Browsing by Subject "Army"

Using Fort Bragg and Fayetteville, North Carolina, as a local case study, this dissertation examines the GI dissent movement during the Vietnam War and its profound impact on the ending of the draft and establishment of the All-Volunteer Force in 1973. I propose that the US military consciously and methodically shifted from a conscripted force to the All-Volunteer Force as a safeguard to ensure that dissent never arose again in the ranks as it had during the Vietnam War. This story speaks to profound questions regarding state power that are essential to making sense of our recent history. What becomes of state and military legitimacy when the soldier refuses to sanction or participate in the brutality of warfare? And perhaps more importantly, what happens to the foreign policy of a major power when soldiers no longer protest, and thereby hold in check, questionable military interventions? My dissertation strives to answer those questions by reintroducing the dissenting soldier into the narrative of the All-Volunteer Force.

This study seeks to determine how the Army institutionally selects its 3 and 4-star officers. The central focus, What patterns are evident in the output of the Army’s 3 and 4-star selection process? has three main findings: 1. The Army has institutional preferences, 2. Multiple paths are possible to the senior leader level, 3. The Army’s most preferred path is operational and command experience. These findings were the result of a comprehensive analysis of a database developed utilizing the standardized resumes of 3 and 4-star generals who have served or retired after 1985. The database, along with the results presented here can help determine if the Army is selecting the right senior leaders and meeting its senior leader development goals. In addition, by understanding the breadth of experience of the Army’s senior leaders, we can identify potential shortcomings in experience or skills required to meet current and future threats. The Army is tasked with defending the nation, we must therefore continually assess how it adapts and evolves with contemporary events and adversaries. The database, while extensive by itself, serves as a starting point for future researchers. The paper’s narrow lens will offer insight into the Army process of selecting senior leaders and provide a follow-on analysis template.

The United States began to look beyond its continental boundaries and acquire a new, far-flung empire in the late nineteenth century. Two decades later, a national draft and mobilization program brought millions of men into the army when the United States intervened in the First World War. The U.S. Army also experienced several major changes in the first four decades of the twentieth century, including massive growth in the size of the army's forces, changes in the demographics of soldiers and a related effort "Americanize" the army, and increased professionalization and internal reform as the army attempted to improve its performance and increase its standing in the nation. Along with these changes came the efforts of influential Progressive social and moral reformers who sought to reform the U.S. Army and inculcate newly enlisted soldiers with middle-class values and behavior. Over time, army leaders and War Department officials found that they needed to address the perennial set of problems that soldiers' sexual relationships created for the army and its new long-term missions in Asia and Europe. While the U.S Army was initially interested in the sex lives of soldiers primarily for utilitarian reasons, it eventually assumed an institutional interest in cultivating particular kinds of masculine identities for soldiers.

This dissertation explores how the U.S. Army of the early twentieth century conceived of a host of issues related to sexuality: marriage and family life, prostitution and venereal disease, rape and sexual violence, same-sex sexuality, and conceptions of masculinity, among others. It examines how the army sought to regulate and shape the sexual behaviors of soldiers and the civilians with whom they came into sexual contact. The sexual cultures, practices, and behaviors of soldiers and their partners, along with the U.S. Army's efforts to regulate their sexuality, constitute what it describes as the "sexual economy of war." This dissertation argues that the U.S. Army first attempted to gain control of almost all aspects of soldiers' sexuality and then tried to carefully manage and regulate that sexual economy to best fulfill the army's missions. The army suppressed soldiers' sexual behaviors and expressions that it perceived as running counter to the good of the service or creating inefficiencies. It encouraged those aspects of sexual identity that the army believed benefited the service - for instance, hypermasculine demeanor and actions - eventually purging soldiers who engaged in same-sex sexual activities because these practices became linked with effeminacy and mental disorders and producing a set of militant masculinities among soldiers.

These issues are explored through five case studies of specific time periods and geographic areas: Fort Riley in Kansas from 1898-1940; the Philippines from 1898-1918; Camp Beauregard in Louisiana, 1917-1919; the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France and the American Forces in Germany (AFG), 1917-1923; and Hawaii, 1909-1940. The army's new position in American society, especially after World War I, and its overseas operations opened up a host of new and different kinds of sexual politics, possibilities, and relationships for all those touched by the U.S. Army's regulation of sexuality.