesced,” at best, to serve, leaving their peacetime lives, families, and jobs to heed the call to arms only with great reluctance.43
Certainly not every doughboy conformed to the generalization of the eager volunteer in search of adventure, out to rid the world of Prussianism. Wilder noticed that the draftee replacements arriving to fill up his artillery battalion shared neither his ideals nor his enthusiasm: “The drafted soldiers here in camp as replacements—who have had only a dull experience on top of their first homesickness—really exhibit blueness over the failure of [President Woodrow Wilson’s] peace proposition. They really hope not to go to the front.”44 Many reluctant doughboys undoubtedly shared the sentiments of Tennessee mountain man Sergeant Alvin C. York, who, unlike the Anglophile and Francophile Ivy Leaguers and custodians of culture, “had no time nohow to bother much about a lot of foreigners quarrelling and killing each other over there in Europe.”45 Then there is
36
the case of Jack Herschowitz, pulled from his thriving dried-food business in New York City by his induction notice. He ended up a rifleman in the AEF, but he was not happy about it for the most sensible reason: “I didn’t feel like going—who wants to get killed?”46
The workings of Kennedy’s coercive volunteerism explain in part why so many Americans were willing, if not exactly eager, to go to war. An important aspect of coercive volunteerism was social and peer pressure, which could be coercive indeed, as when vigilantes tracked down draft dodgers during World War I. More typically, however, it involved young men who could not face the scorn, disappointment, or rejection from schoolmates, girlfriends, relatives, and community leaders that their draft evading would generate. Conversely, volunteering or at least stoically accepting one’s draft notice brought congratulations and sympathetic support.
Ronald Schaffer discusses the various reasons why men served during World War I, noting that they were often “influenced by their connections to others in their hometowns or neighborhoods or schools or colleges or families.”47 Marine private Carl Andrew Brannen was so influenced. He believed his family had to “do their bit in uniform,” so he “joined the exodus from Texas A&M College, as cadets went into different branches of service.”48
The fear of public condemnation coerced a reluctant Charles F. Minder into serving in the AEF, and into not seeking a possible draft deferment as the sole supporter of his mother: “I wish now that I had claimed exemption when they asked me; like a fool I said, ‘No,’ just because I was too much a coward to be a Conscientious Objector. I was afraid of what others would think of me.”49
.awasam-promo3 {
background-color: #F5F9FF;
color: #000000;
text-align: center;
padding: 20px;
border-radius: 10px;
}
.button {
background-color: #4CAF50;
border: none;
color: white;
padding: 10px 20px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 16px;
margin: 4px 2px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 5px;
}
.button-whatsapp {
background-color: #41D07D;
border: none;
color: white;
padding: 10px 20px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 16px;
margin: 4px 2px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 5px;
}
.awasam-alert {
color: red;
}
Needs help with similar assignment?
We are available 24×7 to deliver the best services and assignment ready within 6-8 hours? Order a custom-written, plagiarism-free paper
Get Answer Over WhatsApp
Order Paper Now