Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America
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Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America
A–P VOLUME 1
William Pencak, Editor
Copyright 2009 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the veteran in America / edited by William Pencak. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34008–6 (set : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34009–3 (vol. 1 : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34010–9 (vol. 2 : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–08759–2 (set : ebook) — ISBN 978–0–313–08760–8 (vol. 1 : ebook) — ISBN 978–0– 313–08761–5 (vol. 2 : ebook) 1. Veterans—United States—Encyclopedias. I. Pencak, William, 1951– UB357.E53 2009 305.9´0697097303—dc22 2009020928 13 12 11 10 9
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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America
From one perspective, I am dedicating this book to all the veterans throughout American history, from those who fought with George Washington to my godson Peter Schlegel, who just returned from a year in Iraq. They have made it possible for me to sit in my study, rummage through books, journals, and Web sites, and meet if only in cyberspace the host of fine scholars who have assisted me in bringing this encyclopedia to completion. But more narrowly, I would like to dedicate it to my personal ‘‘Greatest Generation’’—my parents, aunts, and uncles. Harriett Pencak, Max and Andrew Borgwardt, June Pappalardo, Fred Abraham, and in memory of Charles Pencak, Leonard, Virginia, and Trudy Borgwardt, George and Peaches Schlegel, and John Pappalardo. These men and women either served overseas or supported efforts on the home front during the Second World War so that we can enjoy the world we do today. We complain a lot, and we should, to keep the people running things reasonably honest. But imagine if the other side had won. I would also like to dedicate the book to the memory of the great opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861–1936) whose sons fought on both sides in World War I, who is mentioned on page 151 of the encyclopedia, and who did everything she could to help veterans.
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About the Editor and Contributors
THE EDITOR William Pencak, Professor of History at Penn State University, is the author of For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941 (1989) and War, Politics, and Revolution in Provincial Massachusetts (1981). His latest book, Jews and Gentiles in Early America: 1654–1800 (2005), was runner-up for the National Book Award in American Jewish History.
THE CONTRIBUTORS James S. Bailey received his B.S. from West Point and his M.A. from Penn State, both in History. He served for ten years in the U.S. Army before he retired on a disability. He has worked as an Interpretive Ranger for the National Park Service at Antietam National Battlefield and currently works for the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of ‘‘Two Winters of Discontent: Valley Forge and Morristown,’’ in Pennsylvania’s Revolution, edited by William Pencak (2009). Benjamin R. Beede, an army veteran, is now a Librarian Emeritus, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He holds an M.A. in political science and an M.L.S. from Rutgers. He co-authored The Legal Sources of Public Policy (1977), edited or compiled several reference books, including The War of 1898 and U.S. interventions 1898–1934: An Encyclopedia (1994) and has had articles in The Historian, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Policy Studies Journal, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, among other journals. Daniel Blackie is a doctoral candidate at the Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland, and a member of the Finnish Graduate School for North and Latin American Studies. He is writing his Ph.D. thesis on the experience of disabled veterans of the American Revolution.
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Arthur W. Blaser received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Ohio State University in 1979 and his J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law in 1990. He is Professor of Political Science at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has contributed to the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Human Rights Quarterly, Disability Studies Quarterly, and New Political Science. He was in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Al Carroll is a Fulbright Senior Scholar (Indonesia) who has taught history at Arizona State University, St. Phillip’s College, and Hasanuddin University. He specializes in cross cultural comparative studies of indigenous veterans of modern militaries. His first book, Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War, was published in 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press. Justin Corfield was born in London, England, and gained his doctorate in history at Monash University, Australia, with his thesis on the political history of the Cambodian government from 1970 until 1975. Since 1993 he has been teaching history and international relations at Geelong Grammar School, Australia. He has written and edited several books on Australian, Cambodian, and Singapore history. Kerry Dexter has a B.A. from Rollins College and has done graduate work at Florida State University. She is a contributing writer to The MTVi Group’s award-winning music news site, SonicNet, a correspondent for VH1.com, folk music editor at Barnes & Noble online, and has written, interviewed, and photographed extensively for publications in the field of music. Darius V. Echeverrı´a, Ph.D., Temple University, has since 2006 taught at Rutgers University-New Brunswick with an initial appointment in the Department of History. A year later, he joined the faculty of the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies. His published scholarship focuses on inequality and social policy, cycles of community agency, and electoral participation and incorporation into the American political system, particularly as they relate to Latino/a Studies and Mexican American history. Michael D. Gambone is Professor of History at Kutztown University and the author of The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veteran in American Society (2005), Capturing the Revoution: The United States, Central America, and Nicaragua, 1961–1972 (2001), and Eisenhower, Somoza, and the Cold War in Nicaragua, 1953–1961 (1997). Dr. Gambone was a former U.S. Army paratrooper who served in the 82nd Airborne Division. He deployed to Iraq in 2006 and served a tour of duty in the city of Mosul. Amy S. Greenberg is Professor of History at Penn State and the author of Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (2005) and Cause for Alarm: The Volunteer Fire Compay in the Nineteenth Century City (1998). Holly M. Kent is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Lehigh University where she is writing on women’s antislavery literature in the nineteenth-century United States. She is the chief co-editor of Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist History and Culture.
About the Editor and Contributors C. Douglas Kroll is Associate Professor of History at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. Mark F. Leep, M.A., J.D., is an attorney and independent historian in Richmond, Virginia, and a former Marine Corps officer. His essays and reviews on the history of veterans’ benefits legislation and social history of the American military have appeared in several reference works and journals. Mr. Leep is currently researching the legislative and legal history of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps relations during the frigate navy era. William C. Lowe is Professor of History and Dean of the College of Arts and Science at Ashford University in Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from Emory University and has published numerous articles on British and American history. He is currently researching Civil War commemoration in Iowa. He retired from the Army Reserves with the rank of major. John E. Maass has a Ph.D. in early American history from Ohio State University and is currently a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Cesar Campiani Maximiano is co-author with Jose Goncalves of Brothers In Arms: A Platoon of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II, published by CODEX in Portuguese in 2005, and other works on the history of World War II. He teaches contemporary and military history and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Sa˜o Paulo. Lincoln Austin Mullen received his M.A. in History from Bob Jones University in 2008. He is currently Reference Coordinator at the Mack Library at Bob Jones University. Stephen R. Ortiz has a Ph.D. from the University of Florida and is Assistant Professor of History at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (2009) and several journal articles. His article ‘‘The ‘New Deal’ for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent,’’ was awarded the 2007 Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History for best article in the 2006 Journal of Military History. Jonathan Newell received a Master of Divinity from Bob Jones University and is currently on the pastoral staff of a Baptist church in New Hampshire. He is also an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve chaplain candidate program and published ‘‘Billy Sunday’s 1923 Evangelistic Campaign in Columbia, S.C.,’’ in the Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association in 2008. Joseph Rosenblum received his Ph.D. in English from Duke University in 1980. He is a librarian at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, the author of Shakespeare: An Annotated Bibliography (1992) and A Reader’s Guide to Shakespeare (1998), and is a performer of Falstaff at Stratford-on-Avon in England.
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Jeremy K. Saucier is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Rochester. The subject of his dissertation is ‘‘Army Advertising and the Politics of Memory and Culture in Post-Vietnam America.’’ Daniel Sauerwein is a Ph.D. student in History at the University of North Dakota. He holds an M.A. in History from the University of North Dakota and a B.A. in History from Illinois College. He has reviewed books for The Journal of Military History, HNet, and On Point: The Journal of Army History, and has written several articles for the History News Network. John Southard is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas Tech University specializing in the Vietnam War. He has previously published in the Dictionary of American History. Darlene Spitzer-Antezana is Associate Professor of History at Prince George’s Community College and is a Ph.D. candidate in African American History at Morgan State University, both in Maryland. John Stoll teaches world history at L.C. Bird High School in Chesterfield, Virginia. He has an M.A. in history and a Master’s of Teaching from Virginia Commonwealth University. David P. Straub is a graduate student in the Central Eurasian Studies department at Indiana University. He spent a decade in the National Guard and is a specialist on Central Asia and China. William P. Toth has a Ph.D. in Literature and teaches at Heidelberg College. He has written extensively on literary, historical, and popular culture topics. Ryan Wadle is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University. He is currently working on his dissertation, ‘‘ ‘The Fourth Dimension of Naval Tactics’: The U.S. Navy and Public Relations, 1919–1941.’’ Andrew Jackson Waskey is Professor of Social Science at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia. He has been a frequent contributor on military subjects to encyclopedias, as well as on politics, history, religion and other subjects. William Whyte III has a Master of Arts in History from East Stroudsburg University and is Adjunct Professor of History at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania.
Contents
List of Entries
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List of Primary Documents
xvii
Guide to Related Topics
xxi
Preface
xxv
Acknowledgments
xxix
Introduction
xxxi
Timeline
xliii
The Encyclopedia
1
Primary Documents
477
Appendix I: Monuments, Memorials, and Museums: A State by State Guide
587
Appendix II: Veterans’ Organizations
705
Bibliography
711
Index
725
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List of Entries
Afghan War Veterans African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 African American Veterans, Civil War African American Veterans, Korean War African American Veterans, SpanishAmerican War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War African American Veterans, World War I African American Veterans, World War II Agent Orange American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Gold Star Mothers American Indian Veterans American Indian Veterans, Individuals American Legion American Veterans Committee American War Mothers AMVETS Anti-War Veterans Associations Arlington National Cemetery
Blinded Veterans of America Blue Star Mothers Bonus March Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Bunker Hill Monument Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Cambodia War Veterans Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Coast Guard Veterans Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations Confederate Veterans Associations Confederate Veterans in Brazil Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Daughters of the American Revolution Depleted Uranium Disabled Veterans Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916)
Battlefield Preservation Benefits
Early, Jubal (1816–1894)
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List of Entries
Filipino-American Veterans Film and Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans Gettysburg National Cemetery Grand Army of the Republic Gulf War Syndrome Gulf War Veterans Hispanic American Veterans Housing Iraq War Veterans Iwo Jima Memorial Japanese American Veterans Jewish Veterans Korean War Veterans Lifton, Robert Jay (1926–) Literature and Veterans Logan, John (1826–1886) MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964) McCain, John (1936–) Memorial Day Merchant Marine Veterans Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) Mexican Expeditions, 1914–1917 Mexican War Veterans Military Chaplains Association Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Music and Veterans Naval Order of the United States Newburgh Conspiracy Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Oldest Surviving Veterans
Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Peekskill Riot Pensions, Civil War Philippine War Veterans Polish Legion of American Veterans Politics, Veterans in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Preferences in Government Employment Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) Reunions Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Shell Shock Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution Spanish-American War Veterans Stone, Oliver (1946–) Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Tripolitan War Veterans Tuberculosis, World War I Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Veterans Administration Veterans Affairs, Department of Veterans Day Veterans’ Homes Veterans’ Hospitals Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home for Children
List of Entries Vietnam Memorial Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam War Veterans Walter Reed Hospital Scandal War Dogs War of 1812 Veterans Washington Monument
Winter Soldier Investigation Women Veterans to 1900 Women Veterans, World War I to the Present Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association World War I Veterans World War II Veterans
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List of Primary Documents
Document 1: David Ramsay, The Life of George Washington: The Situation of Revolutionary War Veterans at the End of the War
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a) Washington’s Letter to the Secretary of War Concerning the Treatment of Veterans
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b) Anonymous Letter to Officers Proposing a Military Coup if Their Demands Were Not Met
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c) Washington’s Speech That Foiled the Proposed Coup d) Washington’s Letter to Congress on the Veterans’ Needs
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e) Washington’s Outrage over Mutiny of Pennsylvania Soldiers
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f) Washington’s Farewell to His Officers and to Congress
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Document 2: The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati Document 3: Aedanus Burke, Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati Document 4: ‘‘An Old Soldier: An Affecting Narrative’’ Document 5: Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument Document 6: Nathanael Hawthorne, The Life of Franklin Pierce Document 7: Edward D. Mansfield, The Life and Services of Winfield Scott Document 8: Stephen Foster, ‘‘I’m Nothing But a Plain Old Soldier’’ Document 9: Edward Everett, The ‘‘Other’’ Gettysburg Address Document 10: Herman Melville, Civil War Poetry: ‘‘On the Slain Collegians’’ and ‘‘A Meditation’’
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485 488 490 491 495 497 499 500 506
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Document 11: Walt Whitman, Civil War Poetry: ‘‘Dirge for Two Veterans’’ and ‘‘Lo, Victress on the Peaks’’ Document 12: Confederate Widows and Memorials: War Days in Fayetteville, North Carolina Document 13: John A. Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel: A Confederate Veteran Defends the Ku Klux Klan Document 14: Dabney Herndon Maury, Recollections of a Virginian . . .: Confederate Veterans Create the Southern Historical Society and Honor Their ‘‘Lost Cause’’ Document 15: John S. Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives Document 16: Checking Civil War Pension Excesses: Henry Jones Ford, The Cleveland Era Document 17: An Escaped Slave Woman’s Civil War Service Document 18: Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Memorial Day Address (1884) Document 19: Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘‘The Soldier’s Faith’’ (1895) Document 20: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders Document 21: Edward A. Johnson, History of Negro Soldiers in the SpanishAmerican War Document 22: Addie W. Hunton and Kathryn M. Johnson, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces Document 23: Emmet J. Scott, The Official History of the American Negro in the World War Document 24: Joyce Kilmer, ‘‘In Memory of Rupert Brooke’’ Document 25: Kirke E. Simpson, Dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Document 26: Wright Patman Argues for Immediate Payment of Adjusted Compensation (‘‘The Bonus’’) for World War I Veterans Document 27: The Leader of the Bonus March Comments on Its Motives and Fate Document 28: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement on Signing the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), June 22, 1944 Document 29: Dixon Wecter, Why Do Veterans Organize? Document 30: John Kerry Testifies before Congress on Behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1971 Document 31: President Reagan Dedicates the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue in Washington, DC, 1984 Document 32: President Bill Clinton Speaks to Veterans of the Normandy Invasion on Its 50th Anniversary Document 33: Denise Nichols Testifies on the Persistence of ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome’’
510 511 514 517
521 523 525 526 529 531 534 536 542 544 545 549 553 554 556 559 563 565 567
List of Primary Documents Document 34: Opening Remarks of Herschal Gober at the 2000 National Summit on Women Veterans Issues Document 35: Deputy Secretary for Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield Testifies on the Problems of American Indian Veterans Document 36: Vietnam Veterans of America Testify on the Persistent Effects of Agent Orange Document 37: Carolyn Baum, President of the American Occupational Therapy Association, Addresses Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Iraq and Afghan War Veterans Document 38: National Coalition for Homeless Veterans Testimony, 2008 Document 39: Suicide Among Iraq and Afghan Veterans
570 572 575 578
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Guide to Related Topics
Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Confederate Veterans Associations Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916) Early, Jubal (1816–1894) Gettysburg National Cemetery Grand Army of the Republic Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Pensions, Civil War Reunions Veterans’ Homes Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association Women Veterans to 1900
Activities/Events Bonus March Lost Cause. See Early, Jubal (1816– 1894); Confederate Veterans Associations Newburgh Conspiracy Peekskill Riot Politics, Veterans in Reunions Winter Soldier Investigation American Revolution African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 Bunker Hill Monument Daughters of the American Revolution Newburgh Conspiracy Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution Washington Monument
Culture Film and Veterans Literature and Veterans Music and Veterans
Civil War African American Veterans, Civil War Arlington National Cemetery Benefits
Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars Afghan War Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans xxi
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Gulf War Syndrome Gulf War Veterans Iraq War Veterans Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Veterans Affairs, Department of Walter Reed Hospital Scandal Ethnic/Gender/Other Groups African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 African American Veterans, Civil War African American Veterans, Korean War African American Veterans, SpanishAmerican War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War African American Veterans, World War I African American Veterans, World War II American Indian Veterans American Indian Veterans, Individuals Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Buffalo Soldiers. See African American Veterans, Civil War Chaplains. See Military Chaplains Association Cambodia War Veterans Coast Guard Veterans Disabled Veterans Dogs. See War Dogs Filipino-American Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans Hispanic American Veterans Native American Veterans. See American Indian Veterans Japanese American Veterans Jewish Veterans Merchant Marine Veterans Navajo Code Talkers. See American Indian Veterans, Individuals Oldest Surviving Veterans Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)
Tuskegee Airmen. See African American Veterans, World War II War Dogs Women Veterans to 1900 Women Veterans, World War I to the Present Health and Benefits Issues Adjusted Compensation. See Bonus March Agent Orange Benefits Bonus, Bonus Bill, Bonus Expeditionary Force. See Bonus March Bonus March Disabled Veterans Employment. See Preferences in Government Employment G.I. Bill of Rights. See Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Gulf War Syndrome Homes. See Veterans’ Homes Hospitals. See Veterans’ Hospitals Housing Mental Illness. See Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Shell Shock Pensions, Civil War Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Preferences in Government Employment Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Soldiers Homes. See Veterans’ Homes Shell Shock Tuberculosis, World War I Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans’ Homes Veterans’ Hospitals Walter Reed Hospital Scandal Individuals Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916) Early, Jubal (1816–1894) Lifton, Robert Jay (1926–) Logan, John (1826–1886) MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964)
Guide to Related Topics McCain, John (1936–) Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Stone, Oliver (1946–) Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Memorials and Holidays See Appendix II for a list of monuments, memorials, and museums by state/ territory Arlington National Cemetery Armistice Day. See Veterans Day Decoration Day. See Memorial Day Battlefield Preservation Bunker Hill Monument Gettysburg National Cemetery Iwo Jima Memorial Memorial Day Tomb of the Unknown Soldier/Tomb of the Unknown. See Arlington National Cemetery Veterans Day Vietnam Memorial Washington Monument Organizations See Appendix I for a list of veterans’ associations American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Gold Star Mothers American Legion American Veterans Committee American War Mothers AMVETS Anti-War Veterans Associations Blinded Veterans of America Blue Star Mothers Bonus March Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America
Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations Confederate Veterans Associations Daughters of the American Revolution Department of Veterans Affairs. See Veterans Affairs, Department of Disabled American Veterans. See Disabled Veterans Gold Star Mothers. See American Gold Star Mothers Grand Army of the Republic Jewish War Veterans of America. See Jewish Veterans Military Chaplains Association Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Naval Order of the United States Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Polish Legion of American Veterans Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution United Confederate Veterans. See Confederate Veterans Associations Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans Administration Veterans Bureau. See Veterans Administration Veterans Affairs, Department of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association Vietnam War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War Agent Orange Cambodia War Veterans McCain, John (1936–) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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Guide to Related Topics
Stone, Oliver (1946–) Vietnam Memorial Vietnam Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Investigation Wars Entry Afghan War Veterans Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Confederate Veterans in Brazil Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Gulf War Veterans Iraq War Veterans Korean War Veterans Mexican Expeditions, 1914–1917 Philippine War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Spanish-American War Veterans Tripolitan War Veterans Vietnam War Veterans War of 1812 Veterans World War I Veterans World War II Veterans World War I African American Veterans, World War I American Gold Star Mothers American Legion American War Mothers Arlington National Cemetery Benefits Blue Star Mothers Bonus March
Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America Preferences in Government Employment Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Shell Shock Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. See Arlington National Cemetery Tuberculosis, World War I Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Veterans Day Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans’ Hospitals World War I Veterans World War II African American Veterans, World War II American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Veterans Committee AMVETS Blinded Veterans of America Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Filipino-American Veterans Japanese American Veterans MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964) Merchant Marine Veterans Navajo Code Talkers. See American Indian Veterans, Individuals Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Peekskill Riot Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Servicemen’s Readjustment Act United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association
Preface
Preparing the Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America instantly poses a problem: what is to be its scope? To focus on the military experiences of veterans when they were soldiers—that is, before they became veterans—would require hundreds rather than only two volumes. The military history of the United States has been told many times, and histories of particular units and the memoirs of service personnel fill a major part of almost any public library. To put it awkwardly, but the only way that accurately describes the encyclopedia, this work (for the most part) concentrates on what military personnel did after they left the service in matters (for the most part) pertaining to their military careers. I add ‘‘for the most part’’ because there are some items that are so interesting—such as who were the oldest veterans of a given war, for instance—that I have included them anyway. To provide an example of what the encyclopedia covers and what it does not: it deals with the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest Union veterans’ association to emerge after the Civil War, and its general efforts to obtain benefits and promote patriotism, along with public support and criticism of its activities. But the encyclopedia does not attempt to deal with what the GAR’s members were doing in their daily lives, apart from how these items related to or were affected by their military experiences or the work of the GAR itself. Nevertheless, the real world is never as clear as the definitions and categories we devise to make it manageable. The average reader will neither need, nor want, a general history of the Civil War or be interested in the fact that the average soldier was a young white man. However, in dealing with African American, Native American, women, Hispanic, gay and lesbian, or other minority veterans, a good deal of the work veterans and their associations perform is dedicated simply to achieving recognition of the fact that they served, and usually served well, in the armed forces. Hence, in such cases, or in dealing with little-known events like the Latin American expeditions of the early-twentieth century, it is necessary to provide some information about who the veterans were and what role they played in the American military experience. xxv
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Following the A–Z entries, the encyclopedia offers a collection of documents which illustrate the experiences of veterans from the American Revolution to the present. These include speeches, poems, and other writings honoring veterans, their personal accounts, and discussions of problems veterans face readjusting to civilian life, especially since the Vietnam War. To aid readers in finding the documents (many of which are excerpted) I have included Web sites as well as printed texts where possible. This encyclopedia has two appendices. The shorter Appendix II lists veterans’ organizations currently active in the United States at the time this book went to press and how to contact them. Appendix I deals with memorials, monuments, and museums relating to veterans. These are an important part of the American landscape and serve to preserve understanding of American history and values from generation to generation. For people who want to learn about veterans, I have selected and described, briefly, many of the sites those interested in American veterans’ history would want to visit, grouped by state for convenience. (The Bunker Hill, Iwo Jima, Vietnam Memorials, the Washington Monument, and Gettysburg and Arlington National Cemeteries have their own entries.) The books listed in the bibliography and under further reading are a good way to learn about veterans, but to visit the physical artifacts that caring citizens have erected and assembled to honor veterans is a far better one. Please note that collections or exhibitions change: some museums serially exhibit a small percentage of very large collections. Web sites and telephone numbers also change: I have presented the most accurate, and what I believe to be relevant, information as of 2009. Please note as well to check with installations on military bases and property as to the sort of identification required for access. Some sites are only open seasonally; others may be visited all year although visitors’ centers might not always be open. Hours of course vary. I apologize if I have left out a memorial or monument with special meaning for anyone: nearly every town both in the North and in the South that sent men to the Civil War built a memorial in its town square. Many of these, like most tombstones, were premanufactured by companies that could provide communities without large funds with a suitable remembrance. The nation is dotted with veterans’ memorial highways, parks, and bridges, but unless there is some special object connected with them, I have not listed them as sites to visit. Readers should especially note that this encyclopedia offers neither legal advice nor provides a guide to obtaining veterans’ benefits such as admission to a veterans’ hospital or burial in a veterans cemetery. The ultimate place to get such information is from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) itself, which has an excellent Web site. Alternatively, the office of your congressional representative, and frequently your state legislator—they are supposed to deal with state matters but many will help with any government problem—is one of the two best places to go. The other is your local veterans post—most familiarly, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, or AMVETS—but also some of the other veterans’ organizations listed in the appendix of veterans organizations based on particular needs. These veterans’ groups usually but do not invariably require membership in order to use their services, but it is worthwhile to join. Veterans’ organizations are like political
Preface parties or churches: you do not have to approve of the national organization’s policies on big issues if you wish to join at the local level. If you pay your dues (where I live, Legion dues are about $25 per year) the local service officer—or if the post is too small, the nearest available one—can help you file claims forms, obtain legal help related to service matters if you need it, or will refer you to a county or state office if he or she cannot help. Social benefits of veterans’ associations are also considerable: good companionship, the satisfaction of working with others to help your community and fellow veterans, and food and drink at reasonable prices come immediately to mind. In addition to national veterans cemeteries, it should be noted that many states also have veterans’ benefits and cemeteries only available to veterans from these states (defined typically as having served there, currently living there, or both). For instance, veterans preference (how many additional points veterans receive on civil service exams) varies from state to state. Here, too, consult you local veterans’ organization or the office of your state legislator. Editing a book such as this, especially preparing the appendix where I read the stories of so many memorials and museums throughout the nation, it is impossible not to be amazed by the remarkable achievements of American veterans and those who honored them. The United States is a country where voluntary associations have abounded since the days of Benjamin Franklin—who founded a volunteer army to defend Pennsylvania in 1748—as in none other in human history. Doing good is accomplished through grass roots organizations rather than by administrative decree. The opportunity for people to band together to accomplish something locally, nationally, and internationally is thus encouraged in the United States to an extraordinary extent. It extends to military enlistment and service in wartime: whenever the American people believe their government is fighting for a worthwhile cause, they have responded unstintingly. (One measure of this belief is the number of congressmen who enlist, as 88 did during World War II). After the war is over, veterans in times of peace continue to keep alive through their associations and memorials the values for which they fought. Their success appears not only in thousands of memorial sites throughout the nation, in the parades every Memorial Day and the speeches on the Fourth of July, in the innumerable charitable works they perform, but also in the remarkable persistence of the American values for which they have fought more than 200 years. Note: Boldfaced entries throughout the text identify other terms included in the encyclopedia.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Barbara Gannon, author of a forthcoming history of African American veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic, for helpful advice on Civil War veterans and especially for alerting me to Lucy Nichols’s pension record, which is responsible for Document 15. I also thank the authors, many of whom wrote far more thorough and interesting entries than I had imagined possible. Finally, I have had the privilege of working with Mariah Gumpert as my editor and Christine McGlumphy as my copyeditor. They managed to combine helpful criticism with never-failing encouragement. All authors should be so fortunate.
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The United States was the first modern nation to win independence from one of the great European powers. As such, its veterans, and those of the nations that have followed in its path, have taken on a new historical role. They were not mercenaries fighting for money, barbarians for plunder, or the poor conscripted or forced through poverty to fight for the rich as have been most soldiers in history. They were and are freedom fighters, ordinary citizens who left their civilian occupations to put their lives heroically on the line to give their fellow countrymen and their children a better future. Many who fought the War for Independence believed they were on a mission from God to restore freedom, an ideal which had become ‘‘a fugitive’’ that ‘‘had been hunted round the globe’’ in a world governed by tyrants, and to provide people from all nations who cherished liberty with ‘‘an asylum.’’ These were the words of Thomas Paine—himself an immigrant from England as recently as 1775—in his pamphlet Common Sense. It sold over 100,000 copies in 1776, about one for every three free families in the 13 colonies, and persuaded Americans that they ought to be fighting not to correct the wrongs of the British Empire, but to become the first large republic in the world since the days of ancient Rome. Indeed, revolutionary Americans took the example of Rome very seriously, as the architecture of the Capitol, the statues of Washington wearing a toga, and the very name ‘‘Senate’’ of the upper house of the legislature, shows. Cincinnatus, the Roman general who was called from his plough to head the army, refused any political posts or rewards, and returned to his fields immediately after the war, was the republic’s ideal soldier. The first major American city founded after the Revolution bore his name. The officers of the Continental Army who formed the nation’s first veterans’ association—the still functioning Society of the Cincinnati—chose that name to reflect the hope that they would follow in his footsteps. Cincinnatus presented the ideal citizen soldier who could defend the republic. He (and except for nurses and occasional women in disguise, all American soldiers were xxxi
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‘‘he’’ until the twentieth century) would treat military service as a duty and a privilege, as the Selective Service or draft maintained during its existence from 1918 until 1972. The nation owed him nothing more than gratitude. Yet gratitude meant more than mere words. It was believed that veterans should not suffer unnecessarily for having devoted a substantial portion of their lives to the nation: specifically, they were entitled to reimbursement to put them on at least an even keel with those who had continued to work and prosper while they were in service (see also Benefits; Pensions, Civil War; Disabled Veterans). The failure of the nation to extend gratitude to veterans of the Revolution and future wars was one, and probably the principal, motivating factor for American veterans to form organizations. The actions of the first new nation’s veterans when they went unrewarded were frightening. Continental troops from Connecticut and Pennsylvania— two of the states whose men had served most consistently since 1775—mutinied in 1781 and 1783 when Congress ran out of money to pay them, chasing the legislature out of Philadelphia on the latter occasion. Continental officers for their part threatened—but thanks to George Washington’s intervention failed—to overthrow the government. It was not easy to get officers or men to serve without pay for over two years following the Battle of Yorktown as the diplomats negotiated the peace treaty while the British maintained their large army in New York City. Promised half-pay for life, the officers finally settled for five years’ full pay when the money became available. But through what is known as the Newburgh Conspiracy, where they threatened to overthrow the Congress, they recalled another Roman who served as a counter-model for what veterans could do: Caesar (see Revolutionary War Veterans). No human being was more vilified than Caesar in early America. ‘‘Caesar had his Brutus, Charles II had his Cromwell, and George III may profit by their example’’ Patrick Henry proclaimed to the Virginia House of Burgesses as the more conservative members shouted ‘‘treason.’’ Anonymous revolutionary writers signed themselves ‘‘Brutus’’ to honor his assassin, who had tried to save the Roman republic by murdering the man who destroyed it. Historically minded Americans sometimes named their children Brutus along with Washington, Montgomery (after the first American general killed in the Revolution, Richard Montgomery), Franklin, or Jefferson, which had never been first names before. Soldiers had not only saved the Roman republic; they destroyed it when it failed to satisfy their lust for wealth and power. No sooner had the Society of Cincinnati announced its existence than comparisons with Caesar and the Praetorian Guard raised their head. Thomas Jefferson was not alone in believing the Cincinnati would seek to establish a hereditary aristocracy by meeting secretly and conspiring to undermine the elected government. Such fears prompted the surprised members to stress instead two more innocent purposes: that the Cincinnati was formed to celebrate the ties of comradeship forged in battle and to perpetuate the memory of their heroic deeds. George Washington, its first president, only agreed to serve if it remained aloof from politics. Revolutionary War veterans received little from their governments. What we would consider benefits to which veterans were automatically entitled did not exist: surgeries
Introduction (except in Philadelphia and New York, which had hospitals) and recuperation occurred at home, and most health care was the province of midwives. Land was what veterans wanted from their government if they could not obtain the money to buy it, as most men at that date were or aspired to be farmers. Those who served for long periods in the Continental Army tended to be young men who had not yet acquired their plots. And since neither the federal government nor most states had any money until the 1790s, land was what they got. While some of the land was out west, threatened or controlled by Indians until the 1790s (such as Kentucky and Ohio), the states owned a great deal and made it available to former soldiers in lieu of cash. But there were no heroes’ welcomes for Revolutionary veterans, except greetings when they returned to their local communities. Most Revolutionary soldiers served in the militia, turning up when the British appeared in their vicinity, otherwise remaining at home the rest of the time. The Continental Army, which rarely numbered more than 10,000 men, melted away by gradual discharges and desertion between the victory at Yorktown on December 19, 1781, and the final evacuation of New York by the British on November 25, 1783. The only quasi-official ceremony that marked the end of the war was George Washington’s farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern on December 4. Battles and victories were celebrated between the Revolution and the Civil War, but little developed in the way of an identity, or common interest, on the part of veterans. Neither the War of 1812 nor the Mexican War engaged a large number of the nation’s males, and furthermore neither was truly national. New England for the most part opposed both wars, and substantial opposition existed in the Midwest to the Mexican War as well. Veterans of these wars who did develop associations did so in old or middle age. (See War of 1812 Veterans; Mexican War Veterans.) In the early-nineteenth century, however, as the Revolutionary generation was fading away, its experience became worth cherishing. Congress granted pensions for veterans who could prove they were indigent in 1818 and expanded them in 1831 (see Benefits). Monuments only appeared after a long delay. Maryland started planning the first public monument to Washington in 1810 but could not raise the funds to complete it until 1829. In 1825, the Bunker Hill Monument Association formed, although it was only finished in time for Daniel Webster to dedicate it as Whig delegates assembled for the 1844 presidential convention. The visit of the Marquis de Lafayette, who spent an entire year as the ‘‘nation’s guest’’ in 1824 and 1825, rekindled an appreciation for veterans, such as the 150 elderly men who were cheered lustily as they occupied three large wagons in the procession when Lafayette entered Philadelphia. Independence Hall was nearly auctioned off by the state of Pennsylvania before the French general persuaded the state to preserve its ‘‘sacred’’ walls. The new republic was not nostalgic: only in 1834 did the first statue of a revolutionary leader, Thomas Jefferson, appear in the nation’s capital, and that was because Captain Uriah Phillips Levy had arranged for it to be sculpted in Paris and then presented to the nation. Two years later, Levy bought a dilapidated Monticello for $2,500; in 1851, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association saved Washington’s house from destruction and still own and operate it today.
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Where veterans were valued, however, was in politics (see Politics, Veterans in). As modern democratic parties emerged, it became necessary for candidates to be attractive to a broad range of voters. War heroes who had not exposed their political beliefs—if any—to public scrutiny were the perfect candidates to defeat politicians who had been obliged to take stands on controversial issues. Andrew Jackson was the first presidential candidate to fulfill this prescription. George Washington, on the other hand, had been more than a military leader: he had in effect functioned as the national executive during the American Revolution, as his correspondence with Congress on matters pertaining to diplomacy and relations with the states shows. And if they were slow to honor their Revolutionary forebears, American men between the 1820s and the Civil War were raring to be soldiers themselves—or at least to play at it. Militia units, one more gaudily attired than the next, were ever available for parades, political rallies, and competitions to show off their drilling and horseback riding skills. It was these units that went eagerly off to the Civil War, confusing who was on which side until the standard blue and gray uniforms were adopted. Their idealism and naı¨ve enthusiasm postponed the draft until September 1862 in the South and July 1863 in the North. The Civil War massively imposed an awareness of veterans on the United States for the first time. The North had a population of about 18 million free people, the South of about 9 million: plausibly assuming one in five of these was a male of military age, about two-thirds of eligible Northerners and 90 percent of eligible Southerners fought. Confederate mobilization was as total as any war in world history. Casualties were 140,000 battle and 224,000 other deaths for the North, 74,000 battle and 59,000 other deaths for the South, with 281,000 Northern and (assuming a comparable ratio) 150,000 Southern wounded. Today’s United States population (just short of 300 million) is nearly ten times as much: comparably, that would be the inflicting of 2 million battle deaths, 3 million deaths from disease, and over 40 million veterans in the nation today. As many soldiers were killed in one month and one campaign (80,000 between early May and June 1864 in northern Virginia) as were killed in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. Especially for Union soldiers in the South, disease was more deadly than bullets: General Ulysses S. Grant was actually reducing casualties by sending his troops into battle as fast as possible, thereby saving them from the greater rate of casualties in camp. Americans both Northern and Southern did not hesitate to show their appreciation for the unheard of sacrifices made by their troops. On May 23 and 24, 1865, the Grand Review occurred. Nearly 150,000 Union soldiers from the Army of the Potomac, led by their commander George Gordon Meade, and the Western Theatre armies, led by William T. Sherman, paraded past President Andrew Johnson, General Grant, and a grateful citizenry in Washington, DC. The states and national government cared for the disabled and aged, as best as they could in the impoverished South. Veterans’ homes housed the aged and infirm throughout the country: long before the United States recognized during the Great Depression that it needed to care for the unfortunate, the republic accorded Union (and only Union) veterans and their dependents their own welfare state. (See Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations).
Introduction The post-Civil War era has gone down in history as an age of corruption, and Union veterans did not hesitate to get their slice of the pie. As the nation’s population grew from 31 to 76 million between 1860 and 1900, railroad mileage rose from 30,000 to 250,000, and cities grew exponentially (New York had a million people in 1860, three million in 1900), transportation and construction contracts and the customs service proved the most fertile grounds for graft. As there was no civil service in the United States until 1883 (and it took the assassination of President James Garfield two years earlier by an office-seeker to bring it into being), all jobs were given to members of the winning party at the appropriate level of government. To be sure, the Union veterans’ organization that emerged from the war, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), was more than an arm of the Republican Party and means of obtaining jobs and pensions for its members. It also cared for veterans and their families and encouraged patriotism. But just as the public ceased to see the Republicans as the party that freed the slaves and as the tool of the ‘‘Robber Barons,’’ the heroic veterans came to be viewed as raiders of the public treasury. Pension bills (see Pensions, Civil War) for individual veterans were a sizeable percentage of congressional business, and Grover Cleveland (1885–1889; 1893–1897), the only Democrat to serve as president from 1861 to 1913, will probably forever hold the record for vetoing the most bills—nearly all of them private pension measures. During the tenure of his Republican successor, Benjamin Harrison, the GAR successfully lobbied Congress to grant a pension to every disabled Union Civil War veteran which was eventually extended to all Civil War veterans, along with their dependents and survivors, and to War of 1812 and Mexican War veterans. Some of these payments continued into the late-twentieth century and became something of a joke as very young women married elderly Civil War veterans as late as the 1930s to obtain lifelong annuities. Yet respect for veterans not only continued, it increased in the 1880s and 1890s as the arrival of millions of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe encouraged citizens to define ‘‘real’’ Americans as those who had put their lives on the line for the republic’s survival. At this time, hereditary societies like the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution were formed by descendants of those who had served in that war. It is no accident the holiday that emerged from the Civil War was Memorial Day—at first Decoration Day—and it arose from the grass roots decoration of graves, which allowed many communities both North and South to claim that they originated it. We celebrate Independence Day for the Revolution (how many Americans know the day the peace treaty was signed?), but for the Civil War and subsequent wars we honor veterans, as Armistice Day from World War I has now become Veterans Day. Ulysses S. Grant was a largely unsuccessful president, yet his funeral in 1885 was the greatest in the nation since Lincoln’s, and the $600,000 needed to fund what is still the most monumental tomb in the United States was successfully, and quickly, raised in the largest fund-raising drive the world had yet seen. In fact, the years around 1890 not only witnessed the GAR’s greatest membership (nearly 400,000 or over a quarter of all surviving Union veterans), but also the most extensive commemoration of veterans in the nation’s history. Besides Grant’s Tomb,
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the huge structures in the Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York, central Indianapolis, downtown Cleveland, and the statues of Confederate heroes on Richmond, Virginia’s Monument Avenue all appeared approximately one generation following the war. Furthermore, the presence, or rather the omnipresence, of veterans in person, literature, classroom lessons, and political orations instilled in the next generation a culture of patriotism and a desire to be like the men in blue or gray (see Literature and Veterans). The response of President Theodore Roosevelt—who at the age of seven had witnessed Lincoln’s funeral processions pass by the window of his father’s New York house—to the Spanish-American War of 1898 embodied this mentality: ‘‘It wasn’t much of a war, but it was the only war we had.’’ Furthermore, with Southerners like Fitzhugh Lee commanding American troops, the ‘‘Splendid Little War’’ united soldiers from both sections; Union and Confederate soldiers also buried the hatchet at numerous Civil War reunions (see also Spanish-American War Veterans). When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, once again it did not need to conscript soldiers to fill its ranks. ‘‘Selective Service’’ was instituted by the War Department largely to prevent men eager to serve at the front but who had special skills such as typing, knowledge of foreign languages, or were able to drive trucks to serve where they could be most useful. President Woodrow Wilson personally prevented an aging Theodore Roosevelt from leading the troops once again as Wilson feared it would help Roosevelt’s political career. The war ended in an Allied victory in November 1918, after 4,700,000 Americans had been mobilized. The experience of war was quick and triumphant. The average American soldier had only a 50 percent chance of being sent to France and a 25 percent chance of seeing action. Nevertheless, the casualty rate (by one measure 53,000 killed in action, 63,000 other deaths, and 204,000 wounded) for an average period of six months in action per soldier was fully comparable to the appalling mortality the other powers endured for over four years. World War I veterans returned to a United States in 1919 and were greeted by strikes and radical political activity. They thus formed the American Legion, with Theodore Roosevelt Jr. at the head of the organizing committee, or joined the preexisting Veterans of Foreign Wars created by Spanish-American War veterans in 1913, which determined ‘‘To Keep the Spirit of the Great War Alive.’’ As the Legion advertised to recruit members in the first issue of the American Legion Weekly, published on July 4, 1919, After reading on one page of your newspaper all about the spread of Bolshevism . . . and your desponding and gloom increases as you read of riots on another page, more high cost of living news—just as you are reading about starving Europe and sinking into the last stages of melancholia—your read about THE AMERICAN LEGION__OH-H-BOY!! AIN’T IT A GRAND AND GLOR-R-RIOUS FEELING? About 850,000 eligible veterans joined the Legion in its first year—the number has varied between a fifth and a quarter of those eligible ever since—and the VFW— whose membership was restricted to those who actually served overseas—counted between 200,000 and 300,000 followers in the twenties and thirties.
Introduction Both the Legion and VFW offered their services to the government during the ‘‘Red Scare’’ of 1919 to 1921, serving as auxiliary police and riot troops, breaking strikes, and sometimes acting on their own to suppress radical and pacifist activities. They would intermittently resort to such tactics in the future, such as putting down strikes in California fields and shipyards in the thirties, or attacking attendees at Paul Robeson’s concert at Peekskill, New York, in 1949 (see Peekskill Riot). But they soon realized that controlling school boards and redirecting youthful energy from radical politics to the Little League Baseball teams and the Boy Scout troops they sponsored proved far more effectual and uncontroversial; they continue these activities today (see Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations). Both organizations have also supported strong defense measures against Communism and terrorism. World War I veterans had been mobilized and demobilized so quickly that no government agency existed to take care of their postwar needs. The main problem was two long-term health issues arising from the war that the contemporary hospital system could not handle: tuberculosis resulting from poison gas, and neuropathological diseases, commonly known as ‘‘shell shock,’’ largely the result of the persistent but irregular explosions that rocked the Western Front night and day. The newly formed Veterans Bureau got off to a rocky start when President Warren G. Harding appointed corrupt friends to run it, but the organization—which subsequently became the Veterans Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs—offered a system of veterans’ pensions, hospitals, and benefits that were set firmly in place by the midtwenties. The extent of these benefits, and the political pressure used by the American Legion in obtaining them, came under attack in the late 1920s as veterans’ expenditures climbed to a quarter of the national budget and disability pensions became easier to obtain. During the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration cut benefits by nearly a third in 1933 but maintained the loyalty of most veterans as they became eligible for New Deal welfare programs available to the general population. The most controversial veterans’ issue of the 1920s and 1930s, however, was the ‘‘Bonus,’’ a payment to veterans to compensate them for the time they spent during the war earning low military wages as prices skyrocketed at home. Passed by Congress in 1924—but not to be paid until 1945—veteran agitation to pay the Bonus at once as a means of alleviating misery climaxed during the Depression. Poor veterans, starting in Oregon, joined the Bonus March on Washington in 1932, where General Douglas MacArthur fired on the veterans’ camp against the orders of President Herbert Hoover, who asked him to remove them without shooting. The immediate payment of the Bonus passed in 1936 over President Roosevelt’s veto (see Bonus March). Veterans and their role in American society were extremely controversial in the twenties and thirties, both because of actual issues such as the Bonus or veterans’ support for defense expenditures, but also because critics saw in the American Legion a mirror of the powerful fascist movements in Europe, such as the Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy. The comparison reflected fear more than rationality: the Legion had no need or desire to overthrow the government. It was able to achieve nearly all its goals through traditional political channels and strongly supported constitutional authority. Its members did not wear military uniforms (only the familiar caps), elected
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its officers through democratic means—although as in all associations an active elite ran the show—and had black, Catholic, and Jewish members. It boasted of Jewish national chaplains and Catholic national commanders. Undisciplined conventions where liquor flowed both during and after Prohibition were the principal fault of the Legion, where thousands of members and hangers-on would tear up a city for a few days. The real parallel with fascism in inter-war America was the Ku Klux Klan, which at its peak in the early twenties had over five million members (over eight times the Legion’s). A militant and exclusively Protestant organization, it met secretly, was run by a self-selected (and corrupt) hierarchy, and its violence against Jews, Catholics, and blacks was a matter of systematic national policy rather than sporadic excess. The Legion’s anti-radical program was typical of conservatives throughout American history, who until the American Civil Liberties Union was founded after World War I in response to the excesses of the Red Scare, rarely concerned themselves with the rights of union organizers or socialist ‘‘agitators’’ despite the formal constitutional protections. Within reasonable limits, both the American Legion and VFW in fact have striven to remain apolitical. This means they will not actively endorse or fund candidates for political office, although the VFW changed this policy in 1979 to support lawmakers who favor its programs; however, the Legion and VFW both make it obvious through speeches, publications, and invitations to conventions which lawmakers oppose or support their agendas. They have traditionally tried to skirt controversial issues that would reduce membership: for instance in the 1920s the Legion attempted to avoid supporting or opposing both the Klan (to which many of its members belonged, while others hated it) or Prohibition. The right of black veterans to belong was left to the discretion of each state and post, as is the status of gay veterans at the present time. Like the nation itself, both the Legion and the VFW national organizations have followed generally conservative courses in the twentieth century while allowing for local diversity and initiatives (see Politics, Veterans in). World War II ended any debates about veterans’ benefits and organizations in the United States of the magnitude that had occurred over the previous 20 years. Sixteen million men and women served, 292,000 were killed in combat, 115,000 died from other causes, and 671,000 were wounded. As the draft had begun in 1940 and some service personnel were not discharged until 1946, many young Americans had given up to six years of their lives—as opposed to an infrequent maximum of two during the First World War—to a grateful nation. With sacrifices of this caliber, it only took minor political maneuvering for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act—commonly known as the ‘‘GI Bill’’—put together by the American Legion to pass Congress in 1944. Granting liberal allowances for disabled veterans and their dependents, providing free care in veterans’ hospitals for war-related (and ultimately all) injuries and diseases, offering free burial plots, and providing allowances that permitted veterans to attend college or vocational school with full expenses paid, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act has generally been considered the most comprehensive and successful act of social welfare legislation in American history. (See World War II Veterans; Benefits.) Advocates for an expanded welfare state have frequently cited it to defend their position, whereas conservatives and the veterans’ organizations have argued
Introduction similar benefits should not be indiscriminate entitlements, but ought to be reserved for those who have served in the military. Veterans of Korea, Vietnam, recent conflicts in the Middle East, and the peacetime military have received variants of the GI Bill benefits. (See —Korean War Veterans; Vietnam War Veterans; and Gulf War Veterans.) Yet not until 2008, as it has become more difficult to find people willing to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, did some service personnel in those theaters receive benefits equal to the 1944 Bill (see Afghan War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans). In the years after World War II, both the American Legion and the VFW exploded in membership. In general, they have attracted on average between two and three million veterans each per year since 1945. Every eligible American president and nearly all Congressmen and state legislators with military service belong to one or both. Yet their generally conservative stands on political issues displeased liberals and veterans, who founded the American Veterans Organization (AMVETS) in 1946. Espousing causes such as integration of the armed forces before President Harry S Truman ordered it in 1950—the Legion and VFW avoided losing members by remaining silent—and supporting the United Nation—which many conservative veterans regard as either a waste of money or subservient to foreign interests—AMVETS has provided a liberal alternative to the larger organizations. Still, it has never numbered more than about 200,000 veterans and thus has much less political influence. Every major American war before Vietnam was fought by a cross-section of the population. In fact, in many wars, the willingness of the elite to sacrifice for a war they entered has usually exceeded that of the general population. Eighty-eight members of Congress resigned their seats to serve in World War II even though many were World War I veterans and too old to be drafted. Memorial walls at Ivy League universities list large numbers of men from famous families who died in the Civil and World Wars: for Harvard, three of the oldest four to die in World War II were Roosevelts: two sons of Theodore and the commander in chief himself. But few men are listed on these walls for Vietnam—I counted eight at Princeton—and these are invariably officers, men who wanted to serve. (No congressman vacated his seat to serve in Vietnam or the present Iraq War.) The nature of military service in Vietnam resulted in an abnormal situation that ultimately harmed its veterans. It paradoxically alienated the very men who were taking the most risks from the population for which they were fighting. Almost any college educated, wealthy young man could find alternative service (George W. Bush in the Texas National Guard) or wait out the war overseas (Bill Clinton at Oxford University in England). Tours of duty in Vietnam were limited to the second of two years for which predominantly lower and middle-class men were drafted. Further, as warfare becomes more sophisticated, more personnel are needed in the rear to support each man in the field. In Vietnam, the ratio was seven to one; by Iraq, it had become fifteen to one. Draftees were dying as career military and enlisted men avoided combat (see Vietnam War Veterans; African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War; Hispanic-American Veterans). Thus, the brunt of the service was borne disproportionately by the poor, the uneducated, and men of color. When they returned home, they were disliked both by antiwar (who considered them uncritical murderers for the upper class) and pro-war (who
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considered them incompetent) Americans. Care in veterans’ hospitals, many of which were providing long-term care for elderly veterans, planned for and run by World War II- and Korean-era veterans, was frequently unsympathetic and inadequate. It did not help that groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War, regardless of the merits of their case, were not presented favorably by the media. Hard economic times in the early 1970s would have made it difficult enough for the sort of men who served in Vietnam to find employment without the stigma of being blamed for losing a war that their superiors had fought in a manner that was impossible to win. (Neither the editor nor the authors of this encyclopedia engage the still controversial questions of what winning in Vietnam meant, whether winning was possible, and whether victory would have been worthwhile.) Community recognition and better health care for Vietnam veterans have come slowly, usually as a result of their own lobbying (see Vietnam War Veterans). At the same time, closing hospitals and reducing these benefits has also been an attractive option for the governments since the Vietnam veteran population was neither as large nor as politically influential as those of the Civil and World Wars. Thus, the hospital and benefits system available to veterans from the Gulf, Afghan, and Iraq Wars was the severely truncated one left over from Vietnam rather than the system designed for veterans of World War I and II. Difficulties faced by both sets of veterans are similar. Vietnam veterans had to fight long, and only partially successful, battles with the Veterans Administration and legal system to obtain compensation for unusual diseases—notably the effects of the pesticide Agent Orange. Gulf War veterans now have to fight a second time because some of their ailments, such as Gulf War Syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder, were at first unknown and then not classified as service connected. In the post-Vietnam era, there is no draft. Those who enlist are either exceptionally dedicated to their country or, as is more often the case, National Guard personnel or recruits seeking either income or career training in economic hard times. Initial commitment among the general population to the short-lived Gulf War and then the Afghan War was considerable because of Saddam Hussein’s takeover of Kuwait in 1989 and the bombing of the Twin Towers in 2001, as recruiting patterns reflected. But then dissatisfaction with the Iraq War grew for two main reasons: it continued long after President George W. Bush declared it over and then the major justification, that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, proved false. National Guard personnel who had not expected to serve overseas and recruits enticed by prospects of a better job and benefits came to comprise a disproportionate element of the military in the field. But the fact that there is no draft has been a boon for veterans. The government needs new enticements to recruit soldiers. Female personnel perform many noncombat tasks (very loosely defined) and convicted felons may now serve, although homosexuals are still excluded as of 2009. Thus, the increased benefits of the GI Bill of 2008 will undoubtedly attract those who could not otherwise receive college educations or technical skills the military can provide. Sensing the needs of their present and potentially future membership, the major veterans’ organizations have stressed supporting the troops—rather than administration policy—in Iraq and are actively working to see that benefits approximate needs.
Introduction Despite official pronouncements that we owe our very national existence and freedom to the sacrifices of our military, the question of how that gratitude ought to be expressed has always, like every major question in American life, been a matter of Politics: Who Gets What, When and How to use the title of Harold Lasswell’s 1936 classic work. After they leave the field of battle, while they retain some of their wartime prestige, veterans, like Cincinnatus himself, are again civilians. In the United States, this means that they appear principally as members of veterans’ associations, trying to convince the wider public that they merit both respect and a certain proportion of scarce government and private resources. Thus, to a large extent, veterans and their organizations, both from self-interest but also sincere devotion to their community, spend a great deal of time doing good deeds: helping their comrades obtain benefits to which they are legally entitled, raising money for hospitals, working with youth. The local ‘‘post’’ is the principal form by which the American knows his or her veteran, through the Legion or the VFW in most cases, as a friend and a neighbor. While this encyclopedia focuses on the overall experiences of veterans in American history, it is good to conclude this introduction by noting that despite the wonderful oral history projects, such as those at the Library of Congress and the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that are collecting the stories of thousands of veterans, most of their stories will never get into the books. They will live in the memories of the people, and through the memorials, monuments, and museums, of the communities they have served since the Spirit of 76 first made its appearance.
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Timeline
1775 1780 1783
1789 1806 1813 1818 1825 1832 1833 1834 1843 1846 1848
American Revolution begins. Congress promises Continental Army officers half-pay for life in an effort to persuade them to remain in service. Newburgh Conspiracy—Continental Army officers threaten a coup if Congress does not pay them. Society of the Cincinnati formed. Arouses opposition as potential hereditary military aristocracy. Washington bids farewell to his remaining troops and officers; most of them have informally left or been dismissed. Black and other loyalist veterans evacuated from New York City. Many move to Canada. First federal pensions for disabled veterans in the Continental Army voted by Congress. Federal pensions approved for disabled Revolutionary War veterans who served in state and local militias. Existing pension laws for Revolutionary War veterans applied to War of 1812 veterans. Federal pensions made available to all Revolutionary War veterans who can prove poverty. Bunker Hill Monument dedicated on fiftieth anniversary of the battle. All surviving Revolutionary War veterans become eligible for pensions if they served six months. Federal Bureau of Pensions established. Naval Asylum to care for navy veterans opens in Philadelphia. Bunker Hill Monument dedicated; took 18 years to build. Disability pensions made available to Mexican War veterans. Cornerstone laid for Washington Monument. xliii
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1851 1854 1861 1862
1863 1864
1865
1866
1869
1870 1874 1879
1884 1885– 1889 1887 1888 1889 1890
United States Soldiers Home opens in Washington, DC. United Brethren of the War of 1812 formed to lobby for benefits. Civil War begins. General Pension Act passes Congress for disabled Union Civil War veterans and their dependents. Confederates who served in previous wars no longer eligible for pensions. First black soldiers enlisted to fight for the Union. Gettysburg National Cemetery founded and dedicated by Abraham Lincoln. Arlington National Cemetery established on the grounds of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s plantation. Practice of decorating the graves of war veterans begins in communities in the North and the South. Grand Review, two-day parade of 140,000 Union veterans in Washington, DC. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States established. First law giving veterans preference in federal employment. First National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers established for Civil War veterans. Grand Army of the Republic formed of Union Civil War veterans. The Grand Army of the Republic recommends Decoration Day, later Memorial Day, generally be commemorated on May 30. Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan and resist imposition of black rights by occupying Union troops. Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first of five Civil War veterans elected president of the United States. Southern Historical Society founded to perpetuate the idea the South fought for freedom and states rights, not slavery and economic wealth. General Jubal Early becomes the principal spokesman for this ‘‘Lost Cause’’ ideology. Any Union veteran who served 90 days now eligible for 160 acres of free Homestead land. National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War holds first convention. Arrears of Pension Act enables Union veterans to collect cumulative amount from the time of their disability during the war regardless of when they apply for pension. John Logan, former national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, is unsuccessful Republican candidate for vice president. Democrat Grover Cleveland vetoes more bills than any other president— mostly private pension bills for Union veterans passed by Republican congresses. All Mexican War veterans eligible for pensions. Washington Monument opened, 40 years after construction began. United Confederate Veterans founded. Sons of the American Revolution founded. General Pension Act makes any Union veteran with a disability, whether acquired during the war or not, and his dependents eligible for a pension.
Timeline
1894 1895 1896 1898
1899 1904
1912 1913 1914 1915
1917
1918 1919
1920 1921
1922
Naval Order of the United States founded. Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park created, the first one in the United States. Daughters of the American Revolution founded. Shiloh National Military Park created. Gettysburg National Cemetery incorporated into a national military park. Hebrew Union Veterans formed. Spanish-American War. Theodore Roosevelt wins fame for leading charge at San Juan Hill, elected governor of New York, then vice president of the United States, becoming president upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. Role of black veterans in saving Roosevelt’s charge generally ignored. Vicksburg National Military Park created. All Union veterans eligible for federal pensions. United Spanish War Veterans formed out of three existing veterans’ organizations. Confederate veterans reburied in Arlington National Cemetery; cornerstone of monument to them laid. Fiftieth anniversary reunion at Gettysburg of Union and Confederate veterans. Veterans of Foreign Wars organized. Film Birth of a Nation directed by D. W. Griffith glorifies Confederate veterans as Klansmen in the postwar South. Leads to a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Coast Guard becomes part of the armed forces. United States enters World War I. War Risk Insurance Act provides for deductions from troops’ pay to cover pensions for the disabled, widows and orphans, and dependents. Vocational Rehabilitation Act passes Congress to provide retraining for disabled veterans. American Legion formed. First Armistice Day to honor World War I veterans. Black veterans lynched and attacked on return to the South. Veterans groups attack Socialists, Communists, and left-wing organizations during the ‘‘Red Scare.’’ American Legionnaires killed in Centralia, Washington, in confrontation with Industrial Workers of the World. Disabled American Veterans of the World War founded. Polish Legion of American Veterans established. Veterans Bureau formed. Massive thefts and incompetence under Director Charles Forbes appear almost immediately. First veterans’ hospitals established. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier dedicated in Arlington Cemetery. Jewish War Veterans of the United States formed.
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Timeline
1924
1928 1929 1930 1931
1932 1933
1935 1936 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942
1943 1944
1945 1946
Congress approves Adjusted Service Compensation—The Bonus—over President Coolidge’s veto—to be paid in 1945. Formation of Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home for war orphans. American War Mothers chartered by Congress. American Legion Junior Baseball begins. American Gold Star Mothers established. First pilgrimage of Gold Star Mothers to France and England. Veterans Bureau renamed Veterans Administration. Second pilgrimage of Gold Star Mothers to France and England. ‘‘Star Spangled Banner’’ becomes national anthem thanks to lobbying by veterans groups. To alleviate hardships of Great Depression, veterans allowed to borrow up to half of the Bonus due them in 1945. Texas Congressman Wright Patman introduces bill to immediately pay the rest of the Bonus. Bonus Expeditionary Force formed in Oregon in June, arrives in Washington, driven out by army led by Douglas MacArthur. Economy Act of 1933 slashes veterans benefits by nearly $500,000,000. New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps provide employment or relief for veterans. Catholic War Veterans founded. Immediate payment of Bonus passes Congress over President Roosevelt’s veto. Final, seventy-fifth anniversary reunion of Gettysburg survivors. Tallest monument in the world (570 feet) completed to honor victors of the Battle of San Jacinto that established Texas independence. First peacetime draft in United States history. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. appointed first black general in U.S. history. United States enters World War II. Marines and Coast Guard accept black recruits for the first time. Captain George H. Maines organizes the Blue Star Mothers in Flint, Michigan. President Roosevelt proposes comprehensive program of postwar benefits for veterans. Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, popularly known as the G.I. Bill, provides college tuition and living support, up to a year’s unemployment pay, and generous disability benefits. American Veterans Committee founded. AMVETS founded. Association of Brazilian Ex-Combatants formed, veterans’ organization of Brazilians who fought in World War II as part of the 5th U.S. Army. Filipino veterans who fought for the United States no longer eligible for U.S. citizenship and veterans’ benefits. Women’s Army Corps Veterans founded.
Timeline
1948 1949 1950 1952 1954 1955 1958
1960 1963 1964 1966 1967
1969 1971 1972 1982 1984
1985 1986
Disabled AMVET leader Harold Russell wins two Academy Awards for The Best Years of Our Lives, a film about the problems of returning veterans. Paralyzed Veterans of America founded. Blinded Veterans of America founded. Armed forces integrated by order of President Truman. Westchester County, New York, veterans attack those attending concert by left-wing singer and speaker Paul Robeson. Korean War begins. Veterans Adjustment Assistance Act, or Korean War G.I. Bill, passes with less generous benefits than those available to World War II veterans. Armistice Day becomes Veterans Day to honor veterans of all wars. Pearl Harbor Survivors Association formed. Submarine Veterans of World War II formed. Two supposedly surviving Confederate veterans and about a thousand Confederate widows become eligible for federal pensions. Tombs of Unknown Soldiers of World War II and the Korean War dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery. Non-Commissioned Officers Association formed. National Association of Brazilian Expeditionary Force veterans formed. Vietnam War begins officially with Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Veterans Readjustment Benefit Act, or Vietnam War G.I. Bill, passed. Anti-War American Servicemen’s Union founded. Memorial Day becomes the official name of the holiday previously known as Decoration Day. Vietnam Veterans Against the War founded. Future senator and presidential candidate John McCain captured by North Vietnam and will spend over five years as a prisoner of war. GIs United Against the War founded in Camp Jackson, South Carolina. Winter Soldier Investigation and protests by veterans in Washington, DC, against the Vietnam War. Draft ends and all-volunteer army instituted. First Rambo film, directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone, encourages belief Vietnam continues to hold American prisoners of war. Vietnam veterans win $180,000,000 lawsuit against companies that manufactured Agent Orange, a toxic chemical to which they were exposed. Tomb of Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery. Vietnam National Memorial dedicated in Washington, DC. Montgomery G.I. Bill provides up to $300 a month for educational expenses for post-World War II veterans in return for three years’ active duty. Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association formed. Association for Service Disabled Veterans founded.
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Timeline
1988 1989
1990– 1991 1993 1995 1996
1998
2001 2003 2004 2008
Veterans Administration becomes cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs. Colin Powell, a black Vietnam veteran, becomes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Film Glory depicts heroism of Civil War black Union soldiers. Gulf War Syndrome—ranging from dizziness and memory loss to nausea and birth defects in children, appears. ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy instituted by President Clinton prevents openly gay people from serving in the military. National Korean War Memorial completed in Washington, DC. American Veterans for Equal Rights founded to overturn ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy and defend the rights of gay service personnel. First of four (so far) national summits on Women Veterans’ Issues sponsored every four years by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Body of Unknown Soldier from Vietnam identified and reburied. Tomb remains empty. National African-American Civil War Memorial completed in Washington, DC. Afghan War begins in October in response to attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11. Iraq War begins March 20. National World War II Memorial completed in Washington, DC. New ‘‘G.I.’’ bill passes Congress, funding full college tuition for up to three years for service personnel in Iraq and Afghan Wars and other benefits comparable to the 1944 G.I. bill for World War II veterans. Study by Department of Veterans Affairs estimates about a fourth of all service personnel who served in the Gulf War of 1990–1991 suffer from Gulf War Syndrome.
A entered Afghanistan to root out resistant Taliban and al Qaeda elements. American military personnel were primarily deployed in the north of the country to assist the Kabul government, while Canadian and European NATO forces patrolled the more troublesome southern provinces. American casualties have spiked in recent years as U.S. ground troops have increasingly engaged enemy forces in combat in southern Afghanistan. In May 2009, President Barack Obama announced 17,000 additional U.S. servicemen would be joining over 28,000 already in the country, out of a total international force of 56,000. Americans were present in Afghanistan before the war began, but they were members of the CIA who entered the country in the 1980s to assist rebel groups in their fight against the Soviet Union, which had invaded the country in 1979. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet-backed Afghan communist regime in 1992, American interest and funding dried up. Afghanistan
ADJUSTED COMPENSATION See Bonus March
AFGHAN WAR VETERANS The War in Afghanistan On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the American military launched Operation Enduring Freedom to overthrow the Taliban regime and destroy terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan. In the first months of the conflict the U.S. military employed an effective air campaign. Ground troops were limited to a small number of special operation forces that aided the anti-Taliban Afghan militias in the north of the country. This stage of the war lasted until mid-December 2001 when the Taliban government was ousted from power. It was not until early 2002 that a large number of U.S. ground forces 1
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descended into a state of civil war, from which the Taliban movement would emerge triumphant. Following the rapid initial victories in Afghanistan in 2001– 2002, the U.S. military and the American public again lost focus of events in Afghanistan as the nation’s attention turned toward the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent counterinsurgency campaign in that country; this has led some observers to refer to the war in Afghanistan as a ‘‘forgotten war.’’ For the first several years of the war, the American presence in Afghanistan remained at 15,000–20,000 military personnel, but the number of U.S. service members in Afghanistan has increased in recent years. By June 2009, over 28,000 American military personnel were stationed in the country. U.S. military units that have been deployed to Afghanistan include brigades from the 10th Mountain Division, 25th Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, and 101st Airborne Division. The heavy active duty presence in Afghanistan has been supplemented by members of the National Guard and Reserve, who as of 2008 comprised 21 percent of service members deployed in Afghanistan (O’Bryant and Waterhouse 2008).
Medical and Psychological Issues of Afghan Veterans From the onset of the war the American military has been keen not to forget the lessons of previous wars, namely, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the American participation in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars. In the Afghan theater, Soviet soldiers suffered
high numbers of casualties from health issues related to microbial infections and hygiene. Another threat to American soldiers entering Afghanistan was mental health disorders, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was recognized as a problem following the Vietnam and Persian Gulf conflicts. To counter microbial threats and prevent psychological disorders, the U.S. military instituted a strategic policy named ‘‘Force Health Protection,’’ which called for making sure military missions were accompanied by programs promoting and sustaining health and wellness throughout military service. Preventive medical technicians deployed with troops in the field and ensured high levels of camp sanitation by emphasizing preventive health measures such as hand washing, waste disposal, and issuing prophylactic medication. Despite these measures, more than half of the military personnel who have served in Afghanistan reported suffering diarrhea, nearly 70 percent experienced respiratory illness, and 35 percent reported noncombat injuries. Military personnel assigned to Afghanistan also were subjected to pre- and postdeployment health screening for both physical diseases and mental health disorders (Tanielian and Jaycox 2008). In spite of the preventive steps taken, Afghan War veterans have often been found to suffer from mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and depressive symptoms, as well as traumatic brain injuries. A contributing factor for mental health problems was the increased number and length of deployments, in particular, for National Guard and Reserve service members. National Guard personnel who believed they
Afghan War Veterans would only serve in the United States were not only sent to Afghanistan, but also were recalled more than once during their terms of enlistment. As enlistments in the military declined during the Iraq War, others had their tours of duty extended from 12 to 15 months in the ‘‘Stop Loss’’ program. Some of these casualties have been unavoidable, as improved body armor and ready access to emergency medical care has increased the survival rate of soldiers who suffer severe trauma to the brain. A 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 11.3 percent of service members returning from Afghanistan reported mental health problems, compared with 19.1 percent for those returning from Iraq and 8.5 percent returning from other locations (Hoge et al. 2006). Afghan War veterans were also found to have utilized mental health services at lower rates than service members returning from Iraq and were consistently less likely to report symptoms of PTSD. The difference in rates of disorders between veterans in the two theaters of action reflects the greater exposure to combat for service members in Iraq than their counterparts in Afghanistan. In a 2004 study, 31 percent of Afghan War veterans reported to have been engaged in a firefight and 66 percent had been shot at, while more than 70 percent of Iraq War veterans had participated in a firefight and 93 percent of U.S. Army and 97 percent of Marine Corps Iraq War veterans had been fired upon. In addition, Afghan War veterans were found to have been less likely than their Iraq War counterparts to have handled dead bodies, known someone who was killed, or killed an enemy combatant (Hoge et al. 2004). Afghan War veterans were also found to resign from military
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service at lower rates, 13.7 percent, than Iraq War veterans, 17.3 percent (Hoge et al. 2006). One of the starkest differences between the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts has been the connection between improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). IEDs have been the primary weapon of choice for the Iraqi insurgency, as is reflected in a March 2006 study published by the Congressional Research Service. The study found that, of the 1,179 TBI evacuees, 96 percent had sustained injuries in Iraq and only 4 percent had been injured in Afghanistan (Tanielian and Jaycox 2008). An increased use of IEDs in Afghanistan in the years following the study will likely increase the number of TBI incidents among Afghan War vets. The problem of mental disorders for service members returning from the Afghan War is substantial. A 2008 RAND study estimated that of the 1.6 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars, 300,000 suffer from PTSD (Tanielian and Jaycox 2008). These findings were in part based upon a 2004 study that found 11.2 percent of Afghan War veterans met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD, compared with more than 15 percent of Iraq War veterans. Further, of those veterans who responded positive for mental disorders, only 23–40 percent had sought mental health care (Hoge et al. 2004). The lack of mental health treatment for returning veterans has risen to crisis proportions. A number of incidents involving Afghan War vets provides a tragic preview of the cost of not providing full mental health care to returning service members. In the summer of 2002, four soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg murdered their wives, including
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two murder-suicides; three of the soldiers had been Special Operations soldiers who had served in Afghanistan. Four years later, on Christmas Day in December 2006, Sergeant James Dean, a Maryland Army Reservist who had served in Afghanistan from 2004–2005, was killed by a police sniper at his parents’ home after he had become intoxicated and fired a shotgun several times; since his return from Afghanistan Dean had received mental health care and was on medication, but despite his mental health disabilities he had recently received notice that he was to be deployed to Iraq. The 2008 RAND report hypothesized that based upon the experience of veterans from the wars in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, the need for mental health services for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will increase over time.
Afghan Veterans and American Society As veterans of the country’s first war of the new millennium, Afghan War veterans reflect the changing social values of twenty-first-century America. Though barred from combat arms positions, nearly 15 percent of the U.S. military are women, and female military personnel in Afghanistan have played a prominent role, including exposure to combatrelated trauma. Women are often exposed to combat indirectly and a number of the nearly dozen female military personnel killed in Operation Enduring Freedom related missions were helicopter crew members (see Women Veterans, World War I to the Present). The cost of war on female service members is reflected in recent studies that have shown women suffer PTSD and major
depression at higher rates than their male counterparts (Tanielian and Jaycox). The Afghan War has also mirrored the increased religious diversity of the United States. In 2007 Roberta Stewart, widow of Nevada Army National Guard member Sergeant Patrick Stewart, who was killed in a helicopter crash in September 2005 in Deh Chopan, Afghanistan, successfully sued the Department of Veterans Affairs to permit the use of the Wiccan pentacle on her husband’s gravestone. The Wiccans, who revere nature and its cycles, had fought for a decade for the right for their symbol, a five-pointed star inside a circle, to be placed on the graves of fallen Wiccan military personnel. The most publicized incident involving Afghan War veterans has been the death of former-NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 when he was inadvertently fired upon by his fellow Army Rangers. Tillman was a starting defenseman for the Arizona Cardinals in 2002 when he turned down a multimillion-dollar contract extension to enlist in the U.S. Army with his brother Kevin, a minor league baseball player with the Cleveland Indians’ organization. After Tillman’s death, the military initially reported that he had been fatally wounded in a firefight with enemy insurgents, even though top military officials knew that his death was most likely due to fratricide. The Tillman family spent years investigating the facts surrounding Pat Tillman’s death, including Congressional testimony by Kevin Tillman, who had been stationed in Afghanistan with his brother. Veterans of the war in Afghanistan have been active in organizing support for veterans’ issues. The group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) claims to be the nation’s first and largest
African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 | 5 group dedicated to the military personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has lobbied Congress to pass veteran-related legislation. In recent election cycles veterans of the war in Afghanistan have shown increased participation in politics. In the 2006 elections Afghan veterans Tim Waltz, who had served in Afghanistan as a member of the a Minnesota National Guard artillery battalion, and Joseph Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who had commanded battle groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, ran for election as members of the Democratic Party and ousted sitting Republican members of Congress. Republican Duncan D. Hunter, a captain in the Marine Corps Reserves who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007, was elected to replace his father as the Republican congressman representing California’s 52nd district in 2008 (see Politics, Veterans in). As the war in Afghanistan continues indefinitely, it is ensured that the need for greater focus on veteran issues by the American public and government will only increase. David P. Straub
Further Reading Hoge, Charles W., Carl A. Castro, Stephen C. Messer, Dennis McGurk, Dave I. Cotting, and Robert L. Koffman. ‘‘Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care.’’ The New England Journal of Medicine 351, no. 1 (July 1, 2004): 13–22. Hoge, Charles W., Jennifer L. Auchterlonie, and Charles S. Milliken. ‘‘Mental Health Problems, Use of Mental Health Services, and Attrition from Military Service after Returning from Deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 95, no. 9 (2006): 1023–32.
Hyams, Kenneth C., James Riddle, David H. Trump, and Mark R. Wallace. ‘‘Protecting the Health of United States Military Forces in Afghanistan: Applying Lessons Learned since the Gulf War.’’ Clinical Infectious Diseases 34 (2002, Suppl 5): S208–14. O’Bryant, JoAnne, and Michael Waterhouse. ‘‘National Guard Personnel and Deployments: Fact Sheet CRS.’’ Report for Congress, January 17, 2008. www.fas.org /sgp/crs/natsec/RS22451.pdf Tanielian, Terri, and Lisa H. Jaycox, eds. Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND WAR OF 1812 American Revolution African American soldiers participated in the American Revolution from the beginning. Peter Salem of Framingham, Massachusetts, was a freed slave who took part in the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775, and served at Bunker Hill and Saratoga. He died in the Framingham poor house in 1816, two years before veterans received pensions. About three dozen free blacks fought as part of the New England troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, notably Salem Poor, who had purchased his freedom in Andover six years earlier. Colonel William Prescott and 14 other officers petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to honor him for his ‘‘brave and gallant’’ behavior. He died in 1780. A postage stamp issued in 1975 commemorates him.
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Although George Washington tried to prevent blacks from serving in the Continental Army, the perpetual shortage of men changed these orders. Southern states permitted masters, if they were drafted, to send their slaves as substitutes. Two states, Virginia and South Carolina, offered slaves as a reward for men who enlisted. By 1778, at the Battle of Monmouth, there were about 750 blacks in the Continental Army, a number that, according to one observer, rose to about a fourth of the entire army of 6,000 men by 1781. The most noteworthy black to serve the Americans was James Armistead, who served as a double agent during the Virginia campaign of 1781, General Charles Cornwallis believing him to be on the British side. The Marquis de Lafayette, commander of the Virginia forces until Washington arrived with his full army, later had his picture painted with Armistead and wrote a certificate praising the ‘‘essential service’’ he performed collecting intelligence as deserving of every possible reward. Yet the state legislature of Virginia delayed two years in freeing him and compensated his master at the going rate. In 1819, the state of Virginia granted him a $40 annual pension. Five years later, when he was touring the United States, Lafayette met Armistead, who had taken the name James Lafayette, at his home in Richmond, Virginia. Far more blacks fought for the British in the War for Independence than for the revolutionaries. As Washington was trying to prohibit black recruits, the Earl of Dunmore, governor of Virginia, created an ‘‘Ethiopian Regiment’’ of about 800 men who were slaves escaping from rebel landowners who had been promised their freedom. Their uniforms were
emblazoned with the words ‘‘Liberty for Slaves’’ on their chests to encourage others to run away. The regiment disbanded in 1776 after a defeat at the city of Norfolk and the loss of over half its members from disease. When General Sir Henry Clinton occupied the cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, in 1779 and 1780, he also offered freedom to the slaves of rebels who would join his ranks. The most important black loyalist leader was known as Colonel Tye. His name was Titus, and he was the slave of a New Jersey Quaker who ran away from his farm in Monmouth County and joined the Ethiopian Regiment in Virginia. He served at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778 and by the following year was leading a band that numbered up to 800 guerrillas under his new, unofficial title. In the winter of 1779, he was one of 24 black loyalists who joined with the Queen’s Rangers in the Black Brigade that raided New Jersey for fuel and food during the harshest winter in North American history. In 1780, he executed Joseph Murray, a patriot militia leader who had been executing local loyalists. His string of successful raids came to an end in September 1780, when he was shot in his wrist and died of a resulting infection while capturing patriot Captain Josiah Huddy. At the end of the war, British commanding General Sir Guy Carleton refused to evacuate New York City until all the blacks and escaped slaves who had fled to British lines or fought for the Mother Country were safely evacuated. The Treaty of Paris that ended the war declared that the slaves had to be returned, but the British refused, using the excuse that the United States in turn failed to compensate loyalists for destroyed and confiscated property as
African American Veterans, Civil War the treaty also required. Most black loyalists from New York, like their white counterparts, went to Nova Scotia, where they were given the worst land and denied the right to vote. In 1790 many of them, led by Thomas Peters who had lobbied for the purpose in Britain, founded the African colony of Sierra Leone, although Halifax, Nova Scotia, retains a black community of loyalist descendants to this day. Following the American Revolution, the U.S. Army only recruited white Americans.
blacks wanted to serve that a Second Battalion of 256 men was formed; black Major Joseph Savary led it into the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. Commanding General Andrew Jackson specifically praised the two battalions and expressed the belief that a black man had killed commanding British General Edward Pakenham. After the war, the black volunteers received the same pay and bounty as whites. Black militia units were discontinued in Louisiana in 1834 as recruits failed to appear during peacetime.
War of 1812 The U.S. Navy, unlike the U.S. Army, was always integrated even though blacks were relegated to positions such as cooks and deck hands. It makes sense that a black sailor appears in the famous painting of the ‘‘Battle of Lake Erie’’ by William Henry Powell as about a fourth of all the men in Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s fleet were black. During the war, the black citizens of Philadelphia, under sail manufacturer James Forten, organized a militia unit to defend their city in case the British attacked. In Virginia and Maryland, between 3,000 and 5,000 blacks joined the British forces, under Admiral George C. Cockburn, that attacked Washington, DC, and Baltimore; about 300 served as marines to harass American garrisons. The marines were later evacuated to Britain. On the other hand, in Louisiana blacks fought for the United States. The Battalion of the Free Men of Color that formerly existed under the French and Spanish rule in New Orleans was revived in 1814 for defense against the British. A total of 353 blacks enlisted and included Major Vincent Populus, the first black officer in the U.S. military. So many
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William Pencak See also Revolutionary War Veterans; War of 1812 Veterans
Further Reading Selig, Robert A. The Revolution’s Black Soldiers. http://americanrevolution.org/ blk.html. Van Thenen, Eric. ‘‘The War of 1812.’’ Historic Context for the African-American Military Experience. http:// answers.yahoo.com/question/index? qid=20070418171335AAhaCvK. Wilson, Joseph T., and Dudley Taylor Cornish. The Black Phalanx: African American Soldiers in the War of Independence, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994 (1887).
