POLI142 University of California US Military Behavior in WWII Response Please choose this question and write a response of 6–7 pages. We recommend you writ

POLI142 University of California US Military Behavior in WWII Response Please choose this question and write a response of 6–7 pages. We recommend you write a paper with a well-structured argument that is supported by course readings and lectures, with proper citations.1 You have to turn in your exam to Turnitin.com via TritonEd. We do not accept submissions through emails or physical copies。: Explain the combat contract and apply it to US military behavior in WWII (You must cite from lectures and Kindsvatter) Format Use standard formatting (points will be deducted otherwise): Double spacing, 11 or 12-point font (e.g. Times, or Helvetica),3 1 inch margins, No more than 1 inch of space dedicated to title and header (you only need to include your name, and title of the prompt that you are responding to in the title/header), No extraneous space between paragraphs or headers. Include a bibliography page at the end of your paper, Include in-text citations throughout the paper,4 You may use any standard citation style, (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.), Please do not use outside sources, Extensive amount of footnotes is not encouraged,5 Please do not copy/paste lecture notes into the text of your response. Please do not simply paraphrase the lecture notes or the book. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Citation Cite lecture and class readings where appropriate (points will be deducted otherwise): American Soldiers
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
American Soldiers
Ground Combat in the
World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam
Peter S. Kindsvatter
Foreword by Russell F. Weigley
University Press of Kansas
© 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.
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
Bibliography
Index
Photo Gallery
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 conscriptarmy wars of the twentieth century, he has identified a surprisingly large
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.
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).
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 historian in
myriad ways and have also provided moral support while I finished this
project.
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
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. 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 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 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 s…
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