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, CIVIL WAR About 178,000 black soldiers served in the Union army during the Civil War. Before 1862, those who sought to serve openly were turned away. However, some blacks definitely served as members of their local units. Nick Biddle, one of the ‘‘First Defenders’’ who arrived
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at Washington from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, to secure the national capital immediately after the war broke out, was a black man. He was the first casualty of the war: he was hit by a rock and wounded as Confederate sympathizers jeered his column as they marched across Baltimore, Maryland, to change trains. Only as white volunteers became scarce were blacks welcomed to enlist. Benjamin Butler, military commander of Louisiana, organized the Louisiana Native Guard when the Union conquered New Orleans and much of that state in 1862. He employed black officers who served with distinction in the battles of Port Hudson and Milliken’s Bend in 1863, the first important engagements to use their services. But when Butler was replaced so were the black officers, some of whom complained ‘‘we did most certainly expect the privileges, and respect due to a soldier, who had offered his services and his life to his government. This we have not received, on the contrary we have met with scorn and contempt’’ (Shaffer 2004, 15). The 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments were the first black regiments mustered in the North, and they accepted recruits from other northern states as well as escaped slaves. About a quarter of all blacks who enlisted were from the North; the rest were mostly former slaves from the South. As with all other black units during the war, they were segregated and commanded by white officers. About 19,000 blacks served in the U.S. Navy, which had always had black sailors. All in all, at the end of the war, 9 percent of about two million soldiers and sailors who were mustered out of the service were African Americans.
At first, the black soldiers were given noncombatant duty building camps and roads, repairing rail lines, and driving wagons as white officers feared they would not do well in combat. One black soldier wrote to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton that ‘‘we expected to be treated as men but we have been treated more like dogs’’ (Shaffer 2004, 15). Blacks were originally paid $10 per month regardless of rank—they served as corporals and sergeants, although 111 were commissioned officers by the end of the war. They had $3 per month deducted from their pay, whereas white privates earned $10 a month in addition to a $3 clothing allowance, and higher ranks earned more money. The Massachusetts regiments refused to accept any pay at all rather than an inferior wage, even when the state of Massachusetts offered to make up the difference. A few soldiers mutinied and were executed. By the end of the war, black soldiers had proven themselves, most spectacularly in the heroic but disastrous assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina, where two-thirds of the officers and half the men of the 54th Massachusetts lost their lives, and on which the film Glory is based. Large numbers of blacks were used in combat by General Ulysses Grant in the war’s final campaign against Richmond, and by General George Thomas in the final battles of Franklin and Nashville against John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee. Over a fifth of the black troops—36,000—died, 80 percent from disease, as opposed to 60 percent of the deaths of white soldiers, because of inferior camps, as well as the fact more were in poorer heath than their white comrades when they enlisted. However, despite poor treatment, only about 5 percent of black soldiers as
African American Veterans, Civil War opposed to 15 percent of whites deserted. Robert A. Pinn, an Ohio veteran, summed up the reason: ‘‘I was eager to become a soldier, in order to prove by feeble efforts the black man’s rights to untrammeled manhood’’ (Shaffer 2004, 14). The war also provided blacks with some of the skills needed for peace. Sixteen percent became noncommissioned officers, and thus became leaders. Although there was no general policy, northern abolitionists and white officers established schools to teach the mostly illiterate black soldiers to read and write. The corporals and sergeants were taught and then they in turn taught the privates. Their protests for equal pay and combat duty, along with the pride of marching and fighting alongside large numbers of other blacks, instilled pride and willingness to use their rights as citizens. Most blacks had enlisted in 1863 or later, and their three-year enlistments had not expired when the war ended. Thus, the Union regarded them as ideal occupation troops for the defeated South. Most blacks resented this: they wanted to return to their families, correctly fearing that Southern whites not policed by Union troops would retaliate against blacks. Those sent to Texas for garrison duty along the Mexican border mutinied as the United States was pressuring the French to leave that republic. Black troops in Jacksonville, Florida, mutinied and several were executed. The black troops who remained on garrison duty in the South proved targets for the governments reconstituted by exConfederates that President Andrew Johnson allowed to take power. Most notorious was the Memphis riot of May 1, 1866. About 150 black soldiers remained at nearby Fort Pickering: the
week before a black soldier had been beaten by whites, and when two others were arrested by white police for drunkenness, the veterans attacked the police. White citizens fought back, the army did not intervene for three days, and when the carnage had ended, 46 blacks, including 14 veterans, were dead. Much of the black neighborhood, including churches and schools, was destroyed. That July, a demonstration for the right to vote comprised mostly of black veterans of the Louisiana Native Guard was attacked in New Orleans: 38 people were killed and 146 wounded. By the fall of 1866, only 13,000 black soldiers remained in service, and few continued after the Reconstruction governments established by Congress were put in place. After the war, black veterans suffered more from poverty and unemployment than white. Over four times as many black as white veterans were jobless in the immediate postwar era; the Freedman’s Bureau had to feed and clothe thousands of homeless black veterans discharged in Washington, DC. While the ‘‘buffalo soldiers’’—so named because the Indians considered the blacks’ hair to resemble that of the buffalo—are famous and played an important part in conquering the West between 1865 and 1890, only between 2,000 and 3,000 African Americans fit this category. Largely because black Southerners did not obtain land at the end of the Civil War, most remained poor. In 1890 half of all black veterans were unskilled workers as opposed to just over 21 percent of Union and just under 10 percent of Confederate veterans; most of the rest were farmers, usually tenants or sharecroppers. Most tellingly, whereas over
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African American Veterans, Civil War
half the white Union soldiers were still alive in 1890, only 30 percent of black soldiers survived. Average life expectancy for whites was about 50, for blacks about 40. Only 1 percent of black veterans ever stayed in the Soldiers Homes (see Veterans’ Homes) for Disabled Veterans; although the homes and recreational facilities were integrated, their quarters, mess tables, and even haircuts were segregated. Nevertheless, the 1890 census shows there was a significant degree of geographic and economic mobility for black veterans. Although most remained in their region of birth, there was a pronounced movement from the South to the North, and from the country to cities—in short, to places where opportunity and freedom would be greatest. A combination of army pay, pensions, and skills was the path to upward mobility: 13 percent held high-status occupations as opposed to 7 percent for other African Americans. Realizing the power of the church in the black community, highstatus veterans tended to become clergymen: 844 occupied pulpits as opposed to 93 for the second highest high-status category, teachers. A smaller percentage of black (75) than white (93) Union veterans received government pensions as well. This was even more true of widows (60 percent versus 84 percent) because many blacks did not legitimate their unions with official marriage ceremonies. Until 1890, veterans had to prove disability, and this required assembling witnesses and paperwork, notarizing documents, and traveling to pension offices. With average incomes of about $250 a year, many African Americans could not assemble the funds even to hire pension agents to take their cases. Others who did receive pensions often
were obliged to take out loans at high rates based on receiving future checks. For most black veterans, the principal social reinforcement their services received was from the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Founded by Republican Union veterans (see Civil War Veterans), notably Illinois’John Logan who supported black equality, posts in small towns generally admitted black members, although some did not. In larger communities where significant numbers of blacks had enlisted, they usually had their own posts. At its 1887 encampment, the GAR turned down requests from Louisiana and Mississippi to have separate black and white organizations in those states. Subsequently, two black veterans served as commanders of those states’ united departments as most of the Union veterans from those states were black. Even white Southern Union veterans opposed the segregation proposal. The GAR’s general philosophy was ‘‘a man who is good enough to stand between the flag and those who would destroy it when the fate of the nation was trembling in the balance is good enough to be a comrade in the Grand Army of the Republic’’ (Shaffer 2004, 149). Notable black veterans were elected commanders of predominantly white posts; black and white posts alternatively led city parades or memorial services. The GAR also insisted that the war was about slavery and equal rights for black Americans, which they in fact deserved as they were not inferior as the ‘‘Lost Cause’’ advocates proclaimed. This occurred as more and more Americans embraced the southern ‘‘Lost Cause’’ argument that the South had fought for freedom and states’ rights rather than slavery (see Jubal Early).
African American Veterans, Civil War
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Black Union veterans and their families were welcomed into the Grand Army of the Republic. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-132913]
Careers of African American Veterans Some African Americans used their war service to achieve distinguished careers. Most notable was Lewis Latimer, born in 1848, who served on the USS Massasoit in the Union Navy. He returned to his home city of Boston, where he learned mechanical drawing and later worked for Thomas A. Edison as one of his foremost experts on electric technology. He was the only black member of the Edison Pioneers, the organization of Edison’s employees. Other wellregarded blacks received patronage posts in the Republican Party. Sergeant William H. Carney of the 54th Massachusetts was one of 16 blacks to win the Congressional Medal of Honor during
the war. He seized the regimental colors when the flag bearer was wounded at Fort Wagner and urged his men forward. He played a prominent role in the Grand Army of the Republic and was only the second African American in Massachusetts history—the first was Frederick Douglass—for whom Massachusetts flags were lowered to half-mast when he died in 1908. Robert Smalls, who served as congressman from South Carolina for ten years in the 1870s and 1880s, was perhaps the most famous of all the black veteran politicians. He became known for leading the slaves who seized and captured the Confederate steamer Planter, on which they worked, in Charleston Harbor; he later served as a Union lieutenant. Investing his prize money from the ship in a steamer and
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African American Veterans, Civil War
real estate venture in the Sea Islands, he purchased the home of his former master as well. He toured the North and lectured for additional funds which he then invested in local schools. Except when Democrat Grover Cleveland was president, he held the post of Customs Collector of Beaufort, South Carolina, from 1887 until his death in 1913. Black veterans became involved in politics, primarily during Reconstruction when governments consisting of blacks and Southern Unionists were protected by Union troops. Six of the sixteen black members of the House of Representatives at this time were Union veterans. Thirty-seven veterans filled federal patronage positions in the South out of over 120 African Americans who held them: James Milton Turner was appointed minister to the African Republic of Liberia. One acting governor (P. B. S. Pinchback) and three lieutenant governors of Louisiana were veterans of the Native Guard. Pinchback and former Lieutenant Governor Caesar Antoine were the principal sponsors of Homer C. Plessy’s lawsuit in 1896 that unsuccessfully challenged the segregation of railroad cars and led to the Supreme Court’s famous ‘‘separate but equal’’ decision. Black veterans were among the most active African Americans in the struggle for equal rights in the years after the war. Octavius Catto, who raised 11 companies of black soldiers in Pennsylvania and rose to the rank of major although he did not see combat, was killed in 1871 when he was shot by a supporter of the Democratic Party for organizing black voters in Philadelphia. Like the southern and several northern states, Pennsylvania refused to grant blacks the right to vote until compelled to in 1870 by the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Black veterans fought
against anti-miscegenation laws in Rhode Island (successfully) and Ohio (unsuccessfully). In 1909, black veteran John B. Anderson’s lawsuit persuaded federal courts to invalidate Maryland’s law disfranchising men whose ancestors were not eligible to vote before 1868 (that is, non-whites) unless they had the substantial sum of $500 in property. Some black veterans used their education to instruct their countrymen. John H. Murphy founded the Baltimore AfroAmerican, which at the time of his death in 1922 had the highest circulation of any black newspaper on the East Coast, about 14,000. He favored Booker T. Washington’s philosophy that blacks needed to better themselves economically in trades and not fight too aggressively for political rights. Alexander Augusta and Charles B. Purvis were black medical professors at Howard University and founded the National Medical Society of the District of Columbia when white doctors would not admit them into the American Medical Association. Allen Allensworth and Henry Plummer went west with the black regiments, the 24th U.S. Infantry and 10th U.S. Cavalry, respectively, as chaplains. They used their posts to educate their troops, managing their libraries, gardens, bakeries, and treasuries, and defending them when they were court-martialed. Allensworth worked well with white officers, but Plummer was dishonorably discharged on trumped-up charges of drunkenness for his efforts to encourage emigration to Africa. James Fleetwood, a medal of honor winner, was commander of the District of Columbia’s National Guard’s Sixth (Colored) Battalion after the war and turned down a lieutenant’s commission in the Spanish-American War as he thought he was entitled to a colonel’s.
African American Veterans, Civil War He founded the Colored High School Cadet Corps in Washington. Other veterans saw migration as their solution to prejudice. Entitled to 160-acre homesteads, black veterans were among the leaders of the ‘‘Exoduster’’ movement of Southern blacks to Kansas in 1879. Alfred Fairfax of Louisiana was the first black member of the Kansas legislature. Henry McNeal Turner, chaplain of the First United States Colored Infantry, served in the Georgia state legislature and as postmaster of Macon before deciding blacks could not live peaceably with dignity in the United States. A bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he never obtained many followers for his
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back-to-Africa movement because of lack of funds and reports of high death rates among those who went. For many years, the most notable monument to black Civil War veterans was the frieze outside the state house in Boston, Massachusetts. Executed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and completed in 1897, it shows black soldiers led into battle by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. In 1998, the African American Civil War Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, at Vermont Avenue and U Street in the primarily African American Shaw community. Here several 11-foot-tall statues of African Americans entitled ‘‘The Spirit of Freedom’’ stand alone and do
A hand from the crowd reaches out to touch the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington at its 1998 unveiling. The memorial carries the names of over 208,000 African American Civil War veterans. [AP Photo/William Philpott]
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African American Veterans, Korean War
not share their glory with white officers. The names of over 208,000 black soldiers and sailors who served in the war are also etched into the memorial. William Pencak
Further Reading Blatt, Martin, Thomas J. Brown, and Donald Yacavone, eds. Hope and Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. ‘‘Race, Memory, and Masculinity: Black Veterans Recall the Civil War.’’ In The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War, edited by Joan Cashin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). Gannon, Barbara J. The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic (forthcoming). Glatthaar, Joseph. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. New York: Free Press, 1990. Shaffer, Donald R. After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, KOREAN WAR On July 26, 1948, with Executive Order 9981, President Harry Truman mandated ‘‘equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.’’ This did not, however, instantly integrate the armed forces. During the Korean war, 600,000 black troops served, about half of whom were integrated into previously all-white units. Although figures were not kept by race in Korea or subsequent wars, it is
estimated about 5,000 blacks died in the war. A presidential committee, chaired by Charles Fahy, concluded that segregated units were inefficient and that complete integration would be militarily valuable. Johns Hopkins University also released a study, ‘‘Project Clear,’’ that concluded integrated units and an elimination of quotas limiting the number of blacks would be in the best interests of the service. By 1954, the last all-black army units had been disbanded and the quota system abolished. Resistance to integration in the armed forces continued during the Korean War, however. The 24th Infantry, an all-black regiment mobilized early in the war, was criticized by its commander Major General William Kean for panicking under fire and failing to hold its positions. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall investigated the court-martials of 32 of its soldiers for cowardice and found their sentences excessive. Half were sentenced to death and the remainder were sentenced to 10–50 years in prison. Marshall discovered some of the proceedings had lasted less than an hour and that some of the soldiers who were convicted were at the time in the hospital or assigned to mess duty. Over the years, the controversy over the performance of the 24th Infantry continued, with black veterans demanding a thorough investigation. This continued until 1987 when the Secretary of the Army had the Center for Military History compile a report. Based on over 400 oral history interviews and examination of the records, the report concluded that incompetent white officers blamed black soldiers for the white officers’ own failure to lead properly. Black officers had not been given important positions in the regiment, and white officers who had done badly elsewhere had been
African American Veterans, Spanish-American War transferred there. The regiment’s own commanders demoralized it with unwarranted negative statements. The 24th was placed in a difficult position and did as well as white regiments in the vicinity. Four companies of the 24th especially distinguished themselves at the Battle of Yech’on, the first major victory in the war. Captain Charles Bussey, commander of an engineering company, received a Silver Star for preventing a flanking operation by a North Korean battalion from engulfing the line. Under its final commander, Colonel Thomas Gillis, the regiment conducted a heroic bayonet and grenade assault that was buried in the records. Black pilots also performed well. Captain Daniel ‘‘Chappie’’ James Jr. flew an F-86 Sabre jet on 101 missions in Korea, many of them on unarmed reconnaissance flights behind enemy lines. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and became the first African American to command a fighter squadron. Second Lieutenant Frank E. Peterson Jr. was the first African American to fly for the marines. He flew 64 combat missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross as well. Ensign Jesse L. Brown was the navy’s first black fighter pilot to die in combat during the battle at the Chosin Reservoir in December 1950. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and an ocean escort ship was named after him. William Pencak See also Korean War Veterans
Further Reading ‘‘The Beginnings of a New Era for AfricanAmericans in the Armed Forces.’’ Department of Defense, Korean War.
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http://korea50.army.mil/history/ factsheets/afroamer.shtml. ‘‘Black Soldier, White Army: The 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea Executive Summary.’’ www.koreanwar.com/ BlackSoldierWhiteArmy.htm.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, SPANISHAMERICAN WAR Four regiments of black soldiers—the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry—were serving in the regular army in 1898 and sent to Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Ten new regiments of black volunteers were also raised. Although the army did not want to commission black officers, it could enlist black volunteer troops in no other way. Benjamin O. Davis Sr., who in World War II became the first black general in the United States, was the most notable of those officers. Neither Davis nor his commander in the 8th Volunteer Infantry had had military training, so they relied on two other blacks: First Sergeant Calvin Tibbs, who had 5 years of experience, and Second Lieutenant Andrew J. Smith, who had 28. While cheered in the North, the black soldiers were shunned or harassed when they reached the South: 27 blacks and 4 whites were seriously injured in a race riot in Florida. At San Juan Hill, the Tenth Cavalry came to the rescue of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous Rough Riders, the ‘‘First Volunteer Cavalry,’’ which might have been destroyed had it not received the Tenth Cavalry’s help. During this engagement, 21 black soldiers received citations for gallantry, 13 the Certificate of Merit, 8 the Silver Star, and 1 the Congressional Medal of Honor.
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African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War
Yet Roosevelt, the military, and the press predominantly credited the black regiment’s white officers rather than the troops themselves for fine performance. This period marked the height of lynching, segregation, and race prejudice in the United States: the army accepted the stereotypes that blacks, despite their courage, were intellectually unfit to be officers. Black soldiers suffered from humiliation: white officers would berate their black counterparts in front of the men. Hotels in Cuba refused to serve them. In camps in the United States, black soldiers were assaulted and two were killed. Faced with police harassment, a crowd of black soldiers attacked a police station in El Paso, Texas, and killed a policeman. The leader, Sergeant John Kipper of Company A 25th Infantry was sentenced to life in prison. After Cuba, the four regular black regiments were sent to the Philippines, where they helped suppress the Philippine independence movement. They became increasingly unhappy at fighting other people of color while blacks were lynched repeatedly and had no political rights in the South. The Philippine independence forces printed propaganda to encourage them to desert; 6 did, along with 9 white soldiers. One black soldier, David Fagen, became a captain in the insurrection. His success caused the Americans to place a $600 price on his head, which a Filipino defector claimed when he literally returned with Fagen’s head. Other black soldiers did not openly endorse this conduct, although they sympathized with it. Commissary Sergeant Middleton W. Saddler of the 25th Infantry wrote, ‘‘We are now arrayed to meet a common foe, men of our own hue and color. Whether it is right to reduce these people to submission is not
a question for soldiers to decide. Our oaths of allegiance know neither race, color, nor nation’’ (Soldiers in the Sun). William Pencak See also Spanish-American War Veterans; Philippine War Veterans
Further Reading Johnson, Edward A. History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest. Raleigh, NC: Capital Printing Co., 1899. Powell, Anthony L. ‘‘Black Participation in the Spanish-American War.’’ www.spanamwar.com/ AfroAmericans.htm. Sexton, William Thaddeus. Soldiers in the Sun. New York: Blumefeld, 2008. Steward, T. G. The Colored Regulars in the United States Army. Philadelphia: African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1904.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, VIETNAM WAR TO IRAQ WAR Black servicemen comprised approximately 10 percent of those who served in Vietnam. However, they constituted 31 percent of the combat personnel in 1965, 20 percent in 1968, and overall suffered 7,241 deaths, or 12.6 percent of those killed in action, rates roughly 30 percent higher than all U.S. forces. Because blacks tended to be less educated than whites, they scored less well on the Armed Forces Qualification Test given to all inductees, which relegated most of the black troops to the combat infantry. Twenty blacks won the Congressional Medal of Honor out of 237 awarded.
African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War Considerable prejudice existed against blacks both before and after induction. Only 278 blacks served on the nation’s draft boards out of 17,123 members in 1967. Several southern states had no black members until they were forced to appoint them by General Lewis Hershey, the director of Selective Service. The government refused to consider members of the Nation of Islam as conscientious objectors although over 80 of its members were sent to prison during World War II for refusing to fight. World championship heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali failed his preinduction intelligence test but later was drafted, stripped of his title, and sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to serve. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction after a four-year legal struggle, but about 100 black Muslims were sentenced to prison. Black registrants were also less able to afford the college tuition (which guaranteed most men deferments), enlist in the National Guard, or afford the lawyers who could challenge draft board decisions. Militant black organizations such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party considered the draft a form of genocide against the black male population and the war itself a colonial takeover of an unwilling people. The Black Antiwar Antidraft Union broke into a Chicago draft board office and destroyed the files. In addition to the draft, the army recruited more black soldiers through ‘‘punitive enlistment,’’ where men convicted of minor crimes were offered the choice of jail or military service, and Project 100,000, where that number of men who failed the military aptitude test would be trained to meet the minimum standards. Forty-one percent of the 246,000 men ultimately trained under
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that program were black; discrimination also appeared in the fact that by 1967, two-thirds of eligible blacks and onethird of eligible whites were being drafted. In the army itself, prejudice continued. Defense Department studies of soldiers charged with minor offenses show that blacks usually were court-martialed about twice as frequently as whites despite smaller numbers. This included matters such as being late at roll call or wearing long hair. Similarly, of 1,441 servicemen court-martialed at a number of bases, over a third were black, including 57 percent of those at Camp Casey in Vietnam. Black officers serving as judges were rare. As a result, in 1971 African Americans constituted about a third of the army, a sixth of the navy, and over half the air force prison population, due to both more convictions and longer sentences. Blacks received 26 percent of dishonorable army discharges, 17 percent of the navy’s, and 29 percent of the air force’s. Blacks were five times more likely to receive a dishonorable discharge than whites. Black noncommissioned and commissioned officers were passed over for promotions and awards, in part because they were concentrated in infantry and support services where fewer higher-ranking officers were needed. Despite inroads made by the civil rights movement, blacks in the service were frequently refused service and housing at all white facilities and neighborhoods while in the South and overseas. In response to discrimination, both within and without the military, black soldiers began to assert their racial and cultural identity. African American bars sprang up in Saigon and near other military bases. Blacks began to display black power flags to counter the Confederate flags frequently flown by white soldiers
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African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War
and wear both their hair and insignias indicating a black identity. The black power clenched fist salute was frequently substituted for the regular army salute. Blacks greeted each other with ‘‘dapping,’’ a variety of handshakes and gestures including placing clenched fists over their heads. Racial violence also broke out. At Camp Lejeune, South Carolina, a riot broke out at a dance when a black female naval recruit was dancing with a white sailor. Of the 44 men arrested and charged, only charges against African Americans and Puerto Ricans were not dropped. Racial melees led to the closing of clubs at Qui Nohm in Vietnam and at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and at recreational facilities at China Beach near Danang as white and black soldiers disputed whether country western or soul music should be played. Fights over whether whites or blacks could play music led to brawls at Goose Air Force Base in Labrador and Darmstadt, Germany. In August 1968, race riots occurred at two army stockades—Da Nang and Long Binh— in Vietnam. Black prisoners complained that white guards were especially brutal toward them. Between the 788 and 1,016 (the low and high estimates) officers killed (‘‘fragged’) by their own troops in Vietnam, nearly all were white. While it is impossible to discover the culprits, many of the victims had tried to stop the use of drugs such as marijuana that black troops especially favored. The failure of the military to provide black leadership for its black troops was especially apparent. In 1962, blacks comprised less than two percent of the army’s officer corps, a figure that largely remained unchanged in the sixties. As of 1962, there was no black general in
the army and only one African American commanded a ship in the navy as of 1970. In 1968, there were only 97 blacks out of 9,800 cadets at all the service academies. Those black officers who did rise to the top, however, considered the army less racist than civilian life. Daniel ‘‘Chappie’’ James Jr., the Korean War hero who became an air force general, generalized from his own success to claim that ‘‘it is strange not to be patriotic in a country that has afforded me as many opportunities as mine has.’’ Black General Frederic Davison praised the military for its ‘‘unbelievable progress against prejudice’’ (Westheider 1997, 127). James was later appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in 1972. In response to the discrimination and racial tension in the military, by 1972 the Department of Defense authorized race relations classes and the training of Equal Opportunity Officers for all four branches of service. Minor military infractions had to be published and defendants informed of their rights, which led to large reductions in military prison populations. Trained penologists replaced career officers as wardens. Yet, later studies showed these reforms to be more form than substance as bigotry at all levels of the ranks remained. Militant black service personnel began forming their own organizations in the late 1960s. Along with white and interracial military groups, collectively grouped as RITA—Resistance in the Army—there were at least 14 black soldiers’ and 6 veterans’ organizations that were consciously attempting to bring the war to an end and prevent the army from prosecuting it. The American Servicemen’s Union was probably the largest.
African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War It claimed over 10,000 members by 1970, published a newspaper, The Bond, and had chapters at over 160 bases throughout the world and on 50 naval vessels. It was organized by Private Andrew Stapp in December 1967. GIs United Against the War was founded at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in January 1969. The Movement for a Democratic Military began at Camp Pendleton, California, that November, as black marines looked for inspiration and collaboration with the Black Panther Party. All three numbered members in the thousands and were connected with one of the branches of the American Socialist and Communist parties. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War identified racism as the primary problem in the military and invited black GIs to join the anti-war movement. Radical entertainers Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland also performed at ‘‘Free the Army’’ events near military bases. Two new black Congressional representatives supported the black dissidents: Shirley Chisolm of New York defended blacks accused of crimes and investigated a riot at Norfolk, Virginia, that the navy blamed on blacks. Ron Dellums of California, a former marine, urged blacks and whites to resist induction: ‘‘This country shackles black soldiers and sends them to Vietnam to die’’ (Westheider 1997, 154). Coffeehouses and newspapers were the chief instruments of black radical soldiers and veterans. Operated by the U.S. Servicemen’s Fund, there was usually at least one radical coffeehouse near every major base where films were shown and books and literature against the war were made available. At least 245 ‘‘underground’’ newspapers—which meant they had to be printed and distributed off base—were published between 1967
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and 1972. In response, the services imprisoned and dismissed most of the radicals with dishonorable discharges. The Vietnam War did not do much to help black veterans advance in the civilian sector. There were programs to help: Project Transition was available to personnel with less than six months’ service remaining where they obtained counseling, education, job training, and job placement sponsored jointly by the Department of Defense and private industry. The National Urban League headed by Whitney Young Jr. established the Veterans Affairs Program in 1967, with offices in nine cities. Black veterans helped themselves, too: at the Community College of Baltimore they formed a veterans’ club to help with job training and placement with the support from the American Legion and the American Association of Junior Colleges. Yet, despite all these efforts, a study in 1973 found that nearly a third of black veterans aged 20–24 were unemployed as opposed to about 15 percent of white veterans the same age. The Baltimore club frequently placed men as caddies or janitors. Less than honorably discharged veterans found it difficult to find employment and impossible to get veterans benefits. In 1976, a Veterans Administration study of 44,000 state and federal prison inmates reported a quarter were veterans and half of those were black. The 1967 GI bill that applied to Vietnam veterans only provided $130 a month for single veterans and $160 for married ones for college tuition and living expenses, which at best could supplement a regular income. Psychological problems were also more pronounced among black veterans: studies report about 40 percent had signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, about double the number for whites.
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African American Veterans, World War I
With the advent of an all-volunteer army in 1972, African Americans began to break down racism in the army simply by virtue of numbers and persistent reenlistment, as well as changing social attitudes. As whites did not enlist in sufficient numbers, blacks constituted about 16 percent of the armed forces in 1974 and peaked at about a third in 1979. Blacks in increasing numbers were deciding the army offered them their best opportunity to better themselves: four out of five blacks in the military in 1981 reenlisted as opposed to one out of five whites. Blacks constituted about a quarter of the armed forces during the Persian Gulf War of 1989 and until the early 2000s. Blacks also began to receive the promotions and ranks they deserved in the post-Vietnam era. By the early 1980s, they were in fact overrepresented with over one-third the senior noncommissioned officers (sergeants) because Vietnam-era blacks had disproportionately reenlisted. There were twelve black generals in the army by 1974, whereas there had been only one in 1962. A black Vietnam Veteran, Colin Powell, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 and secretary of state from 2001 to 2004. The need for a job and a desire for training have been the main motives for black enlistments rather than patriotic fervor: between 1973 and 1985, about a third of black 19-year-old men (as opposed to about a sixth of whites) were unemployed. However, with the Iraq and Afghan War, the percentage of blacks in the armed forces has declined to about 15 percent as blacks overwhelmingly (83 percent) have opposed the Iraq War and declined to enlist despite the economic inducements. William Pencak
See also Vietnam War Veterans; Anti-War Veterans Associations
Further Reading Wallace, Terry. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. New York: Random House, 1984. Westheider, James. Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, WORLD WAR I Blacks flocked to enlist in World War I to show their worthiness for citizenship. The quotas for the four black existing regiments (the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry) were quickly filled. Then blacks were subject to the draft like white Americans. In the South, where most blacks lived, deferments from white draft boards were far less likely for blacks than they were for whites. Southern postmen sometimes withheld draft notices from blacks, then had them arrested as draft dodgers to collect the $50 reward, which was deducted from the draftee’s subsequent pay. Blacks provided about 13 percent of those drafted, as opposed to 10.5 percent of the population. Intelligence tests were then in vogue, which required literacy to understand. Despite the fact that Northern blacks in many states scored on the average higher than Southern whites, blacks in general were stigmatized as inferior and unfit for combat. This actually reflected the fear, mostly in the South, that blacks who received military training would be less likely to accept white rule after the war. Overall,
African American Veterans, World War I only 42,000 blacks received the combat assignments they, for the most part, wanted, to show their worthiness for citizenship. Blacks could not serve in the marines, and only in supporting, menial positions in the navy and coast guard. Very few were trained for combat, and most were relegated to labor battalions. As facilities were segregated, black camps at home and in Europe were much inferior, in housing and sanitation, to white camps. However, the black community protested, and given the need to keep up morale, two combat units, the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, were created. In May 1917, too, the army began training black officers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. However, their white commanders did not think highly of them, producing poor morale and performance. The school closed after it graduated its first class in October. All in all, about 1,500 black officers were trained at Fort Des Moines and other camps, mostly in Puerto Rico and Hawaii where civilian hostility was less. No black was allowed to command a white officer, and white enlisted men routinely failed to salute or obey them. Neither the 92nd nor 93rd could develop the cohesion of white regiments, as the army stipulated no more than a quarter of the soldiers at any base could be black. The 92nd and 93rd had different combat experiences. Commanded by the racist General Robert Bullard of the Second Army, the 92nd was at first thrown suddenly into the Meuse-Argonne offensive and failed to fill the gap between an American and French regiment. Assigned to patrol duty afterwards, it lost 462 men. Sent back to the front at Chameney on November 10, 1918, the day before the Armistice, it lost an additional 500 men. Bullard’s poor reports
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were used until the Second World War by the army to ‘‘prove’’ the unsuitability of black soldiers for combat. The French, however, awarded the 375th Infantry and 350th Machine Gun Battalion of the 92nd Division citations for bravery. Three of the four infantry regiments of the 93rd Division were composed of National Guard units from New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. Sent into battle under French command, it was armed, organized, and equipped by the French who had been using black African soldiers in combat for three years. The first black American forces to see combat, they were sent to the front in April 1918, west of the Argonne Forest and held their position until July, when they joined with the French in driving the Germans back during the AisneMarne counteroffensive. The 369th Infantry, the first regiment in combat, received high praise and the nickname the ‘‘Harlem Hellfighters.’’ During a German night raid during this offensive, Corporal Henry Johnson fought off a German party using only a knife and pistol, for which he received the French Croix de Guerre and promotion to sergeant. The 369th fought on the front continuously for 191 days, from April to November 1918, longer than any other regiment in the American Expeditionary Force; 171 of its soldiers received the Croix de Guerre. The other three regiments of the 93rd also excelled in combat. Men of the 370th earned 71 Croix de Guerre and 21 U.S. Distinguished Service Crosses, of the 371st 123 Croix de Guerre and 26 Distinguished Service Crosses. The 372nd suffered 600 casualties in less than two weeks on the front lines and earned a unit Croix de Guerre along with 183 citations.
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Major Hamilton Fish, a founder of the American Legion and future congressmen, commanded black troops, strongly championed them, and tried for years, in vain, to have a monument erected to honor them. Only one black American, Frederick Stowers of Anderson, South Carolina, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, and it was not awarded until 1991: Stowers had been killed leading his unit in combat after the Germans had fired on it after treacherously waving a white flag to pretend to surrender. By the end of World War I, African Americans had served in cavalry, infantry, signal, medical, engineer, and artillery units. Others had been chaplains, surveyors, truck drivers, chemists, and intelligence officers. But their main service was in labor battalions, where they were set to work digging trenches, removing unexploded shells, getting rid of unusable equipment and barbed wire, and burying the dead. Over 160,000, the vast majority who made it to France, worked in this capacity as manual laborers. White officers tried to tell them that digging graves was a sacred or especially honorable duty, but this backbreaking labor did not fool them. At the war’s conclusion, black troops were not allowed to march in the Allied victory parade in Paris, although blacks who had served both the French and the British were present. Nor were they included in the ‘‘Pantheon de la Guerre,’’ the huge French mural that honored the different men who served in the war. Before they were sent home, blacks were barred from the most desirable recreation areas, mistreated by military police, had their pay withheld for ‘‘disciplinary reasons,’’ and the 369th was even failed to receive special Thanksgiving and Christmas rations.
What amounted to the unauthorized lynching of black soldiers for various forms of misconduct was authorized by military officials as the troops waited to be demobilized. Men were hung or shot by firing squads without proper military court-martials. Senator Tom Watson of Georgia identified 62 such cases and failed to obtain satisfaction from the advocate general or a Senate investigating committee. Black officers were investigated for possible radical tendencies by military intelligence. The regiments were also repeatedly pushed down the list of those to be sent home: one battalion actually had to disembark its ship when the captain refused to transport black soldiers. The American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars left it up to each state to decide whether to admit black veterans. In the North, they could sometimes join either integrated or segregated posts: in Dutchess County, New York, they joined both and the black post was far more energetic than the white one. In the South, however, where the great majority of black veterans came from, the states mostly barred them. The states which did allow black posts refused to allow them to attend state or national conventions or vote for any officials outside their local posts. When the Legion organized a pilgrimage to France in 1927, only two black veterans came at their own expense because none of the steamship lines chosen would accommodate black passengers. In 1934 and 1940, the Legion’s national leadership refused to challenge southern cities that refused to let integrated Legion boys’ baseball teams play championship games in their states. New York City did justice to the 369th when it returned home. A splendid
African American Veterans, World War II parade on Lincoln’s Birthday, 1919, marched up Fifth Avenue. The entire regiment ate dinner at the city’s expense in the 71st Infantry Armory. A month later the 367th also enjoyed a homecoming parade. But in the South, where most of the troops came from, there were no parades. Some soldiers were stripped of their uniforms at railroad stations, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reported that soldiers still in uniform were beaten and chased out of towns in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, and even Wyoming. Officially, 83 people were lynched in the United States in 1919, 77 of them black, and of these, at least 10 were veterans. Daniel Mack, in Sylvester, Georgia, was sentenced to jail for 30 days for telling a white man he did not intend to be mistreated as he had fought in the war; a mob broke into the jail and beat him to death while he was still in uniform. In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a black soldier who refused to get off the sidewalk when ordered by a white woman was tied to a tree and shot 40 or 50 times. Race riots took place throughout America in 1919 as well: in Washington, DC, Chicago, Omaha, Charleston, New York City, Norfolk, Virginia, Knoxville, Tennessee, Longview, Texas, and Elaine, Arkansas. In Bisbee, Arizona, fights broke out between the 10th Cavalry and the white townfolk. White columnists and observers attributed the riots to the return of black veterans who did not know their place, along with radical agitators during the Red Scare, even though most of the deaths and violence occurred in black neighborhoods. As the New York World commented, ‘‘who is foolish enough to assume that with 239,000 colored men in uniform from the southern
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states alone, as against 370,00 white men, the blacks whose manhood and patriotism were thus recognized and tested are forever to be flogged, lynched, burned at the stake or chased into concealment whenever Caucasian desperadoes are moved to engage in this infamous pastime’’ (Barbeau and Henri 1974, 184–85). William Pencak See also World War I Veterans
Further Reading Barbeau, Arthur E., and Florette Henri. The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974. Bryan, Jami. ‘‘Fighting for Respect: AfricanAmerican Soldiers in WWI.’’ Military History Online. www.militaryhistory online.com/wwi/articles/fighting forrespect.aspx.
AFRICAN AMERICAN VETERANS, WORLD WAR II About 2.5 million blacks registered for the draft in World War II, of whom about a million served in uniform. Blacks comprised 16 percent of all enlisted personnel but only 10 percent of the population. Yet in June 1945 they accounted for less than 3 percent of those assigned to combat duty. Seventy-eight percent of blacks, versus 40 percent of whites, were assigned to service duties such as the quartermaster and transportation corps. As in World War I, white society feared the effect of veteran black soldiers on American society (see African American Veterans, World War I).
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As America was mobilizing for war in 1940, blacks were determined not to fight, as in World War I, for almost no economic or political gains. Nevertheless, President Roosevelt turned down black leaders who asked for desegregation of the armed forces, although the Selective Service or Draft Act of September 1940, forbade discrimination. Several hundred African Americans registered as conscientious objectors on the grounds that segregated armed forces violated the law, and they were sent to prison. Meanwhile, black physician Dr. Charles Richard Drew developed a system for storing plasma, which has since saved innumerable lives, and served as the director of the American Red Cross Blood Bank. He resigned after serving a year, however, in December 1941, because the Red Cross refused to accept black blood donors. Black pressure led to the appointment of Benjamin O. Davis Sr. as the first African American general in U.S. history the week before the 1940 presidential elections. He commanded the combined 9th and 10th cavalry as the Fourth Cavalry Brigade for the three years it continued to exist before all horse cavalry regiments were terminated. General Davis inspected black military units in 1941 and reported that blacks were being mistreated and humiliated by white officers, troops, and civilians. After investigating racial clashes at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Alexandria, Louisiana; Fort Dix, New Jersey; Selfridge Field (now an air force base), Michigan; and Camp Stewart, Georgia, he recommended black soldiers no longer be trained or mustered in the South and that their officers also be black. Davis, meanwhile, gave numerous speeches encouraging black civilians to
support the war at meetings of industrial workers and war bond rallies. Davis’s son, Captain Benjamin Davis Jr., was also the first black pilot commissioned as one of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. By the war’s end, he had become the unit’s commander. The first 994 black pilots trained for the U.S. military at Tuskegee, Alabama, until the program closed in June 1946. The 99th Fighter Group from Tuskegee served in the North African and Sicilian campaigns in 1942–1943, receiving a Distinguished Unit Citation for the latter campaign. Nevertheless, its commander at the time accused the 99th of both lacking intelligence and cowardly behavior. Later, an investigation by the House Armed Services Committee proved the unit had fought as effectively as any in the air force. During the Anzio offensive of 1944, the 99th shot down 13 of a total of 32 German aircraft, more than any of seven white fighter groups involved. It subsequently won a second Distinguished Unit Citation at the battle of Monte Cassino. In 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group from Tuskegee also went to Europe. Escorting bombing raids into central Europe, the group was known as the ‘‘Redtails’’ by the Allies and the ‘‘Black Birdmen’’ by the Germans. The 332nd was the most frequently requested group for air cover by bombers flying over Germany, although few knew its pilots were black. By the war’s end, the 332nd flew over 15,000 flights on 1,500 missions and shot down 109 German aircraft in addition to destroying numerous fuel dumps, trucks, and trains. The two groups of airmen were later combined and received a total of 20 Silver and Bronze Stars, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 744 Air
African American Veterans, World War II Medals. One hundred fifty men, over 15 percent, of black pilots lost their lives. Black U.S. Navy messman Doris (Dorie) Miller was a hero of the Pearl Harbor attack. Although he had no combat training as blacks were only allowed in service positions in the navy at the time, he manned a gun and shot down six Japanese aircraft. Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded Miller the Navy Cross; he later died when his ship sank. The destroyer USS Miller was named after him in 1973. As more military personnel were required, blacks were admitted to more responsible positions both out of necessity and to answer black protests about segregation and inferior treatment. About 1,800 blacks served on draft boards. In January 1942 President Roosevelt ordered the marines to accept black servicemen for the first time, and the navy for the first time since the Civil War. Over 167,000 served in the navy and 19,000 in the marines. The Coast Guard also enlisted its first 5,000 African Americans. In 1942 the Army Nurse Corps chose Lieutenant Della Raney as the first black chief nurse at the Tuskegee base, one of 500 black army nurses during the war. African American medical school students, like their white counterparts, were drafted out of school before they completed their degrees and sent to the front. Four blacks were captains of Liberty ships in the merchant marine: Hugh Mulzac, the first black sailor to earn a shipmaster’s license in 1920, made 22 round-trip voyages and transported 18,000 troops to Europe. Four Liberty ships were named for deceased black sailors. The armed services remained resistant to employing black troops in combat despite pressure from the government. Only one black group, the 320th Negro
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Anti-Aircraft Barrage Balloon Brigade, served in the Normandy invasion, and nearly half of almost a million black troops enlisted for the European theater remained stateside in 1944. In 1944, director Frank Capra filmed The Negro Soldier at the request of the War Department to convince Americans of the worthiness of black troops. Showing the loyalty and accomplishments of black soldiers, it has been credited with breaking down the psychological objections many whites had to integrated armed forces and workplaces. Black service and protest went together. Admitted to officer candidate’s school only after the African American world boxing champion Joe Louis took up his cause, Lieutenant Jackie Robinson of the 761st ‘‘Black Panther’’ Tank Battalion was court-martialed for refusing an order to sit at the rear of a bus in Fort Hood, Texas. The charges were later dropped as the order contradicted the antidiscrimination policy of the army on transport and recreational facilities. Robinson was the player who integrated major league baseball in 1947. Although Robinson never went overseas, the 761st Battalion landed in France in October 1944. Its members won 80 Silver and Bronze Stars in the last few months of the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, they split the Germans’ line in three places and prevented them from reinforcing troops besieging an American position Blacks were disproportionately assigned to making and transporting munitions and chemicals, tasks that were both dangerous yet without prestige. For instance, at the Huntsville, Alabama, arsenal, they comprised over a fifth of a total workforce of nearly 7,000 men by 1944. The worst home-front disaster of the war occurred when the E. A. Bryan
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and the Quinalt Victory, two munitions ships, exploded in Port Chicago, California. Two hundred two of the 320 men killed were blacks, and 390 were injured. Ordered to continue the dangerous work with no change in procedure or training, 258 blacks refused to do so: 50 were charged with mutiny and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. Although they were later given amnesty, their convictions stood and they were never eligible for veterans’ benefits. The army did, however, stop relegating munitions transport to black units only. In April 1945, 104 black officers of the U.S. Army Air Corps, the Tuskegee Airmen, were arrested for entering the officers’ club at Freeman Field, Indiana, although entitled to under War Department regulations. The local post commander court-martialed 3 of the men, while 101 were reprimanded. No black soldier was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the war. In 1997, recognizing that this represented discrimination, seven blacks received the award, all but one of whom were deceased. Among them was Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers of the 761st, who won a Silver Star for refusing to be evacuated with his company when wounded in France, and was then killed covering a retreat with his tank crew. The only black serviceman alive to receive his Medal of Honor was Second Lieutenant Vernon J. Baker, who during the Italian campaign single-handedly destroyed two enemy posts, two more with the aid of his men, covered the evacuation of his company’s wounded by drawing enemy fire, and finally led an assault under heavy fire through an enemy minefield. In spite of itself, the armed forces were forced to integrate during the
‘‘Battle of the Bulge’’ in January 1945. Five thousand black soldiers, of whom 2,500 were chosen, volunteered to enter depleted white units to turn back this final German offensive in Europe. The soldiers, however, never received public credit because the army did not want to jeopardize the support of southern congressmen for a postwar draft. In March, a Japanese-American and a white infantry regiment were incorporated into the black 92nd Infantry to bring it up to strength. The 92nd played a critical role in the final Italian campaign. It lost almost 25 percent of its men: 330 killed in action, 2,215 wounded, and 616 missing in action. Its troops received over 12,000 decorations, including 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Distinguished Service Medal, 16 Legion of Merit awards, and 95 Silver Stars (see Japanese-American Veterans). At the war’s conclusion, Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. became commander of the 477th Group at Godman Field, Kentucky—the first black to command either a military base or U.S. Army Air Force unit in the nation. However, his experience was not typical. President Truman commented, ‘‘My very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten . . . . As President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this’’ (Gambone 2005, 120). Among other outrages, a black military policeman was shot by a white policeman in Harlem, New York City, and black veteran Isaac Woodward was arrested and blinded during a beating by police in Batesburg, South Carolina (see Blinded Veterans of America). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People put considerable pressure on
African American Veterans, World War II the Truman administration to appoint more blacks to jobs in the Veterans Administration as well: for instance, whereas blacks were only 22 of 800 employees in hospitals in Maryland, they were 16 percent of those in Chicago. Because most blacks were support troops, they were not able to accumulate the points for time spent in combat or heroism that facilitated an early discharge. Those who drove trucks and buried the dead were needed in any case until most troops came home. The training black soldiers received as support troops that included engine mechanics, carpentry, communications, and other skills came in handy in the postwar era. Only 15 percent returned to their prewar occupations. Within a year of victory, over 10 percent of black veterans who lived in the South had left for the North and West. In a speech to black veterans in March 1945, Veterans Administration head Frank Hines explained that they had won their own four freedoms: freedom from discrimination before the law; freedom from unequal education; freedom from inequality in expenditures for health, hospitalization, and rehabilitation; and freedom from prejudice that led to unequal pay and opportunity. But these were not always put into practice. The VA did not, for instance, insist that black veterans receive integrated housing and followed local and state laws and practices regarding where it would underwrite mortgages. Veterans’ hospitals were not open to black veterans in 10 states except in emergency cases. Blacks were limited in the South to historically black colleges, of which there were fewer than a hundred and most did not give bachelor’s or advanced degrees. However, black college enrollment increased from 37,000 in 1941 to
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73,000 in 1947, about half of whom were veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act). Black colleges had a 26 percent increase in enrollment between 1946 and 1947, over double the national average. As a result of this influx, the black colleges were overwhelmed. As their physical, faculty, and library resources were inadequate for the large number of students, blacks increasingly demanded access to white institutions. As the federal and state governments refused to improve service at veterans’ hospitals and integrate colleges, black veterans became politically active. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) grew from 50,000 to 450,000 members between 1940 and 1946. The South accounted for 79 percent of the new chapters organized between 1946 and 1950. Black veterans led voter registration drives in the 1946 elections: 100 veterans attempting to register to vote in Birmingham, Alabama, were rejected because they could not answer complicated questions about the U.S. Constitution. At least five black veterans protesting for their rights were killed in Birmingham during clashes with police that year. In Bennettsville, Georgia, black veterans patrolled the streets with weapons to oppose a revived Ku Klux Klan. Black veterans traveled to Washington, DC, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the seating of racist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo. Civil rights organizations frequently chose veterans as plaintiffs for desegregation lawsuits as judges and juries were more likely to be sympathetic to men and women who had fought for their country. The most thorough study of black veterans’ political activity in the postwar era
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is Jennifer Brooks’s work on Georgia. Only allowed to participate in 6 of the 246 job programs for veterans in the state, black veterans founded the Georgia Veterans League which had between 200 and 300 members in four chapters throughout the state. Their principal short-term goal was to make sure black GIs could talk to sympathetic black counselors about their rights under the GI Bill. For the long term, they espoused equal pay for jobs and equal services and treatment in public programs and facilities. In Savannah, black veterans organized the World War II Veterans Association and combined with the white Citizens Progressive League to oust political boss John Bouhan, and their votes made the difference. In Atlanta, 20,000 blacks registered to vote following a drive by the All Citizens Registration Committee headed by former GI David Watson. Following the defeat of progressive Helen Douglas Mankin for Congress in 1946—who had won a majority of the votes but lost the race because Georgia counted the number of counties voting for a candidate rather than the overall majority in congressional races—the Georgia Veterans for Majority Rule was organized to end this system that discriminated against urban and black voters. In response to the increased black political presence, the mayor of Atlanta began to hire black police officers and make improvements in schools and recreational facilities in black neighborhoods. All in all, over 135,000 blacks were registered in Georgia in 1946 and over 85,000 voted that year. Largely as a result of drives led by veterans, over a million blacks in the South were registered voters by 1954. White veterans, too, who had been impressed by the performance of black
troops during the war, also joined the movement for civil rights in the South. The American Veterans Committee (AVC), the most liberal veterans organization which emerged from the war, had about 20,000 Southern members. The Atlanta chapter won the AVC George Norris Award for Civil Rights in 1950– 1951 for its efforts to improve housing for black Atlantans, opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, and support for litigation to end school segregation. World War ll and its veterans thus provided the groundwork for an effective civil rights movement, the movement of blacks out of the South, and an increasingly educated black middle and upper class. William Pencak
Further Reading Brooks, Jennifer. Defining the Peace: Race, World War II Veterans, and the Remaking of the Southern Political Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Gambone, Michael. The Greatest Generation Comes Home. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2005. Morehouse, Maggi M. Fighting in the Jim Crow Army: Black Men and Women Remember World War II. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. Putney, Martha S. When the Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992. Wynn, Neil A. The Afro-American and the Second World War. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1993.
AGENT ORANGE During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military used a chemical mixture called
Agent Orange Agent Orange as an herbicide to defoliate vast areas of Vietnam’s jungles. The two specific chemicals used were 2,4-D dichlorophenoxy (C8H6Cl2O3) and 2,45T trichlorophenoxy (C8H5Cl3O3). They are directly harmful to humans and together they form dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin [TCDD]). Dioxin is an infamous carcinogenic agent in humans that once caused numerous health problems in Love Canal, New York, a community near Niagara Falls built on an old toxic waste dump, where in 1978 a very high level of cancer, nervous diseases, and birth defects were discovered. . The component herbicide chemicals in Agent Orange were manufactured by Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock. An estimated 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in Vietnam between 1961 and 1971. It had been developed independently in the 1940s in England and the United States as a chemical control of broad-leaf plants. Carpet weed, pig weeds, and many other common weeds that infest gardens or field crops were the target of the research that produced Agent Orange. When sprayed on plants it induces rapid growth and eventually defoliation. Used on wheat or corn fields it kills the broad-leaf weeds but does not harm the crops. Agent Orange had been successfully used as a weed control agent in Puerto Rico in the mid-1950s and was extensively used around military bases in both the United States and abroad between the late 1940s and the early 1970s before it was introduced into the biological warfare arsenal of the United States during the Vietnam War. The name Agent Orange was given to the two phenoxy herbicides in the mixture because of the color of the orange-
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striped barrels that were used for its shipping. The barrels contained 55 U.S. gallons of a one-to-one mixture. In the herbicidal warfare conducted by the United States, other agents beside Agent Orange were used. These were also denoted by color. Collectively known as the ‘‘rainbow herbicides,’’ they were Agents Purple, Blue, Green, Pink, and White. Agents Blue and White were not carcinogenic because they did not release dioxin. However, Agents Purple, Pink, and Green did release dioxin and were therefore the cause of numerous health problems for veterans exposed to these chemicals. Spraying Agent Orange across the jungles of Vietnam as a defoliant was aimed at preventing the Viet Cong (and later the North Vietnamese Army) from hiding in the thick foliage of the jungle areas of North and South Vietnam as well as in Cambodia. Without the jungle foliage they could not camouflage their troop movements and bases. The negative side effects of Agent Orange and other defoliants were either not known at the time or were not handled seriously. When the U.S. government adopted Agent Orange for use in Vietnam, it was known by the manufacturers that dioxin in the form of TCDD was a by-product and that it would be present in any herbicide that contained TCDD. Internal memoranda of the chemical companies discussed the issue of dioxin, but this information was not used to protect American personnel. As a result, thousands of American troops were exposed to Agent Orange and its carcinogenic potential. The effects, however, did not stop with the suffering and death of those allied and enemy troops who eventually contracted cancer. It also affected families and
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society because exposure can cause genetic defects in children yet to be born. Exposure to high levels of dioxin has been shown in several epidemiological studies to indicate a greatly increased risk for developing a variety of cancers. Studies of TCDD by the National Toxicology Program have shown it to be a human carcinogen. Cancers associated with TCDD include soft-tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and chronic lymphocyte leukemia. Studies conducted by the National Institutes of Medicine have also found a link between dioxin and type II diabetes. Other cancers are also associated with exposure to dioxin. These include respiratory cancer, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, and a number of other diseases. Perhaps the gravest impact arising from exposure to dioxin is acute myelogenous leukemia which has been found in the children and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans as a result of genetic damage from exposure. By the end of American involvement in Vietnam (1973), many American veterans of the war were seeking recognition of the Agent Orange syndrome. Their illnesses were unusual and did not match previous patterns. Many began to suspect that they had been poisoned somehow. Their numbers are estimated to be at least 100,000 or more, out of the over three million Americans who served in Vietnam, although many have already died from cancers caused by exposure to Agent Orange. The symptoms presented by veterans with Agent Orange syndrome were wide ranging. Cancers were an obvious symptom, assuming that the cancer was really caused by Agent Orange. Other symptoms were more ulcers, digestive problems, strokes, cardiovascular problems,
blood clots, and other ailments that occurred with greater frequency than in the general population. The Veterans Administration has established to its own satisfaction that there are 11 conditions for which there is a positive association between the condition and Agent Orange. The conditions are Chloracne, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin’s disease, Porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT), multiple myeloma, acute and subacute peripheral neuropathy, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers (cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus), type II diabetes, and chronic lyphocytic leukemia (CLL). There is also a large list of diseases and conditions that the VA does not recognize as associated with Agent Orange and therefore not as service-related health problems. Establishing a direct causal link with the variety of symptoms presented by the veterans, even statistically, was not sufficiently established to compel some in government offices to abandon opposition to recognition of Agent Orange Syndrome. The New Jersey Agent Orange Commission was created by the state government of New Jersey in 1980. It was the first such commission created by a state for the purpose of studying the effects of Agent Orange. The project was conducted in association with Rutgers University and was called ‘‘The Pointman Project.’’ The commission researchers developed techniques for detecting Agent Orange residues in the blood samples of veterans. Previously dioxin was found only in adipose tissue which is fat that is the loose connective tissue that stores energy and insulates the body. The Pointman Project conducted a comparison study of veterans who had served in Vietnam with veterans who had
Agent Orange not served there. The findings were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1988. Other studies were conducted with groups of Vietnam veterans who, by their branch of service such as army, marines, and naval personnel, had served on gunboats in Vietnamese rivers. The Pointman Project was closed down by Governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1996. Other states that also authorized commissions to study the Agent Orange issue included Illinois, New York, and Connecticut. In the 1980s lawsuits were filed against the producers of Agent Orange. Diamond Shamrock had produced only 5 percent of the volume used while Dow Chemical and Monsanto had produced the bulk of the two defoliants. In 1984 a settlement of
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$180 million was obtained for affected veterans. Each affected veteran received a lump-sum settlement of $1,200. The money was not distributed until 1996. Vietnam War veterans and their families who brought the original Agent Orange lawsuit stated 25 years ago that the government was just waiting for them to die to avoid payment. They alleged that most of those still alive would succumb to the effects of toxic exposure before the age of 65. The $1,200 settlement did not begin to cover the medical costs of the affected veterans nor those of their offspring. Many veterans in the United States sought recognition for Agent Orange Syndrome so that they could receive treatment as well as compensation. However, many were unable to receive
Members of the Korean Disabled Veterans’ Association for Agent Orange take part in a silent vigil in front of the White House, 2006. [AP Photo/Ron Edmonds]
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medical care through the Veterans Administration’s health care system. Nor were medical services provided to their affected children. Veterans’ associations, including those organized by Vietnam War veterans , have been active in lobbying Congress for action dealing with Agent Orange. In 1991 Congress passed the Agent Orange Act. The law directed the secretary of Veterans Affairs to seek review of the health issues associated with Agent Orange by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Science. It formed a committee to review the health effects in Vietnam veterans of exposure to herbicides. In response to the health concerns of Vietnam veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs developed a comprehensive program to diagnose and treat health problems caused by Agent Orange. It has also engaged in scientific research and in providing health care services. While over 100,000 Vietnam veterans have been identified as suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, others believe that they have been denied service-connected health care and disability compensation for these diseases by the Department of Veterans Affairs. As late as August 8, 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a ruling which stated existing data do not support a conclusion that links human cancer to 2,4-D exposure. As of 2008 the VA presumed that all military personnel who served in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange. In addition, federal law presumes that there are illnesses caused by such exposure. The VA now practices a ‘‘presumptive policy’’ that seeks to rapidly determine if the illness being suffered by a veteran is due to Agent Orange.
The Vietnamese government has estimated that almost five million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange. It has estimated that exposure has killed 400,000 and has genetically affected 500,000 children. Most are in the Truong Son (Long Mountains) and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Studies of the effects of Agent Orange have been made by Vietnamese scientists confirming what has been determined in the United States. Several American veterans’ groups have been engaged in aiding Agent Orange victims in Vietnam. Andrew Jackson Waskey See also Benefits
Further Reading Allen, Robert. The Dioxin War: Truth and Lies about the Perfect Poison. London: Pluto Press, 2004. Dai, Le Cao. Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2006. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007. Dai, Le Cao, Diane Niblack Fox, and Khuyen Nguyen. Agent Orange in the Vietnam War: History and Consequences. Hanoi, Vietnam: Vietnam Red Cross Society, 2000. Doyle, Jack. Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & the Toxic Century. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004. Griffiths, Philip Jones. Agent Orange Collateral Damage in Viet Nam. London: Trolley Press, 2004. Schuck, Peter. Agent Orange on Trial. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Scott, Wilbur J. Vietnam Veterans Since the War: The Politics of PTSD, Agent Orange, and the National Memorial. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. Staff of the Institute of Medicine. Veterans and Agent Orange: Length of Presumptive
American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Period for Association Between Exposure and Respiratory Cancer. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004. U.S. Institute of Medicine. Committee to Review the Health Effects of Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides. Veterans and Agent Orange: Herbicide/ Dioxin Exposure and Acute Myelogenous Leukemia in the Children of Vietnam Veterans. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2003. Wilcox, Fred A. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange. Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1989.
AMERICAN DEFENDERS OF BATAAN AND CORREGIDOR American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) is a veterans’ organization that was chartered by Congress in March 1946. Its first meeting occurred at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, on January 26 of that year, with 80 men in attendance. The official publication is called the Quan. This organization of World War II veterans is comprised of service personal who participated in the Battle of Bataan Peninsula and the battle for Corregidor Island during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1942. This veterans’ organization is unique in not only representing all service branches that participated in these campaigns, but also it represents men and women who suffered unmitigated horrors as prisoners of the Imperial Japanese armed services. The American defense of the Philippines was certainly a ‘‘forlorn hope’’ and the Death March of Bataan was only the start of years of suffering on the part of these veterans. Years of deprivation in POW camps was followed by the Japanese evacuating
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these Americans in horrific conditions on ‘‘death ships’’ to even worse conditions in mainland China, specifically Mukden, Manchuria, with forced labor in coal mines. Being removed to China meant that these veterans were among the last to be freed and suffered from the beginning of the American war effort to beyond the official surrender of the Japanese Imperial forces. The battle for Corregidor was the end of the Japanese campaign in the Philippines. The U.S. Army Force Far East had retreated to the peninsula of Bataan for a last stand. When this position fell in April 1942, only the island fortress of Corregidor held out until May 6, 1942. The American and Filipino POW’s were marched off in what later became known as the ‘‘Death March of Bataan.’’ Of the many heroic American and Filipino troops involved, two veterans’ groups that stand out in memory due to memorials enacted by their communities are the New Mexico 200th and 515th Coast Artillery and the 33rd division of the Illinois National Guard based in Maywood, Illinois. Both of these units would suffer 50 percent casualties by the end of the war. Many individual stories can be found at the organization’s Web sites The loss of the Philippines to the Japanese was the largest single defeat of American armed forces in history. This loss was not the result of lack of efforts by American soldiers and sailors, but rather a product of isolationist policies. These soldiers and sailors bought the United States time to prepare its defenses and take the offensive in the Pacific. Their sacrifices forced the Japanese to commit more forces than they originally planned to the conquest of the Philippines, which denied them their use in making their drive of conquest south of the Philippines.
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In addition to holding reunions, the organization heightened public awareness of the extraordinary role played by these veterans in the war. In April 2007 U.S. and World News Newswire reported approximately 200 remaining veterans of this organization, which had numbered about 500 by its fifth national convention in 1951. This demographic note made the news wire due to the fact that ADBC was seeking an official apology from the Japanese prime minister while on an official visit to the United States for the war crimes perpetrated on the U.S. forces POW’s at this time in history. John Stoll See also Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA); World War II Veterans; Filipino-American Veterans
Further Reading Bataan Corregidor Memorial Foundation of New Mexico Inc. www.FranzosenbuschHeritageProject.org. History of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Inc. http://philippinedefenders.lib.wv.us/html/history.html. ‘‘American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Seek Apology and Closure for POW Abuse.’’ General Editorial News, Send2Press Newswire, April 10, 2007. www .send2press.com/newswire/2007-040410-004.shtml.
AMERICAN GOLD STAR MOTHERS Mothers of Americans serving in World War I could place a Gold Star on their windows, hence the name by which they were commonly known. This practice followed the tradition of families who had lost sons in military conflicts of
hanging a star in their homes’ windows, to express both their loss and their pride in their family members’ service and sacrifice. The mothers were frequently praised in orations, newspaper articles, and poems. During the 1920s they lobbied Congress to sponsor a pilgrimage so they could visit the graves of their sons who were buried overseas. Numerous congressmen sponsored the necessary legislation; those opposed emphasized the cost, to which the response was that the mothers had saved the government over $20 million by not having the veterans’ bodies returned. Advocates of the bill stressed the special emotional bond between mothers and sons: fathers were not included in the proposals. American Gold Star Mothers was established in 1928, after a decade of planning on the part of the organization’s founder, Grace Seibold. Seibold had been inspired to found the organization after the death of her 24-year-old son, George Vaughan Seibold, a pilot who served in World War I. Devastated by her loss, Seibold wanted to establish a national organization designed to provide emotional support for grieving mothers who shared her plight. Seibold aspired to have her group not only serve as a network which would enable bereaved mothers to meet with and console one another, but also to be an organization whose members would actively volunteer with veterans’ organizations and advocate for veterans’ rights in their communities. After several years of planning, Seibold and 25 other mothers gathered in Washington, DC, on June 4, 1928, to celebrate the founding of the American Gold Star Mothers. According to the organization’s rules upon founding, any American woman could apply to be a
American Indian Veterans Gold Star Mother if her son or daughter had died in service during World War I. In 1929, Congress finally authorized mothers and (at the last minute) widows to travel to Europe. Further pilgrimages were approved in 1931 and 1933. They were sent off following ceremonies praising their sacrifices, and despite the Depression, were accommodated at government expense in cabins on the ocean voyage, then in first-class hotels, spent a week in Paris or London in addition to visiting their sons’ graves, and were received by high-ranking British and French officials. African American mothers were segregated and accommodated on steamers rather than luxury liners despite their protests and War Department publicity that the pilgrimages treated all mothers equally. In subsequent decades, the organization opened its membership to mothers who had lost children in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other zones of conflict in which America’s military had engaged. American Gold Star Mothers has undergone some changes over the course of its existence. The organization now allows stepmothers and adoptive mothers to apply for membership, and, in 2005, the group admitted its first non-American citizen as a member. Despite these changes, however, the fundamental goals and ideals of the organization remain unchanged. Founded to honor and aid veterans’ military service, American Gold Star Mothers is dedicated to at once promoting world peace and encouraging patriotic feeling and activism amongst Americans both within and outside of the military. The organization staunchly refuses to take sides in political debates about war, and it is not affiliated with, nor does it support, any political parties
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or organizations. In 2005, the American Gold Star Mothers issued a public statement clarifying that they were not in any way involved in, or supportive of, the pacifist organization American Gold Star Families for Peace. The organization hosts national conventions every year and often sponsors events on Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Gold Star Mothers Sunday, which takes place in late fall. American Gold Star Mothers works closely with numerous veterans’ rights organizations, and members have always been heavily involved in volunteering in veterans’ hospitals. Born in the wake of one mother’s grief, for more than seven decades, American Gold Star Mothers has sought to promote international peace, honor the service of fallen members of the military, increase patriotism within the American public, and advocate the rights of America’s veterans. Holly M. Kent See also World War I Veterans; American War Mothers; Blue Star Mothers
Further Reading American Gold Star Mothers. www.goldstarmoms.com. Graham, John W. The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s: Overseas Grave Visitations by Mothers and Widows of Fallen U.S. World War I Soldiers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.
AMERICAN INDIAN VETERANS Native American Values and Warriors American Indians were part of the U.S. military from the very beginning and
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until recently joined the military in the highest numbers of any ethnic group. One in four Native males is a military veteran, a rate four times higher than Anglo-Americans. But enlistment varies greatly, depending on the strength of a given tribe’s warrior tradition and how right or wrong individual Natives perceive a war to be. Also unique are the many cultural and spiritual traditions American Indians bring into the military and how they use their military experiences for cultural survival and renewal. Native participation in the military was often heavily promoted by whites who believed in assimilation and saw war as civilizing. American Indian servicemen were generally not formally segregated. In fact, there was a great effort to ensure they integrated, exposing them to the influence of white soldiers. Efforts to assimilate notwithstanding, the military eventually came to accept and admire Native Americans’ own military traditions, which were especially useful in subduing their own people. The image of ‘‘the Indian’’ in the nonNative mind as fierce yet in need of discipline played a powerful part in what role Natives have had in the U.S. military. The admiration that Anglo-American military leaders had for Natives became so strong that they emulated Native ways and incorporated them whenever possible. Some military planners sought to channel what they perceived as ‘‘savagery’’ in Indians or hold up Native martial abilities as an image for non-Natives to emulate. For most American Indians, patriotism and love of country mean very different things than what they mean to most non-Natives. Most Natives think of themselves as citizens or members of a tribal nation first, or dual citizens of both their tribe and the United States. Many,
most notably the Six Nations of the Iroquois, do not think of themselves as American citizens at all and even refuse to register for the draft or enlist as Americans, choosing instead to volunteer as foreign nationals. Within American Indian tribes are many traditions about veterans carried over from older warrior traditions. These include warrior societies, songs for warriors or veterans, and ceremonies and personal medicine, including spirit guides. Traditionally a warrior society carried out an amalgam of the roles of policing and supervising hunts and raids, teaching the young, caring for the elderly and helpless, punishing criminals, and carrying out a wide variety of rituals. Warrior societies, therefore, have much in common with Anglo-American veterans’ groups, such as the American Legion, that supervise youth through Boy Scout or baseball groups, seek to preserve memories of their deeds through ceremonies, perpetuate a spirit of patriotic devotion to the community, and attempt to care for aged and disabled veterans and their families. To that effect, Native Americans have composed new songs about the contemporary veterans’ tradition in the old established styles, with Native performers singing about the meaning of military service to their cultures and peoples. Native American songs about veterans differ from Anglo-American ones in a far more extended display of respect for and solemn honoring of the dead and in the ritual preparation and spiritual sanction provided by Native war and flag songs. Songs and ceremonies performed before sending a soldier off to war strive to prepare and warn the individual that war is a dissociative and alienating state. In these and other Native songs, the
American Indian Veterans actions of the soldier, usually not the war itself or its purpose, is the focus of cultural and spiritual sanction, much as veterans associations now emphasize support for American troops in Iraq instead of exalting the purpose of the war itself. Native American flag and war songs also aim for an explicit reintegration of the individual into the community from the unnatural state of war. Contrary to what is portrayed in old Hollywood movies, generally Native spiritual beliefs teach that warfare is an unnatural or disruptive state, one that must be extensively ritually prepared for in order to survive with mind and body intact. Ceremonies before war are intended to protect and prepare the soldier. Personal medicine takes the form of medicine bags, pouches, or other blessed or sacred items. Often Native servicemen rely on spiritual guides, which could be an ancestor or an animal. Ceremonies after the war honor their service and reintegrate them into the community and out of the unnatural state of war. The greater society could learn much from these practices, as since Vietnam the failure of Americans in general ceremonially to recognize and reintegrate service personnel upon their discharge has been seen as a major source of psychological and economic problems for veterans. Beginning with the Vietnam War and particularly during the second Iraq War, most American Indians increasingly questioned the intent behind American wars. Participation in the military has declined, even while the need for honoring and supporting veterans has not changed. Many Natives now regard the purposes of the contemporary military with ambivalence or even disgust while continuing to respect the men and women who choose to enter it.
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The American Revolution Although most Native Americans fought for the British during the Revolution, realizing full well that they were the only possible protection from the land hungry colonists, significant numbers sided with the Americans. The surviving New England Indians, who had converted to Christianity and were living either in ‘‘praying villages’’ or had integrated into the multiracial societies of the seaboard cities, accompanied their neighbors into battle. While four of the six nations of the powerful Iroquois Confederation under Joseph Brant joined with the British, the Oneidas and the Senecas took the American side. In the Ohio Valley, too, Delaware Indians led by Cornstalk and White Eyes also took the patriot side. The Revolution taught these proAmericans the majority of Indians had chosen correctly. Cornstalk and White Eyes were murdered by frontiersmen who had come to regard all Indians as their enemy. The massacre in 1782 of 96 pacifist, neutral Moravian Indians at Gnadenhutten in present-day Ohio turned nearly all the Ohio Valley Indians against the Revolution. They were not finally subdued until the War of 1812.
The War of 1812 During the War of 1812, members of the Six Nations who remained in the United States began the war as allies of the United States. The Iroquois fought as light infantry in the war, which suited them well. In the War of 1812, many American troops came from local militia units without uniforms and came and went as dictated by their own needs. Iroquois behavior seemed often not so
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different from largely white militias. During the war, the United States began paying formal wages and pensions to the Iroquois warriors, leading to their integration into the army. The year 1814 marked the last time the Iroquois fought entirely independently, under their own leaders. In 1814 U.S. Army Major General Jacob Brown organized the Indian Volunteer Corps, with white company officers and Native field officers. At least five Iroquois women received widow’s pensions. Many later Six Nations veterans trace their family veteran traditions to this war. However, after the war many Iroquois veterans sold or otherwise lost their lands and pride as white settlers moved to western upstate New York in the aftermath of the war. This decline was arrested by the spread of Handsome Lake’s religion in the 1820s, which repudiated Christianity and the white values of private property and individualism. To symbolize his conversion to the new faith, the aged chief Cornplanter (ca. 1750–1836), who had reluctantly fought for the British in the Revolution before siding with the Americans in the War of 1812, broke the sword and burned the uniform he had been given by George Washington—for selling his people’s ancestral lands so Pennsylvania could have a seaport on Lake Erie for the paltry sum of $5,000.
Indian Scouts The relatively small number of Indian Scouts are written about and memorialized more than all other Native veterans combined, in history books, novels, and films. Some of the better works of history depict scouts as neither ‘‘Tontos’’ nor ’’sellouts’’
but as having agency and making rational choices within their cultural context. The Indian Scouts set a precedent for some tribes of adapting older warrior traditions In U.S. military service, Pawnee scouts were one of the largest groups, even forming their own battalion and fighting as allies of the United States against the Lakota (Sioux). Virtually every living Pawnee traces his or her ancestry back to at least one of the hundreds of men who served as scouts from 1864 to 1876. The Apache nation similarly memorialize their original scouts, the very ones who helped pursue Goyathlay (Geronimo) and forced his surrender, rather than the Apaches who fought against the United States. Scouts sought practical advantages for themselves and their people. It is important to remember that there is no monolithic Indian consciousness or single society. Now, as then, Native Americans have a diversity of attitudes toward various strategies they had to use in order to survive in what became a white man’s world.
Civil War Twenty thousand Natives served in the Civil War. Historian Laurence Hauptman argued that Indians’ motives for enlisting including poverty, dependence on or a desire to be integrated into the United States, adventure, alliances, treaties, traditions, gaining status among other Indians, the draft, and, above all a tenuous existence which led them to gamble on taking one side or another. Three hundred Iroquois joined the Union side, including two who served as army surgeons. Though it did not last, for a time Iroquois received concessions from the New York state government for their service, being declared competent to vote and be citizens.
American Indian Veterans Further west, Oneidas in Wisconsin, fellow Six Nations relatives, came as reluctant latecomers to the Civil War. Because they had been subjected to constant land swindles, Oneidas saw less reason to join. The tribe divided over how to respond to white removal efforts. Anglo draft resistance near the reservation may also have influenced them. Some local whites saw the Oneidas as replacements who could be used to avoid having to actually go to war themselves, and bounties for enlistment caused many Oneidas cynically to agree. In the Delaware Nation, 170 out of 201 of their men in the Union army enlisted instead of being drafted. Captain Falleaf, or Panipakuxwe, recruited Company D of the 2nd Kansas Home Guard. After the war, Falleaf petitioned the Interior Department so that he and his people could live as before, under communal landholding. About 125 Menominee enlisted during the Civil War. One-third of them had been killed by war’s end. Over 90 engagements were fought in the West that involved Native Americans. The most numerous tribe in the region, the Cherokees, who were living in what became Oklahoma, split. The majority of the unpopular federal Indian agents in the region before the war had been Southerners and tried to convince the Native Americans to take the Confederate side. This encouraged most Indians to favor the North, although the most famous Cherokee who participated, Brigadier General Stand Watie, fought for the South. (He died in 1871 remaining loyal to the Lost Cause.) The Indians allied with the Confederacy out of fear or feeling abandoned by the United States, and under pressure from Confederate forces on three sides. Many of those who initially joined the Confederacy abandoned it and deserted at
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the first opportunity, often en masse. The small number of Cherokees who had not been forced to migrate west were an interesting paradox, often insisting they were American citizens but fighting for the Confederacy. William Thomas recruited 200 as a home guard in North Carolina, the Junauska Zouaves. As in the case of New York state and the Iroquois, the state of North Carolina conceded the Eastern Band the right to live in the state in recognition of their service. Many other Indians living in the South, particularly the Pamunkeys and Lumbees, joined the Union side to preserve their communities in the face of long conflicts with white Southerners. Unlike African American veterans of the Civil War, some of whom became Homesteaders or Buffalo Soldiers, the Civil War did not appreciably change the status of most Indian veterans, who continued to live on reservations. Those who did choose to join the Grand Army of the Republic or Confederate Veterans Associations were welcomed and honored by their comrades, and they were entitled to the same pensions and benefits.
The Spanish-American and Philippine Wars The most famous Native soldiers of the war served in the Rough Riders. Future World War I Commander-in-Chief ‘‘Black Jack’’ Pershing celebrated the famous charge up San Juan Hill as an incident of racial reconciliation, but he remained in the minority among Anglos. Newspaper accounts luridly trumpeted stereotypes with Buffalo Bill’s claims that he had 600 Lakotas ready to fight the war. No such group ever appeared. Of the 34 battle casualties suffered by
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Oklahomans during the war, more than half came from Indian territory. George Bird Grinnell, best known as a painter and naturalist, proposed raising regiments of Native soldiers, ironically because of his bigoted opinion of some immigrants, notably Italians. The most famous of the Indian boarding school superintendents, Richard Pratt, asserted that Native wartime service vindicated his assimilationist approach to education; but simultaneously he betrayed an assumption of Natives as ‘‘naturally’’ suited for warfare. The Spanish-American War also enrolled first-known Native women veterans, the Congregation of American Sisters, an order of Lakota Catholic nuns from Fort Berthold Reservation. They joined the U.S. Army as nurses, pushed by a strong belief in assimilation by their leader, Father Francis Craft, a Mohawk mixedblood who founded and led the order.
World War I Up to one half of American Indians did not have the status of citizens at the start of World War I. Some Natives did look upon the military as an avenue toward white notions of civilization for themselves, but these ideas usually came from boarding schools, which Natives (most famously Jim Thorpe at the Carlisle Indian School) had attended in an extended Americanization effort. Many Native communities did not take part in the war or even tried to refuse to do so. The Native people who took part most eagerly were, in fact, the most assimilated. Volunteering turned out to be the greatest, in some cases 100 percent, among Natives from government boarding schools.
Tribes with strong martial traditions had lesser, though still high, enlistment. The U.S. government was willing, however, to bend its assimilation program when realizing what it perceived as Indian ‘‘savagery’’ could help the war effort. Native dancers went on tours to raise money for war bond drives, even dancing in towns hostile to Native Americans before the war. In military camps, the YMCA held ‘‘Indian nights’’ where Native soldiers could listen and dance to their own music and speak in their own languages. Isolated tribes, or those with little or no martial tradition, had an enlistment rate of less than one percent. There was massive draft resistance among some Natives, particularly Navajos, Utes, Goshutes, Pamunkeys, Mattaponis, Creeks, and Seminoles. There was even draft resistance among tribes with strong warrior traditions, such as the Lakota on Rosebud Reservation and the Chippewa of Sucker Point, Minnesota. During the war, racist notions about alleged Native savagery became widely used for propaganda. The German public, given a steady diet of lurid stories about Native people through pulp novels, were shielded as much as possible from the knowledge that their soldiers faced American Indians in combat. Some German military commanders even ordered their snipers to make a special effort to shoot Native soldiers whenever they could be identified on the assumption they were both better shots and would be crueler to those they fought or captured. Combat for Native soldiers had other special dangers brought by their perceived ‘‘natural’’ abilities. Anglo officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) frequently pushed Native soldiers into especially dangerous situations. Casualties among Native
American Indian Veterans Americans were five times higher than in the army as a rule. ‘‘Pagan or heathenish’’ practices, including dances or ceremonies, remained specifically forbidden on reservations under threat of withholding rations from the families of those who participated. Largely in the aftermath of World War I, after Native communities and elders petitioned Indian Bureau commissioner Cato Sells to allow ceremonies with patriotic elements, traditional ceremonies began to be celebrated openly once again. Even then some restrictions stayed in force. Bloodletting or ‘‘selftorture’’ remained specifically forbidden, along with the ‘‘reckless giveaways’’ or potlatches, in which Indians exhibited status by offering large amounts of presents to each other, and ‘‘immoral’’— that is sexual—relations that sometimes occurred in these ceremonies. Interference from authorities and the war’s atmosphere of patriotism brought many changes in ceremonies. Authorities banned chest incisions and skewers during the Sun Dance, so some dancers fulfilled their vows by having the Red Cross painted on their chest and giving blood to the Red Cross instead. One of the most famous selfappointed ‘‘friends of the Indian,’’ the eccentric Joseph Dixon, called for military schools for all Native male youths from ages 8 to 18. This was not far from the American Legion’s call for universal military service so all Americans could benefit from the training they themselves had received. Once they completed schooling, all Native males would then be drafted into military service. Their permanent position in U.S. society would be as ‘‘America’s Cossacks.’’ Dixon’s proposal failed to win support because many whites still hoped to see Natives
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assimilated into white society. In fact, nearly all American Indians became citizens in 1924, the same year Congress reduced immigration quotas to their lowest point in American history. Loyal Indians were contrasted with the southern and eastern European immigrants who had been perceived as socialists and slackers during the war.
World War II In World War II, Native veterans brought their traditions into military service in unprecedented numbers. The war greatly expanded the opportunity to continue, revive, or establish warrior traditions in which the veteran took the place once accorded the tribal warrior. A newer practice also began as a part of Native veteran experience in World War II, that of intertribal syncretism, where tribal nations without any or much of a significant warrior tradition began to imitate the warrior ethos of other nations. Native American women’s societies also played a role in reviving traditional ways. By the time of Pearl Harbor, all Native peoples of the United States had American citizenship forced upon them. The authors of this last act specifically designed it to not give Natives legal rights but to take them away. During 1940 the peacetime draft was also instituted, and with all Natives legally citizens, the main legal basis that tribal leaders used to argue against the draft vanished. Citizenship acts had nothing to say about the legal domination the Bureau of Indian Affairs had over Native lives and did not give Natives the right to vote. Eleven states specifically barred Natives from voting until the late 1940s or 1950s. Citizenship acts also did not settle land claims, protect religious or
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civil rights, or do anything about the widespread discrimination and poverty Natives faced. Some groups still engaged in mass civil disobedience for the same reasons they had in World War I: dissatisfaction with the treaty relationship between themselves and the United States and the frequent failure of the government to honor its agreements. Eleven tribal nations argued for draft exemption and pointed to treaty provisions to support their positions. The Hopis claimed conscientious objector status because of their pacifist tradition. Officials responded that Hopi objections were considered nationalist, not religious. Twenty-one Hopis went to prison for draft evasion. The Hopis formed a lobbying group called Hoping Hopis and drew their funding from other pacifists, such as the Quakers. Hopis finally received conscientious objector status long after the war in 1953, when tribal spokesman Thomas Banyaca finally convinced President Eisenhower their pacifism was genuine. The Zunis obtained missionary exemptions for those in tribal religious roles. Some Pueblos also argued, unsuccessfully, for religious exemptions because their beliefs did not allow haircuts, which the military required. A few Navajos and many more Seminoles resisted the draft by simply disappearing into territory not frequented by outsiders. The Seminoles based their case on a still-official state of war between their nation and the United States. Seminoles in Florida had never been defeated and finally agreed to peace in 1943 on their own terms. In Arizona, one band of Tohono O’odhams maintained they were Mexican citizens since their nation had not been consulted on nor had they recognized the Gadsden
Purchase of 1853. Their leader, Pi Maccuddam, also known as Pia Machita, led a yearlong resistance campaign that drove away federal marshals and tribal police at first, before Maccuddam and several followers went to prison. However, by and large Native American nations were energized by the expansion of their political freedoms and their new economic and military roles in ‘‘mainstream’’ America. Native peoples also recognized the very real and pointed threat the Axis posed to nonwhites and to the United States, a nation-state they relied on for protection as much as they resented its dominance. Some Natives also identified very much with the lives and struggles of subject peoples who fought against the Axis, including the Filipinos against the Japanese. Nowhere did the coincidence of Native American and U.S. interest and traditions come together as vividly as with the Code Talkers, Native Americans primarily from the Navajo but also other nations whose language could not be deciphered by the enemy (see American Indian Veterans, Individuals). After the war, they formed the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Only in 1968 were their activities declassified, and only in 1982 did they receive their first official recognition—a certificate and a ‘‘Day’’ authorized by President Reagan. Eight years later, 29 Code Talkers received the Congressional Gold Medal, all but 5 of them posthumously. In 2007, the state of Texas awarded the Texas Medal of Valor to 17 Choctaw Code Talkers, and the same year Congress awarded its Gold Medal not only to all surviving Code Talkers, but to their tribes as well. Native and Inuit (Eskimo) peoples of Alaska had little history of warfare prior to the coming of Europeans. In World
American Indian Veterans
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William Kien, center, a Navajo Code Talker and former marine who served during World War II, trades war stories with fellow marines prior to receiving the Congressional Silver Medal during a ceremony recognizing more than 200 Navajo Code Talkers in 2001. [AP Photo/Rick Scibelli]
War II they became the first Americans to fight the Axis after the initial surprise attacks and the only soldiers to fight on U.S. soil. The Alaska Territorial Guard organized itself prior to World War II, with militia organized down to the village level, including a village captain. Later they became the Eskimo Scouts, a special unit of the Alaska National Guard, using surplus World War I rifles to defeat the invasion of the Aleutian Islands by the Japanese. They did so without receiving recognition or even pay until the 1950s. Alaska Governor Ernest Gruening personally recruited half of the 300 enlistees and attributed their enthusiasm to a desire to keep their sacred homelands safe from further outside invaders. After they entered military service, many Natives eagerly took part in
traditional ceremonies on a scale not previously seen. An alternately curious and mystified Anglo public eagerly accepted reports of these practices. Famed correspondent Ernie Pyle described seeing Native dances prior to battles in Sicily, Normandy, the Philippines, and Okinawa. Just as in World War I, Natives performing traditional dances became commonplace at war bond sales and blood drives. Native soldiers attended Christian religious services in high numbers, only to follow them by going to Native meetings that had songs and dances in their own tongues. Native songs became one more way the old traditions adapted to new realities in a syncretic manner. In war songs the serviceman and the war against an enemy of the United States or Canada took the place of the warrior and the battles with
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another Native enemy. Flag songs began as a surreptitious way to get around the prohibition on Native ceremonies after World War I. The sheer volume of Native songs about World War II, the fact that they remain popular today, and the fact that new ones paying tribute to veterans are still being written all the time, underscore how much of a watershed event World War II became in Native lives. No other war brought such cultural and social change in such a short time. The war also gave a new role to Native women’s societies. They sometimes preceded and prepared the way for warrior societies to emerge after the war. The War Mothers’ Societies stood out more than any other. These groups originally began as an Anglo-American institution, one that women of the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Otoe-Missouri, and Pawnee nations adapted to their own needs and combined with practices from Native American women’s societies. They properly prepared warriors prior to warfare, invoked sacred powers of protection for absent warriors, and welcomed and honored the warriors on their return. World War II was a turning point for Native peoples. It brought an end to the de facto segregation and isolation imposed upon them by the reservation system. Most Native peoples went from a reliance on subsistence farming and hunting to a cash wage economy in an incredibly short time. Native veterans and communities created a newer permanent and far more widespread tradition during World War II. Service in the U.S. military became both respectable, as never before, and was integrated with traditional practices. Even when faced with white stereotypes, Natives used such notions for their own ends. A widespread
cultural revival aided Native adaptation to dramatically changing conditions and confirmed Native cultures as the greatest strength of American Indians, not the liabilities many whites believed. This war became the closest thing to an unambiguously ‘‘good war’’ as seen by Native peoples, and the high enthusiasm reflected that.
Korean War About 29,700 American Indians served in the Korean War. The post-World War II era saw the beginnings of an assault on Native communities, with assimilationists trying to end the reservation system in a program called Termination. Native experiences during the Korean War and after became, ultimately, both catalyst and overture to the Red Power struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the American Indian Movement’s (AIM) most famous leaders were Korean War veterans, who were far less willing to be as passive as they perceived the World War II generation to be. Both American Indians and the larger American society did not see winning or losing the Korean War as the same sort of all-out struggle as World War II. North Korea was not nearly as obvious and ominous a grave threat as the Axis to either Native peoples’ existence as nonwhites or the future of the United States. Thus the complete mobilization that World War II had brought did not happen during the Korean War. A dramatic growth in warrior societies seems to be the greatest single change in Native cultures with the advent of the Korean War. As a direct response to Termination, some tribal nations revived their warrior societies out of fear that traditions would be lost.
American Indian Veterans
Vietnam War Coming home, Native veterans faced a fundamentally different experience than did their non-Native buddies. The war was every bit as unpopular among Natives as non-Natives, but Native communities did not expect the Native veteran to shoulder the blame for the war. Native communities instead made a great effort to shoulder the veteran’s pain. Unlike communities in the wider society where it was easy for the educated and upper class to evade the war, in Indian communities the experience of sending sons off to fight was more widespread. The honor given to a veteran by his Native community likely became the most positive thing in his life. The war reinforced, or even created, mutual bonds between veterans and their communities, as well as between indigenous communities in other Indian nations. The war also further alienated Natives from ‘‘mainstream’’ American society in a profound way, and not just because the military compared the conflict to the old Indian wars. Atrocities against Vietnamese by American soldiers sickened many Native servicemen, who often identified with the Vietnamese more than AngloAmericans. The rising civil rights and Red Power movements played a huge part in Natives’ alienation and identification with the Vietnamese. This generation of Natives was the most alienated Natives had ever been from whites, precisely because it had the greatest amount of contact with whites. That alienation expressed itself in two ways: a building upon ties with the most traditional parts of Native communities, and an often explosive contempt for all the wrongs done to Native peoples.
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Native communities by the 1960s had greatly urbanized; a lower proportion of people lived on the reservations due to the government’s policy of relocation and Native flight into the urban and migrant labor workforces. Enough Natives had been off reservations long enough for large numbers to grow up having never seen their traditional homelands. In some cities, such as Minneapolis, Natives formed or were forced into ‘‘red ghettos.’’ In other cities, such as Los Angeles, there were no predominantly Native neighborhoods, but there was still a Native community at large. Yet anti-war protest remained relatively unheard of in Indian communities. Most Natives regarded draft dodging with disdain, as something unthinkable. The chance to take part in now wellestablished veteran traditions going back to at least World War II overrode political objections. Upon returning home, Native veterans of Vietnam combined with some of their Korean War elders to expand the warrior society role to an explicitly political one. While not explicitly veterans’ organizations such as the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars, to a considerable extent these associations fulfilled the same function of perpetuating values learned and fought for in the service—the use of comradeship and training acquired under fire to better the conditions of veterans and their communities. The first of the more overtly political warrior societies, the American Indian Movement (AIM), formed in 1968. Russell Means has become the most famous of its initial group of about 200 founders. The AIM chose to apply the warrior society concept in a way quite different from tradition, ironically influenced by the anti-war movement
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and groups such as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War that engaged in highly publicized protests. AIM members boarded and seized the Mayflower II on Thanksgiving Day 1970, disrupting celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock. As many of the members lived near Minneapolis, they also seized abandoned property at the Naval Air Station near that city the same year. On July 5, 1971, they occupied Mount Rushmore, symbolically taking back the nation through appropriation of the images of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt on its face. In 1972 they launched protests throughout the nation to call attention to the ‘‘Trail of Broken Treaties,’’ the name adopted from the ‘‘Trail of Tears’’ that characterized the forcible removal of the Cherokee nation from Georgia in the 1830s. This culminated in the occupation and sacking of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Headquarters in Washington, DC, in November in which 24 members were arrested. In 1973, AIM protestors were routed when they attempted to seize the Custer County Court House. The most famous action undertaken by AIM, however, was the 73-day occupation of the Pine Ridge Lakota (or Sioux) Reservation in South Dakota, the site where Sitting Bull and followers of the Ghost Dance religion were massacred by the cavalry in 1890. In 1993, AIM split into two groups, the AIM-Grand Governing Council, which decided to work within the system and try to change public attitudes, and the more militant AIM-International Confederation of Autonomous Councils. In 2007, the latter formally declared the secession of the Sioux nation from the United States as the Republic of Lakota.
Many AIM members spoke of learning very well the lessons from the National Liberation Front they fought in Vietnam, that mobility and determination of a people fighting for their homeland could defeat an enemy weighed down with technology and with lesser motivation or staying power. Post-Vietnam Native communities proved to be more resilient than Anglo America, recovering more quickly from the war’s trauma. Though the war deeply divided mainstream America, it proved, ultimately, an enormously unifying experience for Native communities. Urban Indians struggled to reconnect and unite with tribal communities. The latter discovered they had new allies among people the federal government hoped would forget they were ever Indian. Intertribal ties were created and strengthened in an unprecedented way.
The Gulf, Afghan, and Iraq Wars It has been easy for Native Americans to draw explicit parallels between the conflicts in the Middle East and those of their peoples’ histories. Native peoples equated what the United States was doing in the Middle East with Manifest Destiny. In some ways the September 11 attacks ignited a hostile atmosphere much like the anti-Japanese hysteria that gripped the West Coast following the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the biggest fears of many Natives became being mistaken for being Middle Eastern. The reaction of many Native people to the attacks combined sympathy for the victims and thoughtful reflection and soulsearching. So far there is only anecdotal evidence on how September 11 affected whether
American Indian Veterans, Individuals Natives joined the military, but a surge in Native enlistment does not seem to have happened. Many Native people said this was not their war even while sympathizing with the victims of the attacks and supporting Native service personnel. There has been an enormous outpouring of Native support for the troops of the second Iraq War but not for the war itself. Some returning Native veterans and their families have led criticism of the war. Where American Indians once had an enlistment rate at four times that of Anglo-Americans, by at least one count Natives are currently in the military in only slightly higher numbers than Anglos. As of 2008, there were two principal Native American veterans’ associations: National American Indian Veterans is recognized by the National Congress of American Indians and the National Association of State Directors of Indian Affairs as the representative of the needs of Native American, Alaskan, Samoan, and Hawaiian veterans. Its Congressional charter was pending as of 2008. There is also the National Native Americans Veterans Organization. It was founded in 2004 by Tom Berry in Oklahoma and now has members in 20 states from 15 federally recognized tribes, using the Internet as a principal means to connect and communicate with its members. Both groups call attention to the fact that Native Americans make less use of services offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs than others. They therefore seek to educate Indians about the benefits available, lobby where needed with the government in individual cases, and provide support and connections among those Native American veterans whose economic plight would make them more inclined than most veterans to suffer the
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problems of suicide, depression, and unemployment. Al Carroll
Further Reading American Indian Movement—Grand Governing Council. www.aimovement.org. Carroll, Al. Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second World War. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Holm, Tom. Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996. International Confederation of Autonomous Councils of the American Indian Movement. www.americanindianmovement.org. Meadows, William C. Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans 1800 to the Present. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999. National American Indian Veterans. www.naivonline.org. National Native American Veterans Association. www.nnava.org. Navajo Code Talkers Association. www.navajocodetalkers.org.
AMERICAN INDIAN VETERANS, INDIVIDUALS Military veterans have long made up much of the leadership within American Indian communities, from tribal councils and tribal presidents to activists to artists and educators. Veterans have also comprised some of the most famous and respected Native Americans in the United States. Generally, American Indians see the role of a Native veteran of the U.S. military as having taken on much of the earlier role of a warrior in the times before conquest and reservations. Native Americans view warriors as individuals
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who make personal choices to endure sacrifices for the good of their people. As such, even though their people may have fought against white Americans in the past and they have grievances against them in the present, Native American veterans are honored for their courage and willingness to put their lives on the line for the greater good. The honor they bring to their people is also appreciated (Meadows 1999).
War of 1812 The earliest written account we have from a Native veteran of the U.S. military comes from Pequot soldier William Apess (1798–1839). Apess’s book A Son of the Forest (1829) is one of the very earliest written autobiographies from an American Indian. Scholars in American Indian studies often discuss Apess as a survivor of genocide, displacement, and self-hatred, and his conversion to Christianity as a response to these brutal hardships. Other scholars focus on questions of authenticity and his mixed-blood status. (Apess, like many Pequots in the colonial and early national period, also had black ancestry.) Apess served as a drummer in the War of 1812 because he objected to carrying a weapon. The U.S. government failed to pay him the bounty or land promised to him, leading Apess angrily to criticize American society for denying rights, citizenship, and voting to Natives. Apess became a fairly wellknown Methodist minister. Much of the remainder of his life was devoted to preaching and seeking to convert other Natives to become Christians, as well as being a noted political activist. His other written works include Eulogy on King Philip (1836), the Native American leader killed in the war of 1675–1676
which bears his name, two tracts proselytizing for the Christian faith, The Experience of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe (1833) and The Increase of the Kingdom of Christ (1831), Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts or the Pretend Riot Explained (1835), and one political treatise, On Our Own Ground (1992) (see also War of 1812 Veterans).
Indian Scouts Sixteen American Indians received Congressional Medals of Honor for valor in combat during their time in service as Indian Scouts: Alchesay, Blanquet, Chiquito, Mad Bear, Elsatsoosu, Pompey Factor, Jini, Kelsay, Machol, Nannasaddie, Nantaje, Adam Paine, Isaac Payne, Rowdy, Kosoha, and John Ward. Most were Apaches fighting other Apaches during the Apache wars. Other Indian Scouts also became famous for their leadership or fighting abilities. John Horse became famous as a commander in the Seminole Indian Scouts, which included many black/Indian mixedbloods and maroons (runaway black slaves) adopted into the tribe. A Crow Indian Scout, Curly, became well known as the sole survivor of General George Armstrong Custer’s command at the Battle of Greasy Grass (Native American terminology) or Little Big Horn. The Eskimo Scouts, organized as part of the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War II, produced several members who later led efforts for Alaskan statehood. Percy Ipalook was an Inupiaq and a chaplain in the Guard. He later became a territorial and then a state congressman. Frank Peratrovich, a Tlingit and a captain in the Guard, had an even more distinguished career. He became a
American Indian Veterans, Individuals territorial and then a state congressman, a state senator and the senate president, and then finally the Alaska State Constitutional Convention vice president.
The Civil War Ely Parker (1828–1895) is the bestknown Native veteran of the Civil War on either side, and one of the bestknown American Indian veterans of all time. As a teenager he was already a translator for the Seneca Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee Confederacy. By his twenties he also was negotiating treaties on his people’s behalf with officials in Washington, DC. He studied law in Ellicotville, New York, but was not permitted to take the state bar exam as he was not an American citizen, a status granted to Native Americans only in 1924. Parker also worked extensively with Lewis Henry Morgan, known to history as the Father of American Anthropology. Rejected by New York state officials both in his attempts to enlist and to raise a company of Native Americans to fight at the start of the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant made Parker his aide and military secretary. By the war’s end he had attained the rank of colonel. Parker took part in the negotiations for Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, personally drafting the surrender terms. When Grant became president of the United States, he appointed Parker as commissioner of the Indian Bureau. Parker was the first Native American to serve in that post, initiating Grant’s peace policy and attempting to clean up the rampant corruption and abuse of Native peoples by the bureau. Both bigots hostile to his Seneca heritage and those
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who made their fortunes cheating on contracts for supplies to Indian reservations conspired against him. His opponents accused him, ironically, of fraud. He was cleared of all charges, but the scandal still weakened his position enough to force him to resign. Parker later earned a fortune on Wall Street and worked with the New York City Police Department. For most of the latter part of his life, Parker was also a highly respected sachem (counselor) for the Seneca Nation. Henry Berry Lowrey was Lumbee and a Union guerilla leader during the Civil War. He became famous among his fellow Lumbee as the ‘‘Robin Hood of Robeson County’’ in North Carolina for his daring raids. Confederates falsely accused his father and two brothers of his actions and executed them. The Lowrey Band, made up of Lumbees, blacks, and whites, retaliated with a campaign of robbery against wealthy plantation owners during most of Reconstruction. After negotiating with the North Carolina governor’s office, Lowrey disappeared in 1872. No one ever collected the reward on him. By some accounts he lived on in secrecy into his nineties. Lowrey’s name still lives on today in Lumbee legends as a man who would fight to defend his people, and his memory has been honored with pageants, plays, and awards (see also Civil War Veterans).
The Spanish-American and Indian Wars The most famous Native soldiers of the Spanish-American War served in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, personally recruited by the future president. William Pollock, a Pawnee, carried the
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regimental flag. Cherokee soldier Thomas Isbell served as one of four point men for the Rough Riders. Two Yaqui brothers, Joseph and Frank Brito, also served. Joseph went on to take part in crushing the Filipino struggle for independence and went missing in action. They were presumed dead but Frank survived. After the war he became something of a rarity Indian reservations, a Native law officer. At different times he was a deputy, sheriff, town constable, city jailer, and game warden. He later joined the National Guard, taking part in the pursuit of revolutionary commander Pancho Villa into Mexico by General Pershing’s Expeditionary Force. Clinton Rickard (1882–1971), a Tuscarora soldier in both wars, became a veterans’ group organizer and the founder of one of the earliest civil rights and Native sovereignty organizations, the Indian Defense League of America (IDLA). Rickard thought of veterans’ organizations as similar to the old warrior societies. After the war he joined the Army and Navy Union, the United Spanish War Veterans, and a Masonic lodge. Rickard himself played the lead role in organizing Post 8242 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on the Tuscarora reservation. Throughout the remainder of his long life, he and the IDA led struggles against the loss of Native lands, the registration of Iroquois as aliens, and the struggle against Iroquois men being drafted in both World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War (see also Spanish-American War Veterans).
World Wars I and II The most famous Native veterans of both wars are the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. But many people are
unaware that there were American Indian Code Talkers in both world wars, and that they came from as many as 17 tribes in addition to the Navajo. Members of the Assiniboine, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Choctaw, Comanche, Cree, Dakota, Hopi, Kiowa, Lakota, Menominee, Muscogee-Seminole, Navajo, Oneida, Osage, Pawnee, and Sac and Fox (Meskwaki) peoples all used their Native languages as codes the enemy could not break. Some historians argue that fully realized secret codes, as opposed to largely speaking in their Native tongues, were developed only by the Comanche, Hopi, and Meskwaki Code Talkers, as well as the Navajo. Of all of them, the Navajo Code Talkers are the most famous because they were the most numerous by far (slightly over 300), the most widely used for the longest period of time, and the ones who have been the most widely held up as heroic, particularly by Natives Americans themselves. Outside of the Navajo, the exact numbers of the Code Talkers of other tribes and when and where they were first used is often a matter of much debate. Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas urged the passage of the Code Talkers Recognition Act in 2001 to pay tribute to Code Talkers from all the relevant American Indian tribal nations. Her office compiled the following lists of Code Talkers by tribe except the Navajo; Dakota/Lakota, 15; Comanche, 14; Choctaw, 8; Sac and Fox, 8; Hopi, 3; Assiniboine, 5; Kiowa, 3; Muscogee, 2. Native American Code Talkers served in World War I, although who had the honor of serving first is disputed. Some argue the first known use of American Indian Code Talkers was a group of about 40 Cherokee troops used by the
American Indian Veterans, Individuals 30th Infantry Division serving during the Second Battle of the Somme in World War I. Others claim the first were a group of 14 Choctaw men in the Army’s 36th Infantry Division in several battles in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, also during World War I. In 1989 the French government presented the Knight of the National Order of Merit, the highest honor France can bestow, to the Choctaw Code Talkers. In World War II, Choctaw Code Talkers were used once again. Fourteen Comanche Code Talkers took part in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy as part of the 4th Infantry Division. Comanches of the 4th Signal Company created over 100 code terms using their own language as a basis. Five Assiniboines served as Code Talkers in Company B of the 163rd Infantry Division. Eleven Hopis were drafted, serving in a war most of them opposed since they were part of a largely pacifist tradition that forbids warfare except in self-defense. The Hopis developed a code they used to assist U.S. Army intelligence in the campaigns in the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, and the Philippines. The Sac and Fox Code Talkers used their language against the German enemy in North Africa. Major General Paul Mueller, commander of the U.S. Army’s 81st Infantry, recruited from between 12 and 14 Lakotas from South Dakota to serve as Code Talkers for the division, including one he chose to keep personally assigned to him. The Navajo Code Talkers are the bestknown group of Native veterans in history, revered precisely because their achievements are a great intellectual feat alongside their acts of physical courage in battle. After Phillip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos,
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convinced Major General Clayton Vogel to recruit Navajos, the Navajo Code Talkers devised their own unbreakable and unwritten code on their own, one that was never breached by the Japanese nor transmitted inaccurately. Even captured Navajo POWs who were not Code Talkers could not fathom the code, and so the Japanese tortured them to no purpose. The Navajos used this feat of military bravery and military intelligence to promote a positive image of themselves and gain a prestige and recognition that eludes most other Native veterans. The number of books, articles, and films dedicated to the Code Talkers easily outnumbers all other media about Native veterans combined. There is even a Navajo Code Talkers action figure, manufactured by Mattel and sold in Arizona. Navajo Code Talkers provided coded transmissions for virtually the entire Marine Corps in the Pacific theater for nearly the entire duration of U.S. involvement in the war. By some historians’ assessments, many of the American victories in the Pacific (particularly the Battle of Iwo Jima) would not have been possible without the Navajo Code Talkers’ role. Carl Nelson Gorman and his son Rudolph Carl (R. C.) Gorman, a veteran of the Korean War, are perhaps the two most famous Navajos in America. Carl Gorman was one of the original group of Navajo Code Talkers in World War II and a painter. He later became best known as president of the Code Talkers Association, the veterans’ association formed by the group, and worked to bring recognition to the Navajos who created the complex language-based combat code that the Japanese military never broke. After the war, Carl Gorman became a respected artist and teacher.
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During his time in California, he became a leader of the urban Navajo community in Los Angeles before returning to the Navajo Reservation to accept the position of director of the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. The image of the flag raising at Iwo Jima became one of the most enduring icons of World War II. When the public heard that an American Indian was one of the flag raisers, many took this as a hopeful sign of American society’s inclusiveness. In less than a week’s time, Pima Indian and Marine Ira Hayes went from being just another grunt in combat to a celebrity constantly mobbed on tour. Hayes and the other marines from the flag raising raised tens of millions of dollars in war bond drives, becoming beloved symbols of patriotism and hope. After the war, sensational tabloids dwelled in lurid detail on Hayes’s arrests for public intoxication, often using the ugliest of racist stereotypes about Natives and alcohol. But to many he remains solely a war hero honored for being awarded the Silver Star and for bringing attention to Native servicemen with the flag raising. The Navajo Code Talkers depict him on their medals issued by the Navajo Nation, both dressed as a traditional Pima warrior on horseback and in the flag raising in spite of the fact that Hayes was neither Navajo nor a Code Talker. In Urshel Taylor’s painting of the flag raising, Hayes is also dressed as a traditional Pima warrior alongside the white marines dressed in modern military uniform (see Iwo Jima Memorial). Oscar Howe was a Yankton Dakota veteran and one of the first modern American Indian artists, known for his watercolor paintings. Howe first became famous as one of Santa Fe, New Mexico’s Indian School artists. In the late 1950s he protested
against Native artists being required to paint only in ‘‘traditional’’ styles. Howe was also an art professor at the University of South Dakota from 1957 to 1983 and was named Artist Laureate of South Dakota (see also World War I Veterans and World War II Veterans).
Korean War R. C. Gorman has the distinction of being the leading Native painter in the United States, ‘‘the Picasso of American Indian artists’’ or ‘‘Picasso of the Southwest.’’ He enlisted in the navy during the Korean War. Afterwards he studied in Mexico and was heavily influenced by murals by Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He first became famous as a painter in the 1960s, purchased his own gallery in Taos, New Mexico, and by the 1970s was one of the premier painters and sculptors in the country, above all famous for his depictions of American Indian women as mother figures. R. C. Gorman has also written an acclaimed biography of his father, Power of a Navajo (1996), as well as his own autobiography Radiance of My People (1992). Cherokee and Vice Admiral Joseph ‘‘Jocko’’ Clark was the first Native American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy and ultimately became commander of the Seventh Fleet. Clark led his self-proclaimed ‘‘Cherokee Strikes’’ during the Korean War, surprise raids and bombings of supplies behind enemy lines to destroy enemy morale. Clark is one of only two American Indians of the twentieth century to be honored with an American navy ship named after him, the USS Clark. The other, Ho Chunk Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud, received the Medal of Honor
American Indian Veterans, Individuals posthumously during the Korean War for bravery in battle and was also honored with the naming of the USNS Red Cloud. Sergeant John Rice, also of the Ho Chunk nation, was killed in the Battle for the Pusan Perimeter. Rice drew nationwide attention when funeral officials barred his remains from a burial plot in the town of Sioux City, Iowa. The funeral actually stopped in midservice after the funeral director realized Rice was not white. This treatment provoked nationwide outrage. President Truman himself intervened and offered the family a plot in Arlington National Cemetery. Senators Marion Butler from Iowa and Guy Gillette from Nebraska, Secretary of the Interior Julius Krug, and a colonel as a representative from the Joint Chiefs of Staff all attended Rice’s second funeral. Vine Deloria Jr., Lakota activist, historian, intellectual, lawyer, and professor was perhaps the most influential Native author in American history. Deloria first came to public notice during the midst of the Vietnam War as the leading figure in the Red Power movement. From 1964 to 1967 Deloria was executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, the leading American Indian civil rights organization, made up of representatives of the great majority of federally recognized tribal nations. His book Custer Died For Your Sins, his ‘‘Indian manifesto,’’ was published in 1969 and served as a blueprint for action for many Red Power activists as well as the first introduction to contemporary Native voices for many non-Natives. More than 20 influential and controversial books followed. Deloria also led the movement for Native sovereignty using the Anglo-American legal system against
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itself, founding the Institute for the Development of Indian Law. Much of the leadership of the Red Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s came from Native veterans of the Korean War. Ojibwe and U.S. Navy veteran Dennis Banks founded the American Indian Movement in a Minneapolis city jail in 1968. He took part in the famous occupation of Alcatraz Island and led numerous other protests, including the Trail of Broken Treaties, the seizure and occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Washington, and the occupation at Wounded Knee. He taught briefly at Stanford University and was the American Indian chancellor at Deganawidah Quetzalcoatl, a two-year Indian college in California University. Banks also had roles in several films, appeared on several musical albums, and coauthored his biography, Ojibwe Warrior (2004). Another important Native American veteran intellectual is Gerald Vizenor, an Ojibwe poet, novelist, journalist, scholar, and author and editor of numerous books. Vizenor lied about his age and joined the National Guard at age 15 in 1950. After his time in service he became a community advocate as director of the American Indian Employment and Guidance Center in Minneapolis. He later was a reporter and editor at the Minneapolis Tribune, then a professor at a number of universities, and provost of Kresge College. Vizenor is the author of Native Liberty (2009) and series editor of Native Stories: A Series of American Narratives and American Indian Literature and Critical Studies, which currently comprises 50 volumes published by the University of Oklahoma Press since 1995. In the 1960s and 1970s he was named as one of the members of the
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‘‘Native American Renaissance’’ in modern literature. His novels include Hiroshima Bugi, Wordarrows: Whites and Indians in the New Fur Trade, Darkness in Saint Louis, Bearheart, Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles, and The Heirs of Columbus, in addition to poetry, plays, short stories, screenplays, and even new versions of traditional tribal tales. Pioneering rock music guitarist Link Wray was a Shawnee veteran of the army. Wray’s many innovations included the use of feedback, fuzz, and power chords. Forming Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands, they became the house band for the television show Milt Grant’s House Party, a Washington, DC, version of American Bandstand. Wray had the first of many hits with ‘‘Rumble,’’ which was banned from some radio stations for supposedly promoting juvenile delinquency. Known for his hard-driving instrumental dance music beloved by the surfer subculture, many hits followed for Wray from the 1950s into the early 1970s, among them ‘‘Rawhide,’’ ‘‘Ace of Spades,’’ ‘‘Jack the Ripper,’’ and ‘‘The Batman Theme.’’ The Who, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, T Rex, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan all cited Wray as an influence. In the 1980s and 1990s his music enjoyed a revival thanks to its use in films such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Desperado (1995), Independence Day (1996), 12 Monkeys (1995), and Pink Flamingos (1972). Wray was honored posthumously twice in 2006, first with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The First Americans in the Arts and later with an induction into the Native American Music Hall of Fame (see also Korean War Veterans).
Vietnam War Most of the rank and file of the American Indian Movement and some of its most famous leaders, including Carter Camp (a.k.a. Ponca) and Stan Holder (a.k.a. Wichita), were veterans of the U.S. military. Many were part of elite military units that had served in counterinsurgency training such as Long Range Patrols in Vietnam, combat control for the Air Force behind enemy lines, and the Phoenix Program of covert assassination for the CIA. Some Native veterans have written about their experiences; Leroy Tecube (Jicarilla Apache) in Year in Nam (2000); Delano Cummings (Lumbee) in Moon Dash Warrior (1998); Roy Benavidez (Yaqui) in Medal of Honor (1995); Woody Kipp (Blackfoot) in Viet Cong at Wounded Knee (2004); and Dwight Birdwell (Cherokee) in One Hundred Miles of Bad Road (2000). Most of the better-known American Indian scholars of today joined academia and also became activists after serving during the Vietnam War, following in the footsteps of activist professor Vine Deloria Jr. Tom Holm and Steve Russell are both Cherokee veterans who have written on Native veterans of the Vietnam War. Robert Allen Warrior and Jace Weaver are both Lakota scholars in American Indian studies. Kiowa educator Cornell Pewewardy has written on stereotypes in education, particularly on ‘‘Indian’’ sports mascots. Don Trent Jacobs is a Cherokee professor and former dean of education at Oglala Lakota College, as well as a noted peace activist. Several noted Native fiction writers were also Vietnam War veterans. Vincent Mendoza is the son of a Creek mother
American Indian Veterans, Individuals and a Mexican father and author of Son of Two Bloods (1999). Stephen Cole was Lakota and Ojibwe and author of Silent Warrior (1994). Phillip Red Eagle is a Dakota and Salish veteran and author of Red Earth: A Vietnam Warrior’s Journey (2007). Troy Johnson is a decorated Seminole veteran and history professor at California State University at Long Beach who writes primarily about the Red Power movement, particularly the landmark occupation of Alcatraz by Indians of all nations. He is the author of The Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island and the Rise of Indian Activism (1996), You Are on Indian Land! Alcatraz Island 1969– 71 (1995), and coeditor of American Indian Activism: Alcatraz to the Longest Walk (1997) and Red Power: The American Indians Fight for Freedom (1999). Alfred Taiaiake was born and raised in Kahnawake, in Canada, but like many other Mohawks in Canada he is a veteran, in his case of the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a well-known activist and author on Native American sovereignty issues, directing the Indigenous Governance Program at Victoria University in British Columbia. He is the author of Wasa´se: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (2005); Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto (2009); and Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism (1995). Ron Querry is a Choctaw veteran of the Marine Corps, professor, and fiction author. His books include a work of history, Discrimination: Native Americans and the Struggle for Equality (1993); an autobiography, I See By My Get Up (1987); a murder mystery, The Death of Bernadette Lefthand (1995); a collection
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of essays, Growing Old at Willie Nelson’s Picnic (1983); and a novel, Bad Medicine (1998). Michael Naranjo is a Santa Clara Pueblo veteran and renowned sculptor. Naranjo was blinded by a grenade and also lost the use of his right hand in Vietnam in 1968. He taught himself to sculpt with clay, using only his sense of touch and his left hand and employing his fingernails to etch lines. He and his wife established the Touched by Art Fund. Naranjo has been honored with numerous awards for his artwork and his work on behalf of disabled people. Ed McGaa is Oglala Lakota and was a decorated fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. An extremely controversial figure to other American Indians, McGaa is one of the leading figures in the New Age movement, teaching whites his version of American Indian spiritual traditions in numerous books and workshops. To many American Indians such actions are unethical and derided as ‘‘pay to pray,’’ while McGaa himself has been heavily criticized and protested against as a ‘‘plastic shaman’’ by traditional elders and Native activists. In 2002, McGaa ran to become the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. Senator from Minnesota but lost in the primary after controversy over comments of his that were perceived as anti-Semitic (see also Vietnam War Veterans).
The Gulf and Iraq Wars Kevin Shore, an Ojibwe from the White Earth Reservation, became the most famous Native veteran of the Gulf War. Born in 1967, Shore served in the navy in the Middle East from 1985 to 1988, acquiring what later came to be known as Gulf War Syndrome after large
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American Indian Veterans, Individuals
numbers of personnel became afflicted with it after the invasion of Kuwait. Confined to a wheelchair, in 2000 Shore wheeled across the country in what he called the Gulf War Illness Awareness Ride to raise awareness of the illness and protested the lack of government attention to the problem. Hopi soldier Lori Piestewa first came to the public’s attention as a member of the U.S. Army’s 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq. In March 2003, her unit was ambushed after making a wrong turn near Nasiriyah, Iraq. Ten of its members were killed or captured, the most famous of whom was her friend Jessica Lynch. When U.S. commandos rescued Lynch from an Iraqi hospital, they also recovered nine bodies, including Piestewa’s. Piestewa became a symbol of the sacrifices of the war to both Natives and non-Natives. Tributes to Piestewa poured in from Natives Americans of diverse tribal background and locations, from as far away as bases in Europe, Japan, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. Piestewa’s family traveled across the country as honored guests at powwows, schools, concerts, and other gatherings, meeting tribal presidents, celebrities, and First Lady Laura Bush. A NavajoHopi bike-run event was also organized to honor her memory. The National Native American Games changed its name to the Lori Piestewa National Native American Games. In Arizona, the effort to honor her focused on renaming a local landmark from its formerly racist name, Squaw Peak, to Piestewa Peak in her honor. After a very bitter debate, the measure passed. The Piestewa family and friends became famous for speaking out in criticism of the Iraq War, over a year before Cindy Sheehan’s
famous series of protests (she spent 26 days camped outside President George Bush’s ranch in Texas in August 2005 protesting the war in Iraq in which her son was killed), after it first became public that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq (see also Gulf War Veterans; Afghan War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans). In films and literature, Native Americans play an ambiguous role: they are brave fighters for their freedom yet doomed to submit to the advancing white civilization, or they serve as loyal scouts and soldiers who accompany the white men and assist in the destruction of their own cultures. In real American history, Native American veterans have fulfilled both roles. They not only serve loyally —and disproportionately to their numbers in the general population—but also use their service as a vehicle for advancing both themselves and improving the situation of their people in American society (see also Film and Veterans; Literature and Veterans). Al Carroll See also American Indian Veterans
Further Reading Carroll, Al. Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veteran Traditions from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Malinowksi, Sharon, and George H. J. Abrams, eds. Notable Native Americans. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1995. Meadows, William C. Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans 1800 to the Present. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999.
American Legion
AMERICAN LEGION The American Legion has been the most influential and at the same time the most controversial veterans’ group in U.S. history. The organization has successfully promoted a system for providing services to veterans and has continued to champion the needs of veterans. Moreover, it has developed extensive community service programs. Much of the controversy surrounding the group dissipated long ago, but at one time, some groups asserted that it was a major threat to democracy in the United States. Although such fears ultimately remained unrealized, certain Legionnaires, in their zeal to protect ‘‘American’’ institutions, unquestionably denied some citizens their rights of free expression, including effective union activity.
Formation Throughout U.S. history, veterans have banded together to confront the problems facing them after military service. Thus, even before the end of World War I, many service personnel began discussing the need for their own veterans’ organization. The American Legion, however, only began in France after the Armistice of November 11, 1918. Once the war had been won, discipline and morale within the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) began to deteriorate, and on February 15, 1919, 20 officers ranking from major through colonel, who were reserve or National Guard rather than regular army officers, were brought together in Paris to discusses these problems. After preparing recommendations for AEF headquarters, they met informally to consider the establishment of a
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veterans’ group in part to deal with current issues within the army in France and in part to cope with postwar challenges within the United States. They formed a temporary committee but recognized that a more representative planning structure was needed. In particular, there was a need to involve enlisted personnel, who would be the great majority of any veterans’ organization. The next step was the ‘‘Paris Caucus’’ that took place March 15–17, 1919. Officers remained in the majority, but a number of enlisted men were participants. Early on, the decision was made to include service members who had remained in the United States during the war, and, therefore, another caucus was held in St. Louis, May 8–10, 1919, to permit them to participate in planning. Even then, officers were the majority of attendees, but there was a significant increase in the proportion of enlisted personnel. After veterans in Europe and in the United States had an opportunity to express their views, there was a need for a general meeting to make a more formal beginning. That gathering took place in Minneapolis early in November 1919. Despite a great deal of discussion and some disagreements, a consensus about the nature of the organization and its tasks was reached. The American Legion would represent the needs of veterans and would broadly support the political, economic, and social institutions that made the United States a democracy and a world power. At the same time, the Legion was not to involve itself directly in partisan politics, although it would advocate particular pieces of legislation. ‘‘Policy, not politics’’ was to be the guiding principle for the Legion. After its establishment, the Legion became one of the few organizations ever to receive
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American Legion Parade passing reviewing stand, Kansas City, Missouri, November 1, 1921. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division]
a charter from Congress (see World War I Veterans).
Membership The American Legion has come to represent the U.S. veteran. It has been by far the largest and strongest veterans’ organization, Although it has not generally exceeded a quarter of the total number of veterans of a particular war or of the veteran population generally, many of its members seem to have been what political scientists term ‘‘opinion leaders,’’ that is, those who can influence others, thereby increasing the reach of the organization considerably. No voluntary group is likely to capture the allegiance of its entire potential membership, and, therefore, the Legion’s success in attracting and retaining members has been phenomenal. Despite the increasing numbers of deaths of World War II and Korean War veterans, the American Legion has maintained a high level of membership. Although the organization’s membership is below its postWorld War II peak, the figure for 2006 of about 2,600,000 members is nearly comparable to the 3,000,000 of 1946, when the Legion had grown enormously owing to the influx of World War II veterans. It remains one of the largest membership groups in the United States. Initially, the Legion considered everyone in the AEF a member, but soon there
was a need to formalize membership. In contrast to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Legion admitted men and women who had remained in the United States during World War I, which amounted to nearly half of those enrolled. Ever since, the Legion has welcomed everyone who has served in the armed forces during wartime or overseas expeditions that resulted in combat (for instance, see Korean War Veterans, Vietnam War Veterans, Gulf War Veterans, Afghan War Veterans, Iraq War Veterans). Civilians have been not eligible to join except for Merchant Marine veterans of the World War II era. Some politicians, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, successfully claimed membership based on their activities during World War I. Roosevelt, for example, had been assistant secretary of the navy. Generally, Legion members are those veterans who have felt positively about their military service and who have been proud of their own efforts. At the end of a generally humorous but vivid account of World War I service written in the 1920s, one character exclaimed, ‘‘Good old Army! Good old War! It’s given us something to talk about and think about for all the rest of our lives.’’ Such a former soldier was doubtless the kind of person who would have joined the Legion (Upson 1928, 271). For many young men who had never been far from
American Legion home, and especially for the nearly threequarters of World War I veterans who did not see combat, the war was the greatest adventure of their lives, and lasted, on average, about a year. The Legion made a conscious effort to differentiate itself from the Civil War veterans’ groups, which divided Union men and Confederates into their own organizations (see Grand Army of the Republic; Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations). Spanish-American War Veterans had made a start toward harmonizing sectional differences, but their organization was relatively small. The reconciliation the Legion achieved came at a high cost, unfortunately. Like most efforts to end the bitterness engendered by the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Legion was a reunion of Northern and Southern whites at the expense of African Americans (see African American Veterans— World War I). Although many African Americans joined integrated posts in the North or segregated posts in the South, their membership levels did not reach those of whites. Most southern states excluded blacks from membership, as otherwise they would have been a majority, or nearly so, in states where they did not enjoy the right to vote. For its first two decades, the Legion was exclusively an organization of World War I veterans. Although Civil War and War of 1898 veterans organizations often cooperated with the Legion, they did not merge with it. In the World War II era, the Legion had to decide whether or not to admit the new veterans. On the one hand, it was obvious that if World War II Veterans were admitted, they would soon form the majority of members and would increasingly assume leadership positions. On the other hand,
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a much larger membership would give the Legion the ability to express its concerns with even greater authority than during the 1920s and 1930s. After some discussion, the Legion chose to admit World War II Veterans, and Congress changed the Legion’s charter accordingly. Later, the charter was modified to admit many post-World War II veterans. There have been and continue to be gaps in eligibility owing to the nature of the Cold War era, however. An example of such a gap is the time between February 1, 1955, and February 27, 1961. Since August 2, 1990, anyone serving even a day of active duty in the armed forces will be admitted. A highly important element in the Legion has been its auxiliary, consisting of either women relatives of veterans or women veterans, from World War I to the present. The latter are allowed to join both the Legion and the auxiliary. Within recent decades there has been about one auxiliary member for every three Legion members. Not only has the auxiliary contributed mightily to the Legion’s organizational efforts and its community service but also to its lobbying activities. The auxiliary was well positioned to endorse military preparedness in opposition to pacifist organizations and especially those women’s groups critical of what they viewed as militarism, for example.
Representing Veterans’ Interests Those who doubt the need for an organization that insistently pursues the interests of veterans need only look at the history of veterans’ programs in the United States. The Legion has been forced at times to wage bitter campaigns even to defend the rights of the disabled,
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let alone other veterans (see Disabled Veterans). The Legion has often faced the unwillingness of the federal veterans agencies to acknowledge some of the physical and mental ill effects of military service. Campaigns for the recognition of the ravages of Agent Orange from the Vietnam War and Gulf War Syndrome for the 1990s proved necessary, for example. Although many promises were made to both men and women in service during World War I, the federal government was totally unprepared to provide the services needed by veterans, partly because responsibility for veterans affairs was dispersed through several federal agencies, and partly because the war ended as mobilization itself was still just underway. Only in 1921 were the relevant functions gathered in a Veterans Bureau, which became the Veterans Administration in 1930, and the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1988. The Legion played a major role in persuading Congress to enact each one of these changes. Consolidating veterans’ functions in 1921 did not end existing problems, which included official corruption. At length, with the Legion gathering much of the evidence, the head of the Veterans Bureau, Charles R. Forbes, was convicted of various crimes and was sentenced to prison. The first concern of the Legion has always been to ensure that veterans who were disabled as a result of their military service receive appropriate medical treatment and compensation from the federal government. Other than championing disabled veterans and their needs, the Legion initially left the question of benefits to Congress, but that attitude soon changed in the face of congressional inaction. Even then, the Legion, which continued to emphasize service to the nation rather than lobbying for benefits,
initially opposed a World War I veterans ‘‘bonus’’ (see Bonus March). After the war, which had brought significant inflation to the United States, veterans began comparing the small pay—a dollar a day for privates—they had received with the high wages and salaries of civilian wartime workers, and, therefore, the Legion proposed a four-point approach to adjusting these disparities, which would provide veterans with land, vocational education, loans for purchasing homes, and the controversial ‘‘adjusted compensation.’’ Although some took advantage of vocational training, veterans were most concerned about the ‘‘adjusted compensation’’ issue, since that would be the only benefit most veterans would obtain. Despite resistance from many Legion leaders, securing this ‘‘compensation’’ became a key Legion demand by the early twenties. Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge opposed a bonus. Because of the history of Union veterans, Harding assumed that pensions would eventually be awarded to veterans of World War I, making a ‘‘bonus’’ unnecessary. Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury in the Harding and Coolidge administrations, became a major foe of payments to veterans. ‘‘Bonus’’ opponents insisted that paying it would jeopardize economic recovery in the United States. After a protracted struggle, Congress established a system of life insurance policies in 1924 that would fall due in 1945, thus postponing payments. As the Depression deepened in the early 1930s, demands grew for immediate payment of the bonus, but for a time the Legion was reluctant to oppose Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt over the issue. As its
American Legion
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General James A. Drain, the one-armed veteran who is playing golf here with one-legged Colonel Charles R. Crosfield, was elected National Commander of the American Legion in 1925. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-101989]
members became more insistent, the Legion fought hard, and, in 1936 Congress authorized immediate payments. Both the 1924 and 1936 legislation were passed over presidential vetoes. Ordinarily, the Legion made a point of expressing loyalty to the incumbent president as much as possible, but these were instances in which membership opinion outweighed other factors. The Legion learned a great deal from World War I and its own experiences in the 1920s and 1930s. Therefore, when World War II brought the prospect of a new generation of veterans, the Legion crafted a program for veterans that went far beyond its claims for World War I veterans and that was much more
beneficial for the larger society than previous veterans’ measures. One of the most important elements in the plan was the payment of veterans while they attended schools or colleges. Although it is thought of primarily in terms of assistance to college students, many more World War II veterans attended vocational schools than colleges or universities. Within a few months in 1943– 1944, the Legion, principally former Commander Harry Colmery, wrote the legislation and worked closely with members of Congress to have the measure passed that became known as the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act). The law soon revealed some deficiencies, but these were remedied quickly by amendments.
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Although the Legion is generally considered a veterans’ advocate, it has expressed its views strongly on many issues, including national defense, internal security, and immigration. Despite the range of its interests, however, the Legion has as a general rule been skillful in avoiding positions on issues that threatened to divide the organization and that would endanger its continued power. For instance, although most Legionnaires opposed both Prohibition and the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the national organization was reluctant to take a stand against either for fear of losing members. While many political candidates have skillfully cited their Legion membership —nearly every eligible Congressman, state and local official, and president has joined—the Legion has generally been adamant in refusing to make specific endorsements of candidates or to provide candidates with campaign funds. Still, Legion speeches and publications take note of candidates who support Legion programs, and those who do not. Legion lobbyists have proven expert at organizing ‘‘barrages’’ of letters to persuade officials to support legislation favored by the Legion. Although the Legion (and its opponents) like to stress its political power, leadership in the Legion has not been a stepping stone to higher office. Legion founder Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was defeated by Al Smith in the race for governor of New York in 1922; another founder, General Leonard Wood, had failed to obtain the republican presidential nomination in 1920. Louis Johnson, Legion commander in 1932–1933, later served as Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of war, the highest post obtained by a major Legion official.
Military Preparedness The origins of the Legion lie in part in the preparedness movement that developed during the early-twentieth century, especially between 1914 and 1917. Many of the most prominent leaders in the effort were associated with the Republican or Progressive Parties, but the democratic Wilson administration eventually began developing larger and better organized and equipped armed services even before the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. Among the preparedness groups was an American Legion that was established by some of the same people who were founders of the post-World War I organization, such as Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and General Leonard Wood. Critics of the Legion saw this earlier organization as proof that the American Legion of 1919 was far from a spontaneous movement among veterans and asserted that conservative, nationalistic leaders of the American Legion were simply continuing their pre-World War I attempts to mobilize U.S. citizens to support militarism and capitalism. On the other hand, some organization by prominent people was needed to mold the various small veterans groups taking shape into an effective national body. Many Legionnaires felt betrayed by the often haphazard mobilization of the United States in 1917–1918 and believed, accurately, that if the nation had been better prepared, casualties might have been reduced and the power of the United States would have been more effective earlier and would have ended the war more quickly. As it was, the army in France depended largely on aircraft and artillery pieces supplied by
American Legion the Allies rather than by the United States. Troop movements to Europe were impeded by the small size of the U.S. merchant marine. There was also a widely held belief among Legionnaires, especially leaders of the organization, that regular officers of the armed services had too little respect for the abilities of temporary service members and National Guardsmen, particularly officers. For some time, the Legion advocated what it viewed as fairer treatment of Reserve and National Guard officers and their deeper involvement in military planning. This element in Legion thinking soon lost its salience, perhaps because there were larger issues, such as combating pacifism, that brought regulars and other preparedness advocates together. Another facet of the Legion’s loyalty to the concept of the citizen soldier was its long-standing advocacy of what it termed ‘‘universal military training.’’ That did not mean merely a conscription system but rather short-term training that would include every man except for those who were totally unfit for military service. Training was to be provided by civilian personnel rather than members of the armed forces. This rather impractical approach to military training seems almost to have harked back to ‘‘musters’’ of the militia that had long been a tradition in the British colonies and later the United States. The Legion persisted doggedly through the 1920s and 1930s and the draft era in recommending some form of ‘‘universal military training,’’ and it lamented the demise of the draft in the 1970s, in part because of the Legion’s longtime assumption that military service was a privilege and obligation of all good male citizens.
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Throughout its existence, the Legion has pressed for well-trained and wellequipped armed forces, generally with the stipulation that they should be backed by large numbers of trained citizen soldiers, on the ground that potential enemies will be less likely to attack an armed rather than a disarmed democracy. Given the large numbers of Legionnaires and their varied experiences as members of the armed forces, the organization has spoken with authority about defense issues. An example of the Legion’s vision was its strong support for aviation and its advocacy of a separate air service decades before the establishment of the U.S. Air Force. The Legion has favored some moves toward peace, such as formation of the United Nations, but it has devoted far more attention to insisting that the United States must be prepared to face potential enemies. During the 1920s and 1930s the Legion reflected the isolationist views of U.S. citizens generally, and it backed the ‘‘neutrality legislation’’ passed by Congress in the 1930s to prevent the nation from being drawn into another major war. As Germany, Italy, and Japan became increasingly aggressive, however, Legionnaires recognized the threats they represented, and in 1940–1941, the Legion powerfully assisted President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his controversial efforts to build U.S. defenses and to make the country an ‘‘arsenal of democracy’’ to aid the Allies. At the Legion’s 1940 Convention, an organized lobbying effort by Hollywood film producers called the ‘‘Fight for Freedom’’ defeated the isolationists who favored Charles Lindbergh, the nation’s most prominent isolationist, who hoped the Legion would endorse his opposition in
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supporting British efforts to fight Hitler’s Germany. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Axis forces in 1941 created a problem for the Legion. On the one hand, the Legion had been opposed to the Soviets and to domestic communists from the very beginning of its existence, but, on the other hand, by 1941 the Legion was clearly committed to intervention by the United States in World War II and to helping nations that were fighting the Axis. Legionnaires realized that the Soviet Union would be a major factor in the anti-Axis alliance, and, therefore, while continuing to condemn communism, supported aid to the Soviets. As with aid to Britain the previous year, some Legionnaires supported assistance as a way to keep the United States out of war, while others realized war would come and regarded the aid as the forerunner to inevitable involvement.
Internal Security Concerns Detecting and countering ‘‘internal subversion’’ has been one of the Legion’s major commitments, and it has drawn more criticism than any other Legion activity. In its early decades the Legion was not content to provide speakers and to issue publications that argued against doctrines being disseminated by socialists, communists, fascists, pacifists, and some civil rights advocates. Instead, its posts often tried to prevent what were viewed as ‘‘undesirable’’ or ‘‘disloyal’’ speeches from being given. Many Legionnaires were simply unable to accept the concept that a ‘‘marketplace of ideas’’ had to be maintained and that free exchange of opinions in that ‘‘marketplace’’ strengthened democracy. Instead, they believed that some speech
was so dangerous to the individual communities or to the United States generally that it had to be prevented. In the Legion’s view pacifists and sometimes liberals were linked to communism. When attempting to prevent addresses by those whom they regarded as ‘‘radicals,’’ Legionnaires sometimes threatened the owners of halls who rented facilities to their opponents with boycotts and unfavorable publicity. At other times, demonstrations were held, and efforts were made to disrupt those meetings and lectures that were held. It was at that point that the Legion overstepped the democratic tenets it professed to be upholding. The most serious confrontation between Legionnaires and those it viewed as radicals occurred at Centralia, Washington, on Armistice Day 1919. The events of that day are still much in dispute, but several Legionnaires were killed, and several members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were sentenced to prison (see World War I Veterans). Legion opposition to the Soviet Union and to communism is understandable given events in 1917 and 1918. Communists took control of Russia in good part because they promised peace, and, therefore, early in 1918, they made a precarious settlement with the Central Powers. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty allowed the Central Powers to shift troops from Russia to other areas. It is hardly surprising that Legionnaires bitterly resented a regime that had released hundreds of thousands of trained enemy soldiers to fight them. Thus, the Legion view of the Soviet Union was poisoned from the beginning. During the 1920s and the early 1930s, the Legion vehemently opposed recognition of the Soviet Union, and it continued to criticize the Roosevelt administration’s recognition in 1933.
American Legion Another controversial facet of the Legion was its stance on immigration policy and the treatment of immigrants. At first glance, its attitude seems to have been very much a part of the strain of extreme nativism in U.S. history. The Legion favored sharply reducing immigration and imposing nationality quotas in the 1920s, a position that suggests a similarity between its views and those of the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. Although some Legionnaires were doubtless racists, the organization’s approach differed considerably from nativist organizations. Nevertheless, while some Legionnaires belonged to the Klan and there was considerable overlapping membership in certain states, the Legion differed from the Klan in that it welcomed Roman Catholic and Jewish members, had democratically elected officers, opened both its internal affairs and political lobbying to outside scrutiny, and unlike the Klan, which ceased to be a national force due to internal corruption in the mid-twenties, has remained almost completely free from any taint of corruption. What concerned the Legion the most were the apparent links between immigrants and radicalism in the immediate post-World War I years. Therefore, the Legion advised caution about admitting large numbers of immigrants and wanted to ensure that those people who were admitted became thoroughly ‘‘Americanized,’’ that is, that they fully understood the political, economic, and social institutions of the United States and that they firmly adhered to them. Thus, the Legion has been more concerned about the ideas and commitments of immigrants than with their racial characteristics or the countries from which they came. Like many Americans, the Legion opposed Jewish and other
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immigrants from Central Europe in the late 1930s on the grounds not only that they would take away jobs in a stilldepressed economy, but also because it perceived most people from those countries to be either fascists or radicals. From about the late 1930s through the end of the Cold War, the Legion moved from the sporadic involvement of individual posts in what sometimes amounted to vigilante activity to cooperation with federal agencies at the national, state, and local levels. Close ties developed between the Legion and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, welcomed the assistance that the Legion gave his organization. The Legion was pleased, moreover, by the emergence of the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate possible subversive activity, because it had long recommended the establishment of just that kind of congressional committee. Legionnaires continued to be fervent supporters of that committee throughout its stormy existence. Notorious examples of Legion mob actions include breaking the Boston police strike and attacking the Industrial Workers of the World in 1919 and 1920; breaking strikes on farms in California and the Longshoreman’s strike in San Francisco in 1934; and opposing the unionization of steel mills in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the late thirties. Legion posts were especially active in harassing Jehovah’s Witnesses who opposed entry into World War II in 1940 and 1941. Perhaps the most notorious Legion action was the attack against those who attended a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York, in 1949 (see Peekskill Riot). The idea that the Legion planned to overthrow the government during the
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early years of the Roosevelt administration, however, is a myth: the most plausible story is that unauthorized individuals falsely claiming to speak for the Legion as a whole approached General Smedley Butler, who was enormously popular with veterans, asked him to lead a coup, and Butler accepted their claims at face value. The Legion did, however, have ‘‘top secret’’ emergency plans to restore order in major cities during the Depression if there were attempted insurrections or total breakdowns in authority. While the Legion stressed that illegal activities by its posts or post members (who frequently insisted they were acting as individuals and not as Legionnaires) were not authorized by the national body, the fact that it did not take action against or expel these posts suggests it sympathized with their ends if not their means. By the forties, however, the Legion realized vigilante activities usually provoked sympathy for the victims and hostility toward the Legion; a few incidents such as the Peekskill/Robeson Concert aside, it stressed instead education and Americanism programs to promote patriotism rather than directly confronting radical groups.
Community Service In additional to pursuing veterans’ benefits, military preparedness, and the enhancement of internal security, the Legion has devoted considerable effort to a wide variety of general service activities. The American Legion has gone far beyond the Grand Army of the Republic and other pre-World War I veterans’ organizations in its commitment to community service. The national organization has supported a number of causes, including child safety, and Legion posts have been deeply involved with civic activities, such as
sponsoring boy and girl scout troops and athletic teams. Hundreds of scout troops, for example, have received support from the Legion. American Legion Baseball has been another major commitment of the organization, which has affected the lives of many thousands of boys. Legion essay contests on patriotic themes are another staple in schools throughout the nation. Much of the Legion’s community participation coincided with some of its other commitments, of course. Sponsoring scout troops and backing young peoples’ athletic teams was intended to develop good citizens who would be of unquestioning loyalty to the United States and to promote physical fitness which would reduce the number of young men unqualified to serve in the armed forces in the event of war. Legion Baseball, in fact, was developed in large part to attract young men away from activities sponsored by radical groups. Posts have also made important contributions during emergencies, such as floods, and have been particularly effective because they have often been prepared to provide emergency services before crises developed. During World War II, the Legion was very much involved in civil defense, such as enforcing blackouts and serving as air raid wardens, although not to the extent that the organization proposed (see also Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations).
Fraternal Aspects of the American Legion Although many of them have declined in significance within recent years, numerous fraternal and service groups such as the Elks, Kiwanis, Lions, and so forth, have absorbed the interest and energy of
American Legion millions of people in the United States and have been a highly characteristic feature of society in this country. These organizations have provided men and women and, frequently, both genders, with companionship and with opportunities to serve their communities. The Legion has much in common with the fraternal groups, such as the Knights of Columbus and Masonic bodies, although it has lacked the secrecy of the latter. Although there were provisions for elaborate rituals in the Legion, posts have largely dispensed with them. Socializing has always been an important part of the appeal of the Legion. To a degree its posts have been men’s clubs, although women can belong, which provide an alternative to bars and restaurants open to the general public. From its earliest years, moreover, the Legion has staged annual conventions that have attracted thousands of men and women (see Women Veterans, World War I to the Present). Given the size of the conventions, many cities have been anxious to host them, and at times, such cities have gone far in accommodating Legionnaires in search of entertainment, even accepting the establishment of Legion ‘‘courts’’ to deal with minor offenses by members. To many outside the Legion, its huge, and sometimes disorderly, conventions are the best-known feature of the organization. Legionnaires have wanted freedom to play at their meetings and conventions, and, thus, during Prohibition, the American Legion became an increasingly vocal critic of what President Herbert Hoover considered a ‘‘noble experiment.’’ Although the Legion has generally been cautious about tackling potentially divisive issues, it openly flouted Prohibition from its adoption in 1919 to its repeal in 1933.
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Studies of the American Legion The Legion has sponsored several official histories of which Jones (1946) and Rumer (1990) are the most important. Both books provide a wealth of detail about the organization. In the 1930s and 1940s several books appeared that sharply criticized the organization, moreover. Critics attacked the Legion primarily for what they viewed as ‘‘red baiting,’’ including attempts to dictate to schools and colleges what could be taught, especially in respect to U.S. history, and to prevent what the Legion regarded as radical addresses and meetings from being given. A still broader line of attack was the charge that the Legion supported the social, economic, and political status quo in the United States. In at least one case, a critic argued that the Legion leadership systematically sold out the rank-and-file members by opposing many policies that would benefit ordinary citizens, including most veterans, and that in so doing worked with the most reactionary elements of the business community, notably the National Association of Manufacturers. For their part, Legionnaires could hardly have been disturbed by charges that they supported major U.S. institutions, because that was one of the major purposes of their organization. A few objective, academic studies of the Legion have been published, notably Littlewood’s Soldiers Back Home (2004) and Pencak’s For God & Country (1989). Pencak’s book is likely to remain the authoritative study for a long time. The Legion remains an attractive topic for study. During the past few years, a number of dissertations have discussed aspects of the organization. Among the subjects
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investigated have been the American Legion and Agent Orange, its efforts to promote participation in elections, and support for public education. Still another dissertation examined the Legion’s Junior Baseball organization. Opinions about the Legion continue to vary considerably in academic circles. Some authors of dissertations assert that the establishment of special benefits programs for veterans has undermined broader efforts at social and economic change, while others emphasize the opportunities that the Legion has provided through the GI Bill which opened higher education to previously underrepresented groups, particularly Jews and Catholics. Given the significance of the Legion in U.S. society, there is a need for further research. Additional studies of the Legion in particular states or regions would be welcome. Despite efforts to ensure consensus within the Legion nationally, there have been variations in state Legion organizations and probably within regions. There is an imperative need for examining the relationship between African Americans and the Legion, including connections between white and African American Legionnaires and their posts in the South during the segregation era. Another important topic is the participation of women in the Legion, both women veterans and the many women related to Legionnaires. The Legion Auxiliary has been one of the largest women’s organizations in the United States; yet, it continues to lack attention from researchers.
Conclusions There is unquestionably a need for an organization to remind the United States of the rights of its veterans, as frequent
complaints about conditions of veterans’ hospitals and mental health programs in the early-twenty-first century show. Despite considerable expenditures for veterans’ programs, politicians and governmental administrators have often failed to provide needed and even duly authorized assistance (see Veterans’ Hospitals; Veterans Administration; Department of Veterans Affairs; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Gulf War Syndrome). Thus, the Legion and other veterans’ organizations have a legitimate role to play by continuing to insist on veterans programs that match the contributions of those veterans and that guarantee equitable treatment of their needs. Its nationalism notwithstanding, the Legion has generally operated within the confines of democracy and has championed democratic values. Veterans associations in a number of countries, notably Germany and Japan, went beyond nationalism during the interwar years to embrace and propagate imperialism in the worst senses of the concept. Initially, many of the Nazi Storm Troopers, for example, were World War I veterans. The supposedly nonpartisan Stahlhelm, which was composed entirely of German veterans, eventually linked hands with the Nazis and other extremists to help destroy the Weimar Republic. In a real sense, the American Legion can be seen as an extension of the services citizens have rendered while in the armed forces. Many Legionnaires have maintained that they have a special and continuing responsibility for protecting what they consider the political, economic, and social underpinnings of the United States. Although at one time, some Legionnaires damaged the credibility of the organization and, more importantly, infringed the
American Veterans Committee rights of many people by attacking ‘‘radicals’ ’’ right to speak freely, the Legion has contributed much to the United States by a wide variety of services to the community, especially to the nation’s youth, in addition to its commitment to veterans and their welfare. Despite the legitimate criticisms that have been leveled at the Legion for its transgressions during the first decades of its existence and despite the questionable positions it has taken on some issues, including immigration, the Legion overall has been a model veterans’ organization, which has influenced veterans’ associations in other democratic societies, such as the British Legion. The Legion has been a major component of the democratic system that served its members so well; its virtues, as well as its faults, have been those of traditional American conservatism. Benjamin R. Beede
Further Reading Baker, Roscoe. The American Legion and American Foreign Policy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974 (1954). Jones, Richard Seelye. A History of the American Legion. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1946. Littlewood, Thomas B. Soldiers Back Home: The American Legion in Illinois, 1919– 1939. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Pencak, William. For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989 Rumer, Thomas A. The American Legion: An Official History 1919–1989. New York: M. Evans & Company, 1990. Upson, William Hazlett. Me and Henry and the Artillery. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1928.
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AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE The American Veterans Committee (AVC) founded in 1944, was a radical departure from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars which claimed the greatest percentage of World War II veterans as members. It was founded by collegeeducated men such as Charles Bolte´, a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune who had lost a leg at the battle of El Alamein. Other important members were Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and Bill Mauldin, the war’s leading cartoonist. To distinguish itself from other groups, it not only espoused liberal politics, but implicitly criticized their demands for benefits for veterans by taking as its motto ‘‘Citizens First, Veterans Second.’’ Ideally, the AVC hoped to be exclusively a young, World War II veterans’ association so as not to fall under the control of the older, World War I veterans that dominated the existing societies. The AVC grew rapidly in its first few years, especially on college campuses which many veterans had been able to attend thanks to the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act). Among its programs, besides veterans’ housing, restoration of prewar jobs, and decent benefits, were opposition to colonialism, support for the United Nations (to which it sent Bolte´ as an official delegate with the approval of the State Department), and opposition to racial discrimination. AVC members picketed real estate boards that red-lined districts to discriminate against black and Japanese Americans. The first national AVC convention, in Des Moines, Iowa, was marked by a seriousness that contrasted with the rowdy fun of the older veterans’ bodies.
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The AVC made an active effort to include blacks and women among its leadership. When it came to anti-Communism the AVC split, as did many American leftists. Some leaders strongly opposed the Communists in 1946 and 1947, most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. who criticized their effects on the organization: ‘‘The Commies moved in, and from a flowering, inspiring group of young Americans, interested in their nation’s welfare, we have become a tattered and torn group. We are now bewildered and confused by the lies and tactics thrown at us by people who would not admit they were Communists but who at every turn of the road hewed to the Daily Worker line’’ (Tyler 1966, 428). The failure to make anti-Communism a priority, and the presence of Communists and Socialists in the ranks, led the elder veterans’ societies and William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers to charge the AVC with being under Communist influence. The AVC opposed legislation to ban the Communist party as ‘‘un-American’’ from elections and protested the House Un-American Activities Committee’s investigation of the motion picture industry as inquisitorial and violating the civil rights of those accused. But at the same time, to prove it was not Communist itself, in 1948 the AVC purged avowed Communist John Gates for ‘‘perjury’’ for failing to inform them that he belonged to the party. The AVC also ran into trouble that year as some of its members wanted to endorse liberal, former Vice President Henry Wallace for president on the American Labor Party, which contradicted the AVC’s constitutional requirement to remain nonpartisan. Richard Crohn of the Manhattan Chapter was suspended for publicly endorsing Wallace and the Labor Party on behalf of the AVC.
The AVC still exists, but has only about 15,000 members and a headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. It still supports veterans and social justice causes, but it has ceased to be influential since the split over Communism and the general decline of American leftism. William Pencak See also World War II Veterans
Further Reading Tyler, Robert L. ‘‘The American Veterans Committee: Out of a Hot War and Into the Cold.’’ American Quarterly 18 (1966): 419–36.
AMERICAN WAR MOTHERS One of the many significant roles women played on the home front during World War I was that of food conservation. Home gardens were planted throughout the United States and thrift was emphasized in the household. This sense of obligation that so many women shared throughout the war prompted the formation of the American War Mothers on September 19, 1917. Incorporated and chartered by Congress on February 24, 1925, membership was at first limited to mothers whose children had served honorably in World War I. The charter was amended during World War II to include mothers of children serving in that conflict, and, finally, modified to include mothers of children serving in Korea and all future wars. In addition to their dedication to veterans, American War Mothers have promoted patriotism throughout its existence. The association launched a
AMVETS campaign in 1925 to secure signatures for a petition to Congress, which would make the ‘‘Star Spangled Banner’’ the national anthem in 1931. They worked with the Battle Monuments Commission and traveled throughout Europe to dedicate cemeteries and memorials after both World Wars. The organization was also instrumental in bringing about the issuance of a Mother’s Day commemorative stamp on May 1, 1934. Mother’s Day ceremonies are held every year at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Virginia (see Arlington National Cemetery). The American War Mother’s service flag flies beside the U.S. flag during these ceremonies. The flag, with a white background and red border, flies a blue star with the number 4,695,039 and a gold star with the number 60,672. The figures represent the number of U.S. service members in World War I and the number of fatalities, respectively. This flag is also flown over the U.S. Capitol Building every Veteran’s Day with the permission of the vice president. September 14, 1939 was declared ‘‘War Mothers Day’’ at the New York World’s Fair, and in July 2004 the U.S. Conference of Mayors recognized the American War Mothers as an indispensable veterans’ service organization. William Whyte III See also American Gold Star Mothers; Blue Star Mothers; World War I Veterans
Further Reading American War Mothers. www.americanwarmoms.org/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26. American War Mothers Collection. University of Nevada, Las Vegas Library, Special
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Collections. www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/ ead/1997-17_AmerWarMothers.xml. Flags of the World. http://flagspot.net/flags/ us_awm.html. Home of Heroes. www.homeofheroes.com /hallofheroes/1st_floor/flag/1bfb_disp9 b.html.
AMVETS Originally an organization for veterans of World War II, AMVETS is a national service organization concerned with both veteran and community services. They are now open to all veterans as well as the National Guard and reservists. In 2009, the official membership was 260,000. Some veterans, especially the more educated and liberal, returning from World War II felt the older veteran organizations, primarily the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars were too far conservative and uncritically nationalistic, as well as removed from their experiences and needs. As a result, returning World War II Veterans began informally banding together, mainly at universities. By 1944, there were about 75 separate groups in 30 different states. Then located at George Washington University, the group decided it was time to organize nationally. They titled themselves American Veterans of World War II, Inc., and called for the separate groups to create a federation. Nine of the 75 groups agreed to meet, and they held a convention to discuss the future of the organizations in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 9, 1944. During the two-day convention, they formed their organization (dubbed AMVETS by the press) and created a constitution and bylaws. The first national commander
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was Elmo W. Keel (1914–1969). Their initial goals, according to Albert C. Geremia (who was one of the 70 or so men at this first convention), were to work on membership, publicity, and the creation of a headquarters. Quickly, the first headquarters was set up in a Washington, DC, office with a single chair, one desk, and one borrowed typewriter. Despite these meager beginnings, by 1946 they had about 60,000 members; by 1948 they had more than 200,000. Early on the group was befriended by Eleanor Roosevelt and by then Congressman John F. Kennedy (who in 1948 served as AMVETS housing director). In 1947, Geremia related how his neighbor, Senator J. Howard McGrath (who had close ties to then President Harry S Truman) agreed to help in getting AMVETS officially recognized. As a result of this and lobbying by many AMVET members (especially Ray Sawyer, Elliot Newcomb, and Clarence Adamy), the group was chartered by Congress on July 23, 1947. The charter was then amended in 1950 to allow membership to veterans of Korea, in 1966 to allow Vietnam veterans, and in 1984 to allow any veteran who had been on active duty after September 15, 1940. In 1990 it allowed membership to National Guard members and reservists. The same year that John F. Kennedy served as housing director, future Secretary of State Dean Rusk chaired the International Affairs Committee and Edmund Muskie, future senator from Maine, was the national executive director. Another famous member of AMVETS was national commander Harold Russell, a disabled veteran who was the only person ever to win two Oscars for a role in one movie, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). AMVETS
has its own Silver Helmet Award for great American role models. Over the years, AMVETS has sponsored football bowl games like the Delta Bowl in 1949 (Oklahoma A&M versus William & Mary), built an AMVETS memorial carillon, or belltower, at Arlington National Cemetery, and went on through its carillon program to build similar memorials at Golden Gate National Cemetery, Camp Butler, Illinois, Jefferson Barracks, Montana, the Harry S Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, the Hoover Library, the John F. Kennedy Library, the Eisenhower Library, Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, and many others. AMVETS also contributed $100,000 in 1986 to help restore the Statue of Liberty. In terms of memorials that AMVETS has sponsored, the most moving is perhaps the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. In addition to a carillon on the platform above the Arizona, AMVETS raised $15,000 for the engraving of the name of the 1,177 people who rest in underwater graves. They also helped— along with many others—to raise the rest of the money needed to complete the memorial. Over the years, AMVETS has lobbied for veterans, arguing for veterans entitlements and for creating the cabinet level Department of Veteran Affairs. It has lobbied for antiballistic missile systems and participated in an education program entitled AMVETS Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Thousand of AMVETS members have volunteered their time at veterans’ hospitals. One of its biggest outreach programs is called Americanism, a program for children in grades K through 12. It teaches American heritage, civics, and citizenship, a liberal alternative to the programs of the American
Anti-War Veterans Associations Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. Unlike these two organizations, AMVETS strongly supported desegregation of the armed forces, which finally occurred in 1948. That year, AMVETS supported the World Veterans Foundation in an attempt to promote world peace. Today, AMVETS sponsors ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) programs and the Boy Scouts; ceremonial honor guards for events such as funerals; a veterans’ history program; housing for homeless veterans; scholarships to students; and free counseling on compensation claims. It participates in the Armed Services Blood Program, the Freedom Foundation Youth Leadership Conference, and engages with passion in the Healing Heroes Program (see also Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations). In addition to the main veterans’ organization, AMVETS has several auxiliary organizations. These include the Sad Sacks, the Sackettes, the Ladies Auxiliary (who, aside from other services, spend over 250,000 hours volunteering in VA hospitals), the National Sons of AMVETS, and Junior AMVETS (for children between the ages of 5 and 17). Starting out as isolated groups of kindred souls, home from the Second World War, AMVETS has grown in numbers from a brotherhood of 70 or so veterans to an organization of over 200,000. It has also, through the years, grown in the scope of its services to community and veterans. It has promoted patriotism and clean living for America’s youth and provided direction and scholarships to them. AMVETS has comforted the sick and by burying the dead it remembers the sacrifices of veterans through the creation of memorials and history projects. A small but select group of veterans, AMVETS successfully
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practices its motto: ‘‘Veterans helping veterans.’’ William P. Toth
Further Reading AMVETS National Headquarters. www.amvets.org. Flanagan, Richard W., ed. AMVETS: 50 Years of Proud Service to America’s Veterans. Lanham, MD: AMVETS National Headquarters, 1994.
ANTI-WAR VETERANS ASSOCIATIONS There are several organizations that question the use of U.S. armed forces to intervene in foreign countries. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War is the oldest such organization in the United States. Still a functioning entity in 2009, it works with several other anti-war organizations that have formed since then. All of these societies have similar programs: increased benefits for veterans, with special attention to refurbishing the veterans’ hospital system and especially increasing services for veterans and soldiers with psychological problems. The high suicide rate for Iraq War veterans is of special concern. These organizations offer support for veterans and their families and try to make them aware of the benefits available to them. Anti-war associations also attempt to educate the public through print, public forums, and demonstrations. Through these outlets, they question official government reports about the purpose and success of the wars in question, as well as the manner (with respect to torture and damage to civilians) in which those wars have been conducted.
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Iraq Veterans Against the War join thousands in a march and rally against the Iraq war in downtown Los Angeles, 2007. [AP Photo/Reed Saxon]
The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, which now sponsors Veterans for America, also dates from the Vietnam era. It is most famous for its international campaign against land mines, which in 1987 won the Nobel Peace Prize. Its projects include (1) Wounded Warrior Outreach, where members offer counseling and support to veterans and soldiers who have been serving; (2) the National Guard Program, which investigates how deployment of the Guard in Iraq has weakened it to the point where its ability to deal with security threats and emergencies in the United States has been jeopardized. Its investigations have offered specific suggestions for states to restore their National Guards to proper strength; (3) The American Veterans
and Servicemembers’ Survivors Guide, which is available on their Web site (www.veteransforamerica.org). Founded in 1985, Veterans for Peace is composed of veterans of all American wars and welcomes as well veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought against fascism in Spain between 1936 and 1939. It began by opposing U.S. intervention in Central America. Since then it has investigated possible atrocities that have occurred during wars (including the ‘‘war on drugs’’ in Colombia and the Korean War), protested damage to the civilian population caused by weapons testing in Puerto Rico, marched annually for the closing of the ‘‘School of the Americas’’ in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the Latin American military is trained to suppress disorder, and worked, as it does currently, to reconcile
Arlington National Cemetery | 75 Vietnamese and American veterans of the Vietnam War. It is officially represented at the United Nations as a NonGovernmental Organization. Veterans for Common Sense, founded in 2002, takes its name from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet ‘‘Common Sense,’’ which inspired many Americans to fight the War for Independence. It focuses on civil liberties and has filed lawsuits asking for release of all documents relating to interrogation and possible torture of prisoners in the Iraq War and at Guantanamo Bay. It also supports energy policies that reduce dependence on oil. Iraq Veterans Against the War was founded in 2004 and is composed exclusively of Iraq War veterans. Veterans Against the Iraq War is similar in purpose and activities to the Iraq Veterans Against the War and works with that group, but membership includes veterans of former wars as well as the current conflict. It demands the immediate removal of all troops from Iraq and reparations to the Iraqi people for damages inflicted by the U.S. military. It also provides information concerning benefits, counseling, and health care to veterans. Three features of its efforts are ‘‘Truth in Recruiting,’’ which attempts to show recruits that they will probably serve in Iraq and that promises made by recruiting officers about training and benefits are not always fulfilled; both moral and legal support for service personnel who refuse to fight in the war; and continuing the Winter Soldier Investigation, modeled after the investigation of the same name, was begun by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Veterans, along with scholars, journalists, and others, speak throughout the nation to tell their
stories and question the official government line about the war. William Pencak
Further Reading Iraq Veterans Against the War. www.ivaw.org. Veterans Against the Iraq War. www.vaiw.org. Veterans for Common Sense. www.veteransforcommonsense.org. Veterans for Peace. www.veteransforpeace.org.
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY Although Arlington National Cemetery started as a burial ground for the dead of the American Civil War, gradually those from other wars were buried at the cemetery, with some of the U.S. military dead from wars before 1861 being reinterred after 1900. There are set criteria for people to be interred at Arlington—they may either be buried in a casket or have their ashes placed in an urn. Burials are reserved (with few exceptions) for any active duty member of the armed forces (excepting those serving on active duty for training only); veterans retired from active service; veterans retired from the reserves upon attaining the age of 60 who have completed a period of active service (other than for training); and any former member of the armed forces prior to October 1, 1949, honorably discharged for medical reasons with at least a 30 percent disability rating. In addition, graves may be provided for any president of the United States or former president, and any former member of the armed forces who has held elected
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office in the U.S. government, served on the U.S. Supreme Court, or was a chief of mission overseas. Former members of the armed forces can also be buried at Arlington National Cemetery if they received any of the following decorations: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, or Purple Heart; and also any former prisoners of war as of November 30, 1993. In all cases, for all former members of the armed forces, their last period of service had to have ended honorably. As well as service personnel, spouses, widows, widowers, minor children, permanently dependent children, and some unmarried adult children of eligible veterans may also be buried at Arlington. Widows and widowers of members of the armed forces who were lost or buried at sea, determined to be missing in action, or belong to a group with a plot at Arlington or at a U.S. military cemetery overseas which is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, may be buried there. The inscriptions on the tombstones must be no longer than 12 lines, with a maximum of 15 characters per line. Some 38 symbols have been authorized denoting whether the person buried was a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, or atheist.
The Civil War Era: 1864–1898 Arlington National Cemetery, located in Arlington, Virginia, is a large U.S. military cemetery established during the American Civil War on land formerly owned by the family of Robert E. Lee. Officially established on June 15, 1864, it covers about 624 acres, and has about
245,000 graves. It now includes the graves of veterans of every conflict in which the United States has been involved and is a regular place of pilgrimage for many people with relatives buried there, and also others wishing to honor American veterans. Although there are other U.S. military cemeteries around the country, and indeed overseas, the Arlington National Cemetery has a special place in the memory of U.S. veterans. Located across the Potomac River, close to Washington, DC, it is also near the Pentagon. Arlington is situated on land that once belonged to Mary Anna Custis Lee (1807–1873), the wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807– 1870). Before that, it had belonged to her father George Washington Parke Custis (1781–1857), the adopted son (and also step-grandson) of President George Washington. In 1779 Custis’s father John Parke Custis bought the 445 hectare property which he named after the family’s former home on the eastern shore of Virginia. The house itself was considerably enlarged from 1802 to 1804 by George Hadfield, the English architect who designed the U.S. Capitol. In 1789 the whole of Arlington County (then called Alexandria County) was ceded by Virginia to form a part of the District of Columbia, but it was returned in 1846. Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis were married in 1831 at Arlington and had seven children, six born at Arlington. When Robert was in the Engineer Department in Washington, and later posted to St. Louis and then to the Mexican War, Mary Lee remained with the children at Arlington. On October 10, 1857, George Washington Parke Custis died at Arlington House. Robert E. Lee
Arlington National Cemetery | 77 went on leave to sort out the complicated estate and problems over Custis’s will, one of which centered on his desire to free all his slaves. Custis had left Arlington to his daughter, and then to her oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee. Robert E. Lee was still there in October 1859 when he was chosen to suppress John Brown’s attempted slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry. Lee captured Brown, who was later executed. To try to get a break from the exasperating legal problems generated by Custis’s will, Lee went to Texas, and in February 1861 he returned to Arlington as secession started. He rejected an offer by Abraham Lincoln to lead the U.S. Army, and on April 20, 1861, he resigned his commission, considering his main allegiance to Virginia. Three days later he accepted command of the armed forces of Virginia, later becoming commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and the leading Confederate general. With the war’s outbreak and the unprecedented number of people killed, the military cemeteries at Washington and also at Alexandria rapidly became full. This led to the Quartermaster General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (1816–1892) proposing the use of 200 acres of the land at Arlington as a cemetery, with the first people being buried there soon afterward. Indeed the first 26 were buried in the former rose garden near the front door of the mansion. Many on the Union side felt that the appropriation of Lee’s land as a graveyard was justified because he had sided with the Confederacy. Although Meigs had been born in Georgia, he had grown up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at the start of the American Civil War had been charged, by Abraham Lincoln, with a secret mission to save a federal base in
Florida. On May 14, 1861, he was appointed as colonel, and on the following day as quartermaster general. As well as suggesting the use of Arlington, Meigs also helped with supplying many Union armies, including that of General William T. Sherman. Meigs detested slavery and the Confederacy, and his choice of Arlington for the cemetery may well have been due to his personal hatred against Lee, whom he had worked alongside earlier. He wanted to make sure the Lees could never live in their house again. The first burial at Arlington was that of William Henry Christman, of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. He was from Lehigh County and was a laborer before joining the Union forces. Christman died from peritonitis and was buried on Friday, May 13, 1864. Another man was buried later that same day, six the following Saturday, and seven on Sunday. The nation’s first monument to its unknown soldiers was dedicated in what used to be Lee’s rose garden in September 1866. It stands atop a masonry vault containing the remains of 2,111 soldiers gathered from the fields of Bull Run and the route to the Rappahannock. It is therefore inevitable that some Confederate, as well as Union, soldiers are buried in this vault. By the end of the war, there were approximately 16,000 people buried at Arlington. One of those, First Lieutenant John Rodgers Meigs, who had been killed at Swift Run Gap in Virginia in October 1864, was the son of Montgomery C. Meigs. After the war, Robert E. Lee was not able to make claim to the land on behalf of his wife—indeed he never returned to the property. His wife did come back to Arlington just before her death, but was so upset by the
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The first tomb for an Unknown Soldier was placed in Arlington Cemetery in 1866 to honor Union veterans of the Civil War. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-00017]
graves that she was unable to enter the house. The Lees’ oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee (1832–1913), president of Washington and Lee University, claimed that he owned the land and took his case to the Supreme Court which eventually, in 1882, ruled in his favor. Congress paid $150,000 (half of what Lee had asked for) for the title to the land. Initially only some of the land at Arlington was needed for the cemetery. On December 4, 1863, the U.S. government decided to establish Freedman’s Village, where about 1,100 freed slaves were given land for them to farm during the latter period of the Civil War. It took
a few years before many war veterans started to view Arlington as their final resting place. In September 1869, John Aaron Rawlins, a Democratic politician who had supported Stephen Douglas for president in 1860, and then served as a general in the Union forces, being appointed as Secretary of War to Ulysses S. Grant in March 1869, died and was buried at Arlington. Wlodzimierz B. Krzyzanowski, a veteran of the Polish Uprising in 1846, moved to the United States and was appointed an officer in the Union army, later working in the customs service in Panama and New York City. He died in 1887 and was buried at Arlington as well. The following year
Arlington National Cemetery | 79 Philip H. Sheridan, ‘‘Little Phil’’ who had led a raid into Northern Virginia in February 1865, was also buried at Arlington. After the Civil War he had been an observer with the Prussian Army in the Franco-Prussian War, succeeding General Sherman as commander in chief of the U.S. Army in 1884. In 1890, with the government anticipating more burials at Arlington, Freedman’s Village was closed down and the former slaves removed. Two years later Montgomery Meigs, the man who had suggested the location of the cemetery, was himself buried at Arlington after his death on January 2, 1892. His burial, with high military honors, took place at a grave located close to the Rose Garden near where his son was buried. The next famous burial at Arlington was that of Abner Doubleday (1819– 1893) who served in Mexico and then as a general in the American Civil War; but he is best known for the claim that he invented baseball.
The Spanish-American War and World War I Eras Following the Spanish-American War, Arlington National Cemetery once again became a place for national focusing of grief. In 1906 Major General Joseph Wheeler was buried there. He had fought the Indians prior to the Civil War and then served as a general in the Confederate Army, later becoming a major general in the U.S. Army serving in Cuba and in the Philippines. Two years later, in 1908, Thomas Selfridge was buried at Arlington. He was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was the first person to die in a powered airplane crash when he took a plane for a trial flight with Orville
Wright. Thomas Crook Sullivan (1833– 1908) became the first person to be buried in a mausoleum at Arlington; and 17 years later Civil War and SpanishAmerican War veteran General Nelson A. Miles was interred in the only other mausoleum in the entire cemetery. The joint effort made by exConfederates and ex-Union soldiers in the Spanish-American War led Southerners to propose a Congressional resolution allocating part of Arlington Cemetery for deceased Confederates. Those 482 exConfederates buried in the national cemeteries in Alexandria and at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington were reinterred in concentric circles. At their center was later placed the Confederate Monument, its cornerstone laid in 1912 with a speech given by Union veteran James A. Tanner, the current commander of the Grand Army of the Republic who had lost both his legs nearby at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Designed by Moses Ezekiel, himself a Confederate veteran who was later buried at its foot, the monument is crowned by a statue symbolizing the South. The complicated imagery on the monument offers a very pro-Southern interpretation of the war. A figure of Minerva, the Roman Goddess of Wisdom, rests on her shield that symbolizes the Constitution of the United States. Fourteen, rather than thirteen, states are shown supporting the South, as Maryland is included along with those that seceded. Scenes of life during the war include two faithful slaves: one following his master to war, another holding an officer’s child. In 1909, the body of Pierre Charles L’Enfant (1754–1825), the architect who had laid out the city of Washington, was buried at Arlington; and three years later, he was joined by General Philip
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Kearney (1815–1862) who conquered California in the Mexican War and who had previously been buried at Trinity Churchyard, New York. In March 1914, George Westinghouse, a veteran of the New York Cavalry in the Civil War, and subsequently an important inventor and founder of the Westinghouse Electric Company, was buried at Arlington. By this period, with many people visiting Arlington, there was a campaign by Ivory G. Kimball (1843–1916), a judge later himself buried at Arlington, and others, to have a place where people could commemorate the sacrifices of all U.S. service personnel. This led to Congress authorizing, on March 4, 1913, the building of the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater which would host state funerals and ceremonies held on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Built largely from Imperial Danby marble, brought from Vermont, it would later incorporate the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, made from Botticino stone brought from Italy, befitting its neoclassical design. On October 15, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson laid the cornerstone of the building. The stone contained in it a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a Bible, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the current U.S. flag, each of the coins and postage stamps in use that year, a Congressional directory, a directory of the District of Columbia, an autographed photograph of President Wilson, and various items connected with the cemetery. Only 18 months after Wilson had laid the cornerstone, the United States found itself in another major war following its declaration of war on Germany on April 6, 1917. Unlike the countries of the British Empire in World War I, the U.S.
government agreed to allow the repatriation of bodies of service personnel killed overseas. One of these was that of Bertram Tracy Clayton, a former U.S. congressman from New York who had served in the Canal Zone before going to France where he died on May 30, 1918. In the following year, Jane Delano (1862–1919), the director of the Army Nursing Corps, died, and was buried at Arlington. At the end of World War I, some European countries had established graves of ‘‘Unknown Soldiers’’ where all the relatives and friends of people who died in the war could commemorate the sacrifices of service personnel who had no known grave. The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior of World War I followed an interment at Arlington on November 11, 1921, with President Warren G. Harding presiding. On March 4, 1921, by an act of the U.S. Congress, the British Unknown Soldier was awarded, posthumously, a Congressional Medal of Honor. The British Cabinet, after meeting on October 26, 1921, then approved the awarding of a posthumous Victoria Cross to the Unknown Warrior of the United States. The medal itself was taken by diplomatic pouch on the HMS Eurydice, to the United States, and formally presented at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921, by Vice Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty, representing King George V. Now known as the Tomb of the Unknowns, anonymous veterans from World War II and the Korean War were laid to rest on Memorial Day 1958. A Vietnam veteran was interred by President Ronald Reagan on Memorial Day 1984, but since he was identified and reburied in 1998, the Vietnam vault has remained empty and bears the words, ‘‘Honoring and Keeping Faith with
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President Warren G. Harding dedicates the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 1921. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-91972]
America’s Missing Servicemen.’’ The Tomb has been guarded night and day by a sentry since July 2, 1937. In recent years, cracks and wear have caused Congress to debate whether to replace or repair the memorial. In 1922, Charles Young, the first African American lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was buried at Arlington; three years later followed the famous orator William Jennings Bryan, three times a candidate in U.S. presidential elections, and the secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson. A colonel in the Spanish-American War, he had resigned his cabinet position in June 1915 over the U.S. government’s second note to Germany condemning the sinking of the Lusitania and had also taken part in the prosecution at the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. In 1926, Robert
Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, a captain in the last period of the Civil War, and secretary of war under Garfield and Arthur in 1881–1885, was also buried at Arlington. Also noteworthy is James Parks (1843–1929), a former slave who lived at Freedman’s Village and the only person buried at Arlington who was also born its grounds. The first state funeral held at Arlington National Cemetery took place on March 11, 1930, when William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, later serving as chief justice, was buried. He died from heart disease on March 8 and a memorial service was held at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, DC. It was a relatively simple service, with no eulogy. The Reverend Ulysses Grant Pierce read some of Taft’s favorite poems, with an organist playing
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some hymns. After this, a hearse carried Taft’s coffin to Arlington in a procession that included 120 cars, with a truck carrying the flowers. At Arlington, a thousand soldiers presented arms to honor their former commander in chief, and after the bugler, the 23rd Psalm was read before Taft was buried, a tall granite monument marking the spot. Mrs. Helen Taft, the president’s widow, died on May 22, 1943, and she was buried with her husband. In 1908, when Taft was the secretary of war, he passed over Douglas MacArthur for the position of chief of staff, leading to MacArthur telling his mother that he did not want to be buried at Arlington, nor have a funeral with military honors. In the year after Taft’s funeral, 1931, the focus of the nation was once again on Arlington, when Clarence Ransom Edwards (1860–1931), the commander of the 26th ‘‘Yankee’’ Division in World War I, was buried. Eight years later, John Roy Lynch (1847–1939), a former slave, and later an African American politician, a major in the U.S. Army, and a Republican member of the U.S. Congress, was buried at Arlington, after his death in Chicago. In 1940, Major General Omar Bundy, the commander of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Expeditionary Division in France in World War I, was buried at the cemetery.
World War II to the Present With the United States entering World War II on December 7, 1941, once again the focus of the nation turned to the sacrifice of more soldiers in war. By this time the position of Arlington as the premier veterans’ cemetery was firmly etched in public minds. Earlier
that year Ignance Jan Paderewski, the pianist who had served as Poland’s prime minister in 1919 and who was president of the Polish Provisional Parliament after his country was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, died in New York City. He was buried at Arlington prior to being reinterred in 1992 at St. John’s Cathedral, Warsaw, after the fall of Communism. Manuel Quezon, the president of the Philippines, also forced to flee his country following the Japanese invasion, died in 1944 at Saranac Lake, New York, and his body was also temporarily interred at Arlington. He was reinterred at Manila North Cemetery in the Philippines and finally moved to the Quezon Memorial Circle. The journey of Quezon’s remains reversed those of General Douglas MacArthur’s mother, who had died and been buried in Manila in 1935, and was later reinterred at Arlington alongside her husband. Arthur MacArthur was a U. S. army general who directed the suppression of the Philippine Insurrection following the Spanish-American War. In November 1944 Sir John Dill, the British chief of the Imperial General Staff in the early part of World War II, and then from 1941 the head of the British joint staff mission to the United States, died in Washington, DC, and was buried at Arlington. The next year, the burials included Dwight F. Davis, the secretary of war from 1925 until 1929, but more famous as the donor of the Davis Cup for lawn tennis in 1900. In 1947, the body of the British war hero from Burma (now Myanmar) and Zionist leader, Orde Charles Wingate, was interred at Arlington—he had died in a plane crash on March 24, 1944.
Arlington National Cemetery | 83 From April 6, 1948, the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington was guarded by the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. Three months later, General John J. Pershing who had commanded the American Expeditionary Force in Europe in World War I, was buried after a state funeral at Arlington. He had, apparently, planned his own funeral, keeping the details in a Pentagon file marked ‘‘Top Secret.’’ In 1949, the body of Michael Strank, a member of the U.S. Marines, and one of the six servicemen who appeared in Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph ‘‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,’’ was brought from the Marine Cemetery at Iwo Jima and reinterred at Arlington. Six years later, the body of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona who had also appeared in the same photograph, was buried at Arlington, as was a third of the servicemen, Rene Gagnon (see Iwo Jima Memorial). ‘‘Hap’’ Arnold (1886–1950), the first general of the U.S. Air Force was buried at Arlington when he died in 1950. In 1951 John C. Metzler (1909–1990), a sergeant in World War II, became the superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery, a position he held until 1982. During this time—he was later buried at Arlington himself—the first major funeral was that of Major General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, the hero of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, and the highest-ranking U.S. prisoner of war in World War II (see American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor). Miles Browning (1897– 1954), who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War I and is regarded as the hero of the Battle of Midway from June 3–6, 1942, was also buried at Arlington, as was Louis Cukela (1888– 1956), a major in the Marine Corps who
had been awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor for the same act in World War I. It was not until 1958 that the bodies of the Unknown Soldiers of World War II and the Korean War were interred at Arlington, with President Dwight D. Eisenhower presiding. The ceremony took place on May 30 with Vice President Richard Nixon acting as the next of kin for the Korean War soldier. Claire Chennault (1890–1958), the major general who commanded the U.S. Army Air Forces in China, was buried two months later; and six months later, William ‘‘Wild Bill’’ J. Donovan, the director of the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency), was also interred. He was followed three months later by John Foster Dulles, the Cold War warrior and secretary of state from 1953 until his death in 1959. Three months after Dulles’s funeral, World War II Admiral William F. ‘‘Bull’’ Halsey was buried at Arlington. In January 1961, detective story writer Dashiell Hammett died in New York City, and because of his services in World Wars I and II, he was be buried in Arlington. This was controversial as he had been jailed in 1951 for refusing to name contributors to the bail bond fund for the Civil Rights Congress (accused of being a Communist front) of which he was a trustee. In June 1963 Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who had served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II, was killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He was murdered distributing civil rights t-shirts and was buried with full military honors at Arlington. Only hours before his murder, he had been listening to President John F. Kennedy describe the bill he was sending to
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Congress which was to become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic to become U.S. president and the first president born in the twentieth century, was buried at Arlington on November 25, 1963, following one of the largest funerals in Washington, DC. Some 250,000 people passed by Kennedy’s coffin, and 1,000 guests attended the service at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, after which the funeral cortege left for Arlington with Kennedy’s horse ‘‘Black Jack’’ with the president’s boots reversed in his stirrups, following behind. It was the fourth state funeral, the other two being for President Taft (1930) and the Unknown Soldiers of World War II and the Korean Wars (1958), held at Arlington. John F. Kennedy Jr., who had turned three that morning, saluted the casket with 50 air force jets and Air Force One flying over the service. An eternal flame at the grave was lit by John F. Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, her brothers-in-law Robert and Ted near her. Robert himself was buried at Arlington after his assassination in 1968. Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis) was buried next to her first husband when she died in 1994. The eternal flame is now visited by many people who go to Arlington, and in the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991), Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, gets reassurance at the flame for his investigations into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. By the 1960s, it became apparent that the land at Arlington was filling up, and Metzler, the superintendent in 1966, added another 190 acres to the original 200 acres. He also organized the system of burying veterans and their spouses in the same plot, one above the other. In 1965, burials at Arlington included Larry Thorne, a Finnish soldier who had
served in the U.S. Special Forces and fought for the Finnish, German, and U.S. armed forces, and James Jabara, the first U.S. jet ace in history, credited with shooting down 15 enemy aircraft in the Korean War. In 1967, Roger Chaffee and Gus Grissom, astronauts killed in the fire on Apollo 1, were also buried at Arlington, as was, many years later, Charles ‘‘Pete’’ Conrad Jr. (1930– 1999), the third astronaut to walk on the moon. Other notable interments of this period include those of Clark H. Woodward (1877–1968), a vice admiral who had served in five wars (SpanishAmerican War, Philippine-American War, Boxer Uprising, World War I, and World War II); Hugo Black (1886– 1971), a justice of the Supreme Court from 1937 until 1971; Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. combat soldier from World War II and the recipient of 28 medals including the Medal of Honor and three purple hearts; Gordon Beecher (1904–1973), a vice admiral in the U.S. Navy and a composer; Frank Kowalski (1907–1974) who had served in World War II and the occupation forces in Japan; and General Creighton Abrams (1914–1974) who commanded U.S. operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1972, and after whom the Abrams tank is named. Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was buried at Arlington when he died in 1977, as was Daniel ‘‘Chappie’’ James Jr., the first African American four-star general in the U.S. armed forces in 1978. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1898– 1980); Omar N. Bradley (1893–1981), the first chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff; and the boxer Joe Louis
Arlington National Cemetery | 85 (1914–1981) were buried at Arlington during the early 1980s. Although the Vietnam War had ended in 1975, it was not until May 28, 1984, that the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War was interred with President Ronald Reagan presiding. However, the body was disinterred on May 14, 1998, with the approval of President Bill Clinton, and determined to be that of First Lieutenant Michael J. Blassie. His body was reburied at St. Louis, Missouri, and it was determined that the crypt for the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War would remain empty. Alfred C. Richmond (1902–1984), commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Potter Stewart (1915–1985) of the U.S. Supreme Court were both buried at Arlington soon afterwards, as were Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986), the ‘‘Father of the U.S. nuclear navy,’’ Lee Marvin (1924– 1987), the former marine who starred in many war films, and Gregory ‘‘Pappy’’ Boyington (1912–1988), a World War II Marine Corps fighter ace who commanded the famous ‘‘Black Sheep Squadron’’ which formed the basis for the 1970s television series Baa Baa Black Sheep. On May 20, 1986, a private ceremony was held at Arlington where the remains from the space shuttle Challenger were buried in a single common grave to commemorate the deaths of the seven astronauts on board on January 28, although the remains identified as being those of Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher on the flight, were buried at Calvary Cemetery, Concord, New Hampshire. Other identified remains of Dick Scobee and Michael J. Smith were buried in separate plots in Arlington. A memorial was erected on February 1, 2004, to commemorate the dead on the space shuttle
Columbia which had broken apart on reentry into the atmosphere exactly a year earlier, with three of the astronauts, Laurel Clark, David Brown, and Michael Anderson having separate plots in Arlington. Mention should also be made of the cairn for the Lockerbie Memorial commemorating the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Some 189 of the 259 killed in the plane were Americans. In 1991 John C. Metzler Jr. was appointed as the superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery, nine years after his father had retired from the same position and one year after his father’s death. The younger Metzler had served in an army helicopter crew in Vietnam. One of his early high profile ceremonies was the placing of a memorial stone for the popular singer Glenn Miller (1904– 1944), who was lost during World War II when the plane on which he was traveling was lost somewhere over the English Channel. As he had been serving with the U.S. forces, his name was initially included at the Wall of the Missing at the War Memorial at Madingley, Cambridgeshire, England. In 1992 his daughter’s request was granted and a stone was placed at Arlington to commemorate his life. Over the next few years interments took place for Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (1906– 1992), a pioneer computer scientist; Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first African American Supreme Court Justice; Kara Spears Hultgreem (1965– 1994), the first female naval carrierbased fighter pilot; Colonel Matt Urban (1919–1995), the most highly decorated soldier for valor in U.S. history; Admiral Jeremy Michael ‘‘Mike’’ Boorda (1939– 1996), the chief of Naval Operations from 1994 until 1996; Captain David
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McCampbell (1910–1996), the U.S. Navy’s top World War II ace, with 34 ‘‘kills’’; Ron Brown (1941–1996), the secretary of commerce from 1993 until his death, who had served as a captain in the U.S. Army; and William J. Brennan Jr. (1906–1997), a Supreme Court justice. Although the war in Vietnam had been commemorated, there had long been a campaign to officially recognize the U.S. and Laotian Hmong veterans who had served in the ‘‘Secret War’’ in Laos. This led to an official acknowledgement of the war on May 15, 1997, the Laos Memorial being built on the path between the Tomb of the Unknowns and John F. Kennedy’s eternal flame. On October 18, 1997, the Women’s Veterans Memorial opened at the former site of the hemicycle, the ceremonial entrance to the cemetery. The American Veterans Committee proposed the project in 1982 and Congress approved it unanimously in 1986. In 1989, the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation selected the winning design, ‘‘The Candles,’’ by Marion Gail Weiss and Michael Manfredi. As modified, it consists of clear glass tablets inscribed with quotations by or about women in the military. These are reflected onto the marble wall of the memorial. There is also an education center that provides access to information about the over two million women who have served in the U.S. armed forces. A Hall of Honor lists the names of women who have died in the line of duty. The foundation accepts artifacts and documents related to women in the military and publishes books dealing with the women’s military experiences. The man who had initially supported the Vietnam War, and then persuaded
Lyndon Johnson to change his course, Washington ‘‘mandarin’’ Clark Clifford, was buried at Arlington in October 1998. Other recent burials have included those of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun (1908–1999); longtime U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield (1903– 2001); Colonel Ruby Bradley (1907– 2002), the most decorated woman in U.S. military history; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Webb (1922–2002), a pilot of the B-17 Flying Fortress in World War II; the political cartoonist Bill Mauldin (1921–2003), who served in World War II; Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003), the longtime U.S. senator from New York; George S. Patton IV (1923–2004), the son of the World War II general; David H. Hackworth (1930–2005), the U.S. soldier to receive the most medals; Mark Matthews (1894–2005), the last surviving member of the African Americans who had fought in segregated units, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who had fought against the Apache, the Spanish, and the Mexicans; Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005); and Leslie Sherman, a Virginia Tech student killed in the mass shooting on April 16, 2007 —Sherman could be buried in Arlington because her mother is a veteran who plans to be buried beside her. There have also been a number of memorials erected at Arlington to Americans killed in terrorist attacks around the world. These include Bill Buckley (1928–1985), the CIA station chief in Beirut who was captured, tortured, and murdered by Hezbollah; and Julian Bartley Sr., and his son Jay Bartley, who were both killed in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. There is also the Pentagon Memorial, commemorating the 184 people who died on
Armistice Day September 11, 2001, when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Finally, Private Francis Lupo (1895–1918), who was killed in France in World War I and whose body was recovered and identified in 2003, was interred at Arlington, making him, to date, the U.S. service member who has been listed as missing in action for the longest time before his body was found. It has been estimated that about one in ten of the soldiers killed in Iraq have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Andrews, Owen, and Cameron Davidson. Arlington National Cemetery: A Moment of Silence. Washington, DC: National Trust for Historic Preservation Press, 1994. Ashabranner, Brent. A Grateful Nation: The Story of the Arlington National Cemetery. New York: Philomel Books, 1990. Atkinson, Rick. ‘‘Arlington: The Nation’s Cemetery.’’ The National Geographic Magazine 211, no. 6 (June 2007): 118–37. Bellafaire, Judith Lawrence. ‘‘Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation (WIMSA).’’ In Gender Camouflage: Women and the U. S.
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Military, edited by Francine D’Amico and Laurie Weinstein, 176–81. New York: New York University Press, 1997. Benoit, Tod. Where Are They Buried? How Did They die? New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2003. Bigler, Philip. In Honored Glory: Arlington National Cemetery—The Final Post Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1999. Bowie, Beverley M. ‘‘Known But to God.’’ The National Geographic Magazine 114, no. 5 (November 1958): 593–605. Chase, Enoch A. ‘‘Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground: Beautiful Arlington, Burial Place of America’s Illustrious Dead.’’ The National Geographic Magazine 54, no. 5 (November 1928): 621–38. Lamb, Brian, et al. Who’s Buried in Grant’s Tomb? A Tour of Presidential Gravesites. Washington, DC: National Cable Satellite Corporation, 2000. Peters, James E. Arlington National Cemetery: Shrine to America’s Heroes. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House, 1986. Stein, R. Conrad. Arlington National Cemetery. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1996.
ARMISTICE DAY See Veterans Day
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B by civilians and limited to preserving and memorializing only the positions held by Union forces. By the 1880s, however, the Pennsylvania Grand Army of the Republic had come to control the battlefield, which was frequently used as a site for GAR encampments (see Gettysburg National Cemetery).
BATTLEFIELD PRESERVATION The distinctive American pattern of preserving battlefields as parks owned and administered by the federal government is largely a consequence of the efforts of Civil War veterans. The battlefields of the American Revolution and other early wars had not been intentionally preserved or even marked apart from a few conspicuous exceptions such as the monument erected at Lexington in 1799. The centennial of American independence led Congress to erect a series of eight monuments at Revolutionary War battlefields in the 1880s, although no efforts were made to preserve the actual battlefields. While a few Civil War battlefields saw monuments erected by soldiers themselves during and immediately after the war, the efforts of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association to preserve parts of the battlefield there mark the beginnings of battlefield preservation in the United States, though this was a process that originally was led
Actual battlefield preservation by the federal government began in 1890, largely due to the efforts of Henry Van Ness Boynton and Ferdinand Vanderveer, veterans of the Union army of the Cumberland. Following a reunion at the site of the battle of Chickamauga in northwest Georgia, they conceived the idea of obtaining federal aid to preserve the battlefield there as a memorial to the valor of both armies and as an aid to reconciliation between the North and the South. In 1890, Congress (with veteran members from both parties and sections taking an active role) created the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (see Appendix 1, Georgia). Later the same year, a smaller area was
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purchased by the federal government in Maryland, preserving key locations on the Antietam battlefield. Further pressure by veterans’ groups helped to bring about the creation of federally funded battlefield parks at Shiloh (1894—see Appendix 1, Tennessee) and Vicksburg (1899 —see Appendix 1, Mississippi). Meanwhile Gettysburg became a national military park in 1895, as the battlefield association turned over its holdings to the government and efforts began to acquire property that had held Confederate positions during the battle. By the turn of the century, the federal government thus administered five battlefield parks. While each had its own peculiarities, they generally followed the pattern set at the ChickamaugaChattanooga park. Under the aegis of the War Department, each park was governed by a three-member commission: typically two Union veterans and one former Confederate (see Confederate Veterans Associations), a system that guaranteed veteran control of the parks. The commissions oversaw the marking of troop positions (for which the federal government provided markers) and invited the states and veterans organizations to erect monuments. (Congress itself erected monuments to regular army units.) The commissions had to approve plans for monuments and inscriptions and followed a policy that the latter be based on official records, limited to the specifics of the particular battle, and neutral in language. This sometimes led to lively controversies with veterans’ groups when the latter had different memories of the battle or wanted to express other sentiments. In 1912, Congress decided that no more park commissioners would be appointed. As they died out, they simply were not
replaced. Eventually, the parks came to be administered by appointed superintendents. Even then, veteran influence remained strong. After the last Gettysburg commissioner died in 1922, another Civil War veteran was appointed as superintendent. He, in turn, was succeeded in 1927 by a World War I veteran. From the start, the parks combined preservation with a memorial intent. They were also justified on the grounds that they would be useful in the military education of future officers and were used for staff rides and a variety of other military activities. The parks also proved popular as venues for veterans’ reunions, with especially notable ‘‘blue-gray’’ gatherings taking place at Gettysburg in 1913 and Vicksburg in 1917 (see Reunions). This fostered battlefield tourism, a phenomenon that veterans had begun in the Civil War’s aftermath and was also encouraged by local chambers of commerce, railroads, and eventually by auto makers and oil companies. After establishing the five original parks in the 1890s, Congress showed increasing reluctance to add to the total, and little was done to expand the system until the 1920s. Congress called for the War Department to conduct a classification of all battlefields on American soil in 1926, after which a number of smaller Civil War parks were established, along with several based on battlefields from the Revolutionary War and other conflicts. In 1933, in a move generally resisted by the rapidly diminishing number of Civil War veterans, the battlefield parks were transferred to the National Park Service. Their mission became more broadly educational as well as recreational. While veterans’ preference in government hiring would help to ensure a veteran presence in the operation of national parks and battlefields, they
Benefits became much less easily characterized as veterans’ projects. National park origins lingered in various ways, however, not least in the way how signs, guides, and visitors centers operate on battlefields. The early emphasis on the experience of battle and the courage displayed by both sides led to a tendency to interpret the battlefields—and the Civil War in general—in primarily operational terms. By the late-twentieth century, this prompted growing criticism that such an emphasis missed the larger social and political issues of the war, especially with regard to race and slavery. By the turn of the century, the Park Service was changing its interpretations of Civil War sites in response. While twentieth-century conflicts provided few new battlefields within the United States, veterans of the era found ways to preserve the physical legacies of the nation’s military past. This most often took the form of preserving inactive military installations, vehicles, aircraft, ships, and weaponry. Such efforts varied widely in inspiration and objectives but most often involved veterans and non-veterans working together in not-for-profit organizations. (Though normally lacking federal funding, such groups often cooperated with the Park Service and other agencies.) The Council on Abandoned Military Posts, founded in Arizona in 1966 (which became the Council on America’s Military Past in 1981), exemplifies such efforts. Other groups focused on maintaining military and naval assets in operational condition. The effort of the Commemorative (originally Confederate) Air Force, founded by World War II veterans in 1951 to preserve and operate the aircraft of that conflict, is but one of many possible examples that illustrate the continuing
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role of veterans in preserving tangible aspects of the nation’s military past. William C. Lowe
Further Reading Commemorative Air Force. www.com memorativeairforce.org. Council on America’s Military Past. www.campjamp.org. Lee, Ronald F. The Origin and Evolution of the National Military Park Idea. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1973. Smith, Timothy B. The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation: The Decade of the 1890s and the Establishment of America’s First Five Military Parks. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. Piehler, G. Kurt. Remembering War the American Way. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1995. Weeks, Jim. Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
BENEFITS The historical development of the U.S. government’s policies benefiting America’s war veterans reflects the complex evolution of the nation’s economic and political institutions, as well as its underlying social values. As the number of veterans increased over time, particularly during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II eras, governmental benefits legislation increased as well. This increase not only reflected the practical desire to care for those who served on behalf of the country, but also the political and economic clout of veterans who returned to civilian society upon conclusion of their military service. As a result, the influence of veterans on American institutions and values proved just as
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important as the government’s influence on their lives through benefits awarded for service to their country.
Beginnings: The Revolutionary War to the Mexican War The Continental Congress passed the initial national pension law for disabled veterans in August 1776. In the midst of General George Washington’s New York campaign and accompanying desertions and expiring enlistments within the Continental Army, such a law was an effort to ensure retention of a viable army in the field. This inaugural act provided for half of monthly pay for disabled veterans, for the length of their disability. A new law in 1778 provided officers serving until the end of the war half pay for a subsequent seven years. This benefit was extended to pay for life in 1780. The Continental enlisted soldier, however, was promised only $80 in devalued Continental money for service until the end of the war, representing a year’s pay. Land warrants, which would guarantee soldiers a farm they could support themselves and their families on, were more valuable. Although it took a while after the Revolution to work these out, they frequently led to veterans settling new lands on what was then the frontier, most immediately the region from western Pennsylvania and Ohio to Kentucky and Tennessee. These warrants reflected the common belief of the revolutionary generation that all ablebodied men who wanted to should be able to acquire their own land (see Revolutionary War Veterans). The end of the war brought with it the question of how veterans were to be paid, especially as Indians controlled much of
the new land acquired during the Revolution and no funds were available for the cash benefits. Payment of pensions thus became the responsibility of individual states. This patchwork arrangement created disparate payments and resolve to benefit veterans among the states. In the absence of a central administrative authority to dictate uniform application of the pension laws, the Society of the Cincinnati stepped into the breach. An organization of former Continental Army officers formed to provide charitable relief to its members and their families, the society served as the new nation’s first veterans’ service organization. However, the society focused mainly on protecting the interests of its gentleman members with regard to pensions and recognition. As for the regular soldier who had no such protective organization, he slipped back into civilian life with an uncertain pension future. The ratification of the U.S. Constitution resulted in the new federal government assuming control of providing for veterans from the states. The First Congress enacted legislation in 1789 to continue the provisions of the first disability pension act. But Congress was now confronted with the issue of how best to administer a governmental program which gradually became a significant portion of the federal budget. Pension claims were first vetted at the local circuit court level through the Invalid Pension Act of 1792, with the secretary of war serving as the final arbiter of disputed claims. This decentralized arrangement initially made sense since claims could be resolved where veterans resided. Usually, the veteran had to prove he had in fact served in the war and acquired his wounds there. But the measure proved unwieldy and
Benefits Congress quickly—within a year of the law’s enactment—conferred the federal district courts with the responsibility of administering pension claims, with Congress as the final authority over disputes. This system also posed problems, so after 1794 the Office of the Secretary of War gradually assumed control over pension claims. A flurry of legislation appeared between 1800 and 1832 expanding the number of veterans qualified to receive benefits from service in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The 1803 and 1805 federal acts provided benefits to those not only disabled during wartime service, but also to those who became disabled after service due to war wounds. Congress took a significant step in 1806 by expanding invalid pension coverage to the large contingent of state troops and militia veterans who had previously been serviced by the individual states. Congress also resumed control over pension administration. An 1813 federal law, passed during the middle of the War of 1812, applied all existing pension laws to the War of 1812 veterans to encourage enlistment in a war that was not popular in many parts of the country. As a result of a budget surplus in 1816, pension allowances increased and halfpay pensions for a five-year period were granted to widows and orphans of veterans of the recent war with Great Britain (see War of 1812 Veterans). By this time in the young nation’s history, political rhetoric extolling the virtues of the Revolution, as well as the crises experienced in the country’s relationship with Great Britain, fostered the image of the suffering veteran in the public mind and recalled the sacrifices made by soldiers during the war. These images helped spark the passage of need-based
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pension legislation in 1818 in response to claims of poverty on the part of many veterans. This law thus expanded the traditional underlying disability basis of most veterans’ benefits acts. But the nation’s economic downturn triggered by the Panic of 1819, coupled with rising pension roll numbers, associated costs, and allegations of pension claim fraud, created an uproar by raising the specter of a republic-damaging caste of men supported by the federal government. Congress responded by enacting the Alarm Act of 1820 requiring claimants to provide a sworn schedule of their estates and income. At this time 30,000 veterans applied on the basis of need out of 88,000 total pension claims. Nevertheless, the rationale for veterans’ benefits changed once again in the early 1830s when Congress took the next step (not without some opposition) and introduced a service pension schedule disentangled from any requirement of disability or pauperism. Surviving Revolutionary War veterans needed only to show a minimum cumulative service of two years to receive a life pension or service between six months and two years to receive a proportional pension. Subsequent amendments and acts in the 1830s expanded benefits further for surviving veterans and widows and orphans of deceased veterans in the context of a Treasury surplus. The rapid increase in pension claims also forced Congress in 1833 to form the Bureau of Pensions dedicated to pension administration, first under the direction of the secretary of war and then under the secretary of the navy until 1849 when the secretary of the interior assumed responsibility. The final piece of pension legislation approved prior to the Civil War became part of Congress’s 1846 declaration of
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war against Mexico. For this war, volunteers received only service-related disability benefits under existing laws. No purely service pension coverage existed for Mexican War veterans until 1887 (see Mexican War Veterans).
The Civil War and Postwar Developments Just prior to the onslaught of the Civil War in 1861, approximately 80,000 veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War survived. The small percentage of veterans, compared to the growing population of the country before the Civil War, had made it relatively easy for the United States to take care of its surviving veterans. A short four years later, 1,900,000 Union army and Union navy veterans were added to this number, comprising about a tenth of the entire population of the North, or one in five of its adult males. The human cost of the war launched benefit legislation to new levels. Union veterans did not have to wait long for benefits to begin accruing. President Abraham Lincoln signed the General Pension Act of 1862 whereby Union soldiers and sailors disabled in the war received pensions. Dependents of those killed also received relief. The novelty of this law lay in its inclusion of disability and death related to certain diseases, such as tuberculosis. More soldiers died from disease than battle during the war, and the horrific numbers of casualties arising mandated nothing less in the government’s view. The year of 1862 also witnessed the removal of 2,000 Confederate soldiers from the rolls who earned pensions from participation in previous American wars. The removal
served as a harbinger of sectional tensions over pension legislation during the post-Civil War era and the national government’s refusal to assist Confederate veterans (see Civil War Veterans). The General Pension Act was amended virtually every year during the war and afterwards. However, several significant amendments require highlighting. First, Congress passed the Arrears of Pension Act in March 1879. Rather than receiving payments from the date of a pension application, Union veterans and their dependents received back pay from the date of military discharge. In essence, a veteran or dependent applying for a pension under the act before July 1880 would not only receive a monthly payment, but also a single arrears payment of at least 15 years’ back pay. The generosity embodied in the act resulted in 44,000 new pension claims in June 1880 alone. However, the act was not without its detractors from both the northern and southern portions of the country. Expenditures for pensions doubled from implementation of the Arrears of Pension Act to the end of the 1880s, causing consternation. Furthermore, though highlighting cost as an ostensible barrier, southern congressmen in reality opposed any expansion of the pension rolls in the absence of federal relief for Confederate veterans, except for those Mexican War veterans restored to the pension rolls in 1887. However, expansion of the pension rolls soon became an overwhelming force in American political, economic, and social life with the ever-aging veteran population, a budgetary surplus, and the significant presence of Union veterans in the legislative and executive branches of government. By the
Benefits mid-1880s, 40 percent of House legislation and 55 percent of Senate legislation addressed pensions for veterans (see Pensions, Civil War). Another significant factor in expansion of benefits in post-Civil War America was institutional in character. The National Asylum (later Home) for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (see Veterans’ Homes) established in 1866, provided medical treatment and hospital services for disabled Union veterans in a number of branches across the country. Accommodations were expanded in 1884 to include surviving War of 1812 and Mexican War veterans. Although initially fraught with fraud and abuse due to minimal oversight, these houses often served as the only places where sick and disabled veterans could find relief as they aged. Coinciding with the increase in veterans and the astonishing proportion of pension legislation in Congress, the work of the Bureau of Pensions augmented. Consuming 21 percent of the federal budget in 1880, 34 percent a decade later, and 27 percent by the end of the century, the bureau served as a powerful Republican political tool, with its workers appointed almost invariably by Republican presidents (all of them except Grover Cleveland from 1861 to 1913). They thus were favorably inclined to approve requests from fellow Republicans and those recommended by the Grand Army of the Republic. Prior to 1890, pension applicants had to provide evidence of eligibility under existing disability pension laws, including verification of a war-related disability by a surgical board approved by the federal government, at least 90 days of wartime service, and an honorable discharge. Additional evidence was required for
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widows and other dependents of veterans to receive pensions. This evidentiary system reflected the need to verify what was perceived as a reward for service for those who had borne the risks of war and suffered for it, not as a general entitlement for service, although such an idea had evolved by the 1890s. Costs rose for both the applicant and the government through this bureaucratic process. Clerks and other employees within the bureau had to verify service of an applicant through the War Department, interview witnesses, verify additional evidence of disability and service, work with agents contracted by applicants to administer claims—these individuals advertised their services to veterans for a fee—and in more probing cases, send field investigators to the locale of a claimant to find additional information to evaluate the claim. These ever-increasing costs tracked the liberalization of the pension laws. The system also triggered corresponding costs for claimants who had to present witnesses, provide affidavits, travel to surgical board venues, and bear the expenses of any hired pension attorneys or claim agents. By 1910, an average federal pension benefit rose to $189 a year. However, the initial costs sometimes served as a barrier to applicants, particularly to African American veterans who though entitled to benefits under the pension laws in accordance with the 14th Amendment, averaged an annual income of only $250 in the post-Civil War era. About 9.5 percent of the army was comprised of African Americans. While impoverished white veterans also experienced difficulty with their claims due to expense, African Americans faced additional barriers due to the lingering effects of slavery. Illiteracy, lack of
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documentation of service, name changes to coincide with a new life in freedom, fraudulent claim agents, and racial bias within the bureau itself all served to create problems for these veterans in their pursuit of successful pension claims. A sampling of Civil War pension applications indicates a success rate of more than 92 percent for white veterans and only 75 percent for African American veterans. The discrepancy was even greater for dependent applications. (see African American Veterans—Civil War). Another institutional factor in the expansion of the pension rolls and liberalization of the system was the lobbying work of the Grand Army of the Republic, the most powerful Union veterans’ association in the country. Influential beginning in the late 1870s, the GAR reached a membership of 400,000 at its peak in 1890. The 1880s in particular witnessed electoral parity between the Democrats and Republicans, heightening the importance of capturing the veteran vote in the 1880 and 1884 presidential campaigns and focusing legislative attention on pensions. The GAR’s lobbying influence in the latter half of the 1880s resulted in the second major piece of pension legislation arising from the post-Civil War period, the Dependent Pension Act of 1890. Moving beyond the evidentiary requirement of warrelated disability or war-related death for dependent applicants as embodied in the 1887 Arrears of Pension Act, the new act granted a pension to every honorably discharged Union soldier and sailor who had served 90 days in the war and suffered a disability, regardless if it was war-related or not. The law also disposed of any required evidence of need.
The practical effect of the Dependent Pension Act in its administration was the expansion of pensioners in the system from 537,944 in 1890 to over 966,000 in 1893, with pension administration comprising 40 percent of the federal budget during the Depression of the 1890s. The liberal application of the law over the next few decades, including the interpretation of the age of 62 and older as a disability through President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 Pension Order No. 78 and the Sherwood Act of 1912’s removal of the disability requirement, essentially created a pure service pension system resting on the idea that the service of a Union veteran created a contract and a right: in return for past service, he was owed national support regardless of need or disability. The same view, however, did not apply to Confederate veterans. Although Confederate veterans with federal military service were restored to the pension rolls in the 1890s, most veterans who fought for the South relied on southern state legislatures to provide pension relief (see Confederate Veterans Associations). Not until 1958 did President Dwight Eisenhower sign into law a bill placing the two surviving Confederate veterans and over one thousand Confederate widows on the pension rolls.
The Great War to the Great Depression Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection veterans also enjoyed benefits under the pension structure developed since the Civil War. By the beginning of World War I, thousands of these veterans as well as over 400,000 Civil War veterans still collected federal
Benefits pensions. But World War I veterans experienced a more complicated process upon their return from war, and one which ultimately left a bitter taste in their mouths with the emergence of the Great Depression in 1929. Assuming the war in Europe would not necessitate American involvement except for the provision of war supplies through ship transport, Congress passed the War Risk Insurance Act of 1914 and a new administrative bureau to insure American transport ships exposed to German submarine attack. This act was amended in 1917 upon America’s entry into the war. It extended the idea of insurance coverage from the way the navy had previously functioned: a portion of servicemen’s pay was deducted for insurance in case of disability. Other legislation during America’s involvement in the war extended this insurance coverage to dependents for those veterans disabled or killed while serving in the war. Additional benefits included a $60 discharge allowance, a disabilities rating system based on degree of impairment, and compensation for aggravation of a preexisting condition through military service. The conclusion of the war brought with it 116,000 American dead (53,000 in combat) and 204,000 wounded out of 4,170,000 who served. The Bureau of War Risk Insurance began handling the insurance claims of disabled veterans and dependent claimants while the Bureau of Pensions continued to focus on pensioners from prior American wars. A new wrinkle in the veterans’ benefit system mirrored the realities of an increasingly industrialized America in its thirst for labor. The large number of able-bodied and disabled veterans returning from the war served as an enticing labor pool for industry. To assist
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honorably discharged disabled veterans in finding appropriate work and to satisfy the labor needs of industry, Congress enacted the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1918 which charged the Bureau of War Risk Insurance to provide rehabilitation and training. Other federal agencies provided additional services such as work placement, education, and hospital services. The fracturing of these various services created inefficiencies and delays in service. Accordingly, upon the recommendation of the Dawes Commission established by President Warren Harding to examine the problem, Congress passed the Veterans Bureau Act of 1921 which consolidated all services for World War I veterans into one agency, the Veterans Bureau. The World War Veterans’ Act followed the same year to streamline all existing laws affecting the bureau. Federal pensions and other benefits for all of America’s eligible war veterans now were administered by the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, until 1930 when all three institutions merged to form the Veterans Administration (see entry). Given the decision by President Wilson and Congress to adopt an insurancebased system for those who served in the Great War instead of a traditional pension model, service personnel found themselves with only two months’ base pay of $60 upon discharge. Veterans’ groups such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, modeling the efforts of the Grand Army of the Republic in the previous generation, began lobbying Congress for larger payments (see Bonus March). Over 75 bonus bills of varying provisions had been proposed by May 1920.
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The primary focus of veterans’ groups was a cash bonus at the rate of a dollar a day for service in the United States and an additional 25 cents for each day of service overseas. The bonus effort met effective resistance from critics due to the anticipated cost of at least $2 bilion, coupled with the ongoing pension costs for Spanish-American and Civil War veterans, and the reluctance to pay African American World War I veterans in an atmosphere of rising racial tensions. Congress, for political cover, was also able to point to a number of statesponsored bonuses as an alternative, although the disparity of payments among the states echoed the patchwork pension framework of the Confederation period. Proponents failed in their efforts to obtain bonus legislation in 1920 and in several other attempts over the next few years due to continuing cost concerns and fear within the business community that such a widespread bonus would derail President Harding’s plans to cut taxes. But the lobbying work of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars and their supporters in Congress paid off in 1924 with a compromise bill overriding President Calvin Coolidge’s veto. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 essentially extended the insurance model underlying the War Risk Insurance Act of 1914 and its 1917 amendments by providing veterans with a 21-year life insurance policy payable at death or in 1945, whichever occurred first. Veterans who had served between April 5, 1917, and July 1, 1919, for a period of more than 50 days received a dollar a day for service within the United States and an extra 25 cents for each day’s service overseas. The two months’ discharge allowance of
$60 already paid was deducted from the total compensation amount. A veteran owed $50 or less was immediately paid the amount. The remainder, approximately 3,330,000 veterans, received certificates of 4 percent interest to be redeemed in 1945 with an additional 25 percent added at the time of redemption to account for the issuance of certificates instead of a cash payout. As with Union veterans at the turn of the century, World War I veterans viewed the promised compensation as a debt owed to those who had served and suffered on behalf of a country they loved. Four years later officers disabled during the war received heightened compensation through the Emergency Officers’ Retirement Act with little fanfare. But the ravages of the Great Depression and the financial desperation of many veterans led to tensions and the 1931 passage of Public Law 743, authorizing veterans to borrow up to 50 percent of the maturity value of their issued certificates with 3 percent compound interest. Beset with continued financial straits and realizing that the loan interest would considerably decrease the redemption value of the certificates at maturity, veterans increased their demands for an immediate cash payment, eventually leading to 20,000 veterans—and about an equal number of family members—making their way to Washington in May 1932 to pressure the government. Calling their loose organization the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF—see Bonus March) as a reminder to the public of their service in the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, participating black and white veterans established integrated camps in the capital. The efforts of the BEF failed after intense lobbying efforts. The House passed
Benefits a lump-sum bonus bill, but the Senate tabled it until the next Congress. Discouraged, most members of the BEF headed home. The approximately 2,000 remaining continued to stay in their camps with newly arriving veterans joining the ranks. In the midst of fears of communist operatives joining the veterans and their families to foster violence and worries of epidemics breaking out in the camps, Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, led troops to evict the veterans from Washington. The eviction on July 28, 1932, resulted in destruction of the camps and several veterans being killed. It also created a public relations fiasco for President Herbert Hoover during a presidential election year. The failure of the BEF to garner immediate bonus payments for its members was compounded by newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt’s slashing of $480,000,000 in veterans’ benefits through the Economy Act of 1933 in order to balance the budget. The swiftness of the legislative move, together with Roosevelt’s popularity, prevented any effective lobbying by veterans’ organizations. However, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Disabled American Veterans lobbied hard for a new bonus bill. Pressured by threats of filibusters on legislation favored by Roosevelt as well as growing public support for the veterans, the president halfheartedly vetoed the January 1936 bill which provided issuance of bonds in $50 increments, redeemable as early as June 15, 1936, or held to maturity until 1945 at 3 percent interest. Congress quickly overrode the veto and soon after June 15, 3,518,000 World War I veterans began receiving bonus packets, which altogether totaled $1.9 billion. The cash not only benefited veterans and served as
an economic boon for many locales, it also ended an 18-year struggle for veterans of the Great War.
World War II and the GI Bill Only five years after finally awarding its World War I veterans bonus payments, the United States entered another world war. The specter of another Bonus Army arising from disgruntled World War II veterans in the absence of a comprehensive benefits plan, as well as Department of Labor forecasts of potentially 15,000,000 unemployed veterans returning home at the end of the war, sparked efforts to find a workable solution. Initial steps included provisions in the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 relating to a guarantee of reemployment for veterans and the development of a vocational rehabilitation program for disabled veterans through the Disabled Veterans’ Rehabilitation Act of 1943. The Veterans Administration staffed vocational rehabilitation training specialists and also contracted with a number of schools across the country to provide training for any overflow of disabled veterans. It soon became clear that the agency’s structure and staffing were inadequate to provide appropriate services for the eventual 671,876 Americans wounded by the end of the war and dependents of the 405,399 killed. A survey conducted of 1,536 veterans disabled during the first two years following America’s entry into the war disclosed a typical wait of three to eleven months for a disabled veteran to receive care, disability compensation, and rehabilitation training. These rising concerns prodded Congressmen to submit 243 veterans’ benefit bills of varying provisions by the end of 1943. President Roosevelt entered the fray by sketching out in a July 28,
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1943, fireside chat a broad vision for a postwar plan to provide returning veterans educational and employment opportunities. He envisioned this plan as the first step in providing such governmental opportunities for all Americans. Five months later, an American Legion committee formulated a more specific veterans’ benefit plan based on Roosevelt’s vision to cover housing, education and training, unemployment compensation, and job placement. This plan, the American Legion Omnibus Bill, was debated in Congress among educator concerns over the potential influx of war veterans into the nation’s elite colleges and racial bias among some congressmen against awarding benefits to African American veterans. However, public support and momentum favored proponents of the legislation. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (see entry), more popularly known as the GI Bill of Rights, was accordingly signed into law by President Roosevelt on June 22, 1944. The GI Bill’s three major features addressing education, providing home loans, and paying unemployment compensation were far-reaching in their impact on American life after the war. The GI Bill enabled veterans and their families more effectively to adjust to civilian life. But more importantly, its provisions provided opportunities for returning war veterans to move up economically and socially in American society if they could tap into any of the three major features of the legislation. Upon returning from the war, a veteran could ostensibly receive $20 a week for a year in unemployment benefits to help him or her financially adjust to the home front; receive tuition payments for college up to $500 per year, as well as a textbook allowance and a monthly stipend of $50,
with married veterans receiving $65; and then apply for a 20-year home, farm, or business loan with $2,000 guaranteed, low interest rates, and certain credit checks and income requirements eliminated. The bill’s popularity resulted in nearly 8,000,000 World War II veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill by 1956 and the expansion of America’s middle class (see also World War II Veterans).
The Korean War to the Iraq War The benefits earned by American veterans of World War I and World War II laid the foundation for benefits provided to American veterans serving in the Korean and future wars. Congress particularly focused on enhancing and adjusting the basic features of the original GI Bill of 1944 in the areas of education, vocational rehabilitation and training, and unemployment insurance for veterans of these subsequent wars. Major legislation during the Korean War focused on extending vocational rehabilitation programs through the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1950 to Korean War veterans, eventually benefiting the 77,000 disabled returning from the war. The Veterans’ Adjustment Assistance Act of 1952, also known as the Korean GI Bill, modeled the provisions of the initial GI Bill but limited educational benefits due to an improving economy. A slew of additional acts and amendments in the 1950s continued to support and provide cost-of-living adjustments for disability, unemployment and life insurance, and other benefits for the 21,861,000 surviving veterans of all wars as of 1955. In concert with the growth in veterans and
Benefits programs, the Veterans Administration was reorganized to meet service demands. The advancing nature of war technology and military medicine by the time of the Vietnam War improved the chances of survival for wounded and injured veterans. By 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War, 308,000 disabled veterans of the war required assistance. The Veterans’ Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966, or Vietnam GI Bill, provided additional vocational rehabilitation and training services to these veterans and further educational benefits to all Vietnam War veterans. The legislation was also designed to encourage military service during a time of initial social unrest over American involvement in the war. Congress also enacted in 1965 the Uniformed Service-Group Life Insurance Act which established the largest group life insurance program for veterans and their families ever in American history. The post-Vietnam War period witnessed a change from the military draft system to an all-volunteer force system. This shift also created a shift in the underlying reasons for awarding benefits. The focus turned toward recruitment, not reward, since now the majority of Americans who entered military service did so by choice. The Post-Vietnam Era Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1977 first signaled this shift by giving service members the option of contributing to an educational fund for future education expenses. Several congressional bills in 1981 and 1984 granted educational benefits based on years of service to spark recruitment and retention in a healthy U.S. economy. For example, the popular 1984 Montgomery Bill provided educational benefits of $300 per month
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for 36 months in exchange for three years of active duty, or a combination of two years active duty and four years of reserve service. The patriotic fervor triggered by the Persian Gulf War enhanced the popularity of those who served in uniform and all veterans, resulting in the presentation of close to 100 veterans bills in Congress. The Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991, or Gulf Act, extended to Gulf War veterans’ benefits accrued to all veterans under prior legislation. Additional health benefits were also provided the next year through the Veterans Health Care Act. Since the Persian Gulf War, additional proposed benefits legislation specifically to assist Iraq War veterans and Afghan War veterans was debated without success in Congress until 2008 as the Bush administration balked at the expense. That year, as a Democratic Congress threatened to withhold funding for the Iraq War, the president signed the new Veterans Education Assistance Act on June 30. It would pay full college tuition for veterans who had served over three years after September 11, 2001, up to the cost of the most expensive state university in a state. (Many private universities also offered scholarships to veterans to make up at least some of the difference.) Housing allowances were also provided, geared to local costs of living, and veterans had 15 years to use their benefits rather than the previous 8. As many veterans—frequently reservists who had not anticipated combat service —had been serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq, the new measures reflected the nation’s realization of the disproportionate sacrifices the relatively small percentage of the population assigned to
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Iraq and Afghanistan had made for their country. They also represent an added incentive to recruit new, and qualified, military personnel as enlistments have fallen off due to the war. Mark F. Leep
Further Reading Cox, Caroline. A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army. Chapel Hill, NC, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Dickson, Paul, and Thomas B. Allen. The Bonus Army: An American Epic. New York: Walker and Company, 2004. GI Bill 2008. www.gibill2008.org. Humes, Edward. Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006. Knight, Amy W., and Robert L. Worden. The Veterans Benefits Administration: An Organizational History, 1776–1994. Collingdale, PA: Diane, 1995. McConnell, Stuart. Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865– 1900. (Chapel Hill, NC, and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Shaffer, Donald R. ‘‘ ‘I Do Not Suppose That Uncle Sam Looks at the Skin’: African Americans and the Civil War Pension System, 1865–1934.’’ Civil War History 46 (2000): 132–47. Vogel, Jeffrey E. ‘‘Redefining Reconciliation: Confederate Veterans and the Southern Responses to Federal Civil War Pensions.’’ Civil War History 51 (2005): 67–93.
BLINDED VETERANS OF AMERICA Blinded Veterans of America (BVA) was founded in March 1945 at the U.S. Army’s rehabilitation facility for blind and visually impaired veterans, Old
Farms, at Avon, Connecticut. Although blinded veterans from the marines and navy were cared for at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, they too soon joined the organization. By 1948, about 60 percent, or 850, of the veterans blinded in World War II belonged. The BVA made a mission of distinguishing men blinded during adulthood, such as themselves, from the general, civilian blind population, most of whom were blind since birth. They believed most blind people, relegated to menial tasks or institutions, were objects of charity and pity, an image they wanted to change. Important issues for which the BVA successfully fought included having guide dogs allowed in public places and developing programs that allowed blind people to be gainfully employed—by hiring readers who could read and explain books that taught them skills. Russell Williams, a founding member, established the first permanent Veterans Administration Rehabilitation Facility for the Blind at Hines, Illinois, and from 1949 to 1976 was the director of Blind Rehabilitation Services for the Veterans Administration. The BVA’s other major program was to fight for racial and religious equality. One founding member, Pincus Hoffman, a Jew who had been snowblinded in the Aleutian Islands, served on the national board of directors, as vice president, secretary, and treasurer at different times. Another early secretary was Vasco DaGama Hale, a Connecticut African American who was blind, partially deaf, and had lost one hand completely and four fingers on the other. Hispanic and Asian blinded veterans were also encouraged to join. The BVA was thus more liberal than the major veterans’ organizations, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and
Blinded Veterans of America the American Legion, which in the years immediately after World War II allowed local posts and state organizations to decide who subsequent members would be, thereby attempting to defuse racial issues that would divide the national body. The BVA deliberately made racial equality a major point of its program, as its insignia demonstrates. It is a sixpointed military star with a black and white hand within the star grasping each other in friendship. A cross and a Star of David are above it. Interviews with founders of the BVA by historian David A. Gerber indicate that their sudden blindness inspired them to realize that they had more in common with other blind people regardless of race or religion than with sighted people generally. They also realized that they were a small group who needed to struggle together in order to lead fulfilling lives. Blindness, in short, was a form of rebirth. Most blinded veterans used military terms such as ‘‘attack’’ or ‘‘fight’’ to describe their ‘‘campaign’’ for better jobs and programs. The principal program that enabled blind veterans to function in society was a four-and-a-half month course in ‘‘cane technique’’ at the Hines Rehabilitation Facility. Dr. Richard Hoover had advanced cane technique significantly with his studies during World War II designed to help returning veterans. Only staff and the blind themselves were present during the course as visitors were believed liable to accept excuses for lack of performance. Veterans learned braille and typing and participated in sports and recreation. To graduate, each man had to find his way to the heart of Chicago from the suburbs using a bus and a commuter train. As it required rigorous practice to maintain the cane technique, not all men continued to use it after they
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left Hines, becoming dependent again on wives and families. The BVA has used only blinded veterans themselves as service officers, who were taken to where other blind veterans lived. It insisted on ‘‘Jobs not Pity’’ as its motto, and while blind veterans of course had the option of living at government expense, over half the members of the organization have been gainfully employed. Unskilled men were specifically trained to manage newsstands in government buildings. Service personnel who became blinded after their discharge could also join. The BVA inducted Sergeant Isaac Woodard of South Carolina, a veteran who was blinded when he was beaten in 1946, at a well-publicized ceremony at BVA’s New York City national headquarters the following year and called for the prosecution of the culprits. Among those assisting the blind veterans at Avon, Connecticut, was the novelist Baynard Kendrick, a World War I veteran who was known for creating the character of a blind detective Duncan Maclain. Besides offering comfort, he taught courses in accounting, English, and creative writing. His novel Lights Out (1946), which became the basis for the feature film Bright Victory (1951)— the title was made more positive to attract audiences—was the story of a Southern white veteran who overcame his prejudices at Avon and became best friends with an African American as both of them overcame despair at being blind. Kendrick was the only sighted member of the board of directors, an honor he acquired thanks to his work for the blind; otherwise, the BVA insisted that all their officers were blind. The BVA accepts visually impaired as well as blind veterans as members and
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estimates potential current membership at 165,000. Thirteen percent of Gulf War veterans, the largest proportion of blind or partially blind veterans to be identified from any conflict in American history, fit this category. An auxiliary is composed of anyone, friend or relative, who wishes to assist blinded veterans. The BVA has service officers available throughout the nation to assist veterans, offers support during rehabilitation, and works with other veterans’ associations to obtain better health care for veterans in general. William Pencak See also Disabled American Veterans; Benefits
Further Reading Blinded Veterans of America. www.bva.org. Gerber, David A. ‘‘Blind and Enlightened: The Contested Origins of the Egalitarian Politics of the Blinded Veterans of America.’’ In The New Disability History: American Perspectives, edited by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
BLUE STAR MOTHERS Captain Robert L. Queissner of the Fifth Ohio Infantry designed the blue star service flag during World War I. He wanted to honor his two sons fighting on the front lines in Europe. Proud parents of service members began displaying blue stars in their front windows to let the public know of their children’s sacrifices. On September 24, 1917, an endorsement of the service flag was read into the Congressional Record: ‘‘The mayor of Cleveland, the Chamber of Commerce and the governor of Ohio have adopted this service flag. The world should know
of those who give so much for liberty. The dearest thing in all the world to a father and mother—their children.’’ The blue star, symbolizing hope and pride, was replaced by a gold one, manifesting sacrifice, when news arrived of a service member’s death. In January 1942, Captain George H. Maines received over 1,000 responses to his ad asking for the mothers of service members to write in about their children in uniform. Maines organized the first meeting of the Blue Star Mothers in Flint, Michigan, on February 1, 1942. Local chapters formed throughout the country during the fervor or World War II, when the blue star service flag became a fixture in many households. During World War II, the Blue Star Mothers worked in train stations and hospitals and served as a support group in case of tragedy. In 1960, Congress chartered the Blue Star Mothers as a veterans’ service organization. Today the Blue Star Mothers of America have extended their support responsibilities to include work in rehabilitation centers, assistance with children of service members, civil defense including hurricane relief, and aid with securing veteran’s benefits. This work is in addition to their traditional service of preparing care packages, raising money, and supporting USO endeavors. William Whyte III See also American War Mothers; Gold Star Mothers; World War I Veterans; World War II Veterans
Further Reading Blue Star Mothers. www.bluestarmothers.org. Williams, Rudi. ‘‘Blue Star Mothers Offer Constant Care.’’ American Forces Press
Bonus March | 105 Service, March 2000. www.defenselink.mil/news/ newsarticle.aspx?id=44981.
BONUS, BONUS BILL, BONUS EXPEDITIONARY FORCE See Bonus March
BONUS MARCH The Bonus March was the name used by the press to refer to a 1932 march on Washington in which World War I veterans urged the federal government to pay immediately the Service Certificates they had received for their war service in 1924 under the Adjusted Service Certificate Act. Adjusted certificates had been issued to qualified veterans in an amount that was equal to a promised payment plus interest at a compound rate (see Benefits). The problem with the certificates was not that they were not valid, but that they had not yet matured. They were in many respects being treated by the government as if they were bonds. Since they were issued in 1924 or 1925 they were not going to mature until 1945. However, because of the economic hardships imposed by the Great Depression, the Bonus marchers had conceived the notion that the government should pay immediately to relieve their poverty, despite the fact that current law forbade payment until maturity. In 1931, the government permitted veterans to borrow up to half the amount they were eventually going to receive. This encouraged them to demand the rest. The march began in Oregon in the spring of 1932 and the eastward
marching veterans eventually numbered an estimated 20,000. The marchers ultimately totaled about 43,000 when family and affiliated groups are added. The marchers were driven out of Washington, DC, by troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur acting under orders of President Herbert Hoover in what became a very controversial event in American history. The veterans called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) to remind Americans that they formerly belonged to the American Expeditionary Force in World War I when they were honored as heroes. They were also popularly known as the Bonus Army. Their presence in Washington was a very visible reminder of the depths of the economic depression that was scourging Americans across the country. Government certificates to reward veterans had been a practice that dated to the Revolution. The military bonuses were payments for the enlisted men that were supposed to make up the difference between what they earned as soldiers and what they would have earned if they had not enlisted. Prior to World War I the service bonus had been a payment in land and cash. However, the practice stopped with the Spanish-American War; nor was there a bonus granted at first after the end of World War I. In 1919 the American Legion was formed and although initially reluctant, it took up the cause of the service bonus as it was losing members to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which wholeheartedly endorsed the Bonus as soon as the idea was advanced at the end of the war. The veterans persuaded Congress to grant the Bonus, and it overrode President Calvin Coolidge’s veto to enact the legislation in 1924. The benefits
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conferred by the legislation were calculated by a formula. Each day of service in the United States was calculated at the rate of a dollar a day with a cap set at $500. Each day of overseas service was calculated at a rate of $1.25 per day with a maximum of $625. Those who were eligible for $50 or less were paid immediately. Those owed more were given the certificates of service that would mature in 20 years. The program enrolled 3,662,374 veterans who were issued certificates that totaled $3,638,000,000. Congress set up a trust fund that would receive payments of $112 million per year for 20 years. The sums from the general treasury combined with interest would meet the face value of the certificates in 1945. The terms of the Adjusted Service Certificate Act of 1924 allowed veterans to borrow a maximum of 22.5 percent of the face value of their personal certificate. In 1931 the severity of the Great Depression led Congress to increase the loan potential on the certificates to 50 percent of face value. By April 1932, $1,248,000,000 had been loaned to veterans on their certificates. As the economic hardships of the Depression increased, demands for immediate payment of the bonus certificates multiplied. Immediate payment was introduced by Democratic Congressman Wright Patman of Texas as the first bill in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1, in the session of Congress that began in December 1931. There was support in Congress for an immediate payment. especially as pressure from veterans’ groups grew. The Veterans of Foreign Wars immediately endorsed payment; the American Legion did so in 1932 when its leaders realized it was losing members by failing to do so.
However, President Herbert Hoover and a number of congressmen were opposed, because they believed payment would cause a huge deficit in the federal budget and take money away from relief programs the Hoover administration had begun to implement to mitigate the effects of the Depression. Former Army Sergeant Walter W. Waters, an unemployed cannery superintendent in Portland, Oregon, became the leader of the movement. He was a dynamic ex-sergeant veteran who had served in the 146th Field Artillery in France. After his discharge from the army, he had drifted through a number of jobs. He read about previous marches and was inspired to go to Washington to demonstrate in support of Congressman Patman’s bill. He at first only envisioned the march rising to a few hundred men. He and others were encouraged to press their demand for immediate payment by retired Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, who was a hero to the World War I veterans. In the spring of 1932, millions of Americans were exhausting their savings and were growing desperate. The appeal of even a few dollars from the service certificates was a temptation to action. By May the Patman bill was buried in the House Ways and Means Committee. At this time, Walters was finding growing enthusiasm among Portland veterans for a march on Washington. Everyone who wanted to join had to offer proof of wartime service. They also had to be sworn into the Bonus March army and to submit to military discipline of the elected officers of the movement. The use of military discipline and the election of a ‘‘commander in chief’’ along with patriotic displays of flag ceremonies were established to dispel any claims that
Bonus March | 107 the Bonus Expeditionary Force was a mere mob of radicals. Three hundred members of the B.E.F. began their journey to Washington. At times they hopped freight trains or walked. Along the way local authorities gave them rides to the state line in order to be rid of them. They were also supported by Legion or VFW posts on the way. The journey was a tonic for men long unemployed and discouraged by the joblessness of the times. The Bonus marchers were met by the Washington police chief, retired Brigadier General Pelham D. Glassford. He was a popular figure in Washington who had been on the job for only six months. He had already handled two previous marches, the first led by Communists and the second led by Father James R. Cox of Pittsburgh, a Roman Catholic priest, to protest government inaction in the face of economic catastrophe. There had not been any trouble in either of these; however, the Bonus March was much bigger. Chief Glassford quickly recognized that the B.E.F. was overwhelming local resources. He supplied the marchers with food purchased with his own money and housed them in vacant government buildings. Meanwhile he was telegraphing the mayors and governors around the country to discourage additional marchers from coming. His appeal for aid to the Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley for army cots, bedding, and rolling kitchens was refused as an act that would encourage more veterans to descend on the city. His appeal to the commissioner of the District of Columbia, Major General Herbert B. Crosby, was also refused because Crosby wanted the veterans out of Washington, by force, if necessary. With the government refusing to help,
Glassford persuaded Washington’s wealthy to provide funds for food so that the veterans could be fed. The Bonus Army gathered in Washington, DC, where several shanty towns or ‘‘Hoovervilles’’ were erected from junk materials. The largest was in a swampy area across the Anacostia River from downtown Washington called Anacostia Flats. Admission to the camps was organized, and only those able to prove they were honorably discharged veterans and their families were allowed. The veterans controlled the area as if it had been a military camp with straight streets. Sanitation facilities were built in appropriate locations. Daily parades were a part of the life of the camp. The marchers also took steps to prevent their movement from being captured by Communist Party organizers. The party was forced to withdraw and to watch the movement engage the establishment on its own. On June 15 the House of Representatives passed the Patman Bonus Bill. Two days later the Bonus Army massed outside of the Capitol Building, 10,000 in number, where the Senate was meeting to consider the bill. The veterans were hoping that their presence and their misery would persuade Congress to make immediate payment of the bonus money to the mostly unemployed veterans. But the Senate, unlike the House, was still in the hands of fiscally conservative Republicans. The vote came and with it defeat for the Patman bill by a margin of 62 to 18. Stunned, the veterans responded by singing ‘‘America’’ and then returned to their camp. After the vote, congressmen eager to impress voters in a campaign year voted $100,000 for transportation of the veterans to go home or to some desired
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The arrival at the Capitol of a bonus petition signed by over a million veterans, 1922. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-51958]
location. The goal was to disperse them and get them out of the capital. Meanwhile other groups of veterans led by more radical leaders were arriving. One contingent led by Royal W. Robertson who had arrived after the defeat of the Patman bill organized a ‘‘death march’’ across the Capitol grounds. As long as the marchers were moving their actions were legal. Frightened, Vice President Charles Curtis ordered the Marines to clear the grounds of the Capitol Building, apparently ignorant that he had no authority for such an order. On July 14 Congress adjourned. Tensions began to build as the president sought to rid Washington of the marchers. By July 28 the government began to move. In one brief five-minute incident a radical splinter group of marchers engaged Chief Glassford and other
officers. They then broke up and dispersed. Several hours later a brawl erupted between veterans and the police. The police fatally shot two of the veterans. The deaths prompted President Herbert Hoover to order the army to drive out the marchers. Shortly before five o’clock in the afternoon, General Douglas MacArthur, chief of staff of the U.S. Army and in command of the 12th Infantry Regiment from Fort Howard, Maryland, massed his troops with Major General George S. Patton’s 3rd Cavalry Regiment on Pennsylvania Avenue. The street was lined with thousands of civil service workers who had left work to see the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. Ignorant of the fact that this was to be an attack on them, the Bonus marchers at first cheered the troops. However, when
Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans the cavalry charged, the civil service workers booed the military, calling the act shameful. The troops quickly drove out the veterans and burned their camps. Hundreds of veterans were hurt, two were killed, and others were gassed, which also killed two babies. General MacArthur destroyed the Anacostia camp despite orders from President Hoover not to attack it. President Roosevelt continued to oppose the Bonus as had Hoover, but the New Deal programs—especially the Civilian Conservation Corps that hired ex-veterans to direct the boys in their camps—alleviated their misery along with the nation’s. Only in 1936 was the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress able to override Roosevelt’s veto and grant the early payment of the bonuses. Andrew Jackson Waskey
Further Reading Best, Gary Dean. FDR and the Bonus Marchers: 1933–1935. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992. Daniels, Roger. The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971. Dickson, Paul, and Thomas Allen. The Bonus Army: An American Epic. NY: Walker & Co., 2004. Diehl, James M., and Stephen R. Ward. The War Generation: Veterans of the First World War. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1975. Lisio, Donald J. President and Protest: Hoover, Conspiracy and the Bonus Riot. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1974. Lisio, Donald J. President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur and the Bonus March. Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 1994.
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Rawl, Michael J. Anacostia Flats. Baltimore, MD: Publish America, 2006. Waters, W. W., and William C. White. B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. Whitefish, MT: Kissinger Publishing, 2007. Webb, Robert N. The Bonus March on Washington, D.C., May–June 1932: American Veterans Demand Cash Payments Due Them. NY: Watts, 1969.
BRAZILIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE VETERANS During World War II, some 26.000 men and women of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) were incorporated in the 5th U.S. Army where they served in Italy. The contact with American forces was paramount in defining their own distinctiveness in contrast with other veterans of the Brazilian Army who did not fight overseas. Once in action in Italy, these men received U.S. training, weapons, signals equipment, vehicles, food, and uniform supplies. Most important of all was the influence exercised on the relations between enlisted men and officers. In the 1940s, the usual methods of treating enlisted personnel in the Brazilian Army were derived from nineteenth-century practices which enforced an extremely rigid disciplinary system. The majority of the rank and file was composed of draftees. For the first time, Brazilian soldiers were decently fed and clothed in comparison to their superiors. Veterans attributed these more equalitarian practices adopted in Italy to their cooperation with the U.S. Army. In spite of the modernizing trends observed during the campaign overseas,
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the Brazilian military leadership felt that the new practices and customs acquired in Italy could be detrimental to the integrity of discipline and prestige of noncombatant officers. The returning veterans were forbidden to talk about their experience, and the wearing of the U.S.-styled Brazilian Expeditionary Force uniforms and insignias (which differed from regular Brazilian standards) was allowed for merely eight days after the arrival of each veteran. Many of these men felt their experience was being pushed into oblivion. One of the reasons was that their superiors who didn’t go to war felt threatened by being questioned by men of lower rank who had underwent actual combat experience in modern conflict. An example can be drawn from the decorations awarded to men who had distinguished themselves in combat: although a number of Brazilian draftees received U.S. Bronze Stars and Silver Stars, their national decorations were only given several years after the war, with little impact on their military careers and at a time when the majority of combat veterans was already back in civilian life. Besides, Brazilian infantry troops were not allowed by their superiors to receive the American Combat Infantryman Badge. Most Brazilian veterans were demobilized on board the transport ships during their return trip home As the veterans returned home, they formed organizations to guarantee their basic rights. The most important of these was the Association of Brazilian Ex-Combatants (AECB), formed in October 1945, assembling veterans of the 5th U.S. Army alongside U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force men who had fought in the South Atlantic Campaign.
Participation in combat operations overseas as well as their specific identity as veterans of both the Brazilian and U.S. armies encouraged the separation of the AECB into another major group that would accept only veterans of Italian Campaign from the Army and Air Force (veterans from this organization operated a fighter squadron under the 12th U.S. Army Air Force). The National Association of Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans (ANVFEB) was created in 1963 and its chapters are extended throughout most of Brazil’s territory. In some cities the BEF veterans maintained their link to the AECB, since the number of territorial army vets was so low that the creation of ANVFEB chapters did not make sense. The separation of the veterans’ organizations was also due to the dissatisfaction of many 5th Army vets with the extension of their benefits to men who had not shipped overseas. A number of Brazilian veterans faced hard times once they reentered civilian life. Since the war’s end, a vast set of veterans’ benefits had been created, although red tape, ill will, and sometimes the very ignorance of the veterans about their rights offered obstacles to the fulfillment of assistance policies. Thousands of veterans inhabited rural areas and small towns, hundreds of miles from the urban administrative facilities. Adjustment problems began to appear immediately after demobilization. Many veterans, attempting to return to their prewar civilian occupations, found their jobs had been taken. Even if mechanisms of assistance were in existence, the relatively small number of veterans did not represent a social stratum strong enough to validate careful governmental
Bunker Hill Monument attention. To a great extent, veterans had to rely on their personal connections with politicians and public servants in order to assure the completion of legal benefits amidst the intricate public administration bureaucracy. No psychological support was offered to the demobilized men who suffered from neuropsychiatric disorders after months in the front lines. The participation of Brazilian soldiers in combat operations during World War II under U.S. guidance was an important factor in defining postwar relations between the two countries. Officers of the professional corps who went to war realized for the first time what it meant to fight alongside a modern army from an industrialized nation. This perception would strongly influence their postwar political militancy in favor of a close alliance between Brazil and the United States, especially in the Cold War era. However, many of the expectations held by Brazilians about mutual cooperation that had been accorded with the Roosevelt administration were frustrated after the president passed away in April 1945. Subsequent American governments were less sensitive to the pleas of Brazilians as they were not aware of Brazil’s contributions to the war effort. In the year 2000, ANVFEB had 10.000 members spread all over Brazil, with about 2,000 more men from other BEF veterans’ associations. As of 1988, veterans were allowed a special pension that equals the pay rate of a 2nd Lieutenant in active duty with the army. Their badge of pride is the Smoking Cobra divisional patch, an original concept of Walt Disney Studios. Cesar Campiani Maximiliano See also World War II Veterans; Hispanic American Veterans
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Further Reading McCann, F. D. The Brazilian American Alliance 1937–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. McCann, F. D. Soldiers of the Pa´tria. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
BUFFALO SOLDIERS See African American Veterans, Civil War
BUNKER HILL MONUMENT The Bunker Hill Monument (part of Freedom Trail and Boston National Historic Park—see Appendix 1, Massachusetts) is one of the nation’s most familiar monuments. Although known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, the battle actually took place on June 17, 1775, on the smaller Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which is where the current monument stands. The first monument erected on the site was commissioned by Charlestown’s King Solomon’s Lodge Masons to honor Boston patriot Dr. Joseph Warren ‘‘and his associates’’ killed during the battle. Dedicated on December 2, 1794, the wooden column 18 feet high bore the inscription ‘‘J. W. aged 35’’ and cost $1,000. In 1822, William Tudor, editor of The North American Review and biographer of James Otis, proposed building a larger and more permanent structure. When three acres of the battlefield came up for sale, Captain John Warren (a descendant) purchased them and put them at the disposal of several prominent citizens including Daniel Webster, Colonel
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Thomas Perkins, and Edward Everett. In 1823, they joined Tudor to form the Bunker Hill Monument Association. They pointed out the nation’s failure to honor its Revolution and war heroes. Arguing that ‘‘no monument designates the ever-memorable heights of Charlestown, or Saratoga, or the plains of Trenton, Monmouth, or Yorktown. No statue, not even of Washington, adorns the Capitol,’’ they had no trouble persuading the Massachusetts legislature to incorporate the association to raise funds so that ‘‘as the plains of Massachusetts were first stained with the blood of patriot—THERE should be reared the FIRST PILLAR of the Republic; and what spot more sacred, more appropriate, and more commanding than Bunker Hill?’’ (Warren 1877, 42–43). After the association purchased the rest of the battlefield, the cornerstone was dedicated on June 17, 1825, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle. The guest of honor was the Marquis de Lafayette, visiting the United States in 1824–1825, who assisted the grandmaster of the Freemasons, Monument Association President John Brooks, in laying the cornerstone. Over 200 revolutionary veterans, including 40 of the battle, participated in a celebration ‘‘unequalled in magnificence by anything of the kind that had been seen in New England’’ (Frothingham 1851, 344–45) and a parade that stretched from Boston’s bridge to Charlestown to the Boston Common. Daniel Webster concluded the day with one of his greatest orations. Once established, the association appointed a Board of Artists to plan the monument. The board included Webster and artist Gilbert Stuart and adopted the design of Loammi Baldwin, a noted engineer. It was to be a 220 foot granite
obelisk furnished from a quarry in Quincy, Massachusetts. Solomon Willard was the architect who supervised the actual construction. Originally, the state of Massachusetts offered to contribute prison labor to provide the stones, but ultimately paid $7,000 in cash to hire workers. Despite this impressive start, the Monument Association had trouble raising money. By 1829, it was $25,000 in debt to Boston’s Suffolk Bank and the monument was only 37 feet tall. Four years later, the Bank insisted on repayment of its debt, which had risen to $30,000, which by 1838 required selling off nearly all the battlefield except for the area immediately around the monument itself. Major donors enabled the monument to be finished at its originally planned height at a cost which, over 18 years, was over $370,000 rather than the $100,000 originally budgeted. The father of Amos Lawrence, principal owner of the textile mills at Lowell that were the nation’s largest manufacturing enterprise, had fought at Bunker Hill. Lawrence began to donate money in 1830, but made his largest gifts, including a pledge of $10,000 in 1833, contingent upon grass-roots support as he wanted the monument to be funded by the people in general rather than a handful of wealthy men. His 1833 donation accompanied a request to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, an organization founded in 1795 by Paul Revere to help working people; they responded with $20,000. Lawrence also put up $10,000 in 1840 upon learning that Sara Josepha Hale, formerly editor of Boston’s Ladies’ Magazine and Literary Gazette and after 1834 of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the nation’s most popular women’s magazine at the time, would organize a fair, to be held at Bunker Hill in September
Bunker Hill Monument 1840. The fair, which raised $33,000, coincided with a huge Whig Party convention to rally support for presidential candidate William Henry Harrison shortly before the election. Organized by Massachusetts Senator Webster, it drove home the fact that the monument had all along been sponsored exclusively by National Republicans and Whigs who hoped to call attention to the contribution of New England to the nation’s founding at a time when that region was increasingly marginalized by the Jacksonian Democrats. (They had no trouble analogizing the tyranny of ‘‘King Andrew,’’ as they depicted President Jackson in their political cartoons, with that of George III). As for Hale, she had begun raising money for the monument as early as 1830, arguing that women needed to demonstrate their patriotism and take an appropriate role in public life, which was originally opposed by some members of the Monument Association until the cash came rolling in. As she wrote following the fair: ‘‘When exerted in their proper sphere . . . we question if there was ever seen under the sun, such an example and proof of woman’s industry and ingenuity’’ (Godey’s Ladies Book, November 1840, 237). The final $10,000 came from philanthropist Judah Touro of New Orleans, and Louisiana delegates to the Whig convention purchased the scale model of the monument at the fair to present to him. Touro had been born on the eve of the battle to a wealthy Newport, Rhode Island, Jewish merchant. After being orphaned his uncle Moses Michael Hays employed him in Boston but fired him for wanting to marry his daughter. Touro then moved to New Orleans where he became one of the nation’s wealthiest merchants and
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greatest philanthropists—his detailed will, probated on his death in 1854, left over half a million dollars to over a hundred charities, Jewish, Christian, and nondenominational. Touro appreciated military sacrifice—he was nearly killed at the Battle of New Orleans. He made his gift conditional on its anonymity, but the Monument Association proudly publicized his contribution to his chagrin, even incorporating a poem in his honor at the dedication ceremony. The dedication occurred on June 17, 1843, with President John Tyler, the entire cabinet, the governors of all the New England states, and 13 surviving veterans of the battle in attendance along with thousands of others. Daniel Webster, who only a month before had resigned as secretary of state due to disagreements with Tyler, made the oration a plea for conciliation within both his party and the nation: ‘‘Woe betide the man who can stand here with fires of local resentment burning, or the purpose of fermenting local jealousies and the strifes of local interests festering and rambling in his heart . . . this column stands on Union. I know not that it might keep its position, if the American Union is made the conflict of human passions, and in the strife of parties and faction, should be broken up and destroyed’’ (Webster 1895, 140). The Bunker Hill Monument Association maintained the monument and grounds until 1919 when it was turned over to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1976 the Bunker Hill Monument was transferred to the National Park Service and became a unit of the Boston National Historical Park. Every year, on the Sunday before June 17, the Bunker Hill Parade is held in Charlestown; on the 17th itself, a procession moves from
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St. Francis’s Church, where an ecumenical service is held, to the site of the battlefield, to the monument. An exhibit lodge built adjacent to the monument in the late-nineteenth century houses a statue of Warren and a diorama of the battle. A statue of Joseph Warren may also be found on the battlefield near the monument. In front of the obelisk is a statue of Col. William Prescott, who is supposed to have uttered the famous phrase, ‘‘Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes!’’ William Pencak See also Revolutionary War Veterans
Further Reading Covart, Elizabeth. ‘‘Live Free or Die: A Generation Remembers the Battle of Bunker Hill.’’ Senior Honors’ Thesis, Penn State University, 2003. Frothingham, Richard Jr. The History of the Siege of Boston. Boston: Little Brown, 1851. Warren, George Washington. History of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Boston: James Osgood, 1877. Webster, Daniel. The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster. Boston: Little, Brown, 1895.
BUTLER, SMEDLEY (1881–1940) An officer in the Marine Corps, ending up with the rank of major general, Smedley Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated member of the Marine Corps in the history of the United States. Smedley Darlington Butler was born on July 30, 1881, at West Chester, Pennsylvania, the oldest of three sons of Thomas Stalker Butler, a longtime member of the U.S. Congress, and Maud
(ne´ e Darlington). Smedley Butler was educated at the West Chester Friends’ High School and the Haverford School. In 1898, with the outbreak of war between the United States and Spain, the teenager was eager to join. Because he was only 16, he lied about his age and gained a commission as a second lieutenant in the Marines. He was sent to serve at Guantanamo in Cuba and was not involved in combat operations. As a member of the U.S. Marines, Butler was sent to China in 1900 to serve with the international contingent fighting against the Boxer uprising. He was involved in the storming of the Chinese section of the city of Tientsin (modernday Tianjin), being shot in the thigh. He was later shot in the chest at San Tan Pating. For his bravery in China—he rescued an injured officer at Tientsin—he was awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and commissioned as a captain, and later promoted to major. In 1903 Butler was involved in protecting the U.S. Consulate in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, and from 1909 until 1912 saw action in Nicaragua. There he was involved in the relief of the city of Granada and later served in defense of the Isthmus of Panama. Soon afterwards, he returned to Nicaragua and took part in the attack on Coyotepe in October 1912, later being posted to Panama. In 1914 Butler was involved in the U.S. occupation of the Mexican port city of Veracruz. For distinguished conduct on April 22, 1914, at Veracruz, Butler received the Medal of Honor. The citation noted that he ‘‘was eminent and conspicuous in command of his battalion. He exhibited courage and skill in leading his men through the action of the 22d and in the final occupation of the city.’’ On October 24, 1915, Butler was posted to Haiti where he took part in
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Retired U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler exhorts the Bonus March veterans in Washington to stay until the bonus has been paid, July 19, 1932. His speech was received with wild applause. [AP Photo]
the U.S. occupation of the country. On November 17, 1915, he was again awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions against the Cacos in that country. This made Butler only the second marine to receive two medals of honor for separate incidents. In World War I, Butler expected to be given a combat command on the Western Front. However, although a brigadier general at the age of 37, he was put in command of Camp Pontanezen at the Atlantic port of Brest where troops from the American Expeditionary Force disembarked on their way to the front. Butler served there with great efficiency and earned the nickname ‘‘Old Duckboard’’ because of his use of wood in tents to stop soldiers sleeping in mud.
He received the Distinguished Service Medal from both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy for this, as well as the French Order of the Black Star. From January 1924 until December 1925, Butler served as director of public safety in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the behest of mayor Frederick Kendrick. Philadelphia was notorious for violating Prohibition, and Butler was chosen to put a stop to the illegal liquor business there. For this he was granted leave from the U.S. Marine Corps, with the permission of President Calvin Coolidge, and managed to clean up the city. However, Kendrick fired him when he raided two speakeasies favored by the local elite.
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Back in the marines, Butler commanded the Marine Expeditionary Force in China from 1927 until 1929. There he had the task of protecting U.S. citizens and property during a time of civil war. He was promoted to major general at the age of 48, but in 1931 he was given a court-martial after the Italian government complained that Butler recounted a story that Benito Mussolini had been involved in a hit-and-run incident in which a child had been hit by the dictator’s car. The move was partly instigated by President Herbert Hoover, and Butler became the first general officer to be placed under arrest since the end of the American Civil War. Butler subsequently apologized and the court-martial was canceled. Hoover’s dislike of the general resulted in Butler not being appointed as commandant of the Marine Corps, and Butler retired on October 1, 1931. Butler ran for the U.S. Senate in the primary for the Republican Party in Pennsylvania in 1932 but was unsuccessful. Curiously Huey Long, the maverick governor and then U.S. senator from Louisiana, wrote in his book My First Days in the White House that if he were elected president, Butler would be his secretary of war. Butler also supported and spoke to the World War I Veterans who undertook the Bonus March to Washington, DC, in July 1932. In 1934 Butler reported to the U.S. Congress that some anti-Roosevelt businessmen, who claimed to speak for the American Legion—which was not true—were canvassing for a military coup to overthrow the president. Butler testified that some people had asked him to lead the conspiracy, offering him the role of a military dictator. Some men had indeed made this suggestion, but no legal action was taken. By this time
Butler was a prominent public speaker around the United States, especially at pacifist rallies. He carried considerable weight as he was immensely popular with veterans, to whom he extended a blanket invitation to visit him when they were in the vicinity of his home in Newton Square, Pennsylvania. His book War Is a Racket (1935) enhanced the national mood to favor an isolationist foreign policy. Butler condemned World War I, as well as U.S. interventions in Latin America and Asia in which he had participated, as caused by big business which callously made money while soldiers died. He was critical of the military industrial complex—although it had not been given that name yet—and was a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism. He died on June 21, 1940, at the Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, and was buried at the Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The USS Butler was named after him in 1942, as was Camp Smedley Butler Marine Corps base in Okinawa. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Butler, Smedley D. War Is a Racket. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2003. McFall, J. Arthur. ‘‘After 33 Years of Marine Service, Smedley Butler Became an Outspoken Critic of U.S. Foreign Policy.,’’ Military History 19 (February 2003): 16. Schmidt, Hans. Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1987. Venzon, Anne Cipriano. General Smedley Darlington Butler: The Letters of a Leatherneck, 1898–1931. New York: Praeger, 1992.
C soldiers to Cambodia were on April 12, 1975, for the evacuation of the U.S. ambassador, U.S. citizens, and U.S. allies in the country, and on May 12–15, 1975, when U.S. marines were involved in rescuing the crew of the ship Mayaguez, an action that cost the lives of 17 marines.
CAMBODIA WAR VETERANS Although there were U.S. military personnel captured in Cambodia during the late 1960s, and the United States was involved in covert bombing of the country in 1969, it was not until May 30, 1970, that large numbers of U.S. service personnel were deployed in Cambodia. These were sent into Cambodia to prevent supplies to the Vietnamese Communists from being sent through that country; the U.S. troops remained in the country until June 29, 1970. When the public learned of their presence, it provoked outrage and demonstrations in the United States. Congress subsequently banned the use of U.S. combat soldiers in Cambodia, and under the Cooper-Church Amendment, which became law on December 22, 1970, no U.S. ground troops nor U.S. military advisers were allowed to operate in the country, which was known as the Khmer Republic from October 1970 until April 1975. The only two other deployments of U.S. combat
As all the U.S. actions in Cambodia were by U.S. service personnel based in Vietnam, most of the U.S. Cambodia War veterans who are involved in veterans’ groups take part in those connected with the Vietnam War (see Vietnam War Veterans). However, beginning in 1979 large numbers of Cambodians themselves have migrated to the United States. These include many who served alongside U.S. soldiers or their allies, either in Cambodia itself or in units drawn from the Khmer Krom, the Cambodian minority in South Vietnam. Jean Fernandez, son of Cambodian Liberal Party politician Samson Fernandez, and brother of Cambodian Commander-inChief Sosthe`ne Fernandez, managed to escape from Cambodia in 1975 and heads
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the Cambodian Veterans’ Association in Bellflower, California. The group serves to preserve the community and culture of Cambodian veterans and hopes to build monuments to the Cambodian veterans and the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge massacred their opponents. Other groups surrounded e´migre´ politicians from the Khmer Republic. General Sak Suthsakhan (1928–1994), the last head of state of the Khmer Republic, and Thach Reng (1933– 2002), the last head of Cambodian special forces in 1975, had both fought supporting the pro-U.S. government in Cambodia and were prominent in Cambodian veterans’ groups in the United States. They were both heavily involved in the establishment of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Armed Forces to fight against the Communists in Cambodia from 1979 until 1992. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Cambodian Veterans Association. http:// www.khmernavy.com/FriendsLinks_files/ CVVision.pdf. Corfield, Justin, and Laura Summers. Historical Dictionary of Cambodia. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
CATHOLIC WAR VETERANS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Catholic War Veterans was founded in 1935 by New York City priest Father Edward J. Higgins, formerly a World War I army chaplain and later a bishop.
He journeyed to Rome where he received the blessing of Pope Pius XI. Higgins was moved by the Pope’s plea for the need for Catholic opposition to the ‘‘isms’’ of the world, especially Communism. As such, Catholic War Veterans vigorously opposed Communism in the United States and supported the House UnAmerican Activities Committee investigations and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to find and uproot Communism in the government. At the same time, they took a fairly liberal stand on public housing and social welfare issues that would benefit veterans and their families. The insignia of Catholic War Veterans incorporates a Celtic Cross to symbolize the preservation of Christianity through the ages, the letters US for the principles of the nation, a star for the victory achieved in World War I (and later World War II), a wreath to honor those who died for that victory, a circle to denote the reign of the church until the end of time, and an olive branch to symbolize peace. Today, while making preservation of the laws and Constitution of the United States from all who would harm them an important purpose, Catholic War Veterans’ primary activity is assistance to veterans and their families through lobbying, public service, and cooperation with other veterans’ groups. The organization also strives to instill respect for the flag, the national anthem, American values, and the traditional family, especially among young people. The 2008 convention specifically endorsed resolutions against abortion, pornography, and comedian Bill Maher (who satirizes the Catholic Church), and in favor of expanded health care for veterans and the demonstration of loyalty to the American flag and singing of patriotic
Civil War Veterans songs. A ladies auxiliary dedicated to the Virgin Mary performs much of the organization’s welfare work with disabled and hospitalized veterans. William Pencak
Further Reading Catholic War Veterans. www.cwv.org. Matthias, Sister Mary. The Catholic War Veterans and the Present World Crisis. New York: Paulist Press, 1945.
CHAPLAINS See Military Chaplains Association
CIVIL WAR VETERANS It took 18 months to disperse the 1,034,000 Union soldiers who were serving after the major Confederate armies of Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston surrendered in April 1865. Assistant Adjutant General Thomas M. Vincent developed the plan for demobilization. Troops would be assembled at nine points where their service records would be compiled and the back pay they were owed recorded. This was important: the major armies, General Ulysses S. Grant’s in the East and Sherman and Thomas’s in the West, had not been paid for several months. Then they would be shipped to the camp where they had been organized to receive the money, a way of assuring the army would disband in an orderly fashion. As regiments were mustered by state and region, this worked for most men: however, depleted regiments had been filled with men from different states and there were exceptions whose whereabouts and funds had to be sorted out.
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The authorities knew the soldiers wanted to get home as quickly as possible: thus mass shipments in uncomfortable freight or coal cars were common. Nearly all arrived safely, except for the 1,238 out of 1,866 former prisoners of war from Andersonville, the Georgia camp, who died on April 28 when the steamboat Sultana sank on the Mississippi River near Memphis. In consequence, all other steamboats in use were inspected, overcrowding avoided, and no other tragedies occurred. Over 140,000 soldiers marched in the Grand Review in Washington, DC, on May 23 and 24. On the 23rd, Grant’s army marched in good order in new uniforms. On the 24th, Sherman’s army paraded much as they swept through Georgia—in ragged formation, many carrying their booty. White soldiers’ diaries record they were less than thrilled at being required to appear in this final parade. Black veterans, however, were relegated to serving as laborers or teamsters. Most soldiers were far more appreciative of the heroes’ welcomes they received at home after being cheered, serenaded, and fed on the way home, although some lost patience at the extended orations delivered by local notables and broke ranks before they finished. Only the First Vermont Heavy Artillery caused a major ruckus at Troy, New York, beating up some civilians, and that was blamed on the fact many were really Canadians or men who had enlisted several times to receive multiple bounties. All in all, the Union bureaucracy and transportation network that won the war did a remarkable job of mustering out 800,000 men within six months. Late pay and unpaid bounties amounted to $270 million, an average of $337 per
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The funeral for General Ulysses S. Grant in New York City, in 1885, was as monumental as the tomb that was soon erected to house his remains. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-74482]
man, a good nest egg with which to resume civilian life. Neither poverty, massive unemployment, nor the crime wave some had feared occurred. Many prudent soldiers bought farms or horses; others went to Colorado gold fields or the oil boom currently under way in northwestern Pennsylvania. Just as profiteers took advantage of the government in wartime, hucksters deluged the soldiers with means to relieve them of their newfound wealth. Photographers swarmed around the disembarking troops, as did elixir salesmen. With 65,000 known and many unknown cases of venereal diseases, cures were peddled for ‘‘secret’’ diseases; another popular potion promised young men they could quickly grow beards. Criminals lured men with layovers on the way home into houses of prostitution, dark alleys, and
saloons before setting on them and taking their pay. Although not numerous as a percentage of the total veterans population, with the significant increases in prison populations the large influx of men back home led to a belief that veterans were prone to crime. New York’s Sing Sing prison had 143 inmates between April and October of 1864, 412 during the same months in 1865. Arrests in New York City increased from 55,000 in 1864 to 68,000 in 1865. At the Kansas State penitentiary in 1867, 98 of 126 men had been Union veterans, and 6 Confederate. Yet to call the increases a ‘‘crime wave’’ is misleading; nearly a million young men of the age most likely to go to prison were now in civilian life, and the end of the war also increased the number of officials who
Civil War Veterans could police society. Homicide rates in New York City, for instance, declined in the decade after the war. The Sanitary Commission, a private agency with large funds that worked with government cooperation, which had cared for the soldiers’ physical and social needs during the war, helped significantly in demobilization. It offered baths and shaves on the way home and planned to put the returning men to work. New York soldiers staged a demonstration on August, 29, carrying banners stating ‘‘Looking for Bread and Work,’’ but most did not have to wait long. Veterans themselves set up an employment agency, but the Sanitary Commission’s Bureau of Information and Employment performed the function states and the federal government would in later wars. It sent out questionnaires to soldiers asking them about their skills and job situations, and sought to match these with community needs and, where jobs could not be found, local charitable institutions. Offices were established to help soldiers find jobs and assistance in all the major cities; during the year before his death in 1866, General Winfield Scott headed the New York office. To judge by the Cleveland office’s records, they were both energetic and successful; nearly two-thirds of 312 veterans who applied received a job (or a second one, if the first did not work out) after two visits. Studies of county histories in New York and Wisconsin showed that two-thirds of veterans were able to resume their former occupation; those professional men who did not usually went into politics. In rural Iowa, about 90 percent came from and went back to the farm. No economic downturn occurred after the war in the North. Nearly 300,000 new farms opened in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Valleys between 1865 and
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1870. As of 1870, any Union soldier who had served 90 days was entitled to 160 acres of premium federal land under the Homestead Act. Both the improved farm machinery—notably the McCormack Reaper—and agricultural knowledge available from land grant colleges (established in 1862) made many farms more profitable. Furthermore, 360,000 new manufacturing jobs opened. Railroad mileage expanded as the transcontinental Union Pacific was completed in 1869 along with numerous other lines. The postwar market expanded exponentially for products such as canned foods (meat, vegetables, and milk), which most soldiers experienced for the first time during the war. Confederate veterans, on the other hand, usually received nothing except thanks for their efforts, and thus were ironically spared the temptations and misfortunes suffered by the boys in blue. Lee’s men could not keep their muskets, but Sherman allowed one-seventh of the Army of Tennessee to keep their guns for hunting on the way home, and Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalrymen could ride home on horseback. Many Confederates commented on the kindness of the victors, who shared food and sometimes gave them money. Grant fed the defeated Confederates and, where the rails still functioned, permitted them to return on trains. Most, however, walked or rode home on animals who were also suffering from malnutrition. Southern veterans faced a grim future. The South was the richest area of the nation in per capita wealth in 1860; in much of the region, it did not recover its prewar level until the twentieth century. One major effect of the war was to created a southern identity. Historian Michael Barton has found that during the early years of the war, the diaries of Confederate
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soldiers rarely mentioned the Confederacy or the South. By the end of the war, nearly all of them identified with the South instead of writing simply about themselves, their units, or their states. Union veterans who returned with disabilities were cared for in the network of Soldiers Homes (see Veterans’ Homes) set up by the federal government. In the South, states eventually set up homes as well although not for years: meanwhile, veterans remained in hospitals or private homes. Pensions (see also Benefits) for Union veterans included disability pensions beginning in 1862; again, southern states (see Confederate Veterans Associations) only paid smaller amounts much later. Samples of pension records indicate the principal medical problems encountered in the service. Chronic diarrhea, some variant of which killed many soldiers during the war, was the most common disease, followed by heart disease, rheumatism, and the effects of gunshot wounds. Mental problems, designated by various synonyms for ‘‘insanity’’—unsound mind, affection of mind, brain trouble, nervous debility, nervous prostration, mental impairment, mental derangement—were roughly equal in number. The government, however, frequently denied pensions to those who suffered from alcoholism, blaming their symptoms on that rather than military service. Veterans with venereal diseases were not eligible for pensions as this was considered the result of soldiers’ own moral failings. Even use of tobacco and excessive masturbation were used to deny veterans pensions. The principal work on the psychological problems of Civil War veterans has been done by historian Eric T. Dean Jr. and suggests what came to be called posttraumatic stress disorder after Vietnam
was indeed a major problem. After the war, a minority of veterans repeatedly suffered from fear of being killed or had multiple flashbacks that they were in battle or that the enemy was chasing them. Lack of sleep, chronic fatigue, seeing imaginary people, violence, inability to endure the company of others, and paranoia were other symptoms. Some barricaded themselves in their houses and rooms, and many even with milder cases carried guns with them for the rest of their lives. The principal difference with post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans from Vietnam was that a good number of Civil War veterans also returned severely weakened from smallpox, typhoid, malaria, measles, mumps, and digestive disorders. Many were described as ‘‘wrecks.’’ Contemporaries did not know how to deal with such veterans. At first, those who became intolerable to their families were usually put in jail. Others went to insane asylums: 267 of 411 veterans sampled who were committed to the Indiana Hospital for the Insane from 1861 to 1920 were simply considered ‘‘maniacs.’’ Doctors did not usually link their problems with military service. They considered alcoholism, followed by religious enthusiasm, and only then military service the principal causes of insanity, by a ratio of approximately 3:2:1. The first line of treatment consisted of ‘‘moral therapy,’’ a combination of labor on the farm, in the kitchen, or at the hospital if the inmate could handle it, combined with recreation such as dancing and exercise on the grounds. For hard cases, drugs were the principal medical treatment. Purgatives were applied by doctors who still held to the belief that disease was caused by an excess of blood, one of two sorts of bile, or phlegm and that the surplus noxious
Civil War Veterans Overseas | 123 fluid needed to be eliminated. Some men were bled as late as the 1880s. Tonics such as iron or whiskey supposedly built up the strength of the idle and weak. Sedatives including morphine and opium substances were the principal way of calming men down. One estimate of the number of morphine or opium addicts among ex-soldiers was 45,000 in 1879, and the nation as a whole had 200,000 by 1900. Most soldiers, however, adjusted well to civilian life. The nation perceived no veteran ‘‘problem’’ but honored Civil War veterans in parades and ceremonies and elected them to the highest political positions (see Veterans in Politics). Both states and the nation provided financial assistance where they could, to the extent that excessive pensions for Union veterans (see Pensions, Civil War) became a major political issue by the 1890s. William Pencak
Further Reading Dean, Eric T., Jr. Shook Over Hell: PostTraumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Logue, Larry. To Appomatox and Beyond: The Civil War Soldier in War and Peace. Chicago: Irving Dee, 1996. Logue, Larry, and Michael Barton, eds. The Civil War Veteran: A Historical Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2007.
CIVIL WAR VETERANS OVERSEAS After the end of the conflict, many American Civil War veterans went overseas. Some—especially Confederates—
left for political reasons. For a large number of these, the Civil War had led to the destruction of their homes and societies. Others, both from the Confederacy and the Union, were unable to settle down after the war and wanted to search for greater adventure. There were also some who decided to take advantage of their newfound skills to work overseas. Some, like Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), had served in the Confederate militia and after the war spent much of their lives in various parts of the world. A number of Civil War veterans left for Canada because of its close proximity to the United States. Many of these such as Daniel Clark (1830–1912), who was a volunteer surgeon in the Union forces, had connections with Canada or were born there. Others were already from prominent U.S. families. John Taylor Wood, the grandson of Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States, and also the great-nephew of Jefferson Davis, served in the Confederate forces and after the war he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. His son Zachary Taylor Wood became a prominent militia officer and policeman in Canada. There were also some who had no major connections with Canada. These included men like John Glenn (1833– 1886) who was from Waco, Texas, and had served in the Confederate forces but then deserted because he could not support slavery. He was in the Union forces until the end of the war, after which he became a prospector and trader in Calgary. Daniel Webster Marsh (1838–1916) also had no links with Canada but had been born in New Hampshire, becoming a sutler in the 30th Wisconsin Regiment, moving to Canada after the end of the war. Thomas Billis Beach (1841–1894), also known as Henri Le Caron, had been born in England and
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enlisted in the 8th Pennsylvanian Reserves in 1861; after the war he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and then to Canada. Some African American slaves also went to Canada as part of the ‘‘underground railroad’’ prior to the war and helped the Union cause while there (see African American Veterans, Civil War). There were also many Confederates who left to settle in Central and South America. The main settlements were in Mexico, British Honduras (modern-day Belize), Brazil, and Venezuela (see also Confederate Veterans in Brazil; Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil)). They included Confederates such as John Randolph Tucker, who served in the Peruvian navy, and Hunter Davidson, who served in the Confederate Navy and settled in Paraguay. There were also Union veterans who served in South America, and some who remained in the U.S. Navy and later died in the region— a number being buried at the British Cemetery at Buceo in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in the British Cemetery at Chacarita, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Because of historical ties, and ease of finding work, a number of former Confederate and U.S. veterans settled in the United Kingdom. The naval agent of the Confederate states, James Dunwody Bulloch (1823–1901), remained in Britain after the war and lived in Liverpool where he found work in the cotton industry. In 1883 he wrote The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, which was published in two volumes in 1884. He died in Liverpool on January 7, 1901, and was buried at Toxeth Park Cemetery there. John Low was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and then moved to Savannah, Georgia, enlisting with the Georgia cavalry at the start of the war, later transferring to the CSS Tuscaloosa
and gaining a commission. He returned to Britain, lived in Liverpool, and died on September 6, 1906, being buried in the churchyard of Golborne Parish Church. Two other members of the Confederate Navy also found work in Liverpool: George Horwood, who died on October 5, 1888, and was buried at St. James’ Cemetery, Liverpool; and John Caren, who died in March 1914 and was buried at Liverpool’s Anfield Cemetery. The only other member of the Confederate Navy known to have moved to England was Michael Mars, who was born in Ireland and then moved to Bristol before finding work with the Confederates. He died in August 1878 in London. Thomas Potter and Samuel Brewer, two of the seven crew members of the CSS Alabama who are known to have been born in Liverpool, returned to that city after the war and died there in 1867 and 1886, respectively. Also in England during some of this period was Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912), who had been an aidede-camp to General George B. McClellan and went on to become owner of the New York Tribune; he died in London. A number of Civil War Veterans found work in Europe. In Gary Jennings’s novel Spangle (1988), the fictional Zachary Edge, a colonel in the Confederate Army, leaves for Russia and then for Austria, reaching Paris just ahead of the Prussian Army in 1870. Although his fictional career was undoubtedly constructed to include the turmoil in Europe in the five years after the end of the American Civil War, there were American veterans of the war who were there during some of these events. Finley Anderson, a friend of General Winfield Scott, who reported on the siege of Vicksburg for the New York Herald, was assigned to cover the Austro-Prussian War and
Civil War Veterans Overseas | 125 became famous for cabling the entire speech made by the King of Prussia at the end of the war, the first full story using the Atlantic cable, at a cost of $6,500. Henry Garrison Villard (1835–1900), who had made the mistake of telegraphing a great Union victory at the First Battle of Bull Run, also covered that war. George Washburn Smalley (1833–1916) of the New York Tribune had been attached to the staff of Major General John Fremont. He also covered the Austro-Prussian War, remaining in Europe for the Franco-Prussian War where he was the first American to report on the French defeat at Sedan. William F. G. Shanks (1837–1905), another journalist during the American Civil War, author of one of the more widely quoted accounts of the Battle of Chattanooga, also covered the Franco-Prussian War. The most famous Civil War veteran connected with the African continent was Henry Morton Stanley (1841– 1904). Born in Denbigh, Wales, when he was 18 he had arrived in New Orleans and served in the Civil War on both the Confederate and Union sides, later becoming a journalist and being hired in 1869 to search for Dr. David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer in Africa. Stanley later returned to Britain where he was knighted, and where he died. Bennet Burleigh (ca. 1840–1914) who had served in the Confederate Army, twice being sentenced to death by firing squad and being reprieved, covered the Arab Revolt for the Central News Agency and then the Sudan Campaign for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, obtaining a scoop and being the first to report the death of General Charles George Gordon in 1885. In Australia, local historical societies have worked a good deal on locating the graves of Americans who died in
Australia, and their research has shown many Americans moved to Australia after the Civil War. These societies have located details on 145 U.S. Civil War veterans who died in Australia, some 62 being in New South Wales and 53 in Victoria. Some of their graves have now been marked. Among the men identified was Alfred Galen Crawford who served in the 4th Massachusetts Heavy Artillery Regiment during the war, went to Australia, and became mayor of Chiltern before becoming an associate of the family of the bushranger Ned Kelly. Also included was James Hardacre, who was a migrant from England where he had been active in the Chartist Movement. Working as a mechanic in the United States and serving in the Union forces, his son Herbert Freemont Hardacre became a prominent politician in Queensland, in the north of Australia. The prominent confidence trickster, Arthur Bently Worthington, also known as Oakley Crawford, was born in 1847 in New York, serving towards the end of the American Civil War, fleeing the United States because of family problems, including bigamy, and settling in New Zealand. He later moved to Australia where he spent seven years in jail before returning to the United States where he died in 1917. Three veterans of the Union forces are known to be buried in New Zealand. The ‘‘opening’’ of Japan by Matthew C. Perry had taken place in 1853—Perry himself died in 1858—and after the American Civil War a number of U.S. citizens moved to Japan for a wide range of reasons. Some, such as the fictional Nathan Algren (played by Tom Cruise) in the film The Last Samurai (2003), were to train the newly rearmed Japanese army, but many had more
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mundane roles. Alfred Eliab Buck (1832–1902), who was from Maine, served in the Union army in the Civil War and in 1868 was a presidential elector for Alabama, being elected himself to the U.S. House of Representatives for Alabama. He served as U.S. minister to Japan from 1897 until his death there in 1902. His body was brought back and interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Confederate General James Longstreet became a Republican after the war and U.S. minister to Turkey. There are many other veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies who also settled overseas; those named are, necessarily, only a handful of them who have come to public notice, to show the rich diversity of the life of the veterans overseas after the end of the Civil War. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Hill, Lawrence F. ‘‘Confederate Exodus to Latin America.’’ Southwestern Historical Quarterly 39 (1936): 100–34, 161–99, 309–26. Matthews, Joseph. George W. Smalley: Forty Years a Foreign Correspondent. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1973. Roth, Mitchel P. Historical Dictionary of War Journalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. Weaver, Blanche Henry Clark. ‘‘Confederate Emigration to Brazil.’’ The Journal of Southern History 27, no. 1 (February 1961): 33–53.
COAST GUARD VETERANS Formed by merging the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Life-Saving
Service in 1915, the United States Coast Guard has at all times been a part of the nation’s armed forces (Public Law 239 of January 28, 1915), yet because it was, during peacetime, in the Treasury Department until 1967, then the Transportation Department, and today the Homeland Security Department, it has often been overlooked or forgotten as a branch of the nation’s armed services. This situation has affected Coast Guard veterans and their perception by the general public. Coast Guard personnel, and their predecessors in the Revenue Cutter Service, have served in every armed conflict since the U.S. Constitution was ratified. In fact, they proudly proclaim themselves ‘‘the oldest continuous seagoing armed service’’ since the U.S. Navy was not created until 1798. However, those who honorably served in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and its successor, the U.S. Coast Guard, have always been regarded as fellow veterans by those who served in the other branches of the armed forces. Veterans of the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service frequently join with veterans of other services in national veterans’ organizations. The first of these was the Grand Army of the Republic, founded in Decatur, Illinois, on April 6, 1866. Membership was limited to honorably discharged veterans of the Union army, navy, marines or Revenue Cutter Service who had served between April 12, 1861, and April 9, 1865. By 1890 the Grand Army of the Republic numbered 409,489 veterans of the ‘‘War of Rebellion,’’ among them Revenue Cutter Service veterans. Soon after the Spanish-American War ended in early 1899, discharged veterans rushed to form fraternal societies. Among these were the Spanish War
Coast Guard Veterans Veterans, the Spanish-American War Veterans, the Servicemen of the Spanish War, American Veterans of Foreign Service, the Army of the Philippines, the Veteran Army of the Philippines, the Legion of Spanish War Veterans, and many other smaller organizations. At the turn of the century, many of these groups began to merge. In 1904, the three largest groups, the Spanish War Veterans, the Spanish-American War Veterans, and the Servicemen of the Spanish War amalgamated into the United Spanish War Veterans. They would become the largest and most influential of the SpanishAmerican War societies. Membership included some of the over 600 Revenue Cutter Service personnel who served in this war. At the same time some of these veterans banded together and formed organizations that would become known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. Membership was limited to those who received a campaign medal for overseas service during wartime. Many Revenue Cutter Service veterans had served in the Philippines, Cuba, or Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and were eligible to join. After chapters were formed in Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, the movement quickly gained momentum. By 1915, membership grew to 5,000; by 1936, membership was almost 200,000. In 1919, a group of officers from the American Expeditionary Force formed a temporary committee to establish a veterans’ organization for those who had served during what was then called ‘‘The Great War.’’ The first organization meeting took place in Paris in March 1919; about 1,000 officers and enlisted men attended. The meeting, known as the Paris Caucus, adopted a temporary
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constitution and the name the American Legion. It also elected an executive committee to complete the organization’s work. At first it considered each soldier of the AEF a member of the Legion. The executive committee named a subcommittee to organize veterans at home in the United States. The Legion held a second organizing caucus in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1919. The American Legion, unlike the Veterans of Foreign Wars, did not require overseas service for membership, only service in a branch of the armed forces during wartime. As a result it quickly became and remains the largest veterans’ organization and since its founding has included many Coast Guard veterans. By the late 1970s, it was clear the established veterans’ groups had failed to make a priority of the issues of concern to Vietnam War veterans. As a result, a vacuum existed within the nation’s legislative and public agenda. In January 1978, a small group of Vietnam veteran activists came to Washington, DC, searching for allies to support the creation of an advocacy organization devoted exclusively to the needs of Vietnam veterans. Initially known as the Council of Vietnam Veterans, by the summer of 1979, the Council of Vietnam Veterans had transformed into Vietnam Veterans of America, a veterans’ service organization made up of, and devoted to, Vietnam veterans. Membership is open to U.S. armed forces veterans who served on active duty (for other than training purposes) in the Republic of Vietnam between February 28, 1961, and May 7, 1975, or in any duty location between August 5, 1964, and May 7, 1975. Approximately 8,000 Coast Guardsmen served in Southeast Asia between 1965 and 1975. Many of these
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Coast Guardsmen joined this national veterans’ organization. WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) National was started in 1979 by a group of women who served together in the navy. They wanted to start an organization to share their love for the navy and each other nationwide. This organization now includes all women sea service veterans (U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, and Merchant Marines) and women on active duty today, including those women who served in the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARs) during World War II. The first distinct veterans’ organization for Coast Guardsmen was for those who had attended its academy, established in 1876 as the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction. In December 1887 an alumni association was established in Washington, DC. In 1914 the name of the school was changed to the Revenue Cutter Service Academy. In 1915, with the merger of the LifeSaving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard, the school received its current name, the United States Coast Guard Academy. Regular membership in the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association, the oldest and largest organization of Coast Guard veterans, has been open to any person who has been sworn in and entered on the rolls as a cadet, U.S. Coast Guard, for the full and regular course prescribed for his or her class at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, whose service has not been terminated under other than honorable conditions and whose class has graduated. Not long after Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service began patrolling the Bering Sea. In 1895
those patrols became formalized as the Bering Sea Patrol. In 1975, 60 years after the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service to form the Coast Guard, Coast Guard members who sailed the Bering Sea in the 1920s and 1930s decided to form a group called the Bering Sea Patrol Veterans Association. Since then, veterans of the Bering Sea Patrol have been gathering to swap sea stories. In 1964 the Bering Sea Patrol was renamed the Alaska Patrol. It became obvious to the membership that they needed to open their doors to any who had served the Coast Guard in Alaska, thus the name changed to the Bering Sea Patrol-Alaska Veteran Reunion Association. Their common bond is that they served at least 21 days of duty in Alaska or Alaskan waters. There are also associate members who are friends and/ or widow/widowers of former regular members. This group is currently considering a name change to U.S. Coast Guard Alaska Veterans Reunion Association. In the spring of 1977, Andrew Wall, George F. Thometz, Marion ‘‘Gus’’ Shrode, and Norman L. Horton, all retired Coast Guard aviators, informally organized a fraternal association open to all pilots who had flown or were flying Coast Guard aircraft. The organization, called the Ancient Order of the Pterodactyl, was later expanded to include all personnel who flew in Coast Guard aircraft under official orders. Only those who have willfully placed themselves in harm’s way and have known that innermost feeling that comes from the personal experience that results in the saving of life or property can understand the bonding and uniqueness of Coast Guard aviation crew members. The Order is established as a nonprofit fraternal organization and is operated
Coast Guard Veterans within the circumscribed bylaws of its constitution. Each year, members of the organization gather at a site chosen by consensus of the members. The first gathering, now known as a ‘‘Roost,’’ was held at the Naval Station Officer’s Club in Long Beach. Since then annual conventions have been held each year at different places around the country. From that humble beginning in 1977, today’s organization has grown to over 1,200 members. Membership is comprised of active duty officers, enlisted, retired, and former Coast Guard Aviation personnel, and supporters who are actively engaged in the pursuit of all of its objectives. Considerable emphasis has been placed on recognizing the accomplishments of the current Active Duty Aviation Force, continuing the enlargement and perpetuation of Coast Guard aviation history within the service, and continuing support of Coast Guard Aviation at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida, and at other appropriate museums. At the ‘‘Roost’’ in Traverse City in September 2006, the membership opted to change its name to the Coast Guard Aviation Association (and retained the former official name, The Ancient Order of the Pterodactyl, as a nickname) along with the completion of all the requirements to become a 503C nonprofit organization (no longer a fraternal organization). The U.S. Coast Guard has participated in every American war, declared and undeclared, since 1790. Its combat veterans have contributed outstanding service, and many paid the ultimate price for safeguarding the freedom of the nation. Coast Guard veterans of those wars joined the inclusive veterans’ organizations listed above. However, in July
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1985 the Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association was founded as a nonprofit corporation of active duty members, retired members, reserve members, and honorably discharged former members of the U.S. Coast Guard who served in, or provided direct support to, recognized combat situations while serving as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association is dedicated to extending the knowledge of the Coast Guard’s service and participation in those significant historical events in U.S. history. Three years after its founding, the Coast Guard Combat Veterans Association created an auxiliary, made up of spouses of members in good standing. A handful of Coast Guard Vietnam veterans who gathered to march in the July 13, 1986, veterans’ parade in Chicago became convinced that the Coast Guard should have its own organization for service veterans which would permit open dialogue and promote camaraderie. They formed the Coast Guard Sea Veterans of America. Membership would include all current and past members of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. Having sea duty is not a requirement. The Coast Guard Sea Veterans of America is an organization that provides a social forum for current members and veterans of any Coast Guard duty station, be it air, sea, shore, or office and from any time period. In 1998 Doak Walker, a retired chief radioman in the Coast Guard, formed the 255-foot Owasco Class Cutter Sailors Association for all those Coast Guard veterans who had served aboard this class of vessel. The last of the 13 vessels of this class were taken out of service in 1974. With a dwindling membership
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base, the organization broadened it membership in 2007 to include all veterans who had served on ocean station vessels. It is now know as the Ocean Station Veterans organization. Large Coast Guard vessels served on ocean stations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from 1940 until 1980. The Coast Guard Tug Association was founded in 2002 in Cleveland, Ohio, by Douglas O’Dell, a former seaman on the USCGC Kaw, named after an American Indian people in Kansas, to continue the camaraderie and esprit de corps of former Coast Guard tug sailors and personnel. It was also formed to create and sustain the history and heritage of all former and current Coast Guard tug vessels of any length, and the men and women who served in them, by establishing and maintaining a data base and archive of historical information regarding those ships; collecting, cataloguing, and displaying appropriate artifacts (including vessels) at designated locations to maintain a physical, visual record of said vessels available to members and the general public; and conducting association gatherings and fund raising initiatives. Its goal is to educate the public of the vital role these cutters played in search and rescue, ice-breaking for commercial shipping and maintaining aids to navigation, and to highlight the important role they played in United States’ maritime history. Coast Guard veterans, whether active in inclusive veteran organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, or distinctive Coast Guard veterans’ organizations like the Coast Guard Combat Veterans or Coast Guard Sea Veterans, have played an important role in the nation’s history. Although a smaller
number than veterans of other services, they served honorably during their time in the Coast Guard and remain active citizens in various veterans’ organizations. C. Douglas Kroll
Further Reading Evans, Stephen H. The United States Coast Guard 1790–1915: A Definitive History. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 1949. Johnson, Robert Erwin. Guardians of the Sea: History of the United States Coast Guard 1915 to the Present. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 1987.
COMMUNITY SERVICE OF VETERANS’ ORGANIZATIONS In addition to caring for the needs of their members, the larger veterans’ organizations have engaged in extensive community service that has had a major effect on American life. Many of these programs combine both altruism and community spirit with a desire to gain goodwill among the general population, to ensure that memories of their wartime sacrifices and deeds are perpetuated, and also to instill values of patriotism, especially among younger Americans. As the largest veterans’ organization, the American Legion has led the way in these programs.. National Commander Hanford MacNider was a prime mover here, with what was called the ‘‘Iowa idea.’’ He argued that otherwise it would ‘‘look like they were just looking for handouts’’ and persuaded that state’s department to enact a rule that every post
Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations ‘‘must each year put over at least one unselfish, conservative, and worthwhile endeavor or have their charter taken away from them’’ (Pencak 1981, 280). During the 1920s and 1930s, the Legion frequently criticized left-wing educators and received bad publicity for interfering in school affairs. It realized that developing positive programs of its own would be less controversial and, indeed, praiseworthy. In 1921, the Legion began cooperating with the National Education Association in running National Education Week in the schools. Two years later, posts began to sponsor Boy Scout troops. Legion participation in campaigns to end illiteracy that decade perfectly fit its program that immigrants needed to be taught American patriotic values. In 1926, the National Convention adopted the Iowa idea and suggested swimming pools, playgrounds, libraries, and parks as desirable activities. By 1941, 30 percent of Legion posts sponsored Boy Scout troops. Many of the posts which were too small or poor to sponsor activities merged with other community organizations or neighboring posts to do good. One post in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, for example, with only 15 members built a playground; organized an emergency relief unit; sponsored vaccinations, a health campaign and relief work among the poor; supported the town library; and organized baseball, volleyball, and basketball teams in addition to handling 32 veterans’ claims and finding 8 jobs in 1931 alone. Foreign posts where American veterans overseas belonged to the Legion were especially active. The Legion has maintained posts in London, Paris, Rome, Havana (before 1959), Central American and Caribbean countries, Poland, and Turkey. Many of these
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veterans worked for U.S. corporations. In Tientsin, China, veterans in the interwar period held sweepstakes that enabled them to build tennis courts, a bowling alley, a library, an auditorium, and contribute liberally to relief efforts. Junior baseball was the Legion’s most famous and poplar activity. It was the brainchild of K. D. Munro of South Dakota, the first state to implement the program in 1925. Within a year, 16 states had followed, the first championship going to a team sponsored by an allwoman post. By 1930 it was nationwide, included a half million boys, and culminated in the Junior World Series. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landes was a big supporter and frequently threw out the first ball at the series, and the major leagues kicked in $20,000 a year to defray expenses. As ‘‘Stub’’ Allison, the director of the program in South Dakota, commented, ‘‘you will catch them when they are just a bunch of clay in your hands,’’ and turn them from ‘‘a bunch of softies’’ into ‘‘a bunch of fellows who can meet competition at all times . . . . How can you teach Americanism with a pencil and paper? . . . When the gong rings again [note the boxing metaphor] as it did in 1917, maybe these little cookies will go in there and do their stuff’’ (Pencak 1981, 284). Beginning in 1935, the Legion added the Boys State (and also subsequently the Boys Nation) program. Representatives from all the states who won Legion school awards met each year in imitation of their state and national governments, with some boys going to a national meeting in Washington, DC, each year. Here, too, the Legion was in the forefront of realizing that learning by doing was frequently far more effective than
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classroom instruction. Again the motive was patriotism: ‘‘if the American Legion obtains the confidence of our boys, those same boys will stand by the principles of the Legion’’ (Pencak 1981, 287). Nevertheless, the Legion sponsors thousands of essay contests on patriotic topics and awards medals in schools throughout the nation. The Legion also turned its attention to immigrants. Upset that previously immigrants who could neither speak English nor knew much about their new home were obtaining citizenship, the Legion gained the support of judges to require basic knowledge of civics and American history as a prerequisite for naturalization. The Legion then had these judges preside over ceremonies where numerous new Americans would take their oaths at once and be duly impressed with the importance of the step they had taken. Community service and service to veterans frequently coincided. At the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933, held at the height of the Great Depression, the Cook County Council of Legion Posts lobbied to have unemployed veterans put to work at the fair, with the result that 39 percent of those employed were ex-servicemen, and of these 80 percent belonged to the Legion. They sold tickets to fair events for a commission; 38 Legion bands offered entertainment at various times; the Legion operated an information booth, ‘‘Legion House,’’ to inform people about the organization; and provided auxiliary policemen for the inevitable crowd control, capping it all off with a grand parade in Soldier Field. Conservation was another area in which the Legion, especially in Minnesota, was active. As power companies proposed to dam rivers and flood much of the Quetico Superior Forest on the
Canadian Border, the Legion lobbied with the Quetico Superior Forest and the Izaak Walton League to preserve ‘‘the only remaining vast wilderness area in the central part of North America, blessed with international historical values, rare scenic qualities, and unique recreation facilities.’’ Instead of fending off Communists and Socialists, it had to refute charges by the Minnesota Power and Light Company that they themselves favored these doctrines, but stood fast and insisted they would ‘‘fight to Doomsday if necessary to resist the fat-fingered Midases who would bring our forests and streams under the sway of the dollar sign.’’ The Legion’s efforts paved the way for what is now a multimillion acre international forest (Pencak 1981, 292). The creation of the National Archives in Washington, DC, also owes much to the Legion, which secured a congressional appropriation of $7 million in 1926 to construct the building on the Mall. The American Historical Association paid tribute to the Legion for ‘‘cordially and effectively pushing the matter.’’ Instead of lobbying for a conventional national World War I monument, the Legion argued that keeping the records safe that veterans would need for their pensions and that would preserve the memory of their deeds would be the most useful tribute possible. (Over half of all government documents since 1776 had been generated by that war.) The Archives Building is, technically, a memorial to World War I Veterans. The Legion also became a leader in child welfare. Emma Puschner, former director of the St. Louis Board of Children’s Guardians, headed the Legion’s Child Welfare Division from 1927 to 1950. Puschner ended the policy of putting war orphans in small rural institutions and instead launched a vigorous
Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations adoption service, meanwhile employing social workers (of whom conservative Legionnaires were suspicious) to monitor the children’s welfare. She ultimately raised $73 million for the Child Welfare Endowment, which aided over seven million children during her tenure. Among other projects, she persuaded the Legion to improve juvenile court and adoption procedures. Posts elected Child Welfare Officers to keep abreast of the problems of children in their communities. Since 1954 the Legion has maintained a Child Welfare Fund which underwrites programs beneficial to children. In 1955, its first three grants went to the Delinquency Control Institute, the National Association for Retarded Children, and the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness. The Legion has also been active in disaster relief. Inspired by impromptu actions of posts during tornadoes in Indiana in 1923 and a mine collapse in Illinois in 1924, Legion posts (and county and state units) developed plans to provide rescues, transportation, medical, and food supplies for emergencies, all the while coordinating with the Red Cross and local authorities for emergency police and fire-fighting duties. Posts performed heroically on many occasions. During the Mississippi River flood of 1927, for instance, the Ladies’ Auxiliary obtained milk to prevent deaths among children, and also tons of candy to replenish rapidly lost calories. In the 1937 floods on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the Legion distributed 5,000 tons of food, 3,000 tons of clothing, operated thousands of boats and hundreds of radio units, and flew airplanes to aid victims. The Legion also raised a quarter-million dollars and maintained refugee camps. The Legion
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set up a Disaster Emergency Relief Fund in the wake of Hurricane Camille in 1969 to aid Legionnaires and their families who were victimized by disasters. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Legionnaires raised money, brought materials to aid the victims, used their posts as emergency centers, and helped in reconstruction efforts. The social service programs of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and AMVETS are similar. They include sponsorship of Scout troops, scholarships, and school awards, and provide volunteer services at hospitals and for other community causes. Blood drives, the Special Olympics, and participation in campaigns against the use of drugs and alcohol by minors are important for all three organizations. AMVETS thrift stores are found nationwide to assist the poor with clothing and household furnishings. The Ladies’ Auxiliaries of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars have provided much of their organizations’ welfare work. The Legion’s auxiliary’s membership grew from about 200,000 in 1921 to over a half million after World War II, whereas the VFW’s had 100,00 members by 1941. AMVETS added a Ladies Auxiliary when it was founded in 1944. The auxiliaries sprang from the war work done at home by women during World War I, when in addition to working in farms and knitting 14 million articles of clothing, they raised over $3.5 billion in war bonds. During the Depression the auxiliaries raised money for the needy through socials, dinners, and other functions and served meals to needy children and adults. In World War II they donated blood, sold bonds, and gathered scrap medal. They have sponsored blood
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drives, letter writing campaigns, and USO shows to assist troops over several wars and in peacetime. Hundreds of thousand of auxiliary volunteers provide millions of hours of service at veterans’ hospitals annually. William Pencak
Further Reading American Legion. www.legion.org. AMVETS. www.amvets.org. AMVETS: Fifty Years of Proud Service to America’s Veterans. Lanham, MD:, Amvets, 1994. Bottoms, Bill. The VFW: An Illustrated History of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. Rockville, MD: Woodbine House, 1991. Pencak, William. For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981. Veterans of Foreign Wars. www.vfw.org.
CONFEDERATE VETERANS ASSOCIATIONS Almost as soon as the surviving Confederate veterans returned home in 1865, they began to form veterans organizations. Various states and army units claim the honor of being the first to do so, but this is impossible to determine. But most shared common goals. For instance, in 1866, the ‘‘small remnant’’ of Reynolds’ Arkansas Brigade met in Little Rock, Arkansas, ‘‘to aid the destitute widows and orphans of their deceased comrades; to assist the disabled; to erect a monument to perpetuate the memory of those whose lives were given in a noble causes, and to prepare and publish a history of the brigade.’’ With a few verbal changes,
the same purposes could be found in the constitution of the United Confederate Veterans, formed in 1889. The names of many of these associations demonstrate that they were organized by company (the Washington Light Infantry Charitable Association of Charleston, South Carolina; the Richmond [Virginia] Howitzers; the Jackson Guards, former members of Company G, First Arkansas Regiment); by regiment (Third North Carolina Infantry Association; Third Georgia Regiment, Old First Virginia Infantry Association); by brigade (Cabell’s Brigade in Clarksville, Arkansas; Terry’s Texas Rangers in Austin; the first brigade South Carolina Regulators in Charleston); by city (Charleston’s Survivor Association; Confederate Relief and Historical Association of Memphis); or by county (Confederate Veterans Association of Fulton County, Georgia). Informally, Confederate veterans comprised the majority of various organizations, the most famous of which was the Ku Klux Klan, headed by former General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In the years after the war, they terrorized black citizens and their white allies, to whom they managed to affix the names carpetbaggers (for Northerners) and scalawags (for Southerners). They called themselves ‘‘ghosts of the Confederacy’’ to convince gullible blacks that they were really Confederate soldiers returning from the dead to take over the South again. Although Union forces during Reconstruction (1866–1877) tried to check this violence, it ultimately prevailed and the white South was allowed to control itself in return for Southern Democrats acquiescing in the disputed election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.
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In 1914, the Confederate Veteran Memorial was dedicated in Arlington Cemetery. It was designed by internationally famous sculptor Moses Ezekiel, who fought for the Confederacy as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute at the Battle of New Market in 1864. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-91974]
Formal statewide organizations of Confederate veterans only developed later out of grass roots interest. For instance, in 1869, General Wade Hampton, who himself had founded the veterans’ society of Walhalla, South Carolina, became first president of the Survivor’s Association of South Carolina, the only statewide Confederate veterans’ society formed in the 1860s. Other states took longer. For instance, Maryland organized in 1871, Tennessee in 1876, Missouri in 1881, and Georgia in 1889. Even larger associations were formed by veterans of particular armies. The Army of Northern Virginia, in 1870, led by General Jubal Early, the primary publicist of the ‘‘Lost
Cause’’ argument, devoted its energies primarily to the erection of a statue of their late, beloved General Robert E. Lee, who died in that year. The Army of Tennessee organized in 1887 under the leadership of General P. G. T. Beauregard. The first major Confederate veterans’ association, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), was formed at a convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 19, 1889, following a call sent out by the Louisiana Division of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Louisiana Division of the Army of Tennessee, and the Veteran Confederate States Cavalry Association. Nine organizations
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from Louisiana and Tennessee answered the call and sent 52 delegates who elected former Confederate General John Brown Gordon, head of the Georgia Veterans Association, as the first commander in chief. He was reelected annually until 1904, and his strong leadership was responsible for much of the UCV’s success. In its constitution, the UCV stated that its purposes were ‘‘strictly social, literary, historical, and benevolent’’ and that posts or members who brought up matters of politics and religion could be expelled. Writing of a history of the war from the Confederate perspective, and preserving its ‘‘relics or mementoes’’ along with a record of the service of every Confederate veteran was mentioned first in the constitution, followed by the intention to ‘‘cherish the ties of friendship’’ and ‘‘care for the disabled . . . the needy, the widows, and the orphans.’’ UCV adopted a mixed military and democratic organization, much as Confederate units had chosen their own commanders during the Civil War. Conventions annually elected a commander in chief, who with the adjutant general (administrative head), chief of staff, quartermaster general, and chaplain general, ran the general headquarters along with committees devoted to history, relief, finances, and monuments. Three divisions represented the regions for which the armies of Northern Virginia, Tennessee, and Trans-Mississippi (in charge of operations west of the Mississippi River) had assumed primary responsibility during the war. Each was headed by a lieutenant-general and state departments by major generals. Selfgoverning camps, bivouacs, or posts as they were variously called constituted the backbone of the organization: each
could decide on who was fit to be a member, provided he had seen honorable service during the war. In fact, the UCV resembled in both organization and purpose the Grand Army of the Republic (see entry) organized by Union veterans. To distinguish itself from the Ku Klux Klan and other groups that had given the postwar South a bad reputation for violence and lawlessness, the UCV meetings were open and frequently occurred at the same time as other meetings, with guests both male and female present. Most existing Confederate veterans’ organizations joined the UCV, although some of them also retained their own identity. At its height in 1903, it had 1,523 camps and about 80,000 members, or one-third of all surviving Confederate veterans. Since the UCV only collected $4,732.28 in dues that year (membership was 10 cents a year, allowing even the poorest veteran to join) it can be assumed about half the camps were not ‘‘in good standing.’’ They were not expelled, however, and many camps and members went in and out of good standing based on their leaders and energy. By the 1920s, the UCV had few surviving members and it held its sixtieth and final reunion in 1950. The Sons of Confederate Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy continued to preserve the memories of the Lost Cause and still do so today. The UCV made itself known to the public each year at its annual reunion, or convention. Both cities which sought to host the reunion and private citizens collected money (approximately $70,000 each year in the first decade of the twentieth century) to entice the 80,000 to 100,000 veterans and others who came during those years to meet with old friends, show support for
Confederate Veterans Associations patriotic legislation and benefits for the unfortunate veterans and their families, and refresh the local economy. Speeches by veterans and other notables, banners bearing the images of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and other Confederate heroes, musical entertainment (‘‘Dixie’’ was omnipresent), parades, prayers, and parties were among the reunions’ activities. Revelry was encouraged by local officials like Tennessee Governor James Frazier, who in 1904 told the Nashville police to consider casualties as victims of ‘‘sun or other stroke.’’ Most of the attendees did not sit through the numerous committee reports and resolutions which made up the convention’s substantive work. In 1894, for instance, the History Committee, headed by General E. Kirby Smith, determined that the North had monopolized the history of the war and disparaged Southern motives and gallantry. (The committee especially insisted that the war was fought for states’ rights and liberty, not to preserve slavery.) It recommend southern universities establish history professorships to teach state and national history from a correct perspective. In 1899, each state appointed a subcommittee of three to examine textbooks currently used and explain any faults to authors and publishers. The committee also sponsored the 12-volume Confederate Military History, edited by Clement A. Evans, which was published in Atlanta in 1899. Veterans ultimately received pensions and disability benefits from all the Confederate states. Depending on the locality, UCV camps would either petition their state representatives or bluntly ask them how they stood on these proposals, strongly implying that they would not receive the veteran vote if they failed to support the heroes of the Lost Cause. Despite its constitution’s
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ban on politics, the UCV did not consider veterans’ benefits, like the proper teaching of history and the establishment of appropriate memorials, matters of politics, but of self-evident patriotism, of right versus. wrong. The UCV never asked for money from the federal government for itself, but did lobby for increased federal benefits for Mexican War Veterans and their families, most of whom were Southern and many of whom later fought for the Confederacy. The UCV did, however, lobby unsuccessfully that the tax collected on cotton during Reconstruction after the Civil War by the federal government be returned to the states, which then (it hoped) would spend the money on causes favored by the veterans. At the central level, the UCV was not particularly successful in raising funds. For instance, after General Kirby Smith died in 1893, the entire membership only contributed $433.75 to aid his impoverished family. After 10 years of making a monument to Jefferson Davis its main memorial priority, in 1899 the UCV only had $20,000 and turned this task over to the Daughters of the Confederacy. State and local camps, however, were much more successful in working to help local hardship cases and erect monuments. In 1912, as a result of the decreasing tension between the sections, the South was finally allowed to erect a monument at Arlington National Cemetery to its fallen veterans. Although it never received a dime of federal money, or pensions, as did Union veterans, thanks to the lobbying of the Grand Army of the Republic from the federal government, the UCV was not only a principal vehicle through which the South remembered the Civil War, but also a respectable organization that came to cooperate with its union
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Confederate veterans at a reunion in Washington, DC, in 1917. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-18442]
counterpart. It became an important means through which the nation as a whole came to regard the conflict as a ‘‘brothers’ war.’’ Not only were Southerners considered equally heroic by the early-twentieth century, but their cause, far from being lost, became divorced from the stigma of slavery and accepted as equally valid as the Northern struggle for union. William Pencak
Further Reading Eckert, Ralph Lowell. John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner, American. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.
Logue, Larry. To Appomattox and Beyond: The Civil War Soldier in War and Peace. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1996. White, William. The Confederate Veteran. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Co., 1962.
CONFEDERATE VETERANS IN BRAZIL Following the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War, several thousand Americans resolved to leave the United States in face of the occupation of southern states by Union forces. An accurate estimate of the total is unknown, although there is some agreement that between 4,000 and 9,000 set out to Brazil.
Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) The immigrants’ quest for a new Dixieland was consonant with Emperor Pedro II’s interest in developing cotton farming in Brazil, as well as in increasing the number of skilled immigrants to a country whose population mostly consisted of black slaves. Pedro II initially encouraged the creation of several distinct colonies although the only one to really become prosperous was Vila Americana, the settlement founded by Colonel William H. Norris in the state of Sa˜o Paulo. The waves of immigration to Brazil coincided with the way the North’s policy of Reconstruction toward the South developed. The number of immigrants to Brazil was larger immediately after the war ended, as Union troops, many of them African Americans, occupied the South while former Confederates could no longer vote or hold office. Immigration fell off after 1870 as ex-Confederates began to regain political power and effectively put an end to both Northern control and black political rights. As a result, most of the American families returned to the South from Brazil. However, there were those who chose to stay. Although initially the Confederados—as the members of the colony are known in Brazil—sought to preserve their ethnic and cultural identity, over the years many of the descendants married into local families from the state of Sa˜o Paulo. Marriages between Confederados and descendants of other immigrant families that had settled in the area also became commonplace. When the original immigrants died, from 1867 on burials took place at the Campo Cemetery, as Brazilian Catholics did not allow Protestants to be interred in their burial grounds. Within a hundred years of the arrival of the original Confederates, most descendants had blended into Brazil’s ethnic melting pot. In this regard, the Americans did
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not distinguish themselves from other immigrant groups to Brazil: the second and third generations were more or less indifferent about their cultural heritages and did not hesitate to embrace Brazilian multiracial and multicultural identity. For a smaller part of the Confederados, attempts to maintain a stronger connection with their original traditions persisted during most of the twentieth century. The Fraternity of American Descendants appeared in 1955. Concerned initially with the keeping of the Campo Cemetery, the fraternity nurtured further contacts with members of Confederate societies in America. The Fraternity still holds ceremonies at the Campo Cemetery and directs its efforts at tightening the ties between Confederados and descendants of Confederate veterans from America. Cesar Campiani Maximiliano See also Confederate Veterans Associations; Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil)
Further Reading Harter, C. E. The Lost Colony of the Confederacy. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2000. SCV Camp 5163. ‘‘Los Confederados.’’ www.confederados.com. Weaver, Blanche Henry Clark. ‘‘Confederate Emigration to Brazil.’’ The Journal of Southern History 27, no 1 (February 1961): 33–53.
CONFEDERATE VETERANS IN LATIN AMERICA (EXCLUDING BRAZIL) At the end of the American Civil War, many Confederates wanted to leave the
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devastated southern states, with some heading to Central and South America, although General Robert E. Lee tried to get them to remain in the South and rebuild their states. In the end the vast majority of discontented ex-Confederates remained, but 9,000 did move to Latin America in the years immediately after the war. Emperor Pedro II encouraged them to go to Brazil—which still practiced slavery—where they became known as the ‘‘Confederados’’ (see Confederate Veterans in Brazil). About 2,500 went to Mexico, about 1,000 to British Honduras (modern-day Belize), and 500 to Venezuela, with other families and individuals moving to Europe. However, as white Southerners began retaking control of their states’ governments by the mid-1870s, about 80 percent of these people returned to the United States. Some former Confederates who decided to leave the southern states headed for Mexico, moving there by land. This was the subject of the Hollywood film The Undefeated (1969) with Rock Hudson playing a former Confederate colonel leading the Southerners, their paths crossing with that of a former Union colonel, played by John Wayne. As in the film, the Confederates who arrived in Mexico found themselves in the middle of a civil war in that country. The ruler of Mexico in 1865 was Maximilian, an Austrian archduke who, with French help, had proclaimed himself Emperor in 1863. His government was keen to get Confederates to settle in Mexico realizing that they would be loyal supporters. To this end, a Confederate naval officer and author, Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury—who is honored with a statue along with Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia—went to Mexico and helped draw up a plan by which Confederate emigration could be organized. The Mexican Imperial Government agreed to freedom of worship, which would encourage Confederates, the vast majority of whom were ardent Protestants, to settle in a largely Roman Catholic country. There would also be government positions, salaried posts, and land grants, with Maury being appointed as Imperial Commissioner of Immigration and distributing tens of thousands of leaflets urging Confederates to migrate. A number of high-profile Confederate military figures also decided to join the migration. The most well-known was General Jubal Early, ‘‘Old Jube,’’ who had led the raid on Washington, DC, which had reached Silver Springs, Maryland, on July 11, 1864. Others included General Edmund Kirby Smith who had been Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department; General John Magruder who commanded the Confederate army in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862; General Henry Watkins Allen, the governor of Louisiana from 1864 to 1865, the end of the war; and Sterling ‘‘Old Pap’’ Price, governor of Missouri from 1853 to 1857, and later Confederate general. These high-profile migrants encouraged many others to move to Mexico where, with money provided by the Mexican government, Henry Watkins Allen ran an Englishlanguage newspaper until his death in 1866. By this time Maury had been appointed Director of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory, with Price trying to get a military appointment under Maximilian, largely based on the reputation he had gained from his raid into Missouri
Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) in September–October 1864. Indeed General Joseph O. ‘‘Jo’’ Shelby from Kentucky, who had distinguished himself on Price’s Raid, also went to Mexico with much of his brigade, trying to get the men who went with him incorporated into the Mexican Army. By this time Maximilian, although he was in need of soldiers, was trying to appeal to the Mexicans rather than rely on the French troops that were bolstering his army, and turned him down. Most of the Confederates who went to Mexico settled near Cordoba, southeast of Mexico City and close to the port of Veracruz, which had been Maximilian’s original base after it had been captured from the Liberal opposition led by President Benito Juarez. The land had belonged to the Catholic Church and then had been seized by Juarez, the populist and Indian president whom Maximilian’s supporters had deposed. The Confederate area became known as Carlota Colony—named after Maximilian’s wife—growing cotton, sugar cane, and coffee. The Confederate Hotel in Cordoba was the place where veterans and others met to discuss the ‘‘Lost Cause.’’ Unfortunately for the Confederates in Mexico, the war did not go well for Maximilian’s Conservatives. Following threats from the U.S. government to intervene, on February 5, 1867, the French soldiers who had been the mainstay of Maximilian’s armed forces were withdrawn. What remained of Maximilian’s army was forced onto the defensive, and on May 14, 1867, Maximilian himself was captured, being executed on June 19. The defeat of the Conservatives led to Mexican peasants attacking the Carlota Colony, and the Confederates were forced to flee soon after they had tried to make a new life in Mexico.
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After the disaster of Mexico, General Jubal Early went to Canada and planned to go to New Zealand, but eventually he went back to the United States, practicing law before getting a position on the Louisiana Lottery and making a nationwide reputation for himself as the principal exponent of ‘‘The Lost Cause’’ ideology which proclaimed the Confederates had fought for noble goals such as states’ rights rather than to preserve slavery. Sterling Price returned to Missouri in ill health, having lost all his money, and died in 1867, within a year of returning to his native state. On a symbolic note, when Jo Shelby returned to the United States, he sank his Confederate battle flag in the Rio Grande River close to the modern-day township of Eagle Pass, in Texas. He was anxious that the standard would never fall into Union hands. The Confederate veterans in Mexico did not have much success, but those who went to British Honduras were able to establish a new community. Located in Central America, British Honduras owed its creation to the American Civil War—the British first appointed a lieutenant-governor, claiming land belonging to Honduras to be British in 1862, trusting the U.S. Civil War would prevent the American government from insisting on the Monroe Declaration. During the war, connections between British Honduras and the Confederate States were established with the former used for smuggling weapons. In 1865 some Confederates saw British Honduras as a far more viable option for settling than Mexico—the fact that it was English-speaking and had a largely plantation-style economy were important. An Episcopal priest, the Reverend R. Dawson, who with his family had
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moved from Mobile, Alabama, in 1861, helped many others to move there at the end of the Civil War. Initially many were Texans who had started moving in 1864, but these were later followed by many from Virginia, with B. R, Duval establishing a settlement called New Richmond. The veterans organized themselves into self-help groups, but after several years many returned to the United States. Of the Confederate veterans who did remain in British Honduras, eight families established a settlement at Forest Home, close to the mouth of the Rio Grande River. Today the settlement and the nearby cemetery are minor tourist sites. Elsewhere in Latin America, other Confederate veterans were able to establish new lives. The most successful was probably John Randolph Tucker, a naval commander who was in charge of the Patrick Henry during the clash between the Merrimac and the Monitor off Hampton Roads. In 1865 he was the last of Robert E. Lee’s major commanders to surrender to the Army of the Potomac. Tucker moved to Peru where he was, very quickly, appointed as a rear admiral in the Peruvian Navy and commanded the joint Peruvian-Chilean fleet in their war with Spain which ended in 1866. However, threats from the U.S. Pacific Squadron and also dislike of his quick promotion by Peruvians led to his resignation after only eight months as commander. He then moved to the interior of Peru where he was appointed president of the Hydrographic Commission of the Amazon, working on charting the headwaters of the Amazon to allow for an increase in steam navigation. Elsewhere in Latin America there were also small numbers of Confederate veterans. About 500 headed to Venezuela
which, curiously, in 1864 had changed the country’s name to the United States of Venezuela. In 1865 Juan Criso´tomo Falco´ n had become president, and he was happy to welcome Confederate veterans to the country. However, in December 1867 the Azul Revolution overthrew Falco´ n, forcing him to flee on June 5, 1868, making the position of the Confederates extremely difficult. Some settled in Argentina where a few found themselves fighting in the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–1870) in which Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay killed nearly the entire male population of Paraguay. Additionally, Hunter Davidson, from Virginia, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a lieutenantcommander in the Confederate Navy. He moved to Pirayu, southeast of the Paraguayan capital Asuncion but remained in touch with the Confederate veterans’ organizations. Some of his letters were published in some of their journals up until his death in 1913. The end of the American Civil War had found a number of officers and sailors in the Confederate Navy in various neutral countries around the world. They were worried about returning to the United States because they might be charged with piracy, and a few settled in England, Australia, and elsewhere. Apart from the film The Undefeated (1969), there were a number of novels about the Confederate ‘‘diaspora.’’ The most well known was Paul Wellman’s Angels with Spurs (New York, 1942) about General Jo Shelby leading Confederates to Mexico to fight on the side of Emperor Maximilian. Another more recent one was Garry Jennings’s Spangle (London, 1988) about a fictional Colonel Zachary Edge who served in the Confederate cavalry and was present at the surrender at
Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Appomattox, moving to Russia, and then to Austria, and later to France. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Coker, Elizabeth Boatwright. The Grasshopper King: A Story of Two Confederate Exiles in Mexico during the Reign of Maximilian and Carlota. New York: Dutton, 1981. Davis, Edwin Adams. Fallen Guidon: The Saga of Confederate General Jo Shelby’s March to Mexico. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Hanna, Jackson, and Hanna, Kathryn A. Confederate Exiles in Venezuela. Tuscaloosa, AL: Confederate Publishing, 1960. Hill, Lawrence F. ‘‘Confederate Exodus to Latin America.’’ Southwestern Historical
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Quarterly 39 (1936): 100–34, 161–99, 309–26. Jennings, Gary. Spangle. London: Frederick Muller, 1988. Rolle, Andrew F. The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. Shalhope, Robert E. Sterling Price: Portrait of a Southerner. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1971. Simmons, Donald C., Jr. Confederate Settlements in British Honduras. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2001. Smith, Gene. Maximilian and Carlota: The Habsburg Tragedy in Mexico. London: Harrap, 1974. Wellman, Paul. Angels with Spurs. New York: Lippincott, 1942. Werlich, David P. Admiral of the Amazon: John Randolph Tucker—His Confederate Colleagues, and Peru. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1990.
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D she was directly descended from an individual who had served during the Revolutionary War. Adopting ‘‘God, Home, and Country’’ as their motto, from the time of their founding, the DAR emphasized the dissemination of patriotism throughout the American public, promoting the teaching of patriotic ideals in American schools and advocating a greater awareness of American history. They were also firmly committed to supporting members of the American military and veterans, both at home and abroad. At the onset of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the DAR formed a Nurse Corps, under the leadership of Dr. Anita NewcombMcGee and Red Cross founder Clara Barton. More than 1,000 American women were trained to serve as nurses during this conflict. This emphasis on the part of the DAR on direct, hands-on service to the military and veterans would continue throughout the organization’s existence (see Women Veterans to 1900).
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION In the late-nineteenth century, an enthusiasm for remembering the colonial and revolutionary past seized many members of the American public, especially the descendants of old families. Unsettled by the rapid changes taking place within contemporary American society, numerous Americans looked nostalgically back to their nation’s beginnings. Americans felt a desire to return to, and reinforce, what they perceived as the revolutionary ideals of patriotism, selfless service devotion to one’s country, and wholehearted support for the military. In 1890, a group of American women, seized with the desire to honor their revolutionary forbearers and to perpetuate conservative ideals in contemporary American society, formed the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in Washington, DC. The organization was open to any American woman who could prove that
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From the time of the organization’s founding to the present day, the DAR has strongly emphasized service to American veterans. The DAR is the founder of Project Patriot, a group devoted to aiding American service people both in the United States and abroad, through advocacy, fund raising, aid packages, and letter-writing campaigns. In the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, members of the DAR have volunteered in community veterans’ centers, veterans’ organizations, veterans’ hospitals, and long-term care facilities. The DAR is one of the largest national groups to be involved in the Veterans Affairs Volunteer organization and is a founding member of the Veterans History Project, an organization designed to record and disseminate oral histories of American veterans. The DAR was a significant fund-raiser for the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and the memorial dedicated to women’s military service in Arlington, Virginia. It frequently gives awards to veterans for their valor and service. Founded to honor the military service of veterans of the Revolutionary War, over the course of more than 100 years, the Daughters of the American Revolution have sought to educate the American public about veterans’ service to the nation and to provide material aid and honors to American veterans. Holly M. Kent See also Sons of the American Revolution; Revolutionary War Veterans; Society of the Cincinnati
Further Reading Daughters of the American Revolution. www.dar.org.
Somerville, Mollie D. In Washington: The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Washington, DC: The Daughters of the American Revolution, 1965.
DECORATION DAY See Memorial Day
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS See Veterans Affairs, Department of
DEPLETED URANIUM Beginning with the Gulf War (1990– 1991), veterans’ policy has dealt with effects of depleted uranium (DU), especially in the United States and United Kingdom. Later conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and again in the Persian Gulf (Iraq 2003– ) were accompanied by intensified debate over the effect of DU weapons on veterans. Speculation on future conflicts involving Russia, Israel, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, China, and other countries has raised the possibility of DU’s further use. Governments and organizations differ on whether the benefits of DU weapons outweigh potential risks to veterans and civilians. DU is used to make artillery shells that are unusually hard and able to penetrate an adversary’s tanks. It is also used in tank armor to withstand conventional shells. The level of radioactivity in DU is less than natural uranium’s, with DU coming almost exclusively from uranium-238 rather than uranium-235 (which is highly radioactive). DU enters soldiers’ bodies through shrapnel
Depleted Uranium wounds, particularly in ‘‘friendly fire’’ incidents, or is ingested from breathing dust generated by weapons. Exposure to DU weapons, especially to shrapnel, results in more uranium in the urine. Disputed consequences include cancers, genetic effects on reproduction, kidney damage, and neurological effects. Research on DU’s effects began only in 1995 and has proceeded slowly and unevenly. Research is complicated by the delayed, and possibly long-lasting, nature of DU’s effects. DU’s effect on veterans has been analyzed from three perspectives. Supporters of a ban on uranium weapons argue that military usefulness has diminished as more countries have acquired DU weapons and that potential health effects are great. Advocates of DU weapons’ use argue that negligible health effects on veterans are outweighed by the weapons’ military usefulness. A middle perspective suggests vigilant monitoring of DU’s effect on veterans and caution on continued use. The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine has attempted to narrow the gap between the perspectives. The U.S. government’s response was fragmented, as acknowledged in Government Accountability Office reports. The Department of Defense’s Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses and the Department of Veterans Affairs DU Follow-Up Program adapted to pressure over DU. So did the United Kingdom’s DU Oversight Board and NATO’s information clearinghouse, the Ad Hoc Committee on DU. U.S. Congressional action included calls for further monitoring from Representatives James McDermott (WA), Jose Serrano (NY), and Bob Filner (CA). States including New York, Connecticut,
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Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Washington adopted legislation aimed at monitoring veterans’ health. Several governments, including Belgium’s, banned use of DU weapons. On May 22, 2008, the European Parliament overwhelmingly (491–18– 12) passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on use from European Union members and NATO countries and supporting a global ban. (The first European Parliament resolution on DU was adopted in 2001.) The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons is composed of nongovernmental organizations, including some veterans’ organizations. The UN General Assembly’s First Committee in a December 5, 2007, resolution (passed 136–5–36) called attention to ‘‘potential harmful effects.’’ The resolution was introduced by Indonesia and drafted by the Movement of Non-Aligned States. A second similar resolution in December 2008 was supported by 141 countries. Large U.S. veterans’ organizations, such as Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion have not opposed DU’s use, although they have called for screening and acknowledged multiple health risks of service including the use of depleted uranium. A 2006 American Legion resolution called for ‘‘proper protective measures,’’ ‘‘peer reviewed scientific studies,’’ and urged that personnel be ‘‘adequately informed.’’ Activist organizations such as Citizen Soldier and Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) draw on the research of VCS board member Dan Fahey, a Gulf War veteran, and Dr. Doug Rokke, a former army health physicist who supervised 1991 DU cleanup efforts in Iraq. They emphasize the precautionary
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principle, whereby depleted uranium weapons should not be used because of adverse health effects that cannot be ruled out. In the coming years, local, regional, and global interest groups, courts and legislatures will examine DU’s effects on veterans. Disability, diplomatic, and defense policies will reflect these examinations. Judging from past debate about DU’s effect on veterans, new information may shift the nature of the debate between perspectives, but will not be conclusive. Arthur W. Blaser See also Gulf War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans
Further Reading Fahey, Dan. ‘‘The Final Word on Depleted Uranium.’’ Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 25 (Summer 2001): 189–200. International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons. www.icbuw.org. Miller, Alexandra C., ed. Depleted Uranium: Properties, Uses, and Health Consequences. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2007. Nelson, Christina. ‘‘Veterans’ Mysterious Maladies: Studies Continue to Examine the Effects of Depleted Uranium on Returning Soldiers.’’ State Legislatures 34 (May 2008): 28–29.
DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS See Disabled Veterans
DISABLED VETERANS Establishment of Disability Payments Before the First World War, disabled veterans were either housed in veterans’
homes or used their benefits and pensions (see Benefits; Pensions, Civil War) to support themselves in private homes or hospitals. Many Civil War veterans lost legs and arms due to amputations necessary to prevent gangrene infections that would lead to certain death. Wooden legs and arms were common sights in veterans’ parades and reunions. The sudden issue of what to do about over 200,000 wounded men who returned home from World War I presented the nation with an unprecedented problem. The war ended while just over half the troops had been sent to France: mobilization was hardly in place when demobilization began. World War I disability rates were set by the War Risk Insurance Act of 1917. Payments were not based on the type of work personnel had performed before the war, but on what was considered an average wage for all types of employment. Veterans then received a payment of $80 per month for full disability, with smaller impairments awarded proportionately less to a minimum of 10 percent. The pension for widows was $25 per month, and up to $52.50 if veterans had four or more children. Some disabilities were considered temporary, and those veterans had to return periodically to physicians to certify they still had them. The act hoped to enable veterans to live with a reasonable amount of comfort if they could not continue in fulltime employment due to injury, disease, or aggravation of a previous medical problem. The War Risk Insurance system was rooted in social policies of the Progressive Era. It attempted to replace the Civil War system of pensions, which by World War I were available to all surviving Union veterans, with the notion
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Disabled World War I veterans at Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington, DC. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LCUSZ6-1812]
that all individuals and families were entitled to a living wage. Work was considered preferable to pensions if at all possible, even if the work was reduced. Between 1908 and 1920 Congress and 45 state legislatures had enacted workmen’s compensation legislation. Soldiers’ disabilities were regarded analogously: the military was treated as the employer, and all conditions were regarded as caused by military service unless they involved ‘‘willful misconduct.’’ Venereal disease and alcoholism were considered signs of personal weakness and were not compensated. The problem was that to obtain the War Risk money, veterans had to fill out a great
deal of paperwork and have their claims approved. Similarly, of 675,000 returning veterans who applied for training under the Soldiers Rehabilitation Act, under half completed training and only 6,600 were employed as a result. Schools that offered little were quick to appear to take advantage of federal dollars. During 1919 and 1920, with a national unemployment rate of 16 percent with so many troops returning and wartime production disappearing, the nation observed veterans on street corners with tin cups holding signs reading, ‘‘Help me, I’m a Disabled Veteran.’’ Until 1924, medical referees located in the 14 district offices of the War Risk
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Insurance Office and what later came to be the Veterans Bureau examined 2,200 staff and 2,600 hired physicians’ statements and rated veterans at between 10 and 100 percent disabled. When the Veterans Bureau became the Veterans Administration in 1925, about 100 regional offices took over this function. To prevent even more objections to the ratings than occurred, the VA kept the rules for rating disabilities secret until compelled to divulge them by Congress in 1933. African American veterans of World War I, most of whom had been enlisted from the southern states, had special problems obtaining compensation. Although a majority of veterans from some states, black ex-servicemen were seen only at certain times by selected doctors, who tended to dismiss mental problems. As even a 50 percent disability would provide southern blacks with income greater than the average for their race, whites feared the payments would unduly favor black veterans. By 1924, 940,000 veterans, or about one-fifth of all who had been in service, and a number equal to about threequarters of those who had seen combat, had applied for disability payments. Only about 455,000, under half, were considered sufficiently impaired to be disabled. The main reason applications were turned down was because it could not be determined if disabilities were acquired in service or whether they were preexisting (or more recently acquired) conditions. As a result, veterans’ organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion helped veterans prepare and obtain support for their claims. Political officials also lent their endorsement to candidates they believed worthy.
Before World War I, the disabled veteran was usually imagined as someone who was blind or crippled. Yet over half of the war’s veterans who were compensated suffered from heart disease, tuberculosis, or various forms of mental disease, while only 5,000 men lost limbs and under 200 were blinded. Congress passed laws in 1921 declaring that all veterans who had either tuberculosis or mental illness (see PostTraumatic Stress Disorder) were assumed to have acquired the illnesses in service, and later allowed anyone who developed these conditions within six years of discharge to consider them service-related. In 1924, any veteran with tuberculosis received at least $50 for life whether it impaired his ability to work or not. By 1927, a third of all men receiving compensation had tuberculosis, and a fourth suffered from mental illness (see also Shell Shock). The disability system established in World War I has remained in place until today. As of 2009, a 10 percent disability paid $123 per month, total disability $3,172 per month. Approximately three million veterans received disability payments. Although evidence from acquaintances of veterans is considered, the extent of most disabilities are determined by physicians considering evidence provided by other physicians. These procedures originated in the Progressive Era belief that professional services and scientific knowledge could be used to benefit both the state and individual in an objective and nonpartisan manner. Disabled veterans have formed several associations. Most prominent is American Disabled Veterans, but veterans with particular disabilities have also formed their own groups. Notable among these
Disabled Veterans are the Blinded Veterans of America and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Disabled American Veterans In 1919, as disabled veterans nationwide were at a loss to obtain jobs and medical care, men being retrained at Cincinnati’s Ohio Mechanics Institute formed the first Disabled Soldiers’ organization. They recruited as their leader Cincinnati Superior Court Judge Robert S. Marx, a disabled veteran who had captured the furthermost point achieved by the American army before the Armistice. Joining with disabled veterans at the University of Cincinnati, they formed the Disabled Veterans of the World War (DAVWW) in 1920. Recruiting veterans as he campaigned for the Democratic presidential ticket of James Cox and Franklin Roosevelt in the election that year, in 1921 Marx was elected first national commander of the organization at a meeting of about 1,000 disabled veterans in Detroit. They were representing over 17,000 veterans who had organized into hundreds of clubs and societies throughout the nation. The organization received goodwill messages from President Harding and former commander General Pershing. The parade was especially moving as amputees hobbled on crutches, others coughed incessantly from tuberculosis, and blind veterans such as the first national chaplain, Rabbi Aaronsohn, were guided by others. The DAVWW’s first action was to lobby Congress to consolidate the different government offices—the War Risk Insurance Board, the Federal Health Service, and the Federal Vocational Training Service—into the Veterans Bureau, which soon came to pass with support from the larger veterans’ organizations
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such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Just as these organizations sold poppies on Armistice Day (November 11—see Veterans Day) to members of the public who wished to honor veterans, the DAVWW chose the forget-me-not as their flower. Beginning with the 1922 Convention in San Francisco, Henry Ford offered use of his automobiles to convey members to the annual meeting. The DAVWW struggled during the 1920s. It never had more than 30,000 members and had to borrow money from the Knights of Columbus and use funds donated by opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who gave benefit concerts on its behalf, to stay alive. Nevertheless, the organization maintained 53 service officers who could help veterans present their claims to the Veterans Administration. Wives, mothers, and sisters of disabled veterans, along with widows of the slain, could join the Ladies’ Auxiliary. During the 1930s, membership grew to about 40,000 as the DAVWW fought budget cuts that reduced or eliminated some benefits. An organization that had been in debt finally came up with a means of raising a large, reliable sum of money: they mailed miniature imitation licenses—Identotags—to licensed drivers and were surprised to find they received $800,000 from them. This program lasted from 1940 until 1967. World War II greatly increased the need for the DAVWW, which dropped the words ‘‘World War’’ from its title. By 1948, it trained 354 additional service officers who took courses in counseling, adjudication, law, physiology, and presentation of medical evidence. Membership increased to 105,000 by 1946, 207,000 by 1960, and 1,000,000 by
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A paraplegic veteran practices his ‘‘tight rope’’ balancing act for the stage production of It’s a Great Day at Blackstone Theater in Chicago, Illinois, 1951. The musical, which cast 20 veterans in wheelchairs, got its start as a fund-raiser for the March of Dimes. [AP Photo/Ed Maloney]
1985. The DAV’s contribution to the nation’s well-being was recognized in 1955 when its commander, the blind General Melvin J. Maas, became chairman of the President’s Committee on Employment of the Physically Handicapped. Veterans did not have to be disabled to join. Beginning in 1965, the DAV recruited members from the Vietnam War by sending all service personnel letters thanking them for their sacrifice and extending a free one-year membership. The DAV won support among Vietnam War veterans by lobbying for disability benefits equal to those received by Korean War veterans and World War II
veterans, which came to pass in 1966 when President Johnson signed the Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act. Another crusade the DAV successfully undertook was that children of veterans who were 100 percent disabled should be given equal educational benefits— such as college expenses—as deceased personnel. Between 1969 and 2004, under the direction of Max Hart, the DAV raised over a billion dollars to give to charities for veterans, mostly through direct mailing campaigns. During the late-twentieth century, most of the DAV’s service officers were Vietnam veterans. It lobbied to make sure veterans suffering from Agent
Disabled Veterans Orange and other chemicals in that war received care, protested inadequacies in the veterans’ hospital system, and continued to insist that prisoners of war be returned home and those missing in action from Vietnam accounted for. In 1976, the year it opened a national legislative office in Washington, DC, the DAV launched the ‘‘Forgotten Warrior’’ project that began to call attention to the real problem of numerous Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Achievements continued in the 1980s. In 1983, the organization dedicated the National Disabled Veterans Memorial, a majestic curved structure rising against the mountains in Angel Fire, New Mexico. The same year it obtained a Woman’s Advisory Commission in the Veterans Administration to better serve the needs of women veterans. Beginning in 1986, the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic has been an annual event in which blinded, amputee, or partially paralyzed veterans participate. In 1987, the DAV began to offer transportation service for disabled veterans to veterans’ hospitals and administration offices when the government itself eliminated it. In 1988, for the first time, Congress passed a law allowing veterans to appeal their disability rating to the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals thanks to the DAV’s lobbying. The DAV won its point that non-lawyers be allowed to present cases, as otherwise the organization feared it would become the tool of the legal profession and compromise the confidentiality of veterans’ records. In recent years, the DAV has successfully fought for a law that presumes illnesses that typically occurred among Gulf, Iraq, or Afghan War veterans were
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in fact acquired during the respective war, and thus the sufferers are eligible for veterans’ benefits. They also obtained a review of Agent Orange cases which have been turned down. A special initiative to aid the estimated quartermillion homeless veterans was launched in the 1990s. The DAV and the auxiliary work closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs; over 94,000 volunteers have donated time to work with disabled veterans, and the Department has donated 147 vans to the DAV. When he stepped down as secretary of Veterans Affairs under Bill Clinton, Jesse Brown, a disabled Vietnam veteran himself, became director of the DAV’s Washington legislative office. All of the DAV’s services are free to veterans and their families. In addition to practical services such as visiting, transporting, and offering both personal and legal/bureaucratic counseling to veterans, the DAV is currently lobbying to erect a Disabled for Life Veterans Memorial near the grounds of the capitol in Washington, DC. As of 2009, with nearly 1,300,000 members, the DAV is the thirdlargest veterans’ organization in the United States with about half the membership of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Paralyzed Veterans of America Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) was founded in 1946 by veterans suffering from spinal cord injury and dysfunction (SCI/D). Most had obtained these injuries from land mine explosions, fighter plane accidents, or battlefield wounds. Before the war, treatment of people with spinal cord injuries was practically nonexistent: they were confined to hospital beds until they died,
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Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916)
usually within a few years. Thanks to medical advances during and after the war, now paralyzed veterans live as long as others. One of the organization’s main crusades has been the removal of architectural disability. It led the struggle for ramps to access buildings and wheelchair lifts and elevators for public accommodations and transportation. PVA offers its expertise to individuals and organizations wishing to make buildings accessible. PVA supports research into SCI/D through the PVA Research Foundation and public education through the PVA Education Foundation. PVA also sponsors sports programs for veterans with SCI/D including basketball, bowling, billiards, and fishing; public education as to the nature of the disability; and disability rights in general. It also handles the legal cases of paralyzed veterans before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals. In 2007–2008, the organization counseled 23,000 veterans and their families and helped them file benefit claims.
Association for Service Disabled Veterans The Association for Service Disabled Veterans (ASDV) began in March 1986 in Palo Alto, California. Members of the Disabled American Veterans hoped to develop businesses for service disabled veterans and former prisoners of war to supplement their income and give them a greater purpose in life. It operated as a volunteer, nonprofit organization from Palo Alto for 14 years before it opened an office in Washington, DC, in 2000. Today it tries to help all the 80 million veteran families’ members in the United States. It has established programs and
services that address the areas of legislative and legal advocacy, business development, health care, and information access. Thanks to federal laws it has successfully advocated, both government and private enterprise help employ disabled veterans. William Pencak See also Blinded Veterans of America
Further Reading Association for Service Disabled Veterans. www.asdv.org/ASDV/index.cfm Hickel, K. Walter. ‘‘Medicine, Bureaucracy, and Social Welfare: The Politics of Disability Compensation for American Veterans of World War I.’’ InThe New Disability History: American Perspectives, edited by Paul K. Longmore and Laui Umansky, 236–66. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Paralyzed Veterans of America. www.pva.org ‘‘Wars and Scars: The Story of Compassion and Service for the Nation’s Disabled War Veterans.’’ Disabled American War Veterans. www.dav.org/about/history/html.
DODGE, GRENVILLE MELLEN (1831–1916) A prominent Civil War veteran born in Massachusetts in 1831, Dodge graduated from Norwich University in Vermont in 1851. As a young man, he became involved in railroad surveying and construction, finally settling in Council Bluffs, Iowa. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Dodge became colonel of the 4th Iowa regiment. Wounded twice during the war and rising to the rank of major general, Dodge displayed ability at keeping rail communications open and a flair for organizing and operating intelligence
Dogs networks. In 1866, he resigned from the army to become chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad. Elected to Congress in 1868, he concentrated on completing the transcontinental railroad and did not seek reelection. Dodge subsequently became involved in a variety of railroad and other ventures, spending much of his time in New York City, where he became an influential figure in business and political circles. In 1898, he was appointed by President McKinley to chair a commission that investigated the War Department’s performance in the war with Spain. Dodge’s participation in veterans’ affairs increased markedly after about 1885. He seems to have been greatly affected by the death of his friend Ulysses S. Grant in that year and drew closer to his wartime comrades. Dodge was a frequent speaker at Grand Army of the Republic encampments and remained a member of the post in Council Bluffs (where he paid the dues of needy members). He was also an early and active member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) and played a major role in organizing its New York commandery in 1886. He served as national commander of the organization in 1906–1907. He was perhaps most active in the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, the oldest of the army-based societies formed by Union officers. Dodge succeeded William T. Sherman as national commander in 1891 and held
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the position until his death. The society became the vehicle for Dodge’s frequent involvement in memorialization projects, beginning with his service as vice-chair of the group that created Grant’s Tomb in New York City. Another Dodge-led project produced the Sherman Monument in Washington, DC. He later cochaired the commission that created the Grant Monument on the National Mall. Dodge’s familiarity with sculptors and architects led him to offer advice freely to veterans’ groups planning memorial projects. An advocate of sectional reconciliation, Dodge at times contributed to Confederate memorial projects, such as the Sam Davis monument on the capitol lawn in Nashville (somewhat ironic as Dodge had ordered Davis’s execution during the war). By the time of his death in 1916, Dodge was one of the country’s most visible Civil War veterans. William C. Lowe
Further Reading Dodge, Grenville M. The Battle of Atlanta and Other Campaigns, Addresses, etc. Council Bluffs, IA: Monarch Printing, 1910. Hershson, Stanley P. Grenville M. Dodge: Soldier, Politician, Railroad Pioneer. Bloomington, IN and London: Indiana University Press, 1967.
DOGS See War Dogs
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E convalesced until June 1862 and returned to serve under Richard Ewell and ‘‘Stonewall’’ Jackson. Despite his hardbitten, irreverent personality, ‘‘Old Jube’s’’ battlefield acumen at the battles of Cedar Mountain (August 9, 1862), Antietam (September 17, 1862), and Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862) earned him a promotion to major general in 1863. Early played a crucial role in the victory at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863, and followed it with a notable victory at Winchester, Virginia, on June 14, 1863. At Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Early strongly influenced crucial decisions that contributed to the Confederate defeat. In mid-1864 after the Wilderness engagement, Early and the Second corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he commanded, were shifted to the Shenandoah Valley to combat the growing Union pressure. Thwarted in his July raid against Washington, DC, Early returned to the Valley, attempting to stall Union General Philip Sheridan’s incursions. After a series of defeats in the spring of
EARLY, JUBAL (1816–1894) Jubal Early served as a lieutenant general in the Civil War and as an outspoken defender of the Lost Cause during Reconstruction. Born in Franklin County, Virginia, Early attended West Point, graduating in the class of 1837. After serving a tour in the Seminole War (1837–1838), he returned to Virginia where he practiced law and was elected as a Whig to the legislature from 1841 to 1842. Early volunteered for duty in the Mexican War and served as the military governor of Monterrey (1847). In 1861, Early attended the Virginia Secession Convention as a unionist delegate, voting against secession; however, upon secession, Early gave wholehearted support to Virginia, serving as colonel of militia in training recruits at Lynchburg, Virginia. Early’s action at First Manassas on July 21, 1861, proved his capabilities as a field commander, earning promotion to brigadier. Wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, 1862, Early 157
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1865, Early was relieved of responsibility by Lee and headed west to join Kirby Smith’s army in Texas. Before reaching Texas, Early learned of the complete Confederate surrender and proceeded to Mexico. In 1866, he moved to Canada. Motivated from economic necessity and by a desire to vindicate the South, Early began his literary efforts while in Canada, publishing a campaign history and beginning his memoirs. After President Andrew Johnson’s 1868 amnesty proclamation, he returned to Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1869. He resumed law practice and also served as a commissioner of the Louisiana State Lottery Company from 1877 to 1893. Early also served as president of the Southern Historical Society. This group of veterans, founded in 1869, dedicated itself to shaping the South’s postwar identity in terms of the ‘‘Lost Cause.’’ In speeches and writings publicized throughout the nation, he argued that the South had fought for freedom and states’ rights, not slavery and economic benefits. Eventually, Northerners as well as Southerners accepted this interpretation, immortalized on film in Gone With the Wind (1939) (see Film and Veterans)— which remained the dominant one in the nation until the civil rights movement in the 1960s caused historians and the general public to rethink the war. A strident, vitriolic advocate of the South’s moral and political righteousness, Early focused on enshrining the memory of Lee in the popular consciousness. After Lee’s death in 1870, Early used letters, speeches, memorial projects, and a veterans’ organization, the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia,
to shape Lee’s image into that of a mythic, righteous warrior. These efforts resulted in a publicly celebrated feud with James Longstreet over who was responsible for the Gettysburg defeat, with Longstreet blaming Lee, and Early blaming Longstreet. Infuriated by Longstreet’s Republican politics and his public criticism of Lee’s tactics, Early carried on a campaign of historical revision in the Southern Historical Society Papers from 1877 to 1878 that disgraced Longstreet and reshaped the public’s understanding of the battle. Throughout these years, Early remained a symbol of the proud, undefeated, unreconstructed rebel. He died after a brief illness on March 2, 1894. Jonathan Newell See also Confederate Veterans Associations; Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil)
Further Reading Connelly, Thomas L., and Barbara L. Bellows. God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982. Early, Jubal Anderson. Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War between the States. New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1994. Osborne, Charles C. Jubal: The Life and Times of General Jubal A. Early, CSA, Defender of the Lost Cause. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.
EMPLOYMENT See Preferences in Government Employment
F American forces that crushed Philippine resistance three decades earlier. When the Japanese occupied the Philippines in 1942, Filipinos were not American citizens. Nevertheless, both Filipinos living in the islands and in the United States, where there were over a hundred thousand Filipinos, wanted to enlist to defend their homeland. Philippine soldiers who had escaped to Australia after the American-Filipino forces surrendered were trained as the First Reconnaisance Battalion and smuggled back into the islands. President Franklin Roosevelt responded to requests from the Filipino community in the United States and ordered their enlistment. The First Filipino Infantry was formed on April 8, 1942, in San Luis Obispo, California. Only volunteers were admitted to this unit: other Filipinos who were drafted served in regular units. A third of the Filipino men living in the United States served during World War II. During the war, the Filipino Naturalization Bill passed and by 1944 over half
FILIPINO-AMERICAN VETERANS Filipinos have served in the U.S. armed forces since the war fought from 1898 to 1902 to eliminate Philippine resistance at the end of the Spanish-American War. Philippine leaders who assisted the United States against Spain, notably Emilio Aguinaldo, were promised independence. President William McKinley refused to grant it on the grounds some other nation would seize the islands and that the Filipinos were not ready to rule themselves. It was a campaign foreshadowing many aspects of the Vietnam War—concentration of civilians in camps to prevent guerrillas’ infiltration and scorched earth tactics. The United States promised the Philippines independence by 1946 and had established the islands as a largely self-governing commonwealth in 1935. Under the direction of General Douglas MacArthur, the Philippine army was established in 1936. MacArthur’s father, Arthur MacArthur, had led the 159
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of the First Infantry had become citizens. But most Filipinos who lived in the islands and fought for the United States did not. President Roosevelt promised these Filipinos citizenship and veterans benefits after the war, but the government only allowed Filipnos six months to apply for citizenship. When the Philippines became independent, Congress passed the Rescission Act of 1946 and ended the possibility of applying. Filipino veterans have lobbied to obtain full veterans’ benefits from the United States, but repeatedly have failed. The American Coalition for Filipino Veterans is the leading veterans’ association for Filipinos. As of 2008, Filipino veterans who did not become U.S. citizens have the right to use veterans’ hospitals and be buried in veterans’ cemeteries, but they receive no monetary benefits. William Pencak See also Philippine War Veterans; World War II Veterans
Further Reading American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, Inc. www.usfilvets.tripod.com Fabors, Alex S. ‘‘Filipino-American Military Service in World War II.’’ In The Filipinos, edited by Michelle E. Houle, 77–83. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2007.
FILM AND VETERANS Only films about the veteran experience are discussed here, as opposed to war films. No effort is made to be complete, but instead this section describes major films made in the United States dealing with American veterans. These films share the following characteristics: the
emotional, as well as the physical, impact of war on veterans, manifested through mental illness such as posttraumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, alcoholism, impotence, violence, and/or uncommunicative behavior; an uncomprehending greater society—the few exceptions usually are women who marry veterans—that consists of a corrupt, profit-making capitalist war machine, a military hierarchy concerned with glory and unconcerned about human life, and a sterile, inadequate hospital system. Comradeship or tension between veterans of different races is another persistent theme. The veterans either are destroyed by, adjust to, or rise above their wartime injuries depending on the message the film intends to convey. The films are presented by war, in chronological order, so the course of thought about veterans, at least as represented on the screen, can be tracked. The leading film directors in twentiethcentury America, from D. W. Griffith, David O. Selznick, and John Huston to Michael Cimino, Francis Ford Coppola, and Oliver Stone, along with such foreign luminaries as Rainer Fassbinder and Louis Malle, have all tackled the problem of veteran readjustment. Director/actors such as Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone have also been driving forces calling the public’s attention to the veterans’ predicament. Whereas the ‘‘John Wayne’’ film has offered the image of the soldier as the ‘‘strong, silent type’’ of hero, willing to do his duty uncomplainingly and without fanfare, the veteran film has presented a far more complicated image of the veteran. Even when he is a hero, he (and it is always a he) is almost always struggling against, rather than for, the forces of the government and greater society.
Film and Veterans
The Civil War American veterans, as opposed to soldiers, first appear in films about the Civil War and indeed are the protagonists in two of the greatest films of all time. In Birth of a Nation (1915), directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish, heroic Confederate veterans make up the Ku Klux Klan and in the film’s climax save the honor of a white woman from a black attacker (played by a white man in blackface.) The second reincarnation of the Klan in American history was in fact inspired by the film and began at Stone Mountain, Georgia, after the film was shown in Atlanta. Union veterans of the war and blacks are seen as an oppressive and corrupt force in the post-Civil War South. The silent film’s interpretation of post-Civil War Reconstruction is supported by on-screen quotations from some of the leading historians of the day including President Woodrow Wilson, himself a former professor. Far greater violence initiated by disgruntled exConfederates against blacks trying to exercise their rights and their supporters is ignored. The film, nevertheless, was a landmark in cinematic history for its length and the power of many scenes. The same pro-Southern interpretation appears in Gone with the Wind (1939), directed by David O. Selznick. Based on a novel of that title by Margaret Mitchell, it starred Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel, Leslie Howard, and Olivia DeHaviliand. In the second part of this epic, Confederate veterans return home to be exploited by ruthless poor whites and ex-slaves who have taken over the postwar government with the help of the Northern occupation forces. Meanwhile, the valiant former soldiers retaliate against the predominantly black inhabitants of a
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shantytown who have attacked Scarlett O’Hara, the film’s main character, who has foolishly ridden through it. Scarlett herself, however, is not above exploiting poor jailed ex-Confederates by making them work under slave-like conditions at her mill. The ex-Southerners thus appear as both heroes and victims, the Northerners as ruthless oppressors. Civil War veterans who turned into Indian fighters in the West was a theme of several films directed by John Ford, including Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). They usually starred John Wayne with Victor McLaglen or Ward Bond as his sidekick. Both Union and Confederate veterans are depicted as working together in the American West to fight Indians. Most are heroic, down-to-earth figures, although a few higher officers lack respect for Indians who are also depicted as noble warriors. In a different vein, Ford directed The Sun Shines Bright (1952) based on stories by Irvin S. Cobb, starring Charles Winninger and the black comedian Stepin Fetchit. Here, Southern and Northern veterans get along well in a post-Civil War Kentucky town, even wearing pieces of each other’s uniforms interchangeably. African Americans are treated as happy idiots, whites as pompous and corrupt members of the elite or drunken hillbillies. Ford himself was a veteran with sentimental ties to his old World War II unit, and despite the comic stereotypes the film celebrates the friendly camaraderie of veterans. The Undefeated (1969), directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson, is the ultimate post-Civil War reconciliation film, urging national unity against unscrupulous foreigners at the height of the Vietnam War. Former Union veterans meet
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Confederates fleeing to Mexico where they plan to fight for Emperor Maximilian. When they discover he is a tyrant, they join rebel forces under Benito Juarez, who ultimately wins that country’s fight for freedom. The Civil War is interpreted as a brothers’ war in which wounds can be healed through a common devotion to freedom. In 1989, Edward Zwick directed Glory, a moving and for the most part historically accurate film written by Kevin Jarre and starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman. It tells the story of the formation of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first black regiment in the war, the prejudice it encountered in the North, and its heroic although futile and costly assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. In Dances with Wolves (1990), directed by and starring Kevin Costner, adapted for film by Michael Blake from his novel of that name, the Civil War is presented as futile, driving the hero to madness. A wounded Union officer, sick of the bloodshed, tries to get shot during the Civil War but emerges as a hero instead. Disillusioned, he heads west to command a post that turns out to be deserted. He befriends a wolf and the nearby Sioux Indians, whom he joins and defends against white attacks. (See also Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations; African American Civil War Veterans.)
World War I Disillusion with ‘‘the war to end all wars’’ and its tragic effect on the brave men who fought it is a theme in common to nearly all films dealing with World War I veterans. Perhaps the most powerful is I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
(1932), directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni. Decorated for bravery in World War I, a veteran is restless in peacetime society. He is present as a friend robs a diner in a southern state (in fact, Georgia) and sentenced to a hellish prison from which he escapes to write the book from which title the film is taken. Along the way, the veteran is reimprisoned after he is betrayed by a woman only to escape a second time. The veteran is viewed as the victim of both government and society, but capable of rising above his problems and fighting back. It was released the same year as the Bonus March. The following year, Heroes for Sale (1933), directed by William Wellman and starring Richard Barthelmess and Loretta Young, appeared. Wellman, a wounded veteran who flew planes for the Lafayette Escadrille—Americans who volunteered to fly for France before U.S. entry into the war—made this film at the time the Bonus Army was being expelled from Washington, DC, in 1932 and American disillusion with having fought World War I was strong. The film depicts the absurdity of war and its unjust outcome. Tom, a hero who captures a German soldier, is wounded, captured in turn by the Germans, and becomes addicted to morphine. Roger is a coward who stays behind to take charge of the German prisoner and is decorated for heroism. Tom cannot keep a job in Roger’s bank (his father was an executive), a none-too-subtle reference to the war’s real winners, the capitalists who made money selling arms to the Allies and the bankers who loaned the European countries the money to do so. Tom, cured of his addiction at a government hospital, becomes a Communist, as did some veterans in the 1930s. His wife is killed in
Film and Veterans a riot, he goes to jail, but he keeps the rights to an invention given him by a fellow Communist. Using the money to feed unfortunates at a soup kitchen, he meets his old friend Roger as a tramp when his bank fails. The film ends as Tom is honored (posthumously) for feeding the hungry. Ernest Hemingway served heroically as a volunteer medic in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps after the army turned him down. The film The Sun Also Rises (1957), directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, and Errol Flynn, is based on Hemingway’s novel of that title. It contrasts a sexually impotent war veteran (in the film his disability becomes a spinal condition) who, despite his attraction for a dynamic war widow, becomes the third wheel in a relationship she develops with a Spanish matador. The film presents Hemingway’s interesting take on how the appearance rather than the substance of heroism is what attracts. Johnny Got His Gun (1971) was directed by Dalton Trumbo, a Hollywood writer blacklisted during the 1950s for his allegedly Communist beliefs, based on a novel he wrote in 1939. It starred Timothy Bottoms, Jason Robards, and Donald Sutherland. Appearing while the United States was doing badly during Vietnam, it drew attention to the longterm, secret sufferings of veterans that both society and the leaders who keep recruiting soldiers prefer to keep secret. Dismembered Joe has lost his face, his mobility, and his ability to speak—a fate both real and symbolic of his unknown story. He finally is able to communicate by tapping out Morse code with his head, but the general in charge of his hospital refuses to let him tell his story by being seen in public places. In the end, he fades
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into darkness. Scenes of Joe’s prewar life enhance the poignancy of a film that ends by noting 80 million people have died and 150 million have been wounded in twentieth-century wars. The most cheerful World War I film is The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), directed by Robert Redford, based on a novel by Steven Pressfield, and starring RogerMatt Damon, Jack Lemon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron. Savannah, Georgia’s prewar golf champion is the only survivor of his World War I company. Returning in the late 20s, he is able to regain his self-respect by playing in a golf tournament with the encouragement of a good woman and the advice of Bagger Vance, a black caddy. The veteran’s problems are shown as solvable through compassionate help and determination. (See also World War I Veterans; American Legion.)
World War II Just as the overwhelming Allied victory in World War II failed to solve the world’s and America’s problems, returning veterans confront emotional and social challenges. Perhaps the greatest of these films was The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), directed by William Wyler, screenplay by Robert Sherwood, screenplay from a novel by Mackinlay Kantor. Its all-star cast included Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Howard Russell, Hoagy Carmichael, Virginia Mayo, and Myrna Loy. Winner of multiple Academy Awards in 1946, the film depicts the difficulty three soldiers from a typical mid-America town have returning to civilian life. Al becomes an angry alcoholic. Fred goes from a post of responsibility to working as a soda-fountain clerk. Homer (named after the blind,
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ancient Greek poet whose great work The Odyssey told of veterans’ perilous return from the Trojan War) is played by Harold Russell, a disabled veteran and founder of AMVETS in real life. Homer becomes the best adjusted as he finds a loving wife. Fred’s wife Marie, who has enjoyed herself during the war and tells him to ‘‘snap out of it’’ exemplifies the attitude the film’s creators hoped to counter toward the 16 million men and women who served in the armed forces during World War II. Russell was the only person ever to win two Oscars for the same performance. The Best Year’s theme had been anticipated in The Blue Dahlia (1945), directed by George Marshall, written by Raymond Chandler, and starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Doris Dowling, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva, and Hugh Beaumont. It told the story of a returning World War II fighter pilot and his two friends’ (one a nervous wreck, the other a quiet man) return home. The pilot’s wife ignored his letters and became indifferent to him during the war; he becomes involved with a divorcee´ and is suspected of murdering his wife until a detective is revealed as the killer. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), directed by Nunnally Johnson, based on the novel by Sloan Wilson, and starring Gregory Peck, Marisa Pavan, and Jennifer Jones, is what many war veterans became. A white-collar worker, nagged by his wife for failing to make something of himself, recalls his wartime experiences: killing a German soldier, his affair with an Italian woman, and his accidental killing of his sergeant at the Battle of Okinawa. He both dreads yet cherishes his wartime experiences as opposed to his mundane, unfulfilling postwar existence.
Some Came Running (1958), starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley McClaine, and Martha Hyer, is the story of Dave, a war veteran, who cannot adjust to normal life as he seeks glamour and excitement. He is torn between the fast life of his friends and the study of literature, falling for a college professor who publishes his manuscript. When she rejects him romantically, he marries a lively factory worker he treats indifferently who nevertheless loves him and is then killed (Dave is wounded) by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Desert Bloom (1986), directed by Eugene Corr and starring Jon Voigt, JoBeth Williams, Annabelle Gish, and Ellen Burstyn, refers to a disabled, alcoholic, emotionally disturbed veteran of World War II who runs a gas station near Las Vegas, Nevada, during the Korean War. He fears Communists and can be abusive to his wife and stepdaughter but manages, in the end, to do a reasonably good job of surmounting his problems. The fear of the atom bomb prevalent in the early 1950s is brought vividly, and sometimes humorously, to life. In a way, the veteran is an American ‘‘everyman.’’ Racial and ethnic conflict characterized other films. Crossfire (1947), directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, Robert Young, George Cooper, and Gloria Grahame, deals with the persistence of anti-semitism in America despite the Nazi example. One veteran kills another because the latter is a Jew. Yet a third war veteran, who is drunk and ill, is blamed for the murder (see Jewish Veterans). The Men (1950), directed by Fred Zinneman and starring Marlon Brando, Teresa Wright, and Jack Webb, portrays the sufferings of men at a veterans’
Film and Veterans rehabilitation hospital. Brando becomes a heroic figure, coming to accept his inability to walk and finally getting married to an understanding woman. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), directed by John Sturges, screenplay by Millard Kaufmann, and story by Howard Breslin, starred Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Anne Francis, and Walter Brennan. Made at the time schools were first being desegregated in the American South, the name Black Rock would have reminded the contemporary viewer of Little Rock, scene of the first major confrontation between federal troops and a state government preventing the integration of public schools that year. A white World War II veteran who owes his life to a Japanese-American (who died) goes to Black Rock, Arizona, to find the man’s father, only to find out he has been killed during the war by a lynch mob, a fact that town tried to keep secret (see JapaneseAmerican Veterans; African American Veterans, World War II). Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), written and directed by Scott Hicks, based on a novel by David Gutterson, and starring Ethan Hawke, Max von Sydow, Rick Youne, and Yuki Kudoh, illustrates racial tensions arising from World War II in the Pacific Northwest. Ishmael (a name found in the Bible and Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, a wanderer with no sense of belonging) is a reporter and one-armed war veteran and the son of a newspaper owner who courageously defended the patriotism of JapaneseAmericans when they were rounded up in detention camps during World War II. Ishmael loved a Japanese-American girl, but her traditional mother insists she marry one of her own, Kazuo. Kazuo is also a war veteran, but when he returns
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and tries to buy back his farm from a boyhood friend, Carl, the latter dies under mysterious circumstances. Despite his jealousy and anger, Ishmael reveals evidence which exonerates Kazuo. Moral veterans of different races can overcome the tragedies of war is the message. Key Largo (1948), directed by Richard Brooks and John Huston, based on a play by Maxwell Anderson, starred Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, and Lionel Barrymore. Bogart here reprises his role from the wartime Casablanca (1943) of the quintessential American, tough exterior with the heart of gold, able but unwilling to fight unless absolutely necessary. A war veteran refuses to fight again, despite the fact the hotel belonging to the parents’ of his deceased war buddy is taken over by a ruthless gangster. He is finally forced to fight against his will after repeated taunting by the gangster, depicting the attitude many Americans felt about the need to fight Communism after World War II ended. Originally, Anderson’s play dealt with a veteran of the leftist opposition to Francisco Franco’s fascist government in the Spanish Civil War, but as that cause had become identified with Communism by the late 1940s, he was transformed in the film into a World War II veteran.
The Korean War Like World War II films, those of the Korean War feature veterans who have trouble adjusting to civilian life. China Gate (1957), directed and written by Sam Fuller and starring Gene Barry, Nat King Cole, Angie Dickinson, and Lee Van Cleef, is the story of two American Korean War veterans who have become
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mercenaries fighting for the French in Indochina in the mid-1950s. It is testament to interracial brotherhood between black and white veterans just after the armed forces were integrated (1948), while showing little sympathy for Asians, who are all played by whites. It both expresses the belief that only the French were guarding Indochina, the ‘‘gate’’ to China, and preventing a Communist takeover there, while noting at the same time the tyranny of French colonialism. Fuller was a much-decorated World War II veteran (see African American Veterans, Korean War). Filmed the same year, A Hatful of Rain (1957), directed by Fred Zinneman based on a play by Michael Gazzo, and starring Don Murray, Lloyd Nolan, Eva Marie Saint, and Anthony Franciosa, tells the story of an emotionally disturbed drug-addicted Korean War veteran, abandoned by a father who nevertheless brags about his courage. This relationship is consciously symbolical of the Korean veterans’ relationship to the nation’s leaders—they are bragged about yet their problems are ignored. The title comes from when the veteran was a boy, his father told him he would prosper if he worked hard. So he dug and dug at a hole in the dirt, and all he got was ‘‘a hatful of rain.’’ The most famous film about a Korean war veteran is The Manchurian Candidate (1962). It was directed by John Frankenheimer, adapted from a story by Richard Condon, and starred Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, and Richard Condon. The ‘‘candidate,’’ the average American or veteran, is presented as the victim of sinister forces that threaten to destroy the nation. Shaw, a medal of honor winner, has been brainwashed by Communists
in Korea to kill upon demand—hence the title as Manchuria was the region of China closest to Korea where the brainwashing occurred. He is also dominated by his mother, who is a secret Soviet agent. He cannot distinguish his hallucinations from real life, including wartime flashbacks, and eventually kills his mother and stepfather, who resembles the Communist hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy. He is exposed, too late, by clever CIA agent Marco who is the only one to take seriously and investigate his mental problems. A simultaneous attack on Communism, Communist spying, and the excesses of anti-Communism, it also criticizes overbearing mothers who dominated their sons’ lives and threatened their manhood and patriotism (‘‘momism’’ as psychologists described it in the 1950s). The hero is the patriotic intelligence agent who saves the country. The veteran appears as an emotionally unstable, psychotic threat to the nation through no fault of his own. (See also the remake under ‘‘Persian Gulf War.’’) Going All the Way (1997), directed by Mark Pellington, with a screenplay by Dan Wakefield based upon his novel of the same name, and starring Jeremy Davies, Ben Affleck, Jill Clayburgh, and Lesley Ann Warren, is a tribute to Korean War veterans filmed during an era when the nation began to honor their contributions. Two men from the same high school (popular athlete Gunnar and an introvert misfit Sonny) return from the Korean War to their Indiana hometown and become friends. Gunnar has become changed by his encounters with Buddhist philosophy, befriends Sonny, and seeks to marry a Jewish woman and go to New York over his mother’s objections. Sonny longs for a glamorous sexual encounter but is impotent. The men help
Film and Veterans each other readjust from both their wartime experiences and the indifferent responses awaiting them back home. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in another film made the same year lauding a Korean War veteran, Absolute Power (1997). Its screenplay was by William Goldman from a novel by David Baldacci, and it also starred Gene Hackman, Judy Davis, Ed Harris. Scott Glenn, E. G. Marshall, and Laura Linney. Here a heroic Korean War veteran turns to crime, but his crime is nothing compared to that of the president of the United States, who has an extramarital affair and arranges for the woman’s murder. The veteran exposes him and thus redeems himself.
Vietnam War Vietnam War films tend to portray the veterans as misfits, victims who cannot live at home in peace despite their best efforts, or heroes who have to battle a corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy during the war and then fight with it at home as well. Unlike previous wars, many of the films were made as the war occurred (1964–1973) and thus fed the public’s anger at the conflict while turning veterans into objects of fear, disgust, or pity. Vietnam veterans first appeared in cheap films exploiting violence, such as Motor Psycho (1965), directed and written by Russ Meyer. This was probably the first film to depict the Vietnam veteran as a misfit, in this case a murdering, raping member of a bicycle gang. The gang even kills a World War I veteran who has a moving story of lifetime suffering. The ‘‘Billy Jack’’ movies starring Tom Laughlin and directed by T. C. Frank are a step up although their extensive handto-hand fighting and violence is at least as important as the plot. In Born Losers
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(1967) and Billy Jack (1971), a partIndian former Vietnam Green Beret returns to America. Trying to live in peace, he is drawn into fights for domestic justice—in the former film to save a town from a gang of wild bikers, and in the second, to avenge an alternative ‘‘Freedom School’’ which is persecuted by the government. Other movies in this vein include several Billy Jack sequels, including, Satan’s Sadists (1969) and Chrome and Hot Leather (1971) where Vietnam veterans again fight bikers, and Mr. Majestyk (1974) where a farmer of that name played by Charles Bronson defends Mexican migrant workers from local businessmen and officials. The Ballad of Andy Crocker (1969), directed by George McCowan, written by Stuart Margolin, and starring Lee Majors, Jimmy Dean, Marvin Gaye, and Agnes Morehead, again features a Vietnam veteran who comes home, planning to live a peaceful and happy life. But here he has been betrayed by society: cheated by his business partner, deserted by his girlfriend, and shunned by his family. He becomes a fugitive after he beats up his partner; the film ends as he plans to reenlist as the military is his only refuge. The German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder also attempted to comment on the Vietnam War as a destroyer of men in The American Soldier (1970). Starring Karl Scheydt, a Vietnam veteran who has lost his emotions works as an assassin for German criminals. The crudest form of exploitation film, Blackenstein (meaning the black Frankenstein, 1972) directed by William Levy, and starring Joe De Sue, Ivory Stone, and John Hart preys as well on the public image of both the veteran and the hospital system. Having lost both arms and legs in Vietnam, Eddie is
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treated poorly at a veterans’ hospital, where only a generally hostile orderly is seen to help him. He is injected with a formula to cure him, but an assistant jealous of the inventor’s girlfriend substitutes a potion that turns Eddie into a maniac. Deathdream (1972), directed by Bob Clark, and starring Richard Backus, John Marley, and Jane Daley, along with The Visitors (1972), directed by Elia Kazan and written by Chris Kazan. starring James Woods, Patricia Joyce, Patrick McVey, Steven Railsback, and Chico Martinez, both illustrate the alienation of the Vietnam generation from older Americans and civilian society. In the former, an antisocial, violent, drunk Vietnam veteran confronts his father, a World War II veteran, who commits suicide out of frustration. The son crawls off to the graveyard. In the latter, Bill, a mildmannered Vietnam war veteran who tries to live peacefully with his wife, is visited by two former buddies, just out of military prison for rape and murder in Vietnam. Egged on by Bill’s father-in-law, they rape Bill’s wife Martha, who is somewhat attracted to these macho types, and beat up Bill as well before leaving him to confront his weakness. More negative images appeared in Electra Glide in Blue (1973), directed by James William Guercio, adapted by Robert Boris from a story by Boris and Rupert Hitzig. Starring Robert Blake, Vietnam veterans, a policeman, and the hippie who shoots him in the end, are depicted as lazy, lawless misfits as are their superiors and society in general. Another veteran, a good cop, is disgusted at it all. In Gordon’s War (1973), directed by Ossie Davis, written by Howard Friedlander and Ed Spielman and starring Paul
Winfield, Carl Lee, David Downing, and Tony King, the veteran black actor Davis tries to present the need for the black community to save itself from both the war and exploitation by white society. Black Vietnam veterans gather in Harlem to kill drug dealers as both the police and white businessmen are complicit or impotent in fighting crime. The war at home is seen as an analogue to Southeast Asia, requiring guerrilla tactics and needing to be fought outside the law. The predicament of returning veterans appears as well in Tracks (1976), directed and written by Jenry Jaglom and starring Dennis Hopper, the famous portrayer of outlaw types. A white veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, bringing home the body of a black soldier, goes insane and starts shooting when no one is prepared to receive the body. World War II songs play on the soundtrack, indicating the difference (as does the veteran’s Korean War experience) between attitudes toward Vietnam veterans and those of previous wars. One of the most compelling films about Vietnam veterans is Taxi Driver (1976), directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster. A paranoid, lonely ex-marine Vietnam veteran who works as a New York City taxi driver plans to kill a U.S. senator, but winds up shooting the pimp and some criminal friends of a twelve-year old prostitute he visits, turning him into a hero. New York City, in decline at this time, is depicted as an evil urban war zone, while DeNiro’s performance— he wears his military jacket throughout— is a tour de force. Foster provides DeNiro with the only center in his life. Heroes (1977), directed by Jeremy Kagen and starring Henry Winkler, Sally
Film and Veterans Field, and Harrison Ford, again features a veteran supported by a good woman. It is a comedy in which a mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran moves to the American heartland to start a worm farm with his buddies. They all desert him, but he survives with the love of a woman who has left her husband. An Oscar-winning film, Deer Hunter (1978), directed by Michael Cimino and starring Meryl Streep, John Savage, Robert DeNiro, John Cazale, George Dzundza, and Christopher Walken, is the story of young men from the steel mills who are about to be sent to Vietnam. The opening scenes show the men hunting deer together and attending one of their weddings. Their desire for thrills and sexual urges are displayed. Overseas they are captured and forced to play Russian roulette in a prison. Rescued, they are disillusioned: one kills himself playing the same game as two of the men are present at the fall of Saigon, the other winds up in the typically sterile veterans’ hospital as an amputee, and the third is disillusioned and can no longer go hunting. The film emphasizes the senselessness of the war, macho behavior, and the mindless loyalty inculcated into poor Americans. Coming Home (1978) is directed by Hal Ashby, with a script by Nancy Dowd, starred Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Jon Voight. Fonda is perhaps the American most disliked by many Vietnam veterans for traveling to North Vietnam during the war and her public opposition to it. The film reflects Fonda’s version of her own career and its relationship to the national experience. In the film, she plays a nurse who falls in love with a crippled veteran—she is trying to save the ‘‘crippled’’ veteran and nation. Meanwhile, her husband, who fights and
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returns physically intact from the war, is emotionally destroyed by the conflict. Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978), directed by Karel Reisz, with a screenplay by Judith Rascal and Robert Stone, from Stone’s novel Dog Soldiers, is the story of a troubled Vietnam veteran who becomes involved in a heroin smuggling scheme and is killed by a corrupt policemen after he takes his profits and tries to settle down on a farm. Playboy magazine entered the lists by presenting Saint Jack (1979). Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, with a screenplay by Bogdanovich, Howard Sackler, and Paul Theroux based on a book by Theroux, the film starred Bogdanovich, Ben Gazzara, Denholm Elliott, and Monika Subramaniam. A genial Korean War veteran runs an R&R (rest and recreation) facility for American soldiers serving in Vietnam, an extension of his prewar enterprises in which prostitution and marijuana figured heavily. By the film’s end, he is disgusted by the CIA that hired him and the corrupt politicians he covers for, and he returns to the United States. The film exemplifies the magazine’s tolerance for sex, drugs, and fun as opposed to the futility of war. The Stunt Man (1980) was the first major Vietnam film of the 1980s. Directed by Richard Rush and starring Peter O’Toole, Steve Railsback, and Barbara Hershey, it tells the story of a Vietnam veteran who pretends to be the stunt man he has accidentally killed for a movie about World War I. The danger of the scenes he undertakes at the behest of a slightly insane and unfeeling director both parodies and questions similar orders given in wartime. Cutter’s Way (1981), directed by Ivan Passer, based on a novel of the same title by Newton Thornbugh, starred John
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Heard, Jeff Bridges, and Lisa Eichhorn. Cutter, a Vietnam veteran, returns to the United States and seeks revenge on a wealthy man he believes killed a woman and dumped her body. Cutter’s behavior is generally violent and antisocial, and he uses his veteran’s status to excuse it. Cutter’s best friend, Bone, who avoided the draft, spends much of the movie trying to control Cutter as Cutter tries to involve him in his scheme of revenge. Ashes and Embers (1982), directed by Haile Gerima and starring John Anderson, did not receive the attention it deserved. It is the powerful tale of a maladjusted African American Vietnam veteran who becomes involved in crime and is anchored by his strong grandmother who stands for the power of traditional values. The Rambo films, with various directors and co-writers, were the brainchild of Sylvester Stallone, a working-class Philadelphia actor who was catapulted into fame with his Oscar award-winning Rocky. The Rambo films, entitled First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo Part III (1988), and Rambo Part IV: Pearl of the Cobra (2008), are based on a novel by David Morrell. Rambo as created and played by Sylvester Stallone, much like the boxer Rocky who has been the subject of six of his moves as of 2007, has become an archetype or symbol of the decent, slow-to-anger, inarticulate everyman who nevertheless is capable of both heroism and extreme violence when made angry. Rambo is a Vietnam War medal of honor winner and expert at guerrilla warfare. In First Blood he wanders the country aimlessly and finds out a buddy has died from the effects of Agent Orange. Rambo destroys much of a town whose sheriff has unjustly arrested, humiliated, beaten, and
imprisoned him. Persuaded to surrender to the authorities, Rambo is released from prison to go back to Vietnam (Rambo: First Blood Part II) on a mission where he is supposed to prove there are no remaining prisoners of war (see Prisoners of War/Missing in Action). He shows otherwise, after surviving torture by Russians who are behind the Vietnamese. He refuses to abort the mission and rescues the prisoners. In Rambo III he goes to Afghanistan where with the aid of freedom fighters he rescues his old commander who now works for the CIA. The gist is that Rambo, his fellow soldiers, and people of other countries are suffering not only because of Communists, but also due to their own government’s cruelty and incompetence. The government ‘‘lost’’ Vietnam because of unwillingness to pursue the war to a victorious conclusion, whereas the average American soldier is both patriotic and heroic. In Rambo Part IV: Pearl of the Cobra, Rambo rescues Christian missionaries from pirates and the military in Burma (Myanmar), although Burma can easily be interpreted as a substitute for Iraq and the pirates for terrorists. A very different message appears in the The Big Chill (1983). Directed by Lawrence Kasdan and written by Kasdan and Barbara Benedik, it starred William Hurt, Meg Tilly, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Jeff Goldblum, and JoBeth Williams. A group of friends in their thirties gather to mourn a friend who has killed himself. Vietnam veteran Nick is a moody and introspective alcoholic and drug addict; the nature of his war experience remains unknown yet omnipresent as the group tries to sort out their futures. The long-term psychological effects of the Vietnam War on veterans is the
Film and Veterans subject of three movies made in 1984. Choose Me (1984) was directed and written by Alan Rudolph and starred Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold, and Lesley Ann Warren. Two women, one a psychiatrist, compete for a disturbed Vietnam veteran who lives with and asks both of them to marry him in his desperate search for love. Fleshburn (1984), directed by George Cage with a screenplay by George and Beth Cate, was based on the novel A Handful of Dust by Brian Garfield. Sony Lanham stars as a Native American Vietnam veteran who has flashbacks to his Vietnam experiences. He escapes from a mental institution, abandoning five psychiatrists who put him there. He dies of thirst and starvation in the desert. Birdy (1984), directed by Alan Parker, starred Nicholas Cage and Michael Modine. Birdy, one of two working-class boys from Philadelphia, who loved flight and birds, is reduced to a catatonic state by the war. He lives in a mental hospital. His friend Badge, physically rather than emotionally disfigured, unsuccessfully tries to bring him to his senses in this poignant film that attributes Birdy’s mental illness to both the war and the bleak environment in which he grew up. French director and writer Louis Malle deals with the problems of Vietnamese refugees in America as well as veterans in Alamo Bay (1985), starring Ed Harris, Hi Nguyen, Amy Madigan, and Martino LaSalle. An angry, alienated Vietnam veteran and Gulf Coast shrimp fisherman turns to solace from his nasty wife to one of many Vietnamese refugees who have taken up fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The film brings out his and his culture’s racism: angered that he cannot make a living when his boat, named American Dream Girl, is repossessed, he beats up a
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Vietnamese man and also shows hostility toward Mexican Americans. The Park Is Mine (1986), directed by Steven Hilliard Stern, with a screenplay by Lyle Gorch from a book by Stephen Peters, starred Tommy Lee Jones. Jones plays a Vietnam veteran, angered by a fellow veteran’s suicide, takes over New York City’s Central Park and becomes a folk hero as he uses jungle tactics to successfully evade police. Francis Ford Coppola, director of the epic Godfather trilogy, offered Gardens of Stone (1987) as his Vietnam veteran film with a screenplay by Ronald Bass from a book by Nicholas Profitt. It starred James Caan, James Earl Jones, Angelica Houston, and D. B. Sweeney. It begins as older Korean and Vietnam veterans bury those killed in Vietnam in Arlington National Cemetery. They advise the son of a friend, a Korean War sergeant, not to go to Vietnam but (after a colonel’s daughter spurns him as an enlisted man) he enlists and dies there. The film is interspersed with scenes and news of the war. Lethal Weapon (1987) was directed by Richard Donner and starred Danny Glover and Mel Gibson. Two veterans, African American, conservative Roger and white, renegade Martin are policemen who saved each others’ lives in Vietnam and do so again as they battle a ruthless government agency, ‘‘the Shadow Company’’ that smuggles heroin. (One popular belief is that the United States was involved in Vietnam to protect the valuable, illegal drug traffic shared by the government and professional criminals.) Both types of veterans are shown to be equally necessary in war and peace. Robert Altman’s Vietnam veteran film is O. C. and Stiggs (1987). With a
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screenplay by Donald Cantrell and Ted Mann, it is based on a story by Mann and Todd Carroll and stars Dennis Hopper, Mario Van Peebles, Louis Nye, and Ray Watson. Two teenagers in modern Arizona take revenge on an insurance salesman who is trying to cheat them out of their grandfather’s settlement by enlisting two survivalist Vietnam veterans who employ parodies of guerrilla tactics to strike back at the salesman. Altman himself was a combat pilot in World War II. The Presidio (1988), directed by Peter Hyams, written by Larry Ferguson, and starring Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, Mark Harmon, and Jack Warden, again shows Vietnam veterans as being successful in criminal activities. Two war heroes were deeply involved in the black market, which carries over into diamond smuggling and murder in the postwar era as they hold high positions at San Francisco’s (now closed) military base, the Presidio. More psychologically disturbed veterans appeared in 1988 and 1989. Distant Thunder (1988), directed by Rick Rosenthal, from a screenplay by Robert Stitzel and adapted from a story by Stitzel and Deedee Wahle, starred John Lithgow, Kerrie Keane, Tom Bower, Reb Brown, Dennis Arndt, and Ralph Macchio. Reclusive veterans in the Pacific Northwest live apart from society, commit suicide, and brawl with each other. One tries to get a job at the local mill but remains unhappy, and even a woman’s friendship and meeting with his son fails to relieve his depression and loneliness. Jacknife (1989), directed by David Hugh Jones and starring Robert DeNiro, Ed Harris, and Kathy Baker, is an emotionally wrenching film with a happy ending. Veteran Jacknife who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder visits his old wary buddy Dave,
an alcoholic. Both are truck drivers. Jacknife falls in love with Dave’s sister, but Dave objects; they enter group therapy and accept each other. In Country (1989), directed by Norman Jewison with screenplay by Cynthia Cidre and Frank Pierson is based on a novel by Bobby Ann Mason and starred Bruce Willis, Emily Lloyd, and Peggy Rae. A teenaged girl tries to find out about her late father’s experiences in Vietnam. Her uncle, also a veteran, is a loner and brawls with other misfit veterans. With the help of her grandmother, the girl obtains her father’s journal (its episodes are brought to life on screen). Depicting the life of a small mid-American town (in Kentucky), the film concludes as the three protagonists achieve a measure of peace as they visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The ability of Vietnam to empower American Indian Veterans appears in Powwow Highway (1989), directed by Jonathan Wacks. It is based on a screenplay by Janet Heaney and Jean Stawarz and is from a novel by David Seals. It stars A. Martinez, Joanelle Nadine Romero, Gary Farmer, Amanda Wyss, and Leigh Opitz. A Native American Vietnam veteran rescues his wife and daughters who have been imprisoned for transporting marijuana. Along the way, he joins with a semi-deranged old army buddy and other Indian activists in a confrontation against conformist Indians, acquiring a hatred of the society on whose behalf he fought and gaining an appreciation of his traditional roots. A far better known anti-war veteran film of 1989 was Born on the Fourth of July (1989), directed by Oliver Stone, with a screenplay by Stone and Ron Kovic, who wrote the novel of the same name. Starring Tom Cruise and Willem
Film and Veterans Dafoe, it is based on the true story of Kovic, a Long Island, New York, veteran who believed in the war and his country, but returns crippled from Vietnam. He learns to use a wheelchair despite a hideous veterans’ hospital, then revels and riots with other crippled veterans at a Mexican resort, apologizes to the family of a man he killed by mistake, and finally protests the war and throws away his medals in the manner of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War demonstration. Scenes of the war, Kovic’s childhood, and his postwar life are juxtaposed to show how he achieves maturity and selfhood through opposition politics. Jacob’s Ladder (1990), directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Tim Robbins, Danny Aiello, and Elizabeth Pena, deals with the mental troubles experienced by veterans who were the unknowing victims of psychological drug experiments. The Indian Runner (1991) was directed and written by Sean Penn and starred David Morse, Viggo Mortensen, Sandy Dennis, Charles Bronson, Patricia Arquette, and Dennis Hopper. Sean Penn’s first effort to write and direct a film resulted in this powerful drama. Joe remains at home and becomes an upstanding policeman as brother Frank goes off to Vietnam, goes to prison, and turns to a life of crime and violence. With his father and his farm taken from him, Frank kills himself as Joe tries in vain to rehabilitate Frank. Red Rock West (1993), directed by John Dahl and starring Dennis Hopper, Nicholas Cage, J. T. Walsh, and Lara Flynn Boyle, is perhaps the ultimate film to depict the veteran as a helpless victim. A wounded, penniless Vietnam veteran who refuses to do wrong is mistaken for another veteran, a hostile maniac hired by a bartender to kill his wife. He remains
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true to his principles after many narrow escapees, false accusations, and comic turns, leaving town on a freight train to face a bleak future. Article 99 (1991), directed by Howard Deutsch, written by Ron Cutler, and starring Troy Evans, Kiefer Sutherland, Eli Wallach, Ray Liota, and Kathy Baker, depicts veterans’ hospitals at their worst. At first, heroic doctors and nurses manage to save a farmer/veteran who suffers a heart attack when a veteran who was refused treatment goes berserk and shoots up the admissions lobby. Caring physicians and staff have to circumvent unfeeling administrators and ultimately join patients in a rebellion which leads to a new administrator but (it is implied) no major changes. Forrest Gump (1994), directed by Robert Zemeckis, screenplay by Eric Roth, from a novel by Winston Groom, and starring Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright Penn, Gary Sinise, and Mykelti Williamson, was one of the most popular films of the late-twentieth century. A hapless simpleton becomes a Vietnam war hero in spite of himself by saving his lieutenant, who in turn exhibits post-traumatic stress disorder. Gump is an ordinary man stumbling around in an incomprehensible world. The War (1994), directed by Jon Avnet, written by Kathy McWhorter, and starring Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood, again shows us a victim of posttraumatic stress disorder. A Mississippi Vietnam veteran cannot hold a job, in part due to prejudice against veterans. He tries to be a peacemaker between his son’s gang and a group of poor children who live in a junkyard, but is compelled in spite of himself to fight one of the fathers on the other side. Plagued by guilt and nightmares because he failed to save
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a friend in Vietnam, the veteran finally achieves peace when he saves his partner as they work in a mine together, although he dies in the process. The Vietnam-veteran-as-criminal appears again in Dead Presidents (1995), directed and written by Allen and Albert Hughes and starring Larenz Tate, Bokeem Woodbine, Chris Tucker, Martin Sheen, and Keith David. Vietnam veterans from the Bronx, New York, are changed into vicious criminals, robbing banks and killing others while wearing the masks of former U.S. presidents. Their lives before, during, and after the war are contrasted in the film to show how the war is responsible for their behavior. World War II and Korean War veterans appear respectively as a judge who sentences the ringleader to life in prison and a comic figure who defends himself with his prosthetic leg. The Spitfire Grill (1996), directed and written by Lee David Zlotoff, starring John M. Jackson, Alison Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, and Marcia Gay Hayden, is the story of reclusive Vietnam veteran Eli, who reads Homer’s Odyssey, the classic tale of a veteran who cannot come home. He is gradually drawn out of his shell by Percy, a young woman who, having been molested by and killed her stepfather (for which she served time in prison) is as disturbed as he is. Eli’s mother owns the Spitfire Grill, named after a World War II plane in the town of Gilead (where the famous African American spiritual promises a ‘‘balm to make the wounded whole’’). Eli carves sculptures of birds, symbolically replacing wartime with peacetime flight, his trapped situation with escape. Shades of Gray (1997), directed by John Houston—not to be confused with John Huston—was distorted by military
censors as it was filmed using real patients and doctors at a veterans’ hospital. Originally entitled ‘‘Let There Be Light,’’ the final version depicts the hospital in a favorable light, showing the treatment, and frequent curing, of veterans suffering from mental illness by means of hypnotism, counseling, and recreation. Although they appear as caring professionals, doctors blame childhood—especially mothers—rather than combat experience for maladjustment, and minority veterans are conspicuously absent. The Odyssey makes another appearance in Ulee’s Gold (1997), directed by Victor Nunez and starring Peter Fonda, Tom Wood, Christine Dunford, and Vanessa Zima. ‘‘Ulee,’’ the lame Vietnam veteran, is short for Ulysses, the Roman name for Odysseus, Homer’s veteran hero of the Trojan War. Ulee’s wife Penelope shares the name of Ulysses’s wife. They are seeking to lead a peaceful life—he is a beekeeper who produces honey—despite the terrible circumstances around them. Ulee’s son is a thief, his daughter a drug addict. Only his granddaughter shows any interest in his wartime experiences. Ulee is obliged to join in a plot by his son’s accomplices to recover money they stole to save his daughter-in-law, whom they hold as a hostage. He manages to foil their scheme without breaking his vow never to fight again, yet is also hostile to the local police. The veteran appears as a totally alienated yet reasonable man who just wants to be left alone. The Vietnam veterans’ films of 1998 were comedies. The Big Lebowski (1998), directed by Joel Cone, written by Joel and Ethan Cone, and starring John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, and David Huddleston is the story of a Vietnam
Film and Veterans War veteran who comically exaggerates every situation he confronts, relating it to his wartime experiences. Rushmore (1998) was directed by Wes Anderson, written by Anderson and Owen Wilson, and starred Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Olivia Williams, and Sara Tanaka. In this dark comedy, a wealthy but cynical and hostile manufacturer who has family troubles stages a play about Vietnam which ends in a draw between the hero (himself) and a female Viet Cong, indicating there were no winners in this war. Meanwhile, the play reflects the language, progress and public perception of the war. (See also African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War.)
Persian Gulf War In a remake of The Manchurian Candidate (2004), directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jeffrey Wright, Pablo Schreiber, and Anthony Mackie, the soldiers are now brainwashed by their own government. The Manchurian Corporation now stands in for Manchuria, the part of China closest to Korea where the brainwashing occurred. The Jacket (2006), directed by John Mayburn, with screenplay by Massy Tadjedin from a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco, was adopted from a 1915 short story by Jack London, published under the same title in the British Isles. It starred Adrian Brody, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kris Kristofferson. A war veteran is believed to be dead, but he awakens in a morgue. He is a misfit who is next falsely convicted of a murder committed by a hitchhiker he picks up. Sent to a mental hospital, the veteran is subjected to medical experiments, placed in a straitjacket, and foresees his death.
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The veteran, who has special abilities to predict the future, is depicted as the victim of callous forces in the government, society, and hospital system. (See also Gulf War Veterans.)
Iraq War Three of the four major feature films dealing with Iraq War Veterans (see entry) as of the time this book went to press present them as psychologically disturbed, whereas one depicts them as heroes. In Harsh Times (2005), directed and written by David Ayer and starring Christian Bale and Freddy Rodriguez, an Iraqi veteran plagued by posttraumatic stress disorder and flashbacks of military life cannot adjust to civilian life in Los Angeles. He fails in his effort to be a policeman and is drawn into a tragic life of crime. Home of the Brave (2006), directed by Irwin Winkler and based on a screenplay and story by Mark Friedman, stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, Brian Priestley, 50 Cent, Christina Ricci, and Chad Michael Murray. It owes much to The Best Years of Our Lives, the classic film about World War II veterans who could not adjust to peacetime life. Four soldiers return home: a surgeon, a single mother who has lost a hand, a man whose best friend has been killed, and another who cannot forget the fact he killed a civilian woman. They suffer through therapy and the veterans’ hospital system feeling helplessness, despair, and rage. This is the only film to depict a female veteran as a major character. The Marine (2006), directed by John Bonito and written by Michelle Gallaher, stars John Cena, a real-life professional wrestler. He is an Iraq war veteran who continues his crusade against evil by
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defeating criminals in Los Angeles who kidnap his wife. Stop-Loss (2007), directed by Kimberly Pierce and starring Ryan Philippe, Channing Tatum, Joseph GordonLeavitt, and Abie Cornish, deals with the plight of reservists sent to Iraq who are sent back again under ‘‘stop-loss’’ orders by the government. Required to serve in the field beyond their contracted time, veterans consider fleeing to Canada and forging papers but decide to return. They are also depicted as having
psychological problems adjusting to civilian life. William Pencak
Further Reading Early, Emmet. The War Veteran in Film. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 2003. Langman, Larry, and Ed Borg. Encyclopedia of American War Films. New York: Garland, 1989. Lembcke, Jerry. The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
G forbade what it termed ‘‘an assault with the intent to commit sodomy,’’ a policy confirmed by the Articles of War of June 4, 1920, which was then used to dismiss personnel who engaged in such acts even by mutual consent. The policy went into effect at the same time the ‘‘Red Scare’’ was in full sway, with local and federal officials deporting and prosecuting some real but many alleged Communists. In a comparable attempt to root out homosexuals, the U.S. Navy hired young men to become friendly with and seduce sailors at its base in Newport, Rhode Island, to discover homosexuals. An investigation by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee branded this a miscarriage of justice and the dragnet operation ceased. On the eve of World War II, openly gay personnel served in the military. The government considered homosexuals as psychologically sick rather than either criminals or people rationally choosing same-sex behavior, which led to their exemption from service during World War II, or their removal if they
GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER VETERANS There have been gay and lesbian soldiers since the days of the ancient Greeks and Amazons who fought them, respectively. In the United States, as the term homosexuality was not coined until the 1890s, soldiers engaging in ‘‘sodomy’’ were sometimes dismissed from the Continental Army and during the Civil War. But there was no standard practice or policy. For instance, letters survive from Colonel Alexander Hamilton and South Carolina Major John Laurens during the Revolutionary War that, even though excisions were made by one of Hamilton’s descendants, strongly suggest physical love occurred between these heroic officers. The first policy that mentioned homosexual behavior was included in the Articles of War promulgated on March 1, 1917, a month before the United States entered World War I. The military 177
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were found after they enlisted. Commanders had considerable leeway whether to investigate and punish the personnel involved, and those discovered received honorable or, more likely ‘‘general,’’ discharges for bad conduct which would hamper their opportunity for future employment. Fewer than 5,000 of 18 million men drafted during the war were dismissed for homosexual offenses, less than one-thirtieth of one percent. Only in the Uniform Code of Military Justice adopted after the war did Articles 125 and 134 make anal sex (even between married couples) a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if consensual, ten years if coerced, and loss of all benefits. In 1981, the Defense Department expanded on this policy by declaring ‘‘homosexuality incompatible with military service’’ and tending to diminish ‘‘discipline, good order, and morale’’ as well as leading to ‘‘breaches of security.’’ For the first time, the military raised the possibility that a homosexual orientation, as opposed to actual acts, could be grounds for prosecution. On gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) issues, the courts accept, as they do on almost all matters relating to national defense, the military’s own assessment of its needs. The major veterans organizations—the American Legion, AMVETS, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars—do not have an official position and their posts are free to accept or reject GLBT veterans, as they can any others. The Alexander Hamilton Legion Post in San Francisco, with a large gay membership, has supported the GLBT oral history project. Founded in 1984 by gay rights activist Dr. Paul Hardman, it regularly leads marches and protests in favor of equality for gay military personnel.
The current ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy was announced by President Bill Clinton in 1993, confirming the illegality of openly admitting to a homosexual orientation as well as performing homosexual acts in the military. Clinton was persuaded by the military, mobilized by Chief of Staff Colin Powell, not to fulfill his campaign promise to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly. The one legal protection for homosexuals offered by this policy is that benefits and rank can be restored if personnel were illegally asked to reveal their sexual identity: this occurred when Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, head of the Military Nurse Service in the State of Washington National Guard, was dismissed in 1989 after having been asked if she was a lesbian when she applied to attend the Army War College. Restored to her rank and honorably discharged in 1997, she wrote an account of her dismissal and the lengthy legal process required to reinstate her, Serving In Silence, which became the basis of the film Breaking the Silence (1995) starring Glenn Close. The number of service personnel dismissed for homosexuality has remained constant since the 1980s in proportion to the number of total personnel. Three studies by the government, the Crittenden Report of 1957, the Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC) Sarbin-Karols Study of 1988, and the PERSEREC/McDanel Study of 1989 all concluded that homosexuality did not hamper military performance, and the last of these termed gay men ‘‘as good or better’’ than their heterosexual counterparts. None of these reports were released by the military until 1989 after Congressional pressure. The General Accounting Office Foreign Countries Study (1993) and the RAND
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans | 179 Corporation Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy Report (1994) found no lack of efficiency or loyalty in the Australian, Israeli, German, Canadian, and seven other armed forces, which allowed homosexuals to serve at the time, but concluded this data could not be applied to the significantly different U.S. armed services. In recent years, official military spokespeople have moved from criticizing the performance of GLBT personnel to the effect their presence has on other personnel, although polls indicate the majority of current personnel do not have problems with GLBT colleagues. Beginning in the 1970s, gays and lesbians in the military became active in their attempts to serve legally and openly. They also sought to obtain honorable discharges that would allow them to receive veterans’ benefits and eliminate the handicap of a less-than-honorable discharge in obtaining civilian employment. (As of 2009, a majority of states does not forbid employers from firing or not hiring homosexuals for that reason alone.) This campaign has two main strategies. The veterans educate the public and lawmakers by telling their stories through books, films, and oral histories, and by making them known through demonstrations, rallies, and in events such as pride parades. They also lobby lawmakers, endorse sympathetic candidates, and engage in legal action to change the law and nullify discharges obtained by ‘‘asking.’’ The first significant veteran to fight for the right to serve and crusade for gay military rights was Sergeant Leonard Matlovich (1943–1988), who appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1975 and was perhaps the best-known gay man in the nation in the 1970s. A former
Republican and Mormon (a religion that condemns homosexuality), Matlovich was able to win an honorable discharge and a settlement of $160,000 from the government in 1980. Ironically, his victory paved the way for the stricter construction of homosexuality by making a homosexual orientation as well as homosexual activity a ground for dismissal. At the same time, Matlovitch’s case served as an inspiration to other GLBT personnel. His tombstone in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC, reads ‘‘Never Again’’ and ‘‘Never Forget’’ above two pink triangles, the symbol of gay liberation, and ‘‘When I Was in the Military I Was Given a Medal for Killing Two Men and a Discharge for Loving One.’’ Numerous stories of gay and lesbian veterans are filed at the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. The most extensive project in the nation is coordinated by Professor Steve Estes of Sonoma State University, who has published the results of 60 interviews with personnel from World War II to the Iraq War. In 2006 the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Historical Society featured a temporary exhibit, ‘‘Out Ranks,’’ on GLBT experiences in the military. On the tenth anniversary of ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ in 2003, Brigadier Generals Virgil Richard and Keith Kerr and Admiral Alan Steinman, all retired, were the first service personnel at this rank to openly admit their homosexuality in an op-ed piece in the New York Times. They all work for the abolition of the policy. Today, there are four important groups lobbying on behalf of lesbian and gay veterans. (1) American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) was founded in 1996 as the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual
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Veterans of America (GLBVA). AVER champions the rights of lesbians, gays, and other sexual minorities to serve in the military and lobbies Congress and the Veterans Administration to recognize and deal humanely with the problems of such veterans. The national organization was preceded in 1985 by the New England Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Veterans. It also seeks to educate its members and the public about gay and lesbian issues generally, and holds a biennial convention. Services for veterans include efforts to upgrade and provide assistance for veterans with less than honorable discharges based on sexual orientation, information about veterans benefits and counseling, and an online newsletter, The Forward Observer, that details the activities of the different chapters. For instance, in 2007, the organization protested the military’s decision to accept convicted felons while refusing gay and lesbian recruits. (2) The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is ‘‘a non-partisan, non-profit, legal service, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel based on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’.’’ It has handled over 9,000 legal requests since that policy became effective in 1993: over 12,500 personnel have been fired for their sexual preferences or activity since then. The Network publishes an 84-page survival guide online for the benefit of gay/lesbian military personnel on how to remain in the military, presents awards to activists who help gay and lesbians in the military, and tells the stories of gay and lesbian veterans to educate the public and lawmakers (online and through conventions, lobbying, etc.). (3) The ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue’’ database is maintained by the
Robert Crown Law Library of the Stanford University School of Law to aid discharged gay and lesbian veterans in pursuit of their rights. It contains primary materials on the U.S. military’s policy on sexual orientation, from World War I to the present, as identified in Professor Janet E. Halley’s book, Don’t: A Reader’s Guide to the Military’s AntiGay Policy (1999), including legislation; regulations; internal directives of service branches; materials on particular service members’ proceedings (from hearing board transcripts to litigation papers and court decisions); policy documents generated by the military, Congress, the Department of Defense, and other offices of the Executive Branch; and advocacy documents submitted to government entities. (4) The Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) was founded in 2003 to represent what are believed to be the approximately 300,000 transgender and transsexual veterans—officially considered as afflicted with a gender identity disorder (GID)—in the United States. The organization was started by Monica Helms and Angela Brightfeather in 1993, both members of the Yahoo group list of TS (transsexual) Veterans, as the Veterans Committee of the National Transgender Action Committee. The immediate catalyst was in response to a transsexual veteran who was refused treatment at the Washington, DC, Veterans Hospital and obliged to go to Baltimore, which accepted him. Veterans Administration regulations forbid the use of facilities for sex change operations, leading some hospitals and officials to interpret this as the right to refuse other services to transgender individuals. Although it is not illegal for transgender people to serve in the military as it is with
Gettysburg National Cemetery | 181 gays and lesbians, there is still considerable prejudice against them. The organization has three goals: to ensure that the Veterans Health Administration’s Customer Service Standards to treat veterans ‘‘with courtesy and dignity . . . as the first class citizen that you are’’ applies to transgender individuals; to educate the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense about transgender and transsexual individuals and issues; and to help the transgender community in general. The organization researches laws, policies, and treatment concerning transgender individuals, recommends changes to the government, and works with groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and Lambda Legal to challenge inappropriate government behavior in the courts. Major activities of TAVA besides actual care include marches to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown in Arlington National Cemetery, relief to Hurricane Katrina victims, and the formation of local chapters to attend national conventions. TAVA’s most extensive activity to date has been to contribute to interviews analyzed by the Palm Center of the University of California at Santa Barbara in a report issued in August 2008. The sample of 827 veterans interviewed revealed transgender and transsexual veterans are frequently denied their legal rights, being turned away from the Veterans Administration and hospitals, and not receiving respect (approximately 20 percent) from those treating or dealing with them, including being asked about their sexual orientation. They are frequently denied treatment made available to women veterans as a matter of course, such as pap smears, mammograms, prostate exams,
psychotherapy, and hormone treatments. Furthermore, they are discriminated against in the private sector. Nearly onethird of the survey participants reported having experienced discrimination in the workplace; 15 percent claim to have been fired because of their sexual orientation and 40 percent more than once. During his campaign, President Barack Obama promised to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military, but as of mid-2009 had not yet issued an order. Statements from his advisors suggest he will only do so once Congress approves this change, although the president could make it by executive order. William Pencak
Further Reading American Veterans for Equal Rights. http:// aver.us/aver/. Estes, Steve. Ask and Tell: Gay and Lesbian Veterans Speak Out. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. New England Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Veterans Inc. http://www. newengland-glbt-vets.org/. Rimmerman, Craig, ed. Gay Rights, Military Wrongs: Political Perspectives on Lesbians and Gays in the Military. New York: Garland, 1996. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. www.sldn.org. Transgender American Veterans Association. www.tavausa.org.
GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY The Battle The Gettysburg National Cemetery was built on Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, close to the town’s
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existing cemetery, the Evergreen Cemetery, which was just south of town. When the famous battle was fought in 1863, the population of the town was about 2,500, as compared to just over 7,000 today. The battle came at a crucial moment in the Civil War, with the Union forces setting out to halt the Confederates by holding Cemetery Ridge—high ground which ran from Cemetery Hill to Little Round Top, the center of much of the fighting on the second day of the battle —with the result that there was fighting around the cemetery itself during the battle which lasted from July 1–3, 1863. At the end of the battle, Cemetery Ridge— an area about 100 feet higher than much of the nearby battlefield—was the object of Pickett’s Charge. In all, by the end of the fighting it was known that 3,903 Confederates from the Army of Northern Virginia were killed and 5,365 were missing—figures later revised to 4,427 killed and 5,592 missing. For the Union forces from the Army of the Potomac, 3,155 were killed and 5,425 posted as missing, a figure later revised to 5,365. There were also many others on both sides who subsequently died of wounds in the days and weeks after the battle— 12,179 Confederate soldiers, and 14,529 Union soldiers being reported wounded at Gettysburg. Indeed, the Confederate General James Johnston Pettigrew, the last to leave the field of battle after Pickett’s Charge, was mortally wounded when he led the rearguard of the Army of Northern Virginia when, on the night of July 13–14, they forded the Potomac to return to the South. Although the full casualty figures were horrific, the effect on individual units was even more telling. All the soldiers in the University Grays, a unit recruited from
the alumni of the University of Mississippi, were either killed or wounded. Every man in one company from a North Carolinas regiment was killed; and the 1st Minnesota Regiment lost 82 percent of its men in five minutes—the highest casualty rate of any Union regiment during the entire war. The town’s cemetery, the Gettysburg Evergreen Cemetery, was established in 1854 under the management of the Evergreen Cemetery Association, with a twostory brick gatehouse built at the entrance for the caretakers. It had two sections, connected by an arch over the gate. A sign at the entrance, which was observed by many during the battle, noted: ‘‘All persons found using firearms in the grounds will be prosecuted using the utmost vigor of the law.’’ At the start of the fighting it was a place of refuge for some of the civilians such as Tillie Pierce, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl who fled from her home on Baltimore Street. On the afternoon of the first day of the battle, it was where Major General Winfield Scott Hancock arrived and, looking north, took command of the Union troops, rallying them after they had been driven through the town by the Confederate troops of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell and Lieutenant General A. P. Hill. A statue of Major General Hancock now stands on that spot. By this time Captain James A. Hall, whose Union battery was placed in the Evergreen Cemetery, recorded that some of the tombstones and iron fences had been badly damaged. Another account uncovered by Mark Dunkelman for his biography of Amos Humiston, written by Private Charles McKay, a 15-year-old from Allegany, noted, ‘‘We stacked arms among the old gravestones and watched with wondering eyes the scene that
Gettysburg National Cemetery | 183 presented itself in plain view just across the valley’’ (Dunkelman 1999, 115). On the second day of fighting, the Confederates under Lieutenant General Ewell again attacked the area around the cemetery gatehouse but with increased ferocity. By this time the Union forces were well ensconced on the grounds of the cemetery. Lieutenant George Breck, in a letter describing his actions at the Evergreen Cemetery, wrote, ‘‘A beautiful cemetery it was, but now is trodden down, laid a waste, desecrated. The fences are all down, the many graves have been run over, beautiful lots with iron fences and splendid monuments have been destroyed or soiled, and our infantry and artillery occupy those sacred grounds where the dead are sleeping . . . it was enough to make one mourn’’ (Gottfried 2008, 77). When Ewell attacked, his order from General Robert E. Lee to ‘‘sweep the hill, if practicable’’ has long been criticized as being too vague with his second attack being driven back by the Union forces. The Confederates were driven off, in part by Major George Benson Fox and his men of the 75th Ohio Infantry, with other Union soldiers under the command of Colonel Samuel Carroll. The action features in the famous painting of the fighting around the cemetery gatehouse—with the gatehouse itself the most prominent landmark—are by the New York war correspondent Edwin Forbes who was with the Army of the Potomac, based on a sketch he had made during the battle. The gatehouse was then taken over by the Union soldiers serving as the anchor of the ‘‘fish hook’’ defensive line. During the fighting, the gatehouse sustained some damage from incoming artillery shells, but was regarded as safe enough for Union officers to confer there. Indeed when General George Meade arrived at
the battlefield on July 2, he met General O. O. Howard inside the gatehouse and then, finding it too cramped, moved to his command to a farmhouse behind Cemetery Ridge where the other Union commanders were discussing the progress of the first day of the battle.
The Aftermath Because of the ferocity of the fighting, and the changes in the points the Confederates attacked, although some bodies would have been buried during the battle, most were not interred until the end of the fighting. Others, such as Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, the son of Samuel Wilkeson of the New York Times, were buried soon after they fell. Most were quickly buried in shallow graves, while others died of wounds in hospital stations or in the homes of people in the town who took in the injured to care for them. Local school teacher Elizabeth ‘‘Sallie’’ Myers was one of many locals who tended the wounded; 14-year-old Tillie Pearce looked after Union General Stephen Hinsdale Weed who had been shot and mortally wounded at Little Round Top. It was days before all the dead bodies were collected from around Gettysburg. When photographer Timothy H. O’Sullivan wandered around the battlefield on July 5 and 6, he photographed hundreds of bodies around the scene of the fighting. One of the casualties of the battle who has been heavily researched was Lieutenant Arad Linscott of the 20th Maine Regiment. He was injured with a bullet wound in his thigh and was in a field hospital on July 3, listed as wounded. However, he recovered sufficiently for doctors to decide that he was well enough to go home to convalesce.
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He reached his family but then contracted a virus, suffered from an infection, and died on July 27. Although technically he had died from an illness, the injury certainly hastened his demise, and veterans urged for him to be listed officially as having been mortally wounded and his name to be inscribed on the war memorial, although after this was done, no change was made in the number of soldiers officially listed as having died at the battle. With the caretaker from the Evergreen Cemetery being away in the Union forces, his wife, Elizabeth Thorn, although six months pregnant, had to help with the burial of nearly 100 soldiers. Mary Virginia ‘‘Ginnie’’ (or ‘‘Jennie’’) Wade, aged 20, was the only civilian killed during the Battle of Gettysburg—she had been shot by a sharpshooter’s stray bullet that passed through two doors—and was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery. Her grave was 100 feet away from that of Corporal Jack Skelly Jr., from the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry, her fiance´. When Jennie Wade, a seamstress, was shot dead, she had a photograph of Skelly in the pocket of the apron she was wearing. The Jennie Wade House Museum, located in her mother’s house in Gettysburg, tells her story—it is also believed by some to be haunted. About 5,000 horses and mules that were killed in the fighting. Most of the carcasses were not buried and were left to decompose throughout the rest of the summer. Eventually many were burned. Over the days and weeks after the battle, other bodies were also found around the battle site, especially among the denser parts of the woods near Little Round Top and Devil’s Den.
One of the bodies hastily buried after the battle was that of a New York soldier whose body was found at the corner of York and Stratton Streets in Gettysburg. He had been hit in the chest and obviously realized that the injury was mortal and had staggered there. He died clutching a photograph of his wife and three children. The body was buried near where it fell, the site being owned by a local judge S. R. Russell, and the photograph was taken by a nearby innkeeper. When Philadelphia doctor John Francis Bourns, who had been treating the wounded, heard of the story, he asked for the photograph and was given it, marking the grave in case the photograph could be subsequently identified. On October 19, 1863, the Philadelphia Press published a story entitled, ‘‘Whose Father Was He?’’ and the story was taken up by some other papers including the American Presbyterian, which included a copy of the photograph. In late November, hearing of the story, Philinda Humiston in Portville, New York, wrote to Bourns asking for a copy of the photograph and discovered that it was of her and her children. The grave was marked as that of her husband Amos Humiston, with Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper running an account of the entire story including a woodcut showing Humiston dying clutching the photograph. Stories such as that of Humiston led many people to feel that the quick burial of the Union soldiers was a wholly inadequate way to commemorate the men who died at the battle. With moral and financial support from Andrew G. Curtin, the governor of Pennsylvania, land around Cemetery Hill was purchased for a more fitting cemetery. Some people thought that it might be a good idea to
Gettysburg National Cemetery | 185 write to family members of the dead to request that they pay for the graves. However, this idea was quickly ruled out. People felt that forcing families to pay after the sacrifice of one of their members was unfair to their pain.
Origins of the National Cemetery Two local attorneys played important roles in getting the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg organized—it would become the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1872. The first was David McConaughy (1823–1902). Educated at Gettysburg College 1836–1838, he had briefly worked as a teacher in Howard County, Maryland, practiced law in Gettysburg beginning in 1845, and had been in charge of the local intelligence gathering network for the Union forces prior to the battle—his third son was born five days before the battle began. He was also the man responsible for the establishment of the Evergreen Cemetery and became the principal organizer of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, devising the initial concept of the cemetery and starting to plan for the relocation of the graves from sites scattered around the battlefield to this new cemetery. At that point a rival attorney, also a local, David Wills (1831–1894), took over the organizing—McConaughy went on to serve as a state senator from 1865 until 1868, and his son Samuel went on to be the secretary and treasurer of the Moravian Cemetery at Staten Island, New York. McConaughy was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery when he died, as have been six congressmen: George Jacob Benner, William Crawford, Joel Buchanan Danner, Edward McPherson,
Franklin Menges, and John Augustus Swope. John Burns, a veteran of the War of 1812, who at the age of 70 fought as a civilian at the Battle of Gettysburg, was also buried there when he died in 1872. David Wills was educated at Gettysburg College, graduated in 1851, and then studied law under the area’s congressman, Thaddeus Stevens, before practicing law. He was also director of the Gettysburg National Bank. He had the task of acquiring the land, overseeing the construction of the cemetery, and then organizing the dedication ceremony. Some 17 acres (69,000 square meters) was purchased for $2,475.87. The prominent horticulturalist and landscape architect William Saunders (1822–1900) had the responsibility of designing the cemetery, on a site which had to be cleared of trees. Saunders was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, moving to the United States in 1848. He then became involved in landscape gardening in Pennsylvania. He designed several civic parks and cemeteries, including the Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago. From 1862 until his death Saunders was superintendent of Experimental Gardens of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, where he had been the founder of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons and Husbandry. In his work at Gettysburg, he designed the cemetery with the Soldiers’ National Monument in the center. This was aimed at celebrating the Union victory, with the graves of the soldiers organized in a series of concentric rings (or strictly speaking, semicircles) around it. The entrance to the cemetery remained —and remains—the old Gettysburg Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse off what is now Tennyson Road.
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All the graves were to be individual, with all gravestones the same size, showing that all the men were equal in death. The initial aim was to have the plots in a random order, but complaints from some states led to the graves being grouped by state, with one section for the regular army and two sections for those whose bodies had not been identified. This was unlike the burials following the Battle of Chattanooga on November 23–25, 1863, when an army chaplain asked Major General George H. Thomas about whether the dead there should be buried by states. Thomas is reported to have replied, ‘‘No, no, mix them up, I’m tired of states’ rights.’’
The Dedication The initial plan by Wills was that there should be a ceremony to dedicate the cemetery on September 23. However, when he contacted Edward Everett (1794–1865) to ask whether he would take part in the dedication, Everett replied that he had not been given enough notice to prepare such an important speech and suggested that the event be delayed, which it was. Everett, a former governor of Massachusetts, who had been professor of Greek literature at Harvard University, and briefly secretary of state—as well as being the vice-presidential candidate for the Constitutional Union Party ticket in 1860—later became a member of the Republican Party and was well-known as a powerful orator. On November 18, 1863, to take part in the dedication ceremony, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg and spent the night staying with David Wills at his house in the main square of the town. Lincoln usually declined invitations such as this, but when he received one from Wills, by this time the special
agent of Governor Curtin, he recognized that Gettysburg was special and decided that to ensure that he did not miss the ceremony, he would have to arrive the day before. On the following morning, November 19, people gathered around a platform built in the Evergreen Cemetery. There the chaplain to the U.S. Senate (and former chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives) and one of the greatest antislavery preachers of that time, the Reverend Thomas Hewlings Stockton (1808–1868), began with a prayer. He was followed by the main speaker, Edward Everett, who made a long speech to the gathered crowd of about 15,000 which included the governors of six of the Union states: Andrew G. Curtin from Pennsylvania, Oliver P. Morton from Indiana, Augustus Bradford from Maryland, Joel Parker from New Jersey, Horatio Seymour from New York, and David Tod from Ohio, as well as four major generals (Darius Nash Couch, Ulysses Doubleday, Robert C. Schenck, and Julius Stahel), Brigadier General John Gibbon, Provost Marshal General Speed Smith Fry, the Secretary of State William H. Seward, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, and the Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. Everett spoke for 1 hour and 57 minutes—his speech was 13,607 words long—after which the band played a hymn composed by B. B. French. Abraham Lincoln then made his short Gettysburg Address, which lasted 2 minutes and 15 seconds. The photographer there to record the event, expecting a much longer oration from the president, had not even readied his camera by the time that Lincoln sat down, although a 1953 photograph by David Bachrach in the Mathew Brady collection of
Gettysburg National Cemetery | 187 photographic prints at the National Archives and Records Administration, in Washington, DC, of the dedication was found to show Lincoln, albeit out of focus. There was applause at five times during the address but when it was over Lincoln told a colleague that he felt his speech as ‘‘a flat failure.’’ Lincoln had made a point of speaking to the cemetery’s architect before the speech—Saunders was later to be commissioned to design the grounds for the Lincoln Memorial at Springfield, Illinois—and the president’s words were well crafted even though they did not create much of an impression on the people listening, partly because Lincoln’s voice did not carry well. The reporter from the British newspaper The Times was extremely critical but the Springfield Republican called the address ‘‘a perfect gem, deep in feeling, compact in thought and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma.’’ The handwritten copy of the speech was, at the request of Everett, auctioned at a Sanitary Fair in New York to raise money for soldiers, and Lincoln wrote another copy for sale at a Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Fair at Baltimore, which was retained by the historian George Bancroft and is now at Cornell University. Lincoln gave another two copies to his private secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay, and a fifth copy, the only one signed by Lincoln, was later written out for sale for charitable purposes. Some scholars believe the Nicolay copy was the actual one held by Lincoln when he made his speech as it has folds which are consistent with it having been folded up in Lincoln’s pocket. Soon after the actual address, the speech was published in newspapers throughout the northern states and also
overseas. It became recognized as encapsulating so succinctly and emotionally the sacrifice and death of so many people, not just at Gettysburg but elsewhere in the Civil War, and in war in general.
Subsequent Burials The reburial of the bodies of the 3,564 Union soldiers continued until March 1864. Six years later, in 1870, through the initiative of the Ladies Memorial Associations of Richmond, Raleigh, Savannah, and Charleston, the bodies of the Confederate soldiers were removed from the mass graves where they had been buried and taken to those four cities for reburial. 2,935 bodies were reinterred at the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, with some 73 bodies sent back to other cemeteries at the express wishes of families of the deceased. The initiative started when press reports were published in the South that the Confederate dead were not being properly commemorated at Gettysburg. One person from Mississippi reported that the headboard of a colonel was decaying, and if nothing was quickly done about marking the burial spots, all the markings on the graves might be lost. With ploughs from farmers regularly uncovering the bones of more Confederate dead, on January 21, 1866, the Jackson Clarion (Mississippi) stated, ‘‘Let the fiends who cry out against Confederates for ill-treatment of their prisoners and dead think of this when they charge us with cruelty and fiendishness.’’ These outbursts had led, in 1871, to Charles Dimmock being commissioned, by the Hollywood Memorial Association, to survey the battlefield and work out the approximate costs of moving
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all the Confederate dead to Richmond. He claimed that some farmers wanted money to allow the Confederates to remain buried on their land, which was confirmed by investigations by the Army and Navy Journal. The initial $1,000 given to the Hollywood Memorial Association by the Virginia legislature was nowhere near the cost, with another $6,000 subscribed by people, including some Northerners. Many of the bodies, when they arrived in Richmond, were in coffins draped with the Confederate flag. This work for the Confederate dead continued through to 1873 with the result that the Gettysburg National Cemetery commemorates only the Union dead. David Wills was the president of the commissioners of the cemetery at Gettysburg until May 1, 1872, when control was transferred to the War Department, and the Gettysburg National Cemetery formally started using its new name. By this time a number of large monuments had been erected in and around the cemetery, and indeed across the battlefield. These included the large equestrian statue of the Union Major General Oliver Otis Howard on Cemetery Hill (which he held during the battle), with others commemorating states such as Pennsylvania, and also Virginia, and another for individual regiments such as the New York Light Infantry. The most impressive of the monuments is the Pennsylvania Monument which contains around it plaques which list on them the names of all 34,530 officers and enlisted men from the state who fought at the battle. With the Spanish-American War of 1898, some families of American service personnel who died in that war wanted their relatives to be buried at the Gettysburg National Cemetery, and the War
Department agreed to this. There were also further interments of the bodies of U.S. service personnel who died in World War I.
Reunions By this time the cemetery was well known, with regular reunions (see Reunions, Civil War Veterans). Many of these were organized by the veterans of the 69th Pennsylvania Regiment who, in 1887, formed the Philadelphia Brigade Association. They immediately set about establishing the Philadelphia Monument on the battlefield and also invited the men of Pickett’s Division Association to attend ‘‘in a spirit of fraternity, charity and loyalty.’’ The Confederate veterans attended, including many family members and also LaSalle Corbell Pickett, George Pickett’s widow, and their son. The Union band played Dixie and the Confederates marched across the fields at the site of Pickett’s Charge, and at the end shook hands with the Union veterans. All also took part in ceremonies to commemorate the dead at the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Subsequent reunions took place, but the most lavish to date was held in 1913 for the 50th anniversary of the battle. Former Union Brigadier-General H. S. Huidekpper, who as a lieutenant colonel had lost his right arm at the battle, was a major mover, with the State of Pennsylvania agreeing to foot the bill of $450,000, the federal government later adding $150,000 and also support from the U.S. Army. More than 530,000 Confederate and Union veterans from 46 states attended—including 22,000 from Pennsylvania, of whom 303 had fought for the Confederacy. The oldest veteran was Micyah Weiss,
Gettysburg National Cemetery | 189 who was aged 112, and came from New York by automobile. The youngest was John Lincoln Clem, aged 61, who had run away from home at the age of 10 and had been a drummer boy at the Battle of Shiloh. Initially Woodrow Wilson had chosen not to attend. Being the son of a Confederate who as a young boy had seen the destruction of the war, he finally arrived on July 4 giving an hour-long speech. Also in 1913 Daniel Edgar ‘‘Dan’’ Sickles managed to visit Gettysburg six months after he had avoided arrest and imprisonment for having embezzled money from the New York Monuments Commission. He had been a moving force in the creation of the Gettysburg National Military Park, and when asked whether he was disappointed that there was no monument commemorating him on the battlefield, exclaimed, ‘‘Hell, the whole dammed battlefield is my memorial.’’ Sickles died the following year. On the week from June 29 until July 6, 1938, for the 65th anniversary of the battle, there was the last great reunion of the veterans of the battle with 1,359 Union veterans and 486 Confederates, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicating the Eternal Light Peace Memorial in front of 500,000 Americans and others. The memorial denotes the site north of the town where General Robert Rodes sent his Confederate Division into action threatening the Union soldiers deployed at McPherson Ridge and Oak Ridge. By that time, members of the Sons of the Union and Confederate Veterans associations regularly camped and drilled at the battlefield, commemorating the sacrifice of so many at the cemetery.
Other Sites at Gettysburg Honoring Veterans Gettysburg National Military Park was established by the Gettysburg Battle Field Memorial Association in 1864 and taken over by the U.S. government 31 years later. The impetus for this came largely from a concern that there were plans to build a railroad across the site. In 1933 it was taken over by the National Park Service. Now covering 2,530 acres, with 83 statues and 800 other monuments, it covers most of the battlefield, and, along with the Gettysburg National Cemetery, attracts thousands of visitors each week. One of those who first visited as a West Point cadet in 1914 was Dwight D. Eisenhower who, in 1950, bought a farmstead which, during the battle, had been a field hospital for the Confederates. In 1961 when Eisenhower left the White House, he moved to the farm and died eight years later in Washington, DC. By that time a Gettysburg Visitor Center had been opened on the west of Tennyson Road, opposite the Cemetery Gatehouse, and a Cyclorama Center was built a little further south, with a car park between the two centers, and further parking north of the Visitor Center. All access to the cemetery itself remains on foot, although there is a small car park in the National Cemetery Annex which was later built north of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. In 2008, a new Visitor Center opened replacing the Cyclorama and existing one. In addition to the cemetery and monuments on grounds owned by the national government, the town of Gettysburg and adjacent area abound with private museums and souvenir shops. Justin Corfield
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See also Grand Army of the Republic; Battlefield Preservation; Civil War Veterans
Further Reading Blair, William A. Cities of the Dead. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Brew, Cowan. ‘‘We Here Highly Resolve.’’ Military Heritage: The Battle of Gettysburg Special Issue (Summer 2005): 70–71, 76. Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. New York: Scribner/Macmillan, 1968. Desjardin, Thomas A. ‘‘America’s Flawed Vahalla.’’ Military History, August 2004: 26–32, 78. Dunkelman, Mark H. Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier: Life, Death and Celebrity of Amos Humiston. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. ‘‘Gettysburg National Military Park and Cemetery.’’ Civil War Times Illustrated, February 1981. Gottfried, Bradley M. The Artillery of Gettysburg. Nashville: Cumberland Publishing, 2008. Gramm, Kent. November: Lincoln’s Elegy at Gettysburg. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001. Hassler, Warren W., Jr. Crisis and the Crossroads: The First Day at Gettysburg. Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1970. Hymel, Kevin. ‘‘The Fate of One Unheralded New York Soldier Touched the Conscience of Thousands of Affected Northerners.’’ Military Heritage 7, no. 2 (October 2005): 14–17, 71. McKelvey, Blake, ed. ‘‘George Breck’s Civil War Letters from Reynolds Battery.’’ Rochester Historical Society Publications 22 (1944): 91–149. Niderost, Eric. ‘‘Reunions at Gettysburg.’’ Military Heritage: The Battle of Gettysburg Special Issue, Summer 2005: 72–73, 78.
Patterson, John S. ‘‘A Patriotic Landscape: Gettysburg 1863–1913.’’ Prospects 7 (1982): 315–33. Pfanz, Harry W. ‘‘From Bloody Battlefield to Historic Shrine.’’ Civil War Times Illustrated, July 1963. Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: The Second Day. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. London: Jonathan Cape, 1955. Sandburg, Carl. ‘‘Just a Hundred Years Ago.’’ National Geographic Magazine, July 1963: 1–57. Swain, Robert L. ‘‘Generals at Odds.’’ Military History, July/August 2006: 38–45. Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Tucker, Glenn. High Tide at Gettysburg. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1958. Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
GI BILL OF RIGHTS See Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
GOLD STAR MOTHERS See American Gold Star Mothers
GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a national organization of Union Civil War veterans. Formed in the 1860s, the organization developed into an important political and social institution. Politically, the GAR was a major
Grand Army of the Republic voting bloc for the Republican Party, and in the 1870s–1890s the GAR pushed for increased pensions for veterans, eventually amounting to more than a third of the federal budget. Socially, the GAR cared for its members in a system of poor relief. As a fraternal organization, it was also important to Victorian American society. Mingling political and social roles, in the 1890s the GAR promoted patriotism and ‘‘correct’’ historical views in school classrooms and textbooks.
Founding The founder of the Grand Army of the Republic was Benjamin Franklin Stephenson, a medical doctor from Illinois who had served in the Union Army. As early as 1864, Stephenson and William J. Rutledge, the chaplain of Stephenson’s unit, may have made plans to create a veterans’ organization at war’s end. By 1865, Stephenson had drafted the ritual for what would become the GAR. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, another secret fraternal organization of nineteenth-century America, so he was familiar with the rituals of that organization, and he also borrowed part of the ritual of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ League, an earlier veterans’ organization. Stephenson and 14 other officers met in conference and formed the nucleus of the new organization. The first post of the Grand Army was chartered in Decatur, Illinois, on April 6, 1866. The organization grew rapidly. When the statewide Department of Illinois was founded in July, it had 39 posts. In November the GAR held its first national encampment, and members attended from posts in 12 states and the District of Columbia. That rapid growth continued throughout the 1860s.
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Stephenson’s ostensible purpose for the GAR was comradeship, and there is little reason to discount that motive. From its earliest days the GAR was a fraternal organization, and most of its activity was fraternal. But for others of the GAR organizers and for much of its membership, fraternalism was second to politics. Two men in particular intended to use the GAR as a political power base: John Logan and Richard Oglesby. Oglesby was the governor of Illinois, and Logan was a general in the Union army who had been politically active throughout the war. Both men saw the Grand Army as a potential Republican voting bloc. The Union army had influenced politics during the war, so Logan and Oglesby’s idea was not without precedent. During the war, some states had permitted soldiers to vote absentee, while others made no such provision; the choice was usually made based on whether the party in power thought the soldier vote would help or hurt its cause. Political Union generals ensured that their troops had absentee ballots, and sometimes troops were furloughed to vote in their home states. Political pamphlets were distributed to the soldiers in camps, and officers subjected their men to political harangues. While Democrats tried to take advantage of the soldiers’ absence to elect antiwar politicians, Republicans used the soldiers’ votes to good effect, as most soldiers overwhelmingly voted for the party that supported the war. Logan’s scheme was eventually successful, and the GAR helped further his political career. In 1868–1870, he was the GAR commander in chief. During his tenure, Logan used inspectorsgeneral to keep order in the far-flung posts, sending them to draw up
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This 1884 print celebrates the leading Union veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-02019]
membership lists that he used on behalf of both Republican candidates (in Illinois) and himself. Though the highest office he ever reached was U.S. senator, he was several times mentioned as a possible Republican nominee for president.
Politics Soon after its founding, the GAR had a chance to play at least a peripheral role in national politics. The GAR was born amidst bitter contention between President Andrew Johnson who had clashed with the radical Republicans who controlled Congress. Congress favored civil rights for freedmen, while the president opposed them. The battle
came to a head over the appointment of a new secretary of war. The head of the War Department was an important position, because it was a cabinet-level post and because the department controlled the military forces enforcing Reconstruction in the South that were so vital to Reconstruction. Edwin Stanton was secretary of war by Lincoln’s appointment, but in 1866 Johnson fired him and appointed Lorenzo Thomas in his place. Congress refused to confirm the new appointment or even to recognize the president’s authority to fire Stanton. Stanton retained control of the War Department and fortified himself in his office, while Thomas tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to expel him.
Grand Army of the Republic With the government in Washington very nearly at the point of blows for days, the GAR unequivocally declared its support for Congress and Stanton. GAR members formed part of Stanton’s guard, and other Grand Army veterans telegraphed that they were ready to arm themselves and march on Washington in Congress’s defense. No violence ever came of the confrontation—though Congress did impeach Johnson—but it was one of the few times that the GAR ever threatened forcible intervention in a political dispute. The Grand Army proved more influential in the 1868 presidential election. For that election, both parties considered running veterans as candidates to appeal to the sizeable veteran vote: over a million men had served in the Union military. George B. McClellan, popular general of the Army of the Potomac, was often mentioned for the Democratic ticket, though he declined to run. The Democrats instead ran Horatio Seymour, the antiwar governor of New York who bore the blame for the New York draft riots; the Democrats thus effectively gave up the veteran vote. The Republicans, on the other hand, ran Ulysses S. Grant, the general credited with winning the war. Of course, party politics were too complicated for any one cause to explain a nomination or the outcome of an election. Nevertheless, Grant beat Seymour handily, taking the veteran vote in the process. The GAR actively campaigned for Grant, and so helped make him president. The GAR continued to have a long influence on presidential politics—always in favor of the Republicans. Among the members of the Grand Army, for example, were presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield,
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Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. But not too much should be made of the Grand Army’s Republican leanings. Some GAR members were Democrats, and the GAR supported Democrat candidates who were veterans over non-veteran Republicans. Then too, the GAR was probably not that decisive in that they consistently favored Republicans since most Northeners after the Civil War voted Republican. Though the Grand Army was influential in Republican politics, both its contemporaries and historians have overemphasized its partisanship. After its first years as a political machine, in 1869 the GAR made a rule forbidding partisanship: ‘‘No officer or Comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic shall in any manner use this organization for partisan purposes, and no discussion of partisan questions shall be permitted at any of its meetings, nor shall any nominations for political office be made.’’ Also in 1869, the GAR removed from its constitution the goal of electing veterans. That disavowal of partisan intent—not always consistent with the GAR’s later actions—took the organization out of electoral politics, but left the GAR free to exert other types of political influence. In later decades the Grand Army became a powerful lobby for pensions and patriotism. The GAR also sometimes intervened in labor disputes as a volunteer militia against the strikers, as in some coal miners’ strikes in Pennsylvania in 1877. (See also Politics, Veterans in.)
Membership Little in the way of qualification was required to join the Grand Army. One needed only to have been a soldier during the Civil War in the Union military,
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whether in the army, navy, marine corps, or Revenue Cutter Service, and to have either continued in the service or been honorably discharged. There were a few other stipulations, notably that no one could join the GAR who had fought for the Confederacy, even if he later fought for the Union. Beyond that there were no formal requirements of rank or service—one need not have been an officer nor to have seen combat. Rather, to join the Grand Army one needed only to have been a veteran. That simple requirement helped the members of the GAR to create a new identity for themselves—an identity as veterans. Fraternal organizations were not unusual in the Gilded Age; the GAR was just one among the Masons, Knights of Pythians, Grange, Odd Fellows, Ku Klux Klan, Knights of Labor, Improved Order of Red Men, and dozens of others. Being a veteran, then, was key to the identity that veterans crafted for themselves. After the war, the veterans were rapidly discharged, and they had to make their own way back into civilian life without assistance. That transition, though difficult for many, was not burdened with the sense of failure or disillusionment. The veterans had clearly accomplished their objectives of defeating the South and preserving the Union. Being a veteran was honorable, and an identity as a veteran was desirable. After earlier wars, ex-soldiers saw themselves as civilians who happened to be former soldiers, but members of the GAR saw themselves as being veterans—the saviors of the Union. The difference can be seen in the GAR’s attitude to civilians, for whom they often had harsher words than for their former enemies, the Confederate veterans.
The veteran’s identity was both national and local. The war had been a national experience involving the country’s fate and most of its citizens. The GAR too was a national organization. It had posts in nearly every state (including most of the South), it was overseen by a national bureaucracy, and its annual encampments were national gatherings. Its concerns were also national: pensions, patriotism, and politics. But the war had also been a local experience, for soldiers usually fought with units organized from their hometowns and states. The GAR likewise was a local organization, because the center of the GAR membership was the local post. In some big cities where there were many posts, the post was not just a local organization but a neighborhood gathering. The posts dealt with local matters, such as charity and politics. But though membership requirements were simple, not everyone was welcome to share the veteran’s identity. Though stipulations for membership were controlled at the national level, admitting members was a matter for each post. To join a post, a potential initiate needed the sponsorship of an existing member. The whole post then voted on his application in secret; any negative vote vetoed prevented him from joining. Posts were thus able to control their membership and create the type of organization they wanted. Most obviously, membership in the Grand Army was limited to men. Fraternal organizations were a sphere of male influence during the Victorian era, a time when the female-dominated home was the center of middle- and upper-class society. In the post room, men could celebrate the bonds of comradeship and fraternalism. The sole exception was Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmonds, who joined the
Grand Army of the Republic GAR in 1884. During the Civil War she had disguised herself as a man, going by the name Frank Thompson, and served in the army as a nurse and a spy, until she deserted to avoid being found out when ill. Edmonds was even granted a pension by Congress. Edmonds’s case, however, was hardly typical and did not affect the GAR’s male-only identity. Women, such as Lucy Nichols of New Albany, Indiana, a black nurse who served heroically in several campaigns, could be honorary members. The GAR was an interracial organization and not, as some scholars believe, a racially segregated group. Because black and white soldiers had served together in the Civil War, most white veterans believed that their organization should include African American veterans as their political equals. No other nineteenth-century social organization granted black Americans this status. The existence of all-black posts suggests the GAR was segregated; however, African Americans created these organizations for their own reasons and not because they were forced into all-black organizations by their white counterparts. Black posts formed in the vast majority of urban areas with enough black veterans to sustain a post and, together with their women’s auxiliary organizations, these groups played an important role in the life of the local African American community. The single most critical function of these organizations of the black posts was to fight the efforts of those who would forget slavery and the black military experience in the Civil War. The notion that the GAR was a segregated group is put to rest by the existence of hundreds of integrated posts in cities and town across the United States. While GAR officials encouraged interracial
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posts, joining a predominantly white post was sometimes difficult because only a handful of white members could reject a black applicant. Despite these challenges, African Americans affiliated with predominantly white posts in large cities such as Hartford, Connecticut, and small towns such as Massillon, Ohio. The memory of shared suffering in the Civil War created the GAR’s interracial comradeship and allowed black and white veterans to overcome racial separation in an era defined by the color line (see African American Veterans, Civil War). A more subtle distinction of the race question was the ethnicity of GAR members. Antebellum immigration had come primarily from the British Isles and western Europe; in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, new waves of immigrants came from eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. While immigration diversified the country, the Grand Army retained its predominantly western European ethnicity because all its members had been present in the United States by the 1860s. The GAR thus favored nativist politics and had a nativist membership, but that characteristic was only incidental. The GAR does not belong in the same camp as other nativist groups whose raison d’eˆtre was nativism, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Class was a more ambiguous criterion for membership than gender or race. Some posts were exclusive to upper-class members, because their members refused to accept members of a lower station and because they set initiation fees and dues prohibitively high. Other posts, however, catered to lower-class members and set dues that were quite affordable. In locations with multiple posts, few veterans were excluded from membership on the basis of class; if one post would not take
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a man, he could join another. Nor was class a requirement for leadership in the GAR. Former officers and enlisted men were—at least in theory—equal when it came to balloting for positions as post officers, and many privates became post commanders, and some even became commanders in chief of the order. On the whole, though, GAR members tended to be businessmen and professionals, perhaps because the fraternal functions of the order appealed more to the middle class and the elites, perhaps because those groups could better afford to spend time and money on membership. More important for excluding veterans from membership than class was length of service. Though technically any veteran could join the GAR, in practice posts blackballed short-term soldiers. By limiting membership to veterans whose service was more considerable than a few weeks of camping and some drill, the Grand Army protected the value of membership, thus protecting the value of the veteran’s identity. A few generalizations, then, can be made about GAR members. The membership was exclusively male. Members tended to be middle class and above, but only because working-class veterans chose not to join the GAR at as high a rate. Rank meant little (but not nothing) in determining the status of a member, but length and quality of service mattered a great deal. Posts tended to be widely diverse; there was no typical post. Some were exclusively upper class, others were lower class. Some catered to certain ethnicities. Some posts were composed of cavalrymen; some of sailors; some of infantrymen; but most were mixed. In short, only one characteristic was shared by all GAR members—they were all veterans.
Organization The Grand Army was organized into posts, or local gatherings. The posts were led by a commander and other officers, elected from the membership. The membership also set its dues and regulations. Posts were sometimes numbered or sometimes named after military figures. They were organized into departments, a group of all the posts in a state or at most two states. The departments were likewise organized into a national encampment, an annual gathering held in a different city each year. Delegates to the national encampment who were chosen at the department level made policy for the Grand Army, such as revising the ritual. At the head of the GAR was the commander in chief, elected annually. The commander in chief had the most influence on policy, but also important was the judge advocate-general. His court refereed disputes between the members and made decisions about the ritual (see below) and membership. The judge advocate-general heard many cases; for minor disputes the GAR almost had its own private justice system. For a certain set of offenses, the judge advocategeneral could expel members: disloyalty to the United States, disobeying the orders of a GAR officer, law-breaking, conduct unbecoming a soldier and a gentleman, and conduct prejudicial to good order. Public drunkenness was the most frequent cause for expulsion. While the orders of officers and the decisions of the judge advocate-general were of limited effect because the order was voluntary, the GAR seems to have maintained fairly strict discipline. Indeed, so far from resisting discipline, discipline may have been precisely what attracted many members to the order.
Grand Army of the Republic The GAR had means of promulgating its opinions and affecting the opinions of its members, including several publications. One publication was the Grand Army Record, the newspaper of the organization. The Grand Army Blue Book was a collection of rules, mostly the work of Robert Beath, who in 1889 also published a history of the GAR. The Blue Book was a code of the rules of the order, with annotations giving the substance of opinions by the judge advocate-general.
Ritual Like other fraternal organizations, the Grand Army had a secret ritual with which it initiated members. The ritual knit the veterans together in the secret society, and it instilled in them the ideals of the GAR. The rituals of other fraternal organizations were intended as initiation into manhood—an initiation veterans did not need. Rather, though the GAR borrowed parts of its ritual from Freemasonry, military traditions, and the rituals of earlier veterans’ organizations, its ritual was intended to present in an allegory the motto of the GAR: ‘‘Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty.’’ The initiation ritual began with the recruit approaching a sentinel, who stopped him. When a patrolling officer came to the recruit, he was questioned about his service record, and administered an oath of secrecy. Blindfolded and covered with a blanket—intended to symbolize being a prisoner of war—the recruit was marched about the post room, stopping at a box in the shape of a coffin. On the coffin was the name of some prisoner who had died in Andersonville, a prison camp run by Confederates. Also on the coffin was a Bible, crossed swords, and a
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flag. After being administered another oath of secrecy, the recruit swore to care for fellow veterans through such duties as employing them and giving them charity and patronage. The guards who had escorted the ‘‘prisoner’’ recruit, who was still blindfolded, were commanded to shoot the recruit, but the officer in charge intervened only at the last moment, crying out that he was a ‘‘soldier and a brother’’ and uncovering him to see the coffin and display. After that ritual, the post commander usually gave a speech. In the earliest days of the GAR, the speech was as likely as not a political harangue, but later it was usually about the duty of veterans. Ritual pervaded even regular post meetings. The officers sat in a complex seating arrangement, with the commander at one end of the room and the vice commander at the other, and other officers at the sides of the room. In the middle was an altar, on which stood crossed swords, an open Bible, and a ballot box during elections. The seating plans thus formed a cross, which matched Christian symbolism in other parts of the ritual. Entering the post required a series of salutes and passwords to both outer and inner sentinels. Besides the ritual, GAR members wore uniforms, intended to present a martial appearance, and they had a badge of membership. The ritual was promulgated by the national encampment, but it varied from post to post and was revised over time. The 1869 encampment introduced grades, roughly parallel to the Masonic system. The GAR grades adopted were recruit, soldier, and veteran. Each grade had its own badge, secret grip, and password. To advance to each grade required a separate initiation ritual. Based on the GAR motto ‘‘Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty,’’ the first ritual was an allegory of fraternity, the second of charity, and
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the third of loyalty. These grades were probably intended to imitate the Masons and other fraternal orders and to keep men from the competing orders. Nevertheless, the introduction of grades was a colossal mistake. GAR members hated it, and many resigned. The new system had required that every member be mustered back in—in many cases, probably with additional initiation fees—and so many simply refused to rejoin the organization. Perhaps more important was the veterans’ distaste for artificial gradations. As soldiers they had already had clearly defined ranks— and those ranks had actually meant something. The fraternal ranks, however, were civilian ranks. Furthermore, what was appealing about the GAR was its lack of rank; in the GAR an ex-private had, in theory, as much opportunity as an ex-general to become post commander or commander in chief, and some privates did. Being a veteran as opposed to a civilian meant more to GAR members than being a particular gradation of veteran. In short, the fraternal ranks disturbed the equal fraternity of the GAR and introduced an unwanted civilian component. Accordingly, GAR membership dropped and remained at all-time lows even after the system was repealed in 1871. Membership which was 240,000 in 1869, was 25,000 in 1871. Other causes contributed to low membership in the 1870s. Americans may have wanted to put the war behind them. The early partisanship of the GAR may have dissuaded any but radical Republicans from joining the GAR until its partisanship decreased. Furthermore, the Depression of 1873 may have made it difficult for some veterans to afford initiation fees. The Grand Army gradually
relaxed its rules in the 1870s and 1880s, but membership grew only slowly until it reached its peak in 1890. In that year, the GAR could boast some 351,244 members in 6,928 posts. But even at that peak, the GAR had as members less than half of the living veterans. The ritual—like the rules—was gradually softened, so that it was less overtly political and less harrowing, did not involve a blindfold, and was more fraternal than military. The result was probably an increase in membership, even if some members with stiffer collars regretted the decline in military exactness. The GAR became increasingly like a fraternal order, and so it became increasingly more civilian.
Charity As the GAR retreated from its role in electoral politics and as its membership grew, it became more important as a social institution. Its most important social role was as a dispenser of charity. Before 1888, each post was required to have a relief fund for the aid of its members and other veterans. After 1888, that fund was optional, but many posts continued to maintain it. From dues and voluntary contributions by members, posts distributed relief, primarily to its members but also to other veterans in their communities. The financial relief that GAR posts provided to veterans tended to be onetime gifts, not repeated support. The GAR wanted to promote the independence and self-sufficiency of its members. One-time relief given to a veteran who had fallen upon hard times and needed help promoted independence, by allowing the veteran to recover and reestablish himself. But relief offered
Grand Army of the Republic continually without a definite end in sight, it was feared, created dependence. For those veterans who did need longterm support, the federal government provided pensions to disabled veterans and their dependents. This goal of preserving but not destroying independence through charity caused some veterans to oppose calls for increased pensions late in the nineteenth century (see separate entry, Pensions, Civil War). Besides monetary aid, fellow GAR members often provided services to veterans in need. A lawyer might represent a member in court, or a doctor might treat a sick comrade. Posts often had a designated post surgeon, who provided medical services to members. GAR posts also paid for their members’ funerals, so that no veteran would be buried in a pauper’s grave. Only wealthy members, who could well afford the cost of a funeral for themselves, did not have their funerals paid for. The posts also attended the funerals, though more prominent members were more likely to have well-attended funerals. For members who asked for it, the GAR would even perform the service at the funeral, mixing Christian symbolism with military ritual. The aid that posts could give their members was at best uneven. Wealthier posts were less likely to have members in need of charity, while poorer posts had more people with needs. Wealthier posts had surpluses that they gave to national or international charities, or that they contributed to other posts; smaller posts had to restrict their charity to members. Economic hard times in the 1870s and 1890s also made it difficult for members to contribute dues and for posts to meet the increased demands for charity.
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Pensions, Civil War The GAR is best known for its agitation for veterans’ pensions in the late nineteenth century. Despite initial opposition of some veterans, the GAR was eventually able to persuade Congress to grant pensions that created an unprecedented welfare state—for Union veterans and their families, that is. The federal government began a disability pension for Union veterans in 1862. Any veteran who was disabled because of his military service or his dependents if he were dead qualified for a pension. The idea, in President Lincoln’s words, was ‘‘to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,’’ but only for those who truly needed help. The idea that any veteran deserved a pension just for his service, and not for disability, was contrary to the prevailing idea of what a pension should be. And not even all veterans who qualified claimed that limited pension; through the 1870s only about 43 percent of qualifying veterans applied for the pension. The movement for increased pensions began in 1877 with GAR member George Lemon. The first concession from Congress was the Arrears Act of 1879. The act permitted disabled veterans who had been entitled to a pension since 1862 but who had not claimed it to receive the arrears of their pension in a lump sum. Though the act did not increase the number of veterans who qualified for pensions, it did increase federal payouts, and it raised the profile of the pension issue. In the 1880s, the GAR continued its lobbying for veterans at the state law. The GAR urged states to enact laws that would relieve impoverished veterans
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and give veterans preference in hiring for state jobs. The Grand Army also lobbied for improved conditions at veterans’ asylums, which began to be called Old Soldier’s Homes. The change from asylum to home was an important one in Victorian America, where the home was the center of social life (see also Veterans’ Homes). In 1886, Congress considered a bill that would have given each veteran eight dollars a month as a pension. That type of pension, based on service rather than disability, represented a changed idea of what a pension should be—from caring for veterans in need to giving each veteran a continual entitlement. Many veterans, even among the GAR membership, opposed service pensions, wanting to maintain their independence; they considered their service to the Union to have been a patriotic duty that required no repayment. In the 1880s, a service pension was politically unfeasible. By the 1890s, the GAR had a pension committee, but that committee opposed service pensions. The change in the GAR’s attitude towards pensions came because of persuasive arguments why a pension would not take away from veterans’ independence and why veterans were entitled to pensions. The first part of the argument was that the federal government had to distribute the excess federal revenue. (The federal government had a budget surplus from 1866 to 1893 because of heavy tariffs.) Second, veterans argued that increasing the availability of pensions would decrease pension fraud. Third, and most important, the veterans argued that they deserved pensions as their right because they had saved the nation. This argument, intended to tug at the heartstrings (and purse strings)
of Congress, flipped the argument about independence on its head. The point was not that if the nation gave pensions to veterans it would make them dependent, but that the nation owed veterans pensions because it had depended on them. The Grand Army, which was becoming one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, eventually lobbied for a service pension. It never got one, but the Dependent Pension Act of 1890 was practically the same thing. That act gave pensions to any veteran who had served for 90 days and who was too disabled to do manual labor. The disability need not have been the result of military service—even old age qualified. Nearly every veteran eventually qualified for a pension, and pension rates were raised several times. In 1893, 41.5 percent of the federal revenue was spent on pensions; in 1910, a half million veterans received an average pension of $189 per year. (See also separate entry, Pensions, Civil War.)
Memory and Patriotism Another issue in which the GAR involved itself was the memory of the Civil War. Decoration Day, which later became Memorial Day, was the GAR’s first contribution toward crafting a remembrance of the war. While commander in chief of the order in 1868, John Logan issued General Order Number 11, which established Decoration Day for GAR members. Borrowing an idea from Confederate graves that he saw in Virginia, Logan ordered GAR members to decorate the grave of every Union soldier on May 30. The observance became an annual tradition on a certain Monday every May. On the
Grand Army of the Republic Sunday before Decoration Day, GAR members attended church in their uniforms wearing GAR badges. On Monday itself, they decorated graves and held graveyard services. The GAR encouraged the memorializing of Civil War veterans throughout its existence. Post meetings also memorialized the war experiences of veterans. Of course, any gathering of veterans was an occasion to swap stories, but the GAR meetings formally encouraged members to remember the war. During post meetings members would give recollections that they had prepared beforehand, giving special emphasis to the actions and movements of their units. Those recollections were recorded and preserved, because the GAR wanted to participate in the history of the Civil War by providing historians with primary sources. The national encampment was also an occasion for sentimental remembrances of camp life. The encampments featured camp food, tents and cots, discipline, marital music, and the absence of wives and children. Individual posts also invited neighboring posts to hold ‘‘campfires,’’ where camp life was reenacted. (See also Reunions, Civil War Veterans.) In the 1890s, the GAR joined in the nationwide patriotic fervor, at a time when the nation became increasingly enamored of its flag and other patriotic symbols. The GAR supported flag exercises and the singing of the national anthem in schools, and they encouraged posting the Declaration of Independence in classrooms. For example, the GAR is mentioned in the song ‘‘You’re a Grand Old Flag,’’ written in 1906. The GAR also started to censor textbooks, after some members became upset at books that glossed over the Civil War or that
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were ambiguous about which sides were right and wrong.
The End of the GAR Because membership in the GAR was limited only to veterans of the Civil War, and not to their descendents or to veterans of later wars, it was inevitable that the GAR would fade away. Though earlier veterans’ groups, such as the Society of the Cincinnati, had chosen to perpetuate themselves by passing membership on to sons, the GAR chose to allow itself to decline and eventually vanish. That choice was made deliberately, because the GAR decided to avoid merging with one of its auxiliaries, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. As membership declined, the GAR had to deal with diminished funding as well, and it had to arrange for posts to merge with one another. The GAR also faced the challenge of how to care for infirm members. The GAR lasted for a surprisingly long time. Its final encampment was held in 1949, with six veterans. Its last member, Albert H. Woolson, died in 1956. With its membership rolls closed, the GAR’s papers went to the Library of Congress, and its artifacts went to the Smithsonian Institution and other museums. Lincoln Austin Mullen See also Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations
Further Reading Dearing, Mary R. Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.A.R. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1952. Reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974.
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Logue, Larry M., and Michael Barton, eds. The Civil War Veteran: A Historical Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2007. McConnell, Stuart C. Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865– 1900. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
GULF WAR SYNDROME Following the Gulf War, August 2, 1990, to February 26, 1991, veterans who served began reporting a variety of symptoms including chronic fatigue, loss of muscle control, headaches, dizziness, memory problems, shortness of breath, and birth defects in their children. On November 17, 2008, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses concluded that ‘‘scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.’’ It believes about one out of four of nearly 700,000 veterans who served in the war were exposed to toxic chemicals that increased their likeliness of acquiring these symptoms (Silverleib 2008; see also entry, Gulf War Veterans). The Gulf War began when, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered his military forces then massed along Iraq’s southern border to invade the tiny neighboring country of Kuwait. Iraq had long considered Kuwait a province of Iraq and did not recognize its independence. This fact, coupled with Hussein’s belief that Kuwait was illegally obtaining Iraqi oil through slant drilling, provided the pretext for the massive invasion. The heavily outnumbered Kuwaiti forces fought for two days but by August 4 they had been subdued by the numerically superior and more
heavily armed Iraqi military. World leaders within both the United Nations (UN) and the Arab League reacted quickly in the days immediately following the invasion of Kuwait as each organization condemned the invasion and called for Iraq’s withdrawal. U.S. President George H. W. Bush reacted by quickly deploying the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to Saudi Arabia to prevent further Iraqi aggression in the region and to protect the extremely valuable Saudi Hama oil fields. Bush continued this buildup of American military power in the region in Operation Desert Shield, while at the same time he built a massive coalition of 34 nations to oppose Saddam Hussein. As the month of August gave way to fall, UN negotiations with Iraq continued even as coalition forces poured into Saudi Arabia and massed along the Saudi Kuwait border. The UN issued a series of resolutions designed to persuade Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, including a series of economic sanction that were designed to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world. Perhaps the most important of these resolutions was UN Resolution 678 which set a January 15, 1991, deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal. A failure of Saddam Hussein to vacate Kuwait by that date authorized direct military action by coalition forces. This date came and went without any withdrawal by Iraqi forces, so on January 17 a massive coalition air campaign spearheaded by the United States began. The ground phase of Operation Desert Storm began on February 24, and barely 100 hours later, President Bush called a cease fire and declared Kuwait free. Although coalition forces proved vastly superior in quality, training, morale, and equipment, and easily bested Hussein’s forces, many of the 697,000
Gulf War Syndrome | 203 U.S. service personnel who served in the region would begin to report a mysterious set of ailments in the months and years after the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War. The American public greeted its victorious service members with ticker tape parades and jubilant celebrations of one of the most impressive victories in military history. However, in the 6–24 months immediately following the war, for over 100,000 returning American soldiers (approximately 15 percent of those deployed to the Persian Gulf) this joy quickly turned to consternation and concern as they developed a puzzling set of medical conditions. Although symptoms varied by individual, the ones most commonly reported were fatigue, fevers, myalgia, night sweats, rashes, abdominal bloating, intermittent diarrhea, photophobia, confusion, headaches, transient visual scotoma, muscle pains, nervousness, anxiety problems, respiratory problems, frequent coughing, chemical sensitivity, bleeding gums, eye pain, nausea, chest and ear pain, vision problems, irritability, and depression. In response to the growing number of medical complaints by veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs created a Registry Health Examination Program. This program allowed concerned veterans to obtain systematic medical examinations at VA medical facilities and allowed the VA to track any significant trends among the target population. However, the VA would from the outset take a rather skeptical view of the Gulf War Illness (GWI; also and later more frequently labeled Gulf War Syndrome). In one report, the VA concluded, ‘‘Although the syndromes associated with past armed conflicts are characterized by similar symptoms as seen in Gulf
War veteran registry participants, no single recurring illness has been found to explain their occurrence’’ (Howe 1999). In short, the official line held that the symptoms reported by Gulf War veterans were consistent with symptoms reported by veterans of other conflicts. In addition, by denying the existence of one single cause, the VA insinuated that many of the reported conditions could be explained by post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the attempts by the VA to deny the existence of GWI, the number of soldiers complaining of often chronic and debilitating conditions increased and the medical community began to take notice. However, officials within the Department of Defense (DOD) and the VA continued to take a very skeptical view of veterans’ claims. By 1996 four government panels and advisory commissions had been appointed to study claims that Gulf War Illness was a syndrome and that veterans from the Gulf War suffered ailments out of proportion to those people who had not served in the Gulf. In an August 1995 report which studied 10,020 Gulf War veterans, the DOD concluded that ‘‘there is no clinical evidence for a new or unique illness or syndrome among Persian Gulf veterans’’ (PBS.org). Up until 1996, the DOD also categorically denied that U.S. troops had been exposed to chemical agents. In June of 1996, the DOD finally admitted that U.S. troops may have been exposed to chemical agents when army engineers mistakenly blew up an Iraqi munitions bunker containing chemical rounds. The DOD’s official stance on the existence of GWI and its reluctance to admit that U.S. troops were exposed to chemical and/or biological agents came under increasing attack from veterans, health officials, politicians, and other
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government agencies. About the same time that the DOD admitted soldiers may have been exposed to chemical agents, the Institute of Medicine, a notfor-profit research group affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the Defense Department did not adequately explain its conclusion that the illnesses did not constitute a diagnosable syndrome. The continuing debate and pressure by politicians and veterans’ groups prompted President Bill Clinton to appoint the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illness in 1996. In March 1995 leading medical researches on GWI convened the Persian Gulf War Unity Conference in Texas in order to asses the current state of research into the phenomena and to offer possible causes of the syndrome. Garth L. Nicolson, Ph.D., issued a report summarizing the findings of the conference. The report concluded that the large number of conditions associated with GWI did not fit easily with any one disease. The report then went one to offer a series of possible causes for many of the leading symptoms of the illness. One leading hypothesis held that exposure to a variety of natural and man-made toxins and microorganisms caused a condition called multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) that could lead to many of the symptoms reported by Gulf War veterans. Culprits included depleted uranium dust from U.S. anti-tank rounds, chemical pesticides, oil fire residue, low levels of chemical agents such as nerve and mustard agents, and chemical anti-nerve agent compounds (Nicolson 1995). The report also cited environmental factors that may have contributed to sickness among the soldiers. One researcher noted that exposure to fine sand particles
in the Gulf ‘‘could have resulted in immunosuppression in some soldiers and eventual infection by opportunistic micro-organisms’’ (Nicolson 1995, 366). Significantly, the report also stated that ‘‘contamination in the environment appears to be responsible for MCS seen in many Gulf War veterans,’’ and speculated that highly toxic uranium dust was also a factor. It also found that many soldiers complaining of GWI symptoms tested positive for specific antibodies linked to exposure to radiation and chemical and biological agents (Nicolson 1995, 367). The toxic cocktail theory advocated by the Texas conference in 1995 continues to be one of the more widely held theories of prominent researchers to this day. Although the report advanced several possible causes of GWI -type symptoms, it also offered a scathing critique of the federal government’s actions to that date. Dr. Nicolson stated in his report that ‘‘the most pressing difficulty for most of the investigators working on Gulf War Illness has been the appalling lack of support for their studies and the failure of the Veterans Administration (VA) to cooperate with diagnostic and therapeutic clinical trials.’’ This type of dissension between the official policy of the DOD and the VA and the opinions and needs of leading researchers and veterans’ advocacy groups would continue to characterize the issue of GWI until the present day. Dr. Nicolson also pointed to another possible cause for some of the symptoms of GWI in an article which he published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995. In this article, Nicolson noted that in some cases, family members of veterans of the Gulf War also reported similar symptoms as the
Gulf War Syndrome | 205 deployed family member after the family member returned. This lead to the conclusion that in some cases GWI was a transmittable infection. Nicolson theorized that some veterans ‘‘may have been infected with a micro-organism, possibly an aggressive pathogenic mycoplasma, and that this type of infection can produce chronic symptoms long after exposure’’ (Nicolson and Nicolson 1995). Dedicated researchers such as Nicolson and others continued to examine the causation of the bewildering number of reported maladies despite the official stance of the DOD and the VA. In 1999 researchers determined that the brain scans of many sick veterans showed signs of exposure to toxic chemicals. This seemed to be a significant corroboration of earlier theories and research that pointed to the conclusion that exposure to a multitude of environmental and man-made toxins and pathogens was responsible for GWI. Additional studies in 1999 linked the issuance of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) (a prophylactic antinerve agent compound) to a host of GWI-related conditions. Further research in 2004 revealed that some sick veterans were especially sensitive to low levels of chemical agents (levels thought to be safe for most) and this sensitivity was responsible for symptoms associated with GWI. Evidence amongst the medical and research community was clearly mounting for the earlier proposed toxic cocktail exposure theory (Golomb; Institute for Molecular Medicine). Despite the official policy of denial and skepticism, independent researchers continue to investigate GWI and find correlations between exposure to chemical compounds and environmental pathogens and the syndrome. Most recently, the Washington Times reported that
researchers had found a linkage between exposure to certain chemicals and the onset of symptoms of GWI, a theory long held by many veterans of the conflict. The article reported that a link had been firmly established between exposure to acetycholinestrase inhibitors (AChEIs) which was found in chemical pesticides issued to troops and nerve agents and nerve agent antidotes that many troops consumed during the conflict (Gardner 2008). Currently there is no official recognition of the existence of a GWI as a unique medical condition. Although the VA and DOD continue to track ailing veterans, they still contend that illnesses reported by Persian Gulf veterans are similar to ailments reported by veterans of other conflicts. Despite this stance, researchers continue to look for answers. In addition to earlier theories and research that has linked exposure to chemicals such as PB, pesticides, nerve agents, depleted uranium, pathogenic bacterium and mycoplasma, fine sand particles, and oil fire residues to the onset of GWI-related symptoms, additional sources are being investigated. One theory now holds that a series of anthrax vaccinations given to deployed soldiers to protect them from weaponized anthrax used as a biological weapon also caused immunosuppression in a certain population of soldiers. As of 2002 the Pentagon announced that tests it had conducted on the anthrax vaccine indicated it was negative for the presence of squalene and a vaccine adjunct not approved for use by the FDA and a target of many GWI researches. The Pentagon results were later invalidated by a more sensitive FDA test that confirmed squalene was present in some batches of the anthrax vaccine given to troops who
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deployed to the Gulf from 1991 up to the War in Iraq that began in 2003. The discovery of squalene would help corroborate claims of GWI-type illnesses by veterans who deployed to the Persian Gulf in the years after the cessation of the Persian Gulf War. Since anthrax shots were routinely given to all troops deployed to the region after 1990, tainted anthrax vaccines may be a common causal agent that links veterans of different deployments. Despite the breakthroughs on anthrax vaccines and the confirmation of chemical sensitivity among some soldiers affected by GWI, researchers have not found one single cause of GWI nor have they convinced government officials to acknowledge GWI as a unique medical condition. Although most leading researchers now tend to favor exposure to a host of environmental pollutants, chemical agents, tainted anthrax vaccines, and organic pathogens as the most likely causes; research continues and will most likely continue into the foreseeable future as veterans continue to report the array of symptoms associated with the malady. Debate and controversy, hallmarks of the discussion of GWI since the first reports by veterans in the early 1990s, will likely continue to characterize this issue as research and study continues into the mysterious illness. James S. Bailey
Gardner, Amanda. ‘‘Gulf War Illness Strongly Linked to Chemical Exposure.’’ Washington Post, March 10, 2008. www.WashingtonPost.com. Golomb, Beatrice A. ‘‘A Review of the Scientific Literature as It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses: Pyridostigmine Bromide.’’ www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/ MR1018.2/. Howe, Michael. ‘‘Lessons Learned from the Department of Veterans Affairs.’’ Military Medicine, 164 (1999):327–31. United States Department of Veterans Affairs. www1.va.gov/gulfwar/page.cfm?pg=6. Institute for Molecular Medicine. ‘‘Gulf War Illnesses Research.’’ www.immed.org/ illness/gulfwar_illness_research.html. Nicolson, Garth L. ‘‘Progress on Persian Gulf Illness—Reality and Hypothesis.’’ International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 4 (1995): 365–70. Nicolson Garth L., and Nancy L. Nicolson. ‘‘Doxycycline Treatment and Desert Storm.’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 273 (1995): 619. PBS.org. ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome.’’ www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/ appendix/syndrome.html. ‘‘Progress on Persian Gulf Illness—Reality and Hypothesis.’’ International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 4 (1995): 365–67. Silverleib, Alan. ‘‘Gulf War Illness Is Real, New Federal Report Says,’’ November 17, 2008. www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/ 17/gulf.war.illness.study/.
Further Reading
GULF WAR VETERANS The Ghosts of Vietnam
Asa, Pamela B., Russell B. Wilson, and Robert F. Garry. ‘‘Antibodies to Squalene in Recipients of Anthrax Vaccine.’’ Experimental and Molecular Pathology 73 (2002): 19–27.
The First Gulf War, from August 2, 1990, to February 26, 1991, was a moment in history that vindicated the American military. In the wild victory celebrations that followed, the country reveled in the
Gulf War Veterans | 207 mission it had accomplished in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, the war also healed many of the scars left over from a much older conflict fought in Southeast Asia a generation earlier. Often lost to present-day audiences are the profound doubts that preceded the coalition invasion of Kuwait in 1991. In the months prior to the war, intelligence estimates held that the Iraqi military had as many as 450,000 troops in the theater of operations, backed by 4,000 tanks, 1,000 combat aircraft, 7,000 antiaircraft weapons, and 10,000 antiaircraft missiles (Millett and Maslowski 1994, 635–39). Many units, particularly Hussein’s elite Republican Guard divisions, were veterans of the recently ended Iran-Iraq war. Civilian and military analysts predicted that American forces engaging this enemy within a heavily fortified stretch of Kuwaiti desert might suffer casualties measured in the tens of thousands (Millett and Maslowski 1994, 635–39). In order to win public support for such a daunting task, George H. W. Bush embarked upon a campaign to directly include the American people in the mobilization for war. After a clumsy start in the early fall of 1990, the administration found its voice by November. Bush relied upon a simple methodology that framed American participation in a war against Saddam Hussein in terms of moral absolutes. During a series of public appeals to the American people comparing the Iraqi leader to Adolph Hitler, the president borrowed another page from history and depicted Iraqi forces that had invaded a small nation ‘‘with little warning and even less mercy.’’ The aggressive action led Bush to the equally simple conclusion that ‘‘the world must not reward aggression’’
(Bush 1990). Kuwait became the equivalent of Poland in 1939. The ‘‘line in the sand’’ drawn by the United States in August 1990 became, for all intents, an opportunity to prevent a second Munich Pact. Punctuating the administration’s discourse was a formal authorization for the war itself. At the end of the year, before the liberation of Kuwait commenced, the White House submitted to both houses of Congress a war resolution that allowed one additional venue for debate and the official stamp of legitimacy. By a narrow margin, particularly in the Senate, the national legislature accepted the president’s proposal. The course for war was set. The effort was more than a formal laying of hands by the nation’s leadership. The war resolution lent a sense of legitimacy to American operations that resonated with the people. On January 16, 1991, the day after the coalition bombing offensive began, an ABC poll indicated that 83 percent of Americans supported the war. For a brief moment in its post-Vietnam history, the United States experienced a public consensus over a foreign war. Once military operations against Iraq were concluded, the disparity between the scale of the victory and its cost further reinforced the public faith placed in Operation Desert Storm. Army and Marine ground forces suffered 122 combat deaths and 131 noncombat fatalities during the entirety of the 1991 campaign against Iraq, a remarkably small cost given the massive scale of the forces engaged. Estimates of Iraqi casualties were 10,000 military and 2,000 civilian (Millett and Maslowski 1994, 639). Within the American military community, the lopsided nature of the war was a
This view, taken from Arlington National Cemetery, shows troops marching across the Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC, heading towards the Pentagon during the National Victory Day Parade on June 8, 1991. The celebration to honor Gulf War troops drew an estimated 800,000 spectators. The Lincoln Memorial is in the background. [AP Photo/Greg Gibson]
Gulf War Veterans | 209 clear endorsement for the generation of officers and men who had labored for years under the stigma of Vietnam. Stymied by Communist forces in the field and reviled at home for years, these individuals had kept the faith, both in themselves and the military as an institution. Historian Rick Atkinson used Desert Storm VII Corp Commander Fred Franks to illustrate the point: ‘‘In many ways, Franks personified the American Army. Maimed in Southeast Asia, made whole again through force of will during a painful recuperation, he also endured the dark days after Vietnam, when racial strife, drugs, and indiscipline nearly destroyed the Army’’ (Atkinson 1993, 254). Men like Franks, Colin Powell, and Anthony Zinni had endured the hard years, retrained their forces and retooled them. The American triumph over the Iraqi army in the Kuwaiti desert was hard proof of their success. With victory in the Persian Gulf War clearly in hand, it appeared the so-called ‘‘Vietnam syndrome’’ had finally been put to rest (Summers 1994). The ultimate victory over the Vietnam syndrome was not the military’s alone. The foundation of public support for Desert Storm was a deliberate effort to recognize the failures of Vietnam and rectify them. First and foremost, as Harry Summers and many other scholars have noted, was a strategy built around the precept of inclusion. In making a public case for war and subjecting the final decision to fight to a congressional debate televised on C-SPAN, the Bush administration reversed the mistakes of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the subsequent slow escalation that had defined the Vietnam quagmire. After the Gulf War, many Americans had high hopes for the future,
particularly for world affairs. In 1991, George H. W. Bush went so far as to claim that ‘‘as the Cold War drew to an end we saw the possibilities of a new order in which nations worked together to promote peace and prosperity’’ (Bush 1991). It seemed at the time that a new Pax Americana, similar to that which followed World War II, was about to dawn. Some of the first to challenge this sense of accomplishment were veterans of Desert Storm themselves. Many of the individuals who fought in the Persian Gulf began to express latent doubts about the war in its aftermath, not so much regarding basic objectives, but the actual nature of combat between American and Iraqi forces. Anthony Swofford’s book Jarhead captured this sense of anticlimax perfectly: ‘‘The months of training and deployment, the loneliness, the boredom, the fatigue, the rounds fired at fake, static targets, the nights of firewatch, and finally the letdown, the easy victory that just scraped the surface of a war—all of these are frustrations and nearly unendurable facets of our war, our conflict. Did we fight? Was that combat?’’ (Swofford 2003, 239). Veterans of the so-called ‘‘hundredhour war’’ asked whether or not their fight compared to those of their fathers and grandfathers. While World War II analogies may have successfully focused public opinion in the build up to Desert Storm, they failed for Persian Gulf veterans. The slaughter on the Basra Road compared poorly with the Battle of Midway. Even direct clashes between the 2nd Cavalry Regiment and the Republican Guard Tawalkana Division at 73 Easting lacked the epic quality of Iwo Jima or Normandy. Veterans questioned whether or not the American victory was in proportion
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to the sacrifice. An armor officer, Alex Vernon wrote in 2001, ‘‘When I returned home from the Persian Gulf War 10 years ago, I sometimes found myself thinking —and less frequently found myself admitting to fellow veterans—that I wished the war had been bloodier. Not for Iraq. God no. For America’’ (Vernon 2001, 68). Men like Vernon asked not about the lessons learned, but those that were not. For these individuals, the halflife of postwar celebration was very short, particularly considering the many paradoxes that had emerged even before the conflict was over. How could the United States claim Saddam Hussein was the moral equivalent of Hitler, but not march on Baghdad and finish his regime? How could American policymakers embrace democracy and the spirit of self-determination, while turning their backs on the rebellions in northern and southern Iraq that immediately followed Hussein’s defeat? Declaring an end to the specter of Vietnam became a useful catchphrase in the early nineties, but was highly problematic in actual practice. American leaders embraced the concept of decisive military action, but their faith in this principle subsequently justified deployments that became modern-day quagmires in their own right. After 1991, American forces intervened in such formerly unlikely locations as Kurdistan, Somalia, and the Balkans. Similarly, the First Gulf War established the myth of war at little or no cost and defined, fairly or not, the fundamental terms of military action until 9/11 (Schemann 1999). Today, hindsight and bitter experience highlight the wisdom of Vernon’s claim about the First Gulf War. At home, the postwar domestic debate over the purpose of the ‘‘peace dividend’’
became a test of the renewed public commitment to the military. With the conclusion of the Cold War and victory over Iraq, the discourse focused on future American priorities, between social welfare at home and national security abroad. Many contemporary analysts were optimistic that the military as an institution would be able to hold its own in the ‘‘guns verses butter’’ debate and keep the high polling numbers evident at the conclusion of the war. Media experts noted that the Persian Gulf War had witnessed the dissolution of the barrier between soldier and television viewer. Without making a distinction between media access and actual engagement, they speculated that the people had internalized their support for the military to a degree unprecedented in American history (Vernon 2001, 73–74). The assumption proved popular not only in academic circles, but also among George H. W. Bush’s campaign staff during the 1992 election. What this school of thought failed to understand was the disparity between popular support for military issues and vicarious participation in a war. As far removed as veterans like Swofford and Vernon were from actual combat, they had internalized its meaning to a degree that defied reproduction as a twodimensional television image. For people at home, embracing the symbols of Desert Storm—yellow ribbons, the American flag—reflected a superficial sense of the war. Cognizance of the sacrifice and participation that even combat veterans lacked clearly was another matter entirely. Public support was, in this context, a very thin patina easily removed by more immediate priorities such as employment and inflation. This was a reality that dawned during congressional proposals to begin
Gulf War Veterans | 211 base closures around the country and gut the defense budget. It was a basic concept that Clinton political advisor James Carville grasped when he articulated his candidate’s core idea in one sentence: ‘‘It’s the economy, stupid.’’ Ironically, the conventional wisdom at the outset of the nineties centered on the desire to make right decisions based upon an understanding of past mistakes. Historians have noted that the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992 represented a clear break with the status quo and a desire to introduce new ideas and new approaches into the American mainstream. The extent of this change would soon be tested by the treatment of veterans of the Gulf War who began to demonstrate disturbing symptoms of a disease that shared the same name as the region.
Gulf War Syndrome Not long after the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War, returning troops began to report physical and mental illnesses that defied easy categorization. A few things were clear, however. Most of the reported ailments had not been present prior to American deployments to the Middle East in 1990. Service members in comparatively good health prior to the war now indicated symptoms such as joint pain, memory loss, chronic fatigue, loss of cognitive ability, and depression (Thomas et al. 2006; Wessely 2004). More importantly, as time passed, the overall numbers of individuals affected grew to the thousands and, later, the tens of thousands. British and Canadian troops home from Kuwait also reported a disturbingly similar spectrum of physical and mental problems (Deahl 2005).
Within a few short years, ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome’’ joined the American lexicon. By 1995, more than 29,000 veterans had officially reported their symptoms to the Veterans Administration as part of the Persian Gulf War Registry. At the same time, the Defense Department kept a separate list of 9,000 service members that was growing at a rate of 1,000 each month. Even more disturbing were reports from a study sponsored by former senator Don Riegle that the spouses and children of Gulf War veterans were also becoming ill with the same symptoms (Bernstein and Kelley 1995). The scope and the scale of illnesses affecting returning Persian Gulf War veterans eventually became one of the most prolonged and divisive debates in America during the nineties. On one side were veterans, their families, legislators, and portions of the medical community who first fought to have the syndrome officially recognized and later advocated treatment. On the other were the Defense Department and the various agencies of the federal government responsible for the health and welfare of the veterans and the active duty military (Helmer et al. 2007). The federal government’s stance on Gulf War Syndrome became apparent very early. In testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Committee in March 1995, Dr. Stephen Joseph, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, testified on the subject of chemical and biological weapons as a potential cause of sickness, stating that, ‘‘There is no persuasive evidence of such exposure, even after much scrutiny’’ (Waldman 1996). Joseph’s flat denial of a problem essentially articulated the official federal position for years despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary.
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Perhaps more pointedly, when the public debate took this turn, it very quickly resurrected the Vietnam-era controversy over compensation for service members suffering from illnesses caused by Agent Orange. Just as a previous generation of veterans had suffered from years of official denial and neglect, another appeared poised to step into the same role with nothing learned from the experience (Zavestoski et al. 2002). One journalist saw Pentagon stonewalling as a tragic avoidance of reality when she wrote in 1996 that ‘‘knowing how isn’t the same as knowing if ’’ (Waldman 1996). As much as the war in the Persian Gulf had healed many of the wounds left over from Vietnam, the debate over Gulf War Syndrome clearly reopened them. Gulf War Syndrome also reopened another piece of the conventional wisdom left over from Vietnam and other wars: that of the mentally disturbed veteran who could no longer fit into mainstream American society. Reports of mental impairment linked to wartime service started a national discussion not only about the health of these veterans, but their basic character. Many skeptics saw claims of postwar illness as a sign of malingering, as evidence of individuals attempting to defraud the military and the federal government. On the other end of the spectrum were mental health experts who believed that exposure to combat had created a cohort of emotionally disturbed veterans who posed a clear danger to society. This latter theory became a media sensation during the manhunt for the Washington, DC, area sniper John A. Muhammad (Cook 2004). Although subsequent research eventually attributed Gulf War Syndrome to a series of physical illnesses
unrelated to emotional stress or a psychiatric condition, the image of the dangerous, mentally disturbed veteran would linger. It would take years before a systematic medical explanation of Gulf War Syndrome finally became available. Studies by Robert Haley, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas and Keiji Fukuda at the Centers for Disease Control eventually identified a ‘‘chronic multisystem condition’’ associated with deployment to the Gulf (MacKensie 2004). Bolstering scientific research were national advocacy groups, particularly the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who became the standard bearers for federal action, testifying before Congress as well as the National Institutes of Health throughout the decade (Mason 1999). As this discussion unfolded, the approximate causes of Gulf War Syndrome became increasingly clear. One apparent source of illness was Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. In the buildup to the war in 1990, American intelligence sources identified significant stockpiles of nerve and blister agents in the Iraqi inventory. Whether or not these weapons were actually used is still the subject of debate. The U.S. Department of Defense reported during a 1994 Senate investigation that the 14,000 chemical weapons alarms in use during the war went off an average of 2–3 times each day. At the time, American military authorities dismissed these as false alarms, claiming that they were triggered by sand or the jet exhaust of nearby aircraft (Bernstein and Kelley 1995). However, the military’s own awards system provided evidence of chemical weapons use for journalists soon after the war. A Meritorious Service Medal awarded
Gulf War Veterans | 213 to Army Captain Michael Johnson that was discovered by The Progressive noted ‘‘positive identification of a suspected chemical agent’’ in the official citation (Bernstein and Kelley 1995). A final and compelling piece of evidence was the destruction of an Iraqi weapons dump at Khamisiyah in March 1991. Later reports indicated that when American engineers destroyed the facility, they might have released chemical agents such as Sarin nerve gas near coalition units stationed in the area (MacKensie 2004; The Economist 1997). American efforts to protect the health of its military were also linked to Gulf War Syndrome. In the months leading up to Operation Desert Storm, U.S. military officials scrambled to prepare deploying troops for the threat of nerve and biological agents. In the rush to avoid casualties, drugs were haphazardly administered to the troops without proper testing or protocols. One in particular was pyridostigmine bromide (PB), a prophylactic designed to partially block the effects of nerve agents before exposure. The military compounded the problem by not properly screening specific inoculations and allowing untested combinations of them to be administered to American soldiers. Some individual units deploying to Saudi Arabia received as many as 17 different vaccines. Chronically poor record keeping of individual inoculations later seriously inhibited medical investigations that followed the war (Waldman 1996, 31). The other potential sources of Gulf War Syndrome are rooted in the stew of chemicals and materials utilized during the war. The United States and British military, for example, extensively sprayed pesticides in troop living areas to reduce the threat of insect-borne
diseases such as leishmaniasis, which caused serious tissue damage and infection (The Economist 1997). Depleted uranium ammunition was fielded under combat conditions for the first time in 1991. While these rounds were safe under controlled conditions on stateside target ranges, the same was not true once the Kuwaiti desert was littered with the ruin hulks of Iraqi armored vehicles. The end of the war also posed its own unique problems. Prior to their redeployment home, American units cleaned and prepared their equipment with industrial-strength solvents without proper protective equipment (MacFarlane et al. 2005; The Ecologist 2003). Together, the combination of insecticides, radioactive materials, and other agents created an extremely hazardous environment. Yet, despite the accumulation of potential causes of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government refused to act. A type of bureaucratic trickle down effect began as the Pentagon and other agencies dismissed outright both the evidence and its advocates. The Veterans Administration proved no better than the Defense Department. Tentative first steps to resolve the problem of Gulf War Syndrome finally appeared a half decade after the war. In 1996, the White House commissioned the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses. Official obstacles to outside inquiries subsequently diminished and were replaced by a deluge of new information. Under the supervision of the Defense Department, subagencies within the Pentagon were tasked with investigating the potential causes of wartime illness. The advisory board opened military intelligence archives in search of evidence of Iraqi
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chemical and biological weapons. The task proved so large that it was contracted to the MITRE Corporation, which eventually came into the possession of over 55 million documents. Other private companies soon joined the effort and received contracts to determine more specific elements of the story. The Institute for Defense Analysis was responsible for ascertaining the wind currents that might have affected the demolition of the Khamisiyah weapons site (Greenberg, March 1997). Eventually, so much data reached the study that it was extended to 1997 to render a complete report (Executive Order 1997). The final advisory committee report offered a mixed message to Gulf War veterans. The committee found that the Department of Defense’s investigations of exposure to be ‘‘superficial and unlikely to provide credible answers to veterans’ and the public’s questions’’ (Executive Summary 1996). The report also highlighted the absence of complete medical records, baseline health data, and an accurate accounting of troop dispositions during the war. Conversely, the committee determined that ‘‘current scientific evidence does not support a causal link between the symptoms and illnesses reported today by Gulf War veterans and exposures while in the Gulf region to the following environmental risk factors assessed by the Committee: pesticides, chemical warfare agents, biological warfare agents, vaccines, pyridostigmine bromide, infectious diseases, depleted uranium, oil-well fires and smoke, and petroleum products’’ (Executive Summary 1996). Overall, the advisory committee believed that, although the federal government had been ‘‘somewhat slow’’ to address veterans’ problems after the war, it had acted in good
faith (Executive Summary 1996). One key finding concluded that posttraumatic stress was a likely mechanism for many of the medical problems afflicting Gulf War veterans. The Presidential Advisory Board Committee charted a path between hard science and public skepticism. Recognizing the fact that incomplete records and the absence of hard data made final judgments on Gulf War Syndrome impossible, the committee rejected contemporary claims, but left the door open for future research. By attempting to strike a balance, the report ultimately pleased few in Congress, the veterans’ community, or critics in other federal agencies. In June 1997, the U.S. General Accounting Office offered its own report on Gulf War Syndrome, citing the fact that Iraqi chemical weapons were likely to blame for the maladies suffered by veterans. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (see entry) quickly concurred with the finding. Fred Juarbe, the VFW director of National Veterans Service commented, ‘‘We have always maintained stress is not the primary cause of Gulf War illness’’ (Dyhouse, August 1997). That same year, the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight unanimously criticized the Defense Department and Veterans Administration for their ‘‘irreparably flawed’’ efforts (Wadman 1997). In the longer term, however, the advisory committee report granted official recognition to Gulf War Syndrome and became a baseline for numerous federal reforms afterward (Greenberg, September 1997). By 1996, approximately 62,000 individuals had had physical examinations as part of the VA Persian Gulf Health Registry (The Economist 1997).
Gulf War Veterans | 215 Administrative support for veterans increased significantly once the report became official. The Defense Department expanded its Gulf War illness investigation team from 12 to 110 in 1997 (High 1997). The Pentagon also began a mass mailing campaign in 1997 and 2000 to encourage veterans to seek medical help. In 2006, it sent notice regarding the increased risk of brain cancer to troops stationed near Khamisiyah for their exposure to chemical agents (Dyhouse, May 2006). Subsequently, by 2006, the Veterans Administration had granted the claims of some 30 percent of Gulf War veterans, a total of 205,911 men and women. These individuals received disability ratings between zero and one hundred percent (Dyhouse, December 2006; Ozakinci et al. 2006). On November 17, 2008, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses concluded that ‘‘scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.’’ It believes about one out of four of nearly 700,000 veterans who served in the war were exposed to toxic chemicals that increased their likeliness of acquiring these symptoms (Silverleib 2008). It is ironic that as much as the Persian Gulf War put to rest the ghosts of Vietnam, the prolonged battle over Gulf War Syndrome resurrected them again. A generation of soldiers put their faith in institutions that failed them and only belatedly, after years of debate and enormous public pressure, were convinced to address the problem with the same sense of duty Gulf War veterans had already earned. In that respect, veterans of Desert Storm shared the same legacy as their fathers before them in Vietnam. (See also separate entry, Gulf War Syndrome.)
Women Veterans of the Gulf War The participation of women in Desert Shield and Desert Storm set a precedent for the American military and fundamentally changed its future direction. The defense of Saudi Arabia and the invasion of Kuwait witnessed the largest deployment of women for war in U.S. history. When the conflict began in 1991, approximately 8 percent of American forces engaged were female (Alvarez 2001). Conversely, the Persian Gulf War also saw the first official female ‘‘war resister’’ in Stephanie Atkinson (Kleinman 1991). Military women were justifiably proud of their wartime service. As veterans, they entered civilian society with a sense of accomplishment and selfconfidence that what they did was for the greater good of the country. The war also offered tangible proof that, under adverse combat conditions, their work was on par with that of men. Women veterans suffered many of the same adjustment problems as their male counterparts once they returned to civilian life. They felt the same cultural disconnect with peers outside military. Many surveyed after the war reported boredom, restlessness, and a sense of isolation. One female veteran noted, ‘‘When you get out of the service, you’re in an entirely different type of life. You can’t talk about things . . . .I talk to my husband about it and it bores him’’ (Suter et al. 2006). However, in the years following Desert Storm, some distinctions separating women’s military service did emerge. This was particularly the case with respect to medical care. A 2003 study published in Military Medicine indicated
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that women with Gulf War service received twice as many outpatient visits as men in the five years after the conflict. Women veterans also had more than three times as many inpatient hospital stays during the same time period. Other factors made women who served in Desert Storm distinct. The study revealed that women who served as part of the 1990– 1991 cohort had less education, lower incomes, and were more likely to rely on Medicaid than female service members in previous eras (Carney et al. 2003). Postwar medical surveys of women veterans also pointed out some unique mental and physical burdens. According to the 2003 study, 28 percent of women in the military reported some degree of sexual harassment (versus 1 percent of men) and 8 percent reportedly suffered sexual assault during their Desert Shield/Desert Storm deployment (Carney et al. 2003). In fact, the 1991 war simply highlighted what was a systemic problem throughout the American military (Contemporary Sexuality 2003). Although the actual number of women serving during Desert Storm was relatively small, approximately 30,000, it was their postwar legacy that truly left a stamp on the military and the larger issue of service. American victory in 1991 was interpreted by many in academe and the government as approval for a genderintegrated military (Kuzovchikova 2006). Consequently, a rapid increase of women in the service branches quickly became the norm after the war. The U.S. Air Force officially ended gender limits —or ‘‘ceilings’’—on recruiting in 1990. The U.S. Navy followed suit five years later (Armor 1996). By mid-decade, 15 percent of the U.S. Air Force was female along with 19 percent of the U.S. Army. The only portion of the military that did
not witness a significant rise in women was the Marine Corps (Armor 1996). By 2001, nearly 200,000 women made up 14.7 percent of active duty American military forces (Book 2001). As the number of women in uniform increased, it reignited a debate regarding their role in combat. Changes in federal law and Clinton administration policy allowed women to serve in all occupational specialties with the exception of those involving ‘‘direct ground combat’’ roles. These changes opened up service on combat surface ships, aircraft, and other areas previously denied women in the military (Armor 1996; O’Beirne 2003; Nantais and Lee 1999). Proponents of new policy argued from the standpoint of basic principle, making the point that prior restrictions on military service did not reflect the egalitarian nature of modern American society. Moreover, they believed that Pentagon policy segregating military roles by gender had the effect of devaluing the service performed by women. On the subject of practical participation in genderintegrated units, advocates stressed changes in training protocols to reduce potential conflict as well as the absolute need for high-tech skills in a twenty-firstcentury military that was essentially gender blind (Mackubin 1998; Newman 1997). As proof positive of their case, military reformers in the nineties returned repeatedly to Operation Desert Storm and the American victory over Iraq. Opponents of women in combat questioned the series of practical compromises being made for the principle of gender equity. They pointed out that gendernormed physical standards created a twotrack system within an institution that could not jettison the need for muscle even in the modern day. More importantly,
Gulf War Veterans | 217 this same double standard created a corrosive effect within the military that would ultimately affect both practical performance and the same egalitarianism emphasized by reform advocates. From this perspective, women’s ‘‘struggle’’ was less about rights than rewards and the need for combat assignments to embellish service records for the purpose of promotion (Simons 2001). The military as an institution coped as best it could amidst the highly charged and politicized debate. Journalist Richard Rayner captured the essence of its dilemma in 1997 when he wrote, ‘‘There is much more to the military’s problem than simply managing human behavior, finding some way to control or contain the sex drives of young men and women. The growing presence of women in the military is stirring far deeper currents: the pitting of an ancient and culturally embedded view of what it means to be a warrior against the irresistible force of democracy, in the sense of absolute equality. It’s a collision of two irreconcilable ideals, with issues of sex and military practicality sandwiched and sometimes brutalized between the two’’ (Rayner 1997). (See also Women Veterans, World War I to the Present.)
from it. Subsequent events abroad in the new post-Cold War environment of failed states and ethic cleansing soon justified this skepticism. The medical condition that became known as Gulf War Syndrome brought similar doubts closer to home. Bureaucratic inertia, the absence of complete information, and public distrust squandered much of the domestic goodwill created by the war. Veterans, once celebrated as heroes, became emblematic of the fragile American consensus on war, service, and federal policy. The precedents set by women serving in the Persian Gulf remain with the American military to this day. While one author lauded the possibility of a ‘‘more humane workplace and a more lethal fighting force’’ as recently as 2007, the Second Gulf or Iraq War remains the true acid test of women’s effectiveness. To date, a complete assessment of their capabilities—and limitations—has not been completed by a government or private agency (Young 2007).
Conclusion
Further Reading
American victory in the First Gulf War healed a great deal of the scar tissue left over from Vietnam. Operation Desert Storm possessed a decisiveness that restored faith in the military as an institution and honor to the vocation of soldier within American society. However, doubts about the war’s impact surfaced soon after its conclusion. Gulf War veterans were among the first to question the war’s conduct and the wisdom gained
Alvarez, Stephen. ‘‘Army Reserve Women Weather ‘The Storm’.’’ Army Reserve Magazine 47 (Summer 2001): 26. Armor, David J. ‘‘Race and Gender in the U.S. Military.’’ Armed Forces and Society 23 (Fall 1996): 1. Atkinson, Rick. Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Bernstein, Dennis, and Thea Kelley. ‘‘The Gulf War Comes Home.’’ The Progressive 59 (March 1995): 30–36.
Michael D. Gambone See also Gulf War Syndrome; Afghan War Veterans
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Book, Elizabeth G. ‘‘Military Women: 200,000 and Counting.’’ National Defense 86 (October 2001): 14–15. Bush, George H. W. ‘‘The Possibility of a New World Order: Unlocking the Promise of Freedom.’’ Vital Speeches 57 (May 1991): 450–52. Bush, George H. W. ‘‘Why We Are in the Gulf.’’ Newsweek, November 26, 1990, 28. Carney, Caroline P., Tomoko R. Sampson, Margaret Voelker, Robert Woolson, Peter Thorne, and Bradley Doebbeling. ‘‘Women in the Gulf War: Combat Experience, Exposures, and Subsequent Health Care Use.’’ Military Medicine 168 (August 2003): 658–60. Cloud, S. W. ‘‘Exorcising Old Demons.’’ Time March 11, 1991, 52–53. Contemporary Sexuality. ‘‘Rape in the Military’’ 37 (May 2003): 8–9. Cook, Margare. ‘‘The Myth of the Malingerer.’’ New Statesman 17 (November 29, 2004): 13–14. Deahl, Martin. ‘‘Smoke, Mirrors, and Gulf War Illness.’’ The Lancet 365 (February 19–25, 2005): 635–38. Dyhouse, Tim. ‘‘GAO Dismisses Stress as Cause of Gulf War Syndrome.’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 94 (August 1997): 15. Dyhouse, Tim. ‘‘One-Third of Gulf Vets Granted Claims.’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 94 (December 2006): 14. Dyhouse, Tim. ‘‘Pentagon Updates Gulf War Vets.’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 93 (May 2006): 12. The Ecologist. ‘‘Depleted Uranium Blamed for Iraq Cancer Explosion’’ 33 (April 2003): 7. The Economist. ‘‘Darkness at Noon’’ 342 (January 11, 1997): 71–74. ‘‘Executive Order 13034—Extension of Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.’’ Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 33 (February 3, 1997): 123.
Executive Summary. Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses: Final Report. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, December 1996), 2. www.gulflink.osd.mil/gwvi/ exsumm-f.html. Greenberg, Daniel S. ‘‘Gulf War Panel Assails the Pentagon.’’ The Lancet 350 (September 13, 1997): 793. Greenberg Daniel S. ‘‘US Gulf-War Syndrome Studies Prove to Be a Growth Industry.’’ The Lancet 349 (March 29, 1997): 931. Helmer Drew A., Mindy E. Flanagan, Robert Woolson, and Bradley N. Doebbling. ‘‘Health Services Use Among Gulf War Veterans and Gulf War-Era Nondeployed Veterans: A Large Population-Based Survey.’’ American Journal of Public Health 97 (December 2007): 2145–48. High, Gil. ‘‘Illness Probe Widened.’’ Soldiers 52 (February 1997): 6–7. Kleinman, Carol, ‘‘Hell No, She Won’t Go.’’ Ms. 1 (January 1991): 90. Kuzovchikova, O. M. ‘‘Army Feminization: Its Essence, Evolution, and Basic Trends.’’ Military Thought 15 (2006): 167–77. MacFarlane, Gary, J. Matthew Hotopf, Noreen Maconochie, Nick Blatchley, Alison Richards, and Mark Lunt. ‘‘LongTerm Mortality Amongst Gulf War Veterans: Is There a Relationship with Experiences During Deployment and Subsequent Morbidity?’’ International Journal of Epidemiology 34 (2005): 1403–8. MacKensie, Debora. ‘‘The Disease That Never Was?’’ New Scientist 184 (November 6–12, 2004): 8–11. Mackubin, Thomas Owens. ‘‘It’s Time to Face the Gender Paradox.’’ United States Naval Institute Proceedings 124 (July 1998): 43–50. Mason, Herbert M. ‘‘Korea, Vietnam, and Beyond.’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 86 (August 1999): 20. Millett, Allan R., and Peter Maslowski. For the Common Defense: A Military History
Gulf War Veterans | 219 of the United States of America. New York: The Free Press, 1994. Nantais, Cynthia, and Martha Lee. ‘‘Women in the United States Military: Protectors or Protected?’’ Journal of Gender Studies 8 (July 1999): 181–91. Newman, Richard J. ‘‘Army Sex Ed 101.’’ U.S. News & World Report 123 (August 11, 1997): 50–52. O’Beirne, Kate, ‘‘A New Horror of War.’’ National Review 55 (April 21, 2003): 24–25. Ozakinci, Gozde, William K. Hallman, and Howard M. Kipen. ‘‘Persistence of Symptoms in Veterans of the First Gulf War: 5-Year Follow-Up.’’ Environmental Health Perspectives 114 (October 2006): 1553–57. Schemann Serge, ‘‘Not Taking Losses is One Thing: Winning is Another,’’ New York Times (3 January 1999): 4–1, 4–5. Silverleib, Alan. ‘‘Gulf War Illness Is Real, New Federal Report Says.’’ November 17, 2008. www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/ 17/gulf.war.illness.study/. Simons, Anna. ‘‘Women in Combat Units: It’s Still a Bad Idea.’’ Parameters 31 (Summer 2001): 89–100. Summers, Harry G. ‘‘The Vietnam Syndrome and the American People.’’ Journal of American Culture 17 (Spring 1994): 53–58. Suter, Elizabeth A., Emily N. Lamb, Meredith Marko, and Stacy Tye-Williams. ‘‘Female Veterans’ Identity Construction, Maintenance, and Reproduction.’’ Women and Language 29 (Spring 2006): 10–15.
Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003. Thomas, Hollie V., Nicola J. Stimpson, Alison L. Weightman, Frank Dunstan, and Glyn Lewis. ‘‘Systematic Review of Multi-Symptom Conditions in Gulf War Veterans.’’ Psychological Medicine 36 (2006): 735–47. USA Today ‘‘Violence Against Women in the Military’’ 130 (August 2001): 14–15. Vernon, Alex. ’’The Gulf War and Postmodern Memory.’’ The Wilson Quarterly 25 (Winter 2001): 68–82. Wadman, Meredith. ‘‘Critics Claim U.S. Inquiry was ‘Irreparably Flawed’.’’ Nature 390 (November 6, 1997): 4. Waldman, Amy. ‘‘Credibility Gulf: The Military’s Battle over Whether to Protect Its Image or Its Troops.’’ The Washington Monthly 28 (December 1996): 29. Wessely, Simon. ‘‘The Long Aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.’’ Annals of Internal Medicine 141 (July 20, 2004): 155–56. Young, Holly. ‘‘Soldiering Ahead.’’ The Wilson Quarterly 31 (Summer 2007): 54–62. Zavestoski, Stephen, Phil Brown, Meadow Linder, Sabrina McCormick, and Brian Mayer. ‘‘Science, Policy, Activism, and War: Defining the Health of Gulf War Veterans.’’ Science, Technology, and Human Values 27 (Spring 2002): 171–205.
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H continents, it is certainly not surprising that Hispanics have figured prominently in U.S. military history. From Spaniards to indigenous inhabitants and people of mixed white/black/Native American racial heritage such as mestizos, mulattoes, and zambos who have inevitably become Hispanicized, descendants of Spanish-speaking groups have donned military uniforms from the American Revolutionary War through the ongoing War on Terrorism. Indeed, as both the oldest and newest immigrants to the United States, Hispanics have long been willing to sacrifice their lives for their country.
HISPANIC AMERICAN VETERANS Hispanics are among those men and women who have distinguished themselves on and off the field of battle in service of the United States. Yet before chronicling the accolades of Hispanics in military uniform, it is important to develop a working understanding of how one qualifies as ‘‘Hispanic.’’ This is necessary because it partially explains how some Hispanics may have been unintentionally overlooked. The U.S. Department of Defense identifies Hispanic servicemen and women in several ways: how they viewed themselves; how they were perceived by others either fitting a given phenotype or not; and whether a person had a Spanish surname. Naturally, this barometer is not inclusive, but it outlines the basic standards. As pioneers of American culture as well as the largest minority group in the United States with a history that spans thousands of years and several
American Revolution During the War for Independence, the Spanish indirectly supported the Americans by allying with the French against the British. Deserving noteworthy mention as an early activist for the liberation of the 13 British colonies is Francisco de Miranda (1756–1816). A native of Venezuela, Miranda participated in the War 221
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for Independence and later attempted to liberate his own country, but he died in jail. Another meaningful contributor was the Spaniard Jorge Farragut. As one of the first Hispanic Revolutionary War heroes, Farragut fought the British at Savannah. Thereafter he joined the Continental Army, eventually rising to the rank of major. Interestingly, Farragut’s son, David Glasgow Farragut, became the first admiral of the U.S. Navy, leading Union forces in the 1862 Battle of New Orleans and contributing to closing the Confederacy’s last major Gulf port. Between 1865 and 1870, Farragut was twice promoted, becoming the U.S. Navy’s first four-star admiral.
Civil War The Civil War was the nation’s greatest political and moral crisis, which claimed more than 620,000 American lives, and divided not just Anglo families, but Hispanics as well. During this four-year era, some Hispanics served the cause of the Union, while others served in the Confederacy. In 1863, the U.S. government approved the creation of the first Hispanic battalion. In part this battalion was established in order to gain leverage for Union forces in the Southwest by using ethnic Mexican horsemanship. Nearly 500 ethnic Mexicans served in the battalion. A year later, Diego Archuleta became the first Hispanic brigadier general for the Union. Union leadership also formed militia companies which proliferated throughout the Southwest, especially in New Mexico. Establishing a long line of Hispanic Medal of Honor winners, Philip Bazaar, a Chilean national, was the first to be issued this prestigious recognition during the Civil War as a result of his attack on a fort
from a six-man boat. Equally important were Hispanic sons of the South and their respective contributions during the War for Southern Independence. Hispanics served in Confederate units in Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. In short order, Texan Santos Benavides became the highest-ranking Hispanic in the Confederate Army. Overall, as many as 12,000 Hispanics served in the Civil War.
World War I Motivated in part to challenge mainstream press that questioned their commitment and loyalty as the United States had fought the Spanish-American War against a ‘‘Hispanic’’ adversary, Hispanics during War World I again established themselves as valiant soldiers in all branches of military service. Thousands of Hispanics were drafted, while others volunteered in order to prove that they were loyal citizens. In March of 1917, just before the United States entered the war, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship through the Jones Act courtesy of President Woodrow Wilson and Congress. This brand of citizenship did not allow island Puerto Ricans the opportunity to participate in federal politics or receive economic benefits of statehood. It did, however, pave the way for Puerto Ricans to become eligible for military service. Thus, 20,000 Puerto Ricans were drafted, serving honorably in World War I. Mexican Americans also served by the thousands with honor, as their record for voluntary enlistment was proportionately greater than that of any other group of people. As a consequence of the Zimmermann note, which proposed a military alliance between Germany and
Hispanic American Veterans Mexico against the United States, many Americans were suspicious of Hispanics, especially Mexican Americans. Some alleged that Mexican Americans were encouraged to engage in combat only to gather intelligence for the Germans so they could collect on the Zimmermann promise that Mexico would reclaim lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Regrettably, a number of innocent Mexican Americans were killed over this pretext, notably in Texas. Even with this senseless violence, Hispanics were unified behind their nation against the Central Powers, earning scores of medals for their heroism. The first Hispanic solider to be awarded with the Distinguished Service Cross was Private Marcelino Serna, who independently captured 24 German soldiers. Interestingly, Private Serna did not qualify for the Medal of Honor because he could not read or write English effectively enough to document reports. As with War World II, when Hispanics returned home after risking their lives to defend U.S. principles, they expected to be treated with the same kind of respect and dignity that any other U.S. citizen received, yet this was not the case. Hispanic veterans are almost completely ignored in the histories of World War I.
World War II World War II proved to be the campaign that brought larger society closer to appreciating the sacrifices of Hispanics. Hispanics enlisted in vast numbers as up to 750,000 million volunteered their services in various branches of the U.S. armed forces. Although most of these ‘‘Hispanics’’ were Mexican American, between 55,000 and 65,000 were Puerto Ricans. This level of participation
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equaled about 5 percent of all troops. Hispanics, predominantly Mexican Americans, enlisted in inordinate numbers despite the fact that during the Great Depression they were liable to be deported as they took jobs away from citizens. This possibility decreased during the war, as labor for war industries and agriculture was much in demand given the large number of people in the armed forces. Many Americans harbored nativist feelings, a philosophy which saw ‘‘foreigners’’ as the main cause of the economic conditions facing the country. Mexican Americans were the major scapegoats in the Southwest, and even Mexican-American citizens (and their American-born children) and deeprooted Mexican-American families were subject to repatriation campaigns. Hispanics also tended to be overrepresented in the armed services because of a high percentage of draft-age youth lacking a college education and professional development experience. Thus, military service was often viewed as a way out of economic hardship, and a path toward upward mobility and social equality. This was a logical line of reasoning as few Hispanics qualified for draft deferments. From the jungles of the South Pacific to the deserts of North Africa to the invasion of Europe, the Hispanic community was overrepresented in combat units, suffering casualties in excessive numbers. In part this was due to the fact that a great many volunteered for more dangerous missions and service branches, such as paratroops and marines, which both paid more and led to greater appreciation. With the exception of Hispanics and African Americans, U.S. casualties were far below those suffered by other countries. With disproportionate participation in both War World I and War World II,
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coupled with Mexican Americans earning proportionately more Medals of Honor and other accolades for gallantry than any other ethnic or racial group, it was surprising to many Hispanics how their loyalty to the United States was continually questioned. At the war’s conclusion in early August 1945, no Hispanic faced charges of desertion, mutiny, or treason, while 17 Mexican Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor, of which five were granted posthumously. The first of this esteemed band of brothers was Private Jose´ P. Martinez, who participated in the American attack on the Aleutian Islands in May 1943. Mortally wounded, an American Veterans chapter and an American Legion post are named after him. Just as significant is Guy Gabaldo´n. Having been raised by JapaneseAmerican parents for a good part of his young life, Gabaldo´ n, a Los Angeles native, spoke the Japanese language fluently. This skill allowed him to effectively communicate with Japanese soldiers in order to negotiate their peaceful surrender. Gabaldo´n made his mark at the battle of Saipan Island, which led to a feature film, From Here to Eternity (1953), illustrating his valor. In 1990 Gabaldo´n published his memoir Saipan: Suicide Island, which detailed his heroic experiences in the Marine Corps. The autobiography, moreover, shares how his Japanese-American foster family was mistreated. For example, his two foster brothers fought in War World II, yet their parents and sister were uprooted from their home and sent to a U.S. detention center. A quarter century later, in 1970, Gabaldo´n returned his issued Navy Cross and Purple Heart to the government in order to voice his displeasure against patterns of racial
discrimination. World War II Medal of Honor winner Jose´ Lo´pez also endured patterns of injustice as he was regularly denied restaurant service in his home state of Texas. Lo´pez killed more than 100 German soldiers while protecting his company during a tactical withdrawal in Belgium. His Medal of Honor citation described his feat as ‘‘seemingly suicidal.’’ Another World War II Medal of Honor winner that dealt with an ungrateful nation was Macario Garcia, an army staff sergeant. Perhaps what is most telling is that after Garcia returned home to Sugarland, Texas, after being honored at a White House ceremony, he was refused service at a diner that did not serve Hispanics. Yet another Hispanic hero is Horacio Rivero. Born in Puerto Rico, Rivero participated in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa crusades. For his efforts he was awarded the Legion of Merit and later became the first Hispanic four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy. Several U.S. streets were named in honor of Hispanics as in the town of Silvis, Illinois. Eight Hispanics on one street were killed in action, with a total of 84 Hispanics seeing action in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. As a result of this contribution, the street, which was once called Second Street, was suitably renamed Hero Street. A memorial park was built to honor local fallen soldiers. Hispanic families in Silvis sacrificed more young men in the nation’s war effort than any other city of comparable size in the United States. Hispanics not only fought on the front lines for democracy abroad, but demonstrated leadership and teamwork at home by aiding in wartime labor shortages. As workers went off to war, Hispanics gained entry to jobs that had been
Hispanic American Veterans virtually closed to them in the past, which allowed many to move away from traditional occupations such as those in agriculture. Mexican-American women warrant special attention as unprecedented numbers of them joined the workforce in the defense industry, especially in steel, meat packing, and ammunition assembly plants throughout the Southwest. Hispanic women whether mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, friends, or neighbors also did their part for the war by serving as members of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and as nurses for the Red Cross. Women also supported the war cause through organizational channels. In 1944, the Association of Hispanic American Mothers and Wives was founded in Tucson. With a chapter in Phoenix as well, this organization published a newsletter which shared stories abroad, sold war bonds, collected scrap metal and clothing, provided day-care services, translated for Spanish-speaking families when needed, and even saved waste fats and grease in order to convert to glycerin for high explosives. This association as well as other mutual aid and benefit organizations helped not only uplift the morale of Hispanic soldiers, but it also served as a reminder of their contributions to the war effort. With the exception of the important role played by Anthony Quinn, himself of Mexican descent, as a MexicanAmerican marine private in the popular War World II epic Guadalcanal Diary (1943) and in the modest film A Medal For Benny (1945), the story of War World II Hispanic sacrifices was often forgotten. However, the voice of other Americans who were not as overrepresented as Mexican Americans during this war were well chronicled in various
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books and movies. In important ways, both of the aforementioned films helped humanize Hispanics to larger society during a period of overt racism and discrimination. Artistic forms of expression and literary works about Hispanic heroism in American wars have been often failed to achieve wide recognition. Rau´l Morı´n’s Among the Valiant: Mexican Americans in WWII and Korea, to cite one example, was denied publication for more than a decade. As the first book to document the worthwhile armed service support of Mexican Americans during the middle decades of the twentieth century, Morı´n was unsuccessful at soliciting a publishing house until the American GI Forum, a Hispanic veterans’ advocacy organization, assisted with its publication and distribution in 1963. Even today, the contributions of Hispanics have occasionally been dismissed. Renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns in his 2007 14-hour World War II film entitled The War initially ignored the contributions of Hispanics. After coming under criticism from Latino advocacy groups (such as the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and the American GI Forum), university scholars, military veterans, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, modest supplementary content was added. The lack of Hispanic representation is significant because many deem Burns as America’s foremost documentarian and this work as the definitive record of the World War II experience just as Burns’s film The Civil War (2002) is for that conflict. The absence of Hispanics is also disconcerting because African Americans, Japanese Americans, and other historically marginalized groups are thoughtfully explored in the film, which took six years to create.
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Returning to a nation deeply segregated by law and practice, Hispanics were determined to be no longer considered ‘‘foreigners,’’ but full-fledged citizens. Equipped with a greater degree of education and housing opportunities under the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act), as well as a mindset that their service earned them the right to enjoy the full benefits of American citizenship, many Hispanics were unwilling to stand for intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry that dominated their parents’ experience. More than previous generations, Hispanics, particularly veterans, became increasingly active in civic and civil rights organizations in order to help dismantle school segregation and ensure voting rights were protected. Although long-term and widespread change escaped their grasp, unequal distribution of power, privilege, and participation was confronted through negotiation, organizational networking, and political alliances. In doing so, their efforts helped the next generation of Hispanics sweep the nation’s consciousness during the 1960s and 1970s. Notwithstanding modest success for creating space for social inclusion and cultural relevance, the War World II Hispanic generation righted a number of substantive wrongs through litigation, legislation, and other forms of social mobilization activities. Yet, here too, Hispanic advances have not received as much attention as African American achievements.
Korean War provided Hispanics real, although limited, opportunities to climb the ladder of the leadership ranks as many became officers and entered the previously segregated Army Air Corps. Representing less than 3 percent of the U.S. population during the Korean War, there was nevertheless no shortage of Hispanic patriots. The first Hispanic flying ace was Colonel Manuel J. Ferna´ndez Jr., who flew 125 combat missions in the F-86, engaging opposition MIG aircraft. Ferna´ ndez accumulated 14.5 ‘‘kills,’’ which placed him sixtieth among the top U.S. Air Force aces in twentieth-century wars. Interestingly, an all-Hispanic combat unit surfaced during the Korean War. Puerto Rico’s 65th Infantry Regiment was initially constituted as the Puerto Rico Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, yet engaged in intense combat and long service. For their effort, members of the 65th Infantry Regiment were decorated with four Distinguished Service Crosses and 124 Silver Star medals. The story of the 65th Puerto Rican Regiment, the only all-Hispanic unit in the history of the U.S. Army, was featured in a 2007 PBS documentary entitled Borinqueneers. More than 60,000 Puerto Ricans fought in the Korean War, most of them volunteers. With nine Latino Medal of Honor recipients during the Korean War, the standard for Hispanic participation in U.S. military campaigns established by World War II continued.
Korean War
Vietnam War
Hispanics continued to prove their Americanism by defending U.S. democracy in the Korean Conflict even though they were still denied such democracy at home. Unlike preceding conflicts, the
The Vietnam War saw Hispanics participate in large numbers in U.S. Army and Marine Corps combat units, the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force. During America’s longest conflict, another
Hispanic American Veterans pilot who distinguished himself in combat was Lieutenant Everett Alvarez Jr., who became the second longest-held prisoner of war (POW) in U.S. history. In captivity for eight and a half years, Alvarez was the first U.S. serviceman shot down over North Vietnam. Alvarez earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, two Legions of Merit, and two Bronze Stars, the latter two with valor. Yet another Hispanic Vietnam War hero was Phil Valdez. Killed while saving two marines in 1967, Valdez was awarded the Navy Cross, and eventually had a U.S. Navy ship bearing his name. Perhaps one of the most distinguished soldiers during the Vietnam War was orphan Roy P. Benavidez. Earning the Medal of Honor for his heroism, Sergeant Benavidez single-handedly saved the lives of eight fellow Green Berets despite severe injuries due to hand-tohand combat. Upon the conclusion of the American War in Vietnam, Richard E. Cavazos, a native of Texas, became the first Hispanic general in the U.S. Army. During his long tenure of military service, he commanded forces in Vietnam, served in the Pentagon, and served as commander at Fort McPherson, Georgia. In 1996, Medal of Honor winner Sergeant Alfredo Gonza´lez, who died in battle in 1968, became the first Mexican American to have a destroyer named after him by the U.S. Navy. Despite the Hispanic population being less than 5 percent during the Vietnam era, roughly 25 percent of frontline casualties were Hispanic. This truth became gradually more alarming to the Hispanic community, specifically among Mexican Americans. In fact, the stark Hispanic causality rate was confirmed by
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sociologist Ralph Guzma´n, a University of California professor. As part of his ongoing work with the Ford Foundation’s Mexican-American Study Project, Dr. Guzma´n revealed that about 20 percent of the Vietnam War dead from the five Southwestern states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas were Hispanic or Spanishsurnamed persons. At the time of the study’s publication in 1968, the Hispanic population of those states was under 12 percent. Guzma´ n validated that Hispanics enlisted as in previous wars to prove their loyalty to America, while trying to escape an impoverished upbringing. Soon enough, Guzma´ n’s findings served as an impetus for Chicano Movement anti-war activists to draw even greater attention to the disproportionate causality rate among Hispanics, while mobilizing against the draft, and ultimately the war. Guzma´ n’s assertions about the motives of why so many Hispanics enlisted in Vietnam are echoed by decorated Vietnam veteran Charley Trujillo in his collection of interviews in Soldados: Chicanos in Vietnam (1990). Today one can look no further to find evidence of Hispanic causality rates than the Pentagon’s list of 57,600 Americans who lost their lives in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC, lists 103 Garcı´as, 86 Gonza´ leses, and 75 Martı´nezes, the three most common Hispanic surnames, on the monument. In the end, more than 80,000 Hispanics served in the Vietnam War.
Persian Gulf War By the time of the Persian Gulf War at the dawn of the 1990s, Hispanics were
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well situated in all branches of U.S. armed services. In part fueled by mass marketing campaigns that targeted Hispanic youth as viable recruits, approximately 20,000 Hispanic men and women participated in Operation Desert Shield/Storm among some half a million who served in the short-lived conflict. With an alarming high school dropout rate that hovers around 40 percent, many Hispanics have been drawn to military service in hopes of developing a professional skill, earning a high school equivalency diploma, and gaining a greater perspective on what to do with their lives. With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military decreased in size. From 1992 to 2001, the numbers of active duty personnel dropped off by about 24 percent, yet the number of Hispanics ready for action increased by 30 percent. Whether in the U.S. Marines, Navy, Air Force, or Army, Hispanics were well represented during the Persian Gulf military operation. Indeed, Hispanics accounted for about 10 percent of all military personnel killed either in action or noncombat-related activities during the first Gulf conflict.
War on Global Terrorism Hispanics continue to defend U.S. borders from Islamic extremism in the evolving ‘‘War on Global Terrorism.’’ In fact, four of the first coalition soldiers to die in Iraq in March 2003 were noncitizen Hispanics who were given posthumous citizenship. The very first U.S. Army soldier to die in Iraq was Jose´ Gutie´rrez, a Guatemalan native. A week later, Jesu´ s Sua´ rez del Solar and Jose´ Angel Garibay, both Mexican citizens, died in action. A day thereafter, Colombian Diego Rinco´n was killed in combat.
Following this trajectory, it is not surprising that early on in the War on Terrorism, Hispanics accounted for nearly 20 percent of all fatalities. This war has also seen Hispanics serve in the highest of positions. In the beginning of ‘‘Operation Iraqi Freedom,’’ the commanding officer of coalition forces was Lieutenant General Ricardo Sa´nchez. Currently, one in ten of American military troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is Hispanic. To shine light on this reality, in July 2008 the national cable TV network HBO featured a Mexican-American character in its seven-hour miniseries Generation Kill. The series explores true stories of marines fighting in the early days of the Iraq War. Collectively, Hispanics account for about 12 percent of the armed forces in general, with nearly half being of Mexican descent. In particular, Hispanics make up 14 percent of the Marine Corps, surpassing the proportion of African Americans in this military branch since 2000. The Marines, as the most dangerous of branches, puts Hispanics at greater risk for permanent injuries or death. In addition, Hispanics comprise about 18 percent of all military personnel that handle weaponry. Although Hispanics make up approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population, only about 10 percent are eligible to enlist due to legal and educational requirements. Bearing this in mind, it is clear that Hispanics are overrepresented in the armed forces, especially in the high-risk ranks. Despite a number of military advances, Hispanics are still bogged down in the lowest paying military positions, while generally relegated to the lowest ranks. According to the Department of Defense, one in four Hispanics in both the U.S. Army and Marine
Hispanic American Veterans Corps were occupied in such ranks as ‘‘Infantry, Gun Crews, and Seamanship,’’ while representing just 3 percent of the office corps in all service branches. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that, as of 2001, there were more than one million Hispanic veterans, almost 60 percent of whom served in times of war. There are also thousands of Hispanics in the National Guard and reserve units as well as hundreds in the Department of Defense civilian workforce supporting uniformed soldiers. The American GI Forum is the principal Hispanic veterans’ organization, which has about 65,000 members (see Veterans Administration) and the only primarily Hispanic one authorized by the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist veterans claiming benefits. The Hispanic War Veterans of America was founded in 2004. The purposes of both are similar: to assist not only Hispanic but all war veterans in achieving recognition and adequate benefits. They seek to present a united front of Hispanic war veterans and achieve for them full, nondiscriminatory access to benefits, education, and employment opportunities. They are also pledged to patriotism, community service, and remembrance of the deeds of Hispanic veterans. Darius V. Echeverrı´a
Further Reading Amaya, Hector. ‘‘Dying American or the Violence of Citizenship: Latinos in Iraq.’’ Latinos Studies 5 (2007): 3–24. Bachman, Jerald G. ‘‘Who Chooses Military Service? Correlates of Propensity and Enlistment in the U.S. Armed Forces.’’ Military Psychology 12, no. 1 (2000): 1–30.
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Benavidez, Roy P., and John R. Craig. Medal of Honor: One Man’s Journey from Poverty and Prejudice. Washington: Brassey’s, 1999. The Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, United States Senate. Medal of Honor Recipients 1863–1978. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. Department of Defense. Hispanics in America’s Defense. Washington, DC: U.S. Printing Office, 1990. Gabaldon, Guy. Saipan: Suicide Island: A True Story. Corpus Christi, TX: Guy Gabaldon Publisher, 1990. Hispanic War Veterans of America. www.hwva.org. Mariscal, George. Aztla´n and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Meier, Matt S., and Feliciano Rivera. Dictionary of Mexican American History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. Morı´n, Rau´l. Among the Valiant: Mexican Americans in WWII and Korea. Los Angeles, CA: Borden, 1963. O’Donnell-Rosales, John. Hispanic Confederates. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Company, 2006. Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie. A Legacy Greater Than Words: Stories of U.S. Latinos & Latinas of the WWII Generation. Austin, TX: U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project, 2007. Segal, David R., and Mandy Wechsler Segal. ‘‘America’s Military Population.’’ Population Bulletin 59, no. 4 (December 2004): 1–44. Thompson, Jerry D. Vaqueros in Blue and Gray. Austin, TX: Presidial Press, 1976. Trujillo, Charley. Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam. San Jose´, CA: Chusma House Publications, 1990. Ve´lez-Iba´n˜ez, Carlos G. ‘‘Wars as Sadness: Trading Souls.’’ In Border Visions: Mexican Cultures of the Southwest United
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Homes States. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1996.
HOMES See Veterans’ Homes
HOSPITALS See Veterans’ Hospitals
HOUSING From land warrants after the Revolutionary War to the home ownership boom following World War II, veterans’ housing has been a powerful force in shaping the social and physical structure of the United Statues and a powerful tool for implementing government policy. Throughout U.S. history, the impact of veteran housing opportunities has been counterweighted by the effect of homeless populations following the return of veteran soldiers from abroad. Characterized by policies alternately considered too generous and too sparing, the provision of veterans’ housing and related laws and policies have profoundly shaped the economic and social structure of the United States.
The Revolutionary War From the time of the Revolutionary War through 1855, grants of free land issued to veterans, called bounty land warrants, were the housing-related benefit available to veterans. Bounty land warrants were given to U.S. veterans who served in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. Such bounty lands were typically located in western frontier areas.
By placing veterans on the frontier, the government located a trained military force in locations considered vulnerable to attack. This enabled veterans to protect settlements from incursions and thus encouraged expansion. Veterans who applied for and were granted bounty land were also typically granted exemptions from taxation ranging from a few years to life, providing veterans a further incentive to settle the western frontiers.
The Civil War to the 21st Century Beginning after the Civil War, the federal government began to provide significant benefits to veterans. Generally, these benefits were viewed as the country’s obligation to those soldiers who had served to protect it. One such provision was to encourage veterans to settle the West under the Homestead Act of 1862. Families occupying farms received 160 acres after five years, but veterans and their households had this period reduced by their time in service. Other benefits included the responsibility for providing shelter to veterans who were disabled, and who were thus unable to independently maintain their livelihoods. The federal government provided housing for these veterans by instituting a system of soldiers’ homes, known as the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (the National Home), beginning in 1865 (see Veterans’ Homes). Like other benefits provided during this period, soldiers’ homes were viewed not as charitable institutions but as benefits to veterans as partial repayment of the debt for which the government was both practically and morally obligated to pay to each soldier who had fought in its
Housing service. The resulting system provided a housing opportunity to Union Civil War veterans including food, health care, and employment opportunities. In stark contrast to comparable non-veteran civilians, Union veterans were able to avoid both the poor conditions and the social stigma associated with those forced into local almshouses. For admission into a home, a veteran was required to have an honorable discharge and a disability that prevented him from supporting himself through work. Such veterans were also required to abide by the regulations of the homes, which typically were run according to disciplined military tradition. Initially, the soldiers’ homes housed African American and white veterans in a generally integrated environment. However, by 1900, Jim Crow eliminated such integration and members of African American companies ate at separate tables and utilized separate services from white veterans (see African American Veterans, Civil War). With four branches of the National Home, the United States had a functioning institution for housing disabled veterans by the end of the 1870s. By 1900, there were eight branches of the National Home and by 1920 ten branches. In 1930 when the National Home was consolidated into the Veterans Administration, there were 12 homes. As the number of disabled veterans exceeded the capacity of the branches of the National Home from its inception, in the 1880s individual states began to open similar facilities. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, 27 states provided homes for disabled veterans. These were originally built and operated at each state’s expense.
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In 1888 the federal government enacted a law to provide for payment of federal aid to state homes, ‘‘An Act to Provide Aid to State or Territorial Homes for the Support of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors of the United States.’’ The act provided $100 per annum assistance to state homes for each eligible veteran. Congress established per diem rates in 1960, which it periodically increased. Former states of the Confederacy also established homes for veterans. In addition to homes for Union soldiers an additional 14 states provided housing for former Confederate soldiers. The homes were considered desirable assets to the communities in which they were located. In addition, to be generally attractive facilities, the homes required an ongoing supply of goods and services. This in turn acted to bolster the economy in nearby cities and towns and encouraged the acceptance of the homes in the broader communities.
Civil Relief Acts During the Civil War, Congress passed a moratorium on civil lawsuits brought against Union soldiers. As to housing, this meant that any civil legal action, notably eviction and foreclosure, was suspended until after the soldier returned from service. Congress’ intent in passing the moratorium was twofold: to protect the national interest in a capable army and to protect the service members from debts that they could not afford. First, Congress wanted service members to be able to fight the war without the distraction of problems that might arise at home. Second, because most soldiers during the Civil War were paid poorly, it was difficult for them to pay debts such as mortgages.
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During World War I, Congress passed a similar law, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1918, which also protected servicemen from certain civil actions including repossession of property, bankruptcy, and foreclosure while they were actively serving. The 1918 act remained in place only until shortly after World War I. In 1940 a similar statute was enacted to protect World War II veterans. Unlike the prior versions, the 1940 act did not expire after the end of the war, as it did after World War I. Thus, soldiers serving after 1940 have received uninterrupted coverage from bankruptcy and foreclosure. The modern Servicemembers Civil Relief Act notably provides foreclosure protection for recently returned veterans for a period of 90 days after return. In the early part of the twenty-first century various members of Congress have attempted to extend the 90-day moratorium on foreclosure to one year. As of 2008, these attempts have been unsuccessful.
World War I Upon returning from service, World War I veterans were faced with few housing benefits or opportunities. Even veterans who had been disabled were unable to obtain adequate housing or opportunities. The result was that World War I veterans were forced to compete for the same limited charitable resources as destitute non-veterans. As the Great Depression swept across the nation, the need and suffering of veterans increased dramatically, and the destitute veteran became a familiar sight for the twodecade period from the end of World War I until World War II.
The government’s treatment of veterans during this period is typified by its behavior toward the Bonus Expeditionary Force (see Bonus March). Comprised of about 20,000 veterans, the Bonus Expeditionary Force arrived in Washington, DC, in May 1932, to urge Congress to provide cash bonuses for veterans. The Hoover administration was unresponsive to the Bonus Expeditionary Force’s requests, and in July 1932, the president ordered 600 troops, including mounted cavalry and tanks, to drive the veterans from their makeshift camps. The political response to the president’s use of the military force against needy veterans was extremely negative and played a part in President Hoover’s failed reelection bid. Although, the Bonus Expeditionary Force was unsuccessful in achieving its intended goal, it helped to establish the political environment for the passage of significant housing legislation after World War II. When veterans returned to petition the new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his administration offered the veterans work in the Civilian Conservation Corps at one dollar a day plus food, clothing, and shelter. After some initial complaints at the low pay, most of the veterans accepted. By June 1933, 2,600 veterans had accepted the offer. Veterans arriving in the capital in subsequent months were offered the same choice and by August 1935, over 8,000 transient veterans had been enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Housing After World War II—The GI Bill of Rights On June 22, 1944, President Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen’s
Housing Readjustment Act of 1944, more commonly know as the GI Bill of Rights. The overall objectives of the bill were aimed at diminishing the economic and sociological problems of returning veterans, which had been so evident after World War I. The GI Bill was intended to prevent a repeat of the Bonus Expeditionary Force and a relapse into economic depression. Although not originally a major provision of President Roosevelt’s plan to prevent a relapse of the post-World War I conditions, the housing provisions in the bill, which were greatly influenced by the American Legion, have proven to be the most important contemporary development in veterans’ housing. These guaranteed low-interest home loans to veterans who had served for at least 90 days, or who had been injured or disabled in the line of duty. Notably, the government did not itself provide loans; rather, in lieu of a down payment, it provided a guarantee to private lenders for a certain amount of the home value. Veterans were eligible for a mortgage of up to 100 percent of the cost of a new home. Few loans were made in 1944, as the initial bill provided a maximum loan guarantee of only $2,000 and contained cumbersome provisions for processing applications. In 1945, Congress amended the act streamlining the loan process and raising the maximum guarantee to $4,000. In 1950 Congress again increased the amount of the guarantee to the lesser of 60 percent, or $7,500, making the program even more attractive to private lenders. In the 1950s and 1960s, the GI Bill’s loan guarantee program was used by millions of veterans, resulting in the development of modern suburbs. Suburbs spread rapidly in the 1950s, as the GI
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Bill’s low-interest housing loans in combination with the higher incomes of veterans having used the GI Bill’s educational provision entered the workforce. The result was a rate of home ownership in the United States after World War II that was roughly doubled from what it was before. The benefits provided under the GI Bill have been amended and extended numerous times since its enactment. Notably, Congress extended loan guarantee benefits to Korean War veterans in 1952 and to post-Korean War veterans, including those who served during peacetime, in 1966. By the end of the 1980s, more than 12 million GI Bill loans had been guaranteed and by the end of the 1990s the number exceeded 15 million. The maximum eligible home price and maximum guarantee amounts have also been repeatedly increased. As of 2009, the maximum VA home loan amount was $417,000 with a maximum guarantee of 25 percent of the loan amounts and even higher in certain high-cost regions.
Homeless Veterans Since the enactment of the GI Bill in 1944, with few exceptions, the federal government’s provision of housing assistance for veterans has been limited to home ownership. Beginning in the 1980s, however, large numbers of veterans, particularly Vietnam War veterans, began to experience homelessness. In response to this increasing need, Congress has enacted numerous programs implemented by the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The two most significant VA programs have been Health Care for Homeless Veterans and
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Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans. The VA also has various programs through which it has made available surplus VA properties to organizations serving homeless veterans. It similarly sells and leases certain foreclosed properties to organizations that serve homeless people. The VA also offers supportive services, including help in finding private or government-assisted housing. Health Care for Homeless Veterans relies on community-based residential treatment facilities to provide services to homeless veterans who are mentally ill. In general, its services are time limited to less than six months. As part of the Health Care for Homeless Veterans’ program, the VA also has a Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem program, which is designed to encourage the creation of new facilities for homeless veterans.
Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans provides homeless veterans rehabilitative services while occupying beds at VA medical centers. It offers residential treatment to homeless veterans providing beds at VA medical centers throughout the country. Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans typically provides services for roughly 5,000 homeless veterans annually. In addition to these programs, in 1992, VA and HUD jointly create the HUD-VA Supported Housing program for homeless veterans. This program is limited to veterans with severe psychiatric or substance abuse disorders. Through the program HUD supports housing for veterans with Section 8 (psychologically unfit) discharges and the VA provides case management, health, and other supportive services, for the term of the Section 8 assistance.
An American Legion volunteer serves a holiday meal to a homeless veteran at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Dallas, 2006. [AP Photo/Matt Slocum]
Housing The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the major coordinator between the government and the private agencies that care for homeless veterans, estimates that 200,000 veterans are homeless at any given time, in the years after 2000, and 400,000 are homeless during the course of a year. This is about a third of the national homeless population. Afghan and Iraq War veterans are becoming a major concern for advocate and veterans’ groups, as homelessness is a long-term problem: frequently veterans who attempt to hold jobs and live in apartments or houses are suffering from long-term psychological problems or substance abuse that only compel them to leave their homes years later. The lack of support from family or friends is a major problem, along with the fact that many government programs are designed to provide housing for families with children. Given their problems, it is also difficult to put homeless veterans in touch with the services that are available.
Conclusion With the exclusion of land grants in the early history of the nation, prior to World War II, veterans without service-related disabilities were offered no housing benefits or opportunities. Rather, returning veterans were left to their own devices in obtaining housing and readjusting to
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civilian life. Since World War II, the provision of housing benefits has been very heavily slanted towards home ownership. Recently, provisions have been made for homeless veterans, although it still is the case that the only significant housing programs for veterans are guaranteed home mortgage loans. Since the state and federal governments made Western lands available to Revolutionary War veterans, housing for veterans and related policies have had a profound impact on the social, political, and economic culture of the United States. By fostering home ownership, veterans’ assistance programs have significantly reinforced the American tradition that families ought to live in suburban private homes rather than (as in many European countries) urban apartments. Joseph Rosenblum
Further Reading National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. www.nchv.org. Severo, Richard, and Lewis Milford. The Wages of War: When America’s Soldiers Came Home: From Valley Forge to Vietnam. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. Taylor, Richard H., and Sandra Wright Taylor. Homeward Bound: American Veterans Return from War. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007.
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I combatants are indistinguishable. Such was the context of missions to Kurdistan, the Balkans, and Haiti in the decade preceding 9/11. Overall, both the quality and accumulating number of deployments in the nineties served as an important preface to what later war in Iraq and Afghanistan would entail. Cumulatively, years of deploying conventional forces in chaotic, fluid environments placed enormous pressures on the individuals and institutions serving in harm’s way. The U.S. military had not recovered from these strains when terrorist attacks began in 2001. Military service in the modern day is also a marked departure from past practice. Once the highly unpopular peacetime draft was abolished in 1973 and the all-volunteer force began, service reverted to a much smaller, restricted segment of American society. A 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on recruit demographics noted a number of distinct characteristics separating the military from mainstream society. New service members
IRAQ WAR VETERANS For the Troops, But Against the War The nature of a war determines the nature of its veterans. This historical axiom applies to three centuries of American conflicts and is no less true for the contemporary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In many respects, America’s current military campaigns are distinct from more familiar past conflicts. Unlike World War II, post-9/11 military strategy lacks a linear road map to victory. There are no enemy capitals to seize and mark a decisive end to the fighting. But there is a better comparison to be drawn. The American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are more akin to the abortive 1992 humanitarian relief mission to Somalia. In practice, the American military deployed since the end of the Cold War has faced missions against failed states that cannot govern themselves and within environments wherein innocent civilians and military 237
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predominantly come from the southern and western states and from rural areas of the country. Although both active duty and reserve personnel have a higher percentage of high school graduates, the civilian sector of the population has more than twice the number of individuals with college credits. Income also separates many recruits from the rest of America. The 2005 GAO study commented that even though median income for recruits was slightly higher than their civilian counterparts ($44,500 versus $43,300), few Americans in the highest income bracket serve in uniform. In fact, a 1999 U.S. Defense Department study indicated that fewer than 25 percent of new recruits bound for active duty were drawn from the highest and lowest quartile of the economic scale (GAO 2005, 50–55, 88–89). Actual military service in Iraq and Afghanistan has followed these broader historical trends. By 2006, a total of approximately 1.3 million U.S. service members had participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Measured in terms of simple demographics, veterans of these wars comprised less than one-half of one percent of Americans. If only combat veterans were counted, the actual proportion shrinks even further. Multiple tours of duty further reduce even this small number. Lacking an adequate force structure after significant downsizing in the nineties, the American military has required service members to endure longer tours of duty and multiple deployments. In 2006, as many as onethird of army personnel had served at least two tours, while almost two-thirds had served in Iraq and Afghanistan (Heffernan 2006). Unlike Vietnam, average
deployments for individuals and whole units have been repeatedly extended beyond one year. The age of contemporary veterans also makes them distinct. By 2005, nearly 5,600 of the service members in Iraq and Afghanistan were 50 or older. In part, this disparity is a function of U.S. National Guard and Reserve units deployed to the region that are comprised of older members. Four out of ten troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are guardsmen or reservists. More than one-fifth of the Guard and Reserve that deployed to fight was over 40 years old. In comparison, only 6 percent of the regular military that went to war was in the same demographic (Heffernan 2006; Hemingway 2005). Years before 9/11, public attitudes about the American military appeared to have turned a corner. In the aftermath of U.S. victory in the Gulf War, it seemed once again acceptable to be overtly patriotic and supportive of the troops (see Gulf War Veterans). The yellow ribbons festooning public places marked a celebration of the military and military service. Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation (1998) extolled the value of sacrifice during World War II and granted iconic status to the Americans who had served in that conflict (see World War II Veterans). Vicarious cultural celebrations of bravery and patriotism without actual military participation were commonplace in the nineties, as shown by enormously popular films (see Film and Veterans) such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) (Auster 2002; Morrison 1999). Commentators at the time speculated about the causes of the shift in attitudes. Some saw the final passage of the ’’Vietnam syndrome’’ and a sincere effort to jettison its debilitating impact
Iraq War Veterans | 239 on American society (Kane 2003). Others saw the baby boom generation, bereft of its own glory in a time of crisis, lauding the accomplishments of its elders to fill the gap (Moses 2002). Stripped of its Hollywood gloss, public support for an actual long-term military commitment abroad proved to be another matter entirely. A March 2008 poll by the Washington Post and ABC News reported that 63 percent of respondents believed that the war in Iraq was not worth fighting (Angus Reid March 2008). In fact, popular discontent with the ground war had begun within a year after the invasion of Iraq and grown steadily worse over time. In contrast, the American public support for the military remained a distinct and inverse quality, at least in the early days of the conflict. A September 2006 Gallup poll recorded a 72 percent favorable rating for U.S. military personnel, double that which supported military operations in Iraq (Saad 2006). The survey reflected an important dichotomy between service and the object of that service. On the one hand, some Americans wanted to offer their sincere support to the military in an effort to exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam. In other cases, acclaim was more a rhetorical device that reflected the fever pitch of patriotism after September 2001 and masked true opinions regarding the military and the persistence of anti-military sentiments within the American public. Within a few short years, the conceptual barrier separating the troops from their mission had eroded. In part, the decline was prompted at home by the ongoing debate over the need to preserve civil liberties and national security. Most telling was the outright public rejection of a military draft. As late as October
2007, two-thirds of Americans polled completely dismissed the idea (Kelly 2007; Bailey 2007). The erosion of support was also encouraged by debates over the continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay military prison and the use of torture in interrogating ‘‘enemy combatants’’ in U.S. custody (Commonweal 2007; Hentoff 2008). Equally damaging to military credibility were alleged reports of abuse of Iraq civilians during the course of military operations in Iraq. Civilian deaths in Haditha in November 2005 initiated a full-scale investigation of misconduct. As later revelations regarding the nature of civilian casualties at the hands of U.S. military forces becomes more common, the callousness of the American service members increasingly defined the public debate, stripping away the gloss that had protected the military throughout much of the war (Hedges and al-Arian 2007). By June 2006, a majority of Americans (57 percent) asked by the Opinion Research Corporation believed that American troops had committed atrocities in Iraq (Angus Reid June 2006). Caught amidst the fickle tides of public support, modern veterans are disconnected from American society to a degree that is more profound than during the Vietnam era (see Vietnam War Veterans). Contemporary media access to the battlefield is unprecedented, dwarfing coverage of Southeast Asia 40 years ago. Beyond the traditional television outlets are a host of internet blogs, Web sites, and YouTube selections (Multinational Force—Iraq). However, this unprecedented exposure has not translated into public cognizance of either the cost or effort of military service. It is difficult if not impossible to inculcate the viewer with the sense of fear, fatigue,
A public service announcement urging veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to join Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. [AP Photo/Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Ad Council]
Iraq War Veterans | 241 or danger depicted on the screen. What currently exists is an understanding more akin to a ‘‘first person shooter’’ video game than the real war (Grossman 2005; Lugo 2006). Where broader public participation in the military might have bridged that gap in the sixties during Vietnam, when the mass of World War II veterans populated America, that link has grown increasingly tentative. Journalist Sara Corbett wrote in 2004 that veterans, particularly the wounded, ‘‘must live with the confounding mix of anonymity and exposure wrought by surviving the war’’ (Corbett 2004). It is in this context that the uniform, almost reflexive, support for the troops often rings hollow for returning veterans. Many have turned their backs on peacetime society because they lack the faith in ever reestablishing a connection with it. The systemic difficulties discussed below—in medical care, employment, and other fundamental areas—have only reinforced this point. One veteran spoke for many when he commented in 2006 that ‘‘I realized that whatever friends I had made before the Army no longer really existed. The only friends that I now have are the ones I made while I was in’’ (Buzzell 2006).
Healing Wounds in the New Century The quality of contemporary medical care for the combat soldier is unprecedented in American military history. Advances in trauma medicine, access to advanced diagnostic equipment, and rapid transport to medical facilities from the battlefield have significantly improved care. As a result, 90 percent
of American casualties survive, a vast improvement over Vietnam or even the 1991 Gulf War. By 2008, nearly 30,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded in action and in need of varying degrees of long and short-term care (Heffernan 2006; O’Hanlon and Campbell 2008, 19). The mental strain placed upon soldiers has also contributed substantially to a new wave of post-traumatic stress disorder. The particular nature of urban insurgency has placed enormous stress on the American military serving abroad. The prospect of death or wounds from an improvised explosive device or a suicide attack, coupled with the almost complete isolation of U.S. military personnel from the Iraqi people, are benchmarks in a war that oscillates between frantic activity and mind-numbing boredom (Mockenhaupt 2006; Thompson 2006; Fahim 2005). According to a 2005 Department of Veterans Affairs study of 170,000 OIF veterans, approximately 34,000 were diagnosed with some form of psychological disorder. These numbers have grown in subsequent years (Heffernan 2006; Dyhouse 2005). Local communities and state governments have attempted to address the needs of veterans in ways that are reminiscent of the post-WWII era (Gitelson 1945). Civilian and military leaders alike have recognized the need to integrate veterans, their families, the community, and the private sector into the process of demobilization. Minnesota, for example, initiated the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program that requires mandatory meetings for returning guardsmen and their spouses at 30-, 60-, and 90-day intervals after redeployment home. Counseling covers parenting, marital relationships, health benefits, and employment. The program includes both state and private entities such as TriWest,
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which administers the health program for soldiers, and Lutheran Social Services, an ecumenical advocacy organization (Jensen 2008). The Department of Veterans Affairs has supplemented these efforts by offering nearly 200,000 deployed guard and reserve troops additional medical, educational, and home loan benefits (National Guard 2005). Unfortunately, federal support for returning veterans, particularly from the VA and other affiliated agencies, has been uneven at best. In terms of raw numbers, VA budgets increased consistently during the Bush administration. As part of its fiscal year 2007 presentation, the Office of Management and Budget made the point that the Veterans Administration medical budget had increased an average of 9.2 percent a year since 2001 (Office of Management and Budget 2008). Other initiatives have also followed funding increases. VA officials created the Seamless Transition Office in January 2005 with the intent to coordinate medical and other benefits between the Veterans Administration and the Defense Department for service members leaving active duty (Government Accountability Office 2005, 1, 9). Despite these advances, it is an open question as to whether or not budgets and policies have kept pace with actual need. The large percentage of wounded that survive, for example, require modern prosthetics that are truly wonders of science and engineering. However, a device used to replace an amputated arm costs tens of thousands of dollars and must be custommade to an individual veteran, a process that takes months. The backlog in this one area alone is substantial (Corbett 2004). Advocacy groups have highlighted more systemic problems with the Veterans Administration and the level of care
it provides. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, AMVETS, and Disabled American Veterans challenged proposed budget increases in 2005, saying that most improvements in the VA health care budget were coming from increases in veteran prescription copayments and other additional fees. These groups argued that Bush administration proposals failed to keep pace with inflation, rising national medical costs, or the growing demands created by returning troops. They claimed that proposed changes to the 2005 budget would result in 222,000 veterans electing to stop VA treatment because of higher costs (Dyhouse 2005; Aging and Elder Health 2006). The competent and effective management of veterans’ programs has been the subject of public scandal. As the number of discharged service members increased after 2003, the VA appeared wholly unprepared for the burden. The theft of electronic files containing social security numbers and other personal information for millions of veterans prompted Congressional investigations in 2006. As late as the spring of 2007, the VA was criticized for delays of more than six months in processing benefits claims and a backlog of disability claims that ran into the hundreds of thousands (Army 2007). Federal support of veterans’ employment has been equally problematic. A large number of reservists and National Guard troops returning home have experienced significant problems in regaining civilian jobs and bureaucratic inertia when they have requested redress (Holding 2007). At the end of 2007, approximately 16,000 veterans of overseas deployments sought reinstatement under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act
Iraq War Veterans | 243 (USERA). Business owners have claimed that their actions were justified by layoffs in a recessionary economy. Veterans demanding their old jobs back have contested this claim, making the point that they have been denied their rights under existing federal law (Baldas 2007). To date, veterans appear to have the courts on their side. In 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict in favor of a police officer who claimed employer retaliation after he returned from a military deployment. The same year, IBM settled a claim by an army reservist out of court after he threatened to sue for wrongful termination. Michael Thompson, a lawyer who has represented corporations in these cases, notes, ‘‘The soldier is always going to be popular, and if you look at the way USERRA is structured, it’s an entitlement statute, and you are going to have trouble convincing a jury to find against a soldier’’ (Baldas 2007). Although some veterans have regained their old jobs through litigation, private legal remedies are often a last resort and come at the end of a cumbersome and ineffective bureaucratic process. The U.S. Department of Labor has been notoriously slow to address claims made by veterans. Through its Office of Special Council, the Labor Department examined a total of only 55 cases between 1998 and 2002. Of these, only one was referred to the Merits System Protection Board, a body designed to adjudicate veterans’ claims (Maier 2004). In the meantime, returning service members have the choice to represent themselves through private lawyers and undergo the arduous emotional and monetary costs of gaining what are their legal rights. Others seek support from veterans’ organizations.
Veterans and Politics The politicization of military issues is not unique to American history. Controversies regarding unsanctioned overseas actions were familiar to Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, or Woodrow Wilson. The same could be said of military service in the age of Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, or Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the current war, however, unhealed controversies left over from the 2000 election and the 24-houra-day news cycle have lent a sharper edge to contemporary partisanship (Leo 2005). Both of the major parties have engaged in a continual war of words and votes since 2003. Rhetoric has focused on a number of hot button issues: the propriety of troop withdrawals, casualties, and veterans’ medical care. Congressional voting records have not always matched public sentiments (Sorrells and Allen 2003, 2459–2461; Caplan 2007; Weisskopf 2007). More noticeable in the fray are the voices of newly retired military officers as well as the active military. Unlike senior commanders of a previous era who saw political involvement as a strict taboo, the current crop of former generals has readily and publicly embraced candidates across the political spectrum. During the 2006 Congressional campaign season, numerous recently retired senior army generals openly called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, which was forthcoming. In March 2008, then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama staged a publicity event where he appeared with a cohort of nine retired generals and admirals who had endorsed his campaign (Dreazen 2008; Cloud and Schmitt 2006).
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Senior officers’ activism has been mirrored by recently discharged service members who organized groups such Iraq Veterans Against the War (Enders 2007; Quindlen 2007; Goodman 2004). Active duty enlisted personnel have also readily expressed their political views online and as part of the normal news. Clearly, at all levels of the military chain of command, the membrane separating civil-military affairs has been breached if not permanently eliminated. Increasing numbers of veterans have decided to move directly into politics in recent years. Military service has been a traditional asset to American political campaigns. However, after the end of the Cold War and the election of Bill Clinton, veterans’ status appeared to have declined in importance as a public litmus test of leadership. It regained that perch after 9/11 as both parties, but particularly Democrats, sought to win constituents by projecting a tougher stance on national security issues. Both parties also ran former service members in an attempt to garner votes on the controversial veterans’ issues such as benefits and medical care (Wolffe et al. 2005). In 2006, Democrat and Republic Party managers submitted a seemingly formidable list of candidates drawn from the Iraq War. Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee wounded while piloting a UH60 Blackhawk, ran as a Democrat for Henry Hyde’s vacated seat in Illinois. Patrick Murphy, a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division who served in Iraq, competed in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional district against Republican incumbent Mike Fitzpatrick. Van Taylor, a former Marine combat veteran ran as a Republican challenger to an eight-term Democrat incumbent in Texas (Gustafson 2006).
The outcome of midterm elections was mixed at best. Murphy won his contest in Pennsylvania. However, both Duckworth and Taylor were defeated by their respective opponents. Taylor lost by 18 percent in a Democrat landslide for his opponent (Gillman 2006). Moreover, there has been no sea change in the actual number of veterans in Congress. Their proportion remains small at approximately onequarter of the membership, as opposed to about half of all Congressmen immediately after World War II. In the presidential race of 2008, veteran John McCain, who pledged to continue the Iraq War as long as necessary, was defeated by non-veteran Barack Obama, who was opposed to the war. This suggests being a veteran was less important politically than candidates’ stances on the issues—such as war and the economy. (See also Politics, Veterans in.)
Iraq Veterans’ Associations Although most Iraq veterans who join associations are joining the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, there are two organizations exclusively for veterans of the recent conflicts in the Middle East: The Iraq War Veterans Organization (www.iraqwarveterans.org) and The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.iava.org), which offer similar services as the senior veterans’ organization. Michael D. Gambone See also Anti-War Veterans Associations; Afghan War Veterans; Women Veterans, World War I to the Present
Further Reading Aging & Elder Health Week. ‘‘Health Costs: AMVETS Predicts a $1B Shortfall in the 2007 VA Budget’’ (March 12, 2006): 58.
Iraq War Veterans | 245 Angus Reid Global Monitor. ‘‘Troops Committed War Crimes, Say Americans,’’ June 18, 2006. www.angus-reid.com. Angus Reid Global Monitor. ‘‘Most Americans Still Upset about Iraq Invasion,’’ March 8, 2008. www.angus-reid.com. Army. ‘‘VA Secretary Resigns’’ 57 (September 2007): 8. Auster, Albert. ‘‘Saving Private Ryan and American Triumphalism.’’ Journal of Popular Film & Television 30 (Summer 2002): 98–105. Bailey, Beth. ‘‘The Army in the Marketplace: Recruiting an All-Volunteer Force.’’ The Journal of American History 94 (June 2007): 47–74. Baldas, Tresa. ‘‘Returning Vets Suing to Get Their Jobs Back.’’ The National Law Journal 21 (December 21, 2007): 4. Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002, Buzzell, Colby. ‘‘The Best Years of Our Lives.’’ Esquire 145 (March 2006): 206–15. Caplan Paula J. ‘‘Vets Aren’t Crazy—War Is.’’ Tikkun 22 (September/October 2007): 44–49. Cloud, David S., and Eric Schmitt. ‘‘More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld’s Resignation.’’ New York Times, April 14 2006. Commonweal. ‘‘Torture’s Enablers’’ 134 (November 9, 2007): 5. Corbett, Sara. ‘‘The Permanent Scars of Iraq.’’ New York Times Magazine, February 15, 2004: 37–38. Dreazen, Yochi J., ‘‘When Generals Wage Politics: Commanders’ Roles in Campaign Stir Debate about Boundaries.’’ Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2008. Dyhouse Tim. ‘‘22,000 Troops Discharged with ‘Personality Disorders’,’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 95 (September 2007): 10. Dyhouse, Tim. ‘‘VFW Greatly Disappointed in VA Budget Proposal.’’ Veterans of
Foreign Wars Magazine 92 (April 2005): 12–13. Enders, David. ‘‘Iraq Vets Speak Out.’’ Progressive 71 (October 2007): 20. Fahim, Kareem. ‘‘Veteran Town.’’ The Village Voice 50 (January 19–25, 2005): 28, 30. GAO (Government Accountability Office). Military Personnel: Reporting Additional Servicemember Demographics Could Enhance Congressional Oversight. Washington, DC: GAO, September 2005. GAO-05-952. www.gao.gov/new.items/ d05952.pdf. Gillman, Todd J. ‘‘Edwards’ Record a Tough Defense Against Vet’s Challenge.’’ Dallas Morning News, April 2, 2006. www.dallasnews.com (accessed March 25, 2008). Gitelson Maxwell. ‘‘The Role of the Community in Relation to the Emotional Needs of the Returning Soldier.’’ The Social Science Review 19 (March 1945): 93–96. Goodman, David. ‘‘Breaking Ranks.’’ Mother Jones 29 (November/December 2004): 48–55. Grossman, Lev. ‘‘The Army’s Killer App.’’ Time 165 (February 28, 2005): 43–44. Gustafson, Erik K. ‘‘Iraq Vets Take On Washington.’’ Sojourners Magazine 35 (September/October 2006): 8. Hedges, Chris, and Laila al-Arian. ‘‘The Other War.’’ The Nation 285 (July 30– August 6, 2007): 11–31. Heffernan, Tim, ‘‘Ten Numbers on the State of Iraq War Veterans.’’ Esquire 145 (March 2006): 212–13. Hemingway, Al. ‘‘Gray-Haired Warriors: Vietnam Veterans in Iraq.’’ Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine 92 (April 2005): 22. Hentoff, Nat. ‘‘Waterboarding the White House.’’ The Village Voice 53 (January 9– 15, 2008): 18. Holding, Reynolds. ‘‘The Enemy at Home.’’ Time 169 (June 25, 2007): 52.
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Jensen, Ron. ‘‘Beyond the Yellow Ribbon.’’ National Guard 62 (January 2008): 22–25. Kane, John. ‘‘American Values or Human Rights? U.S. Foreign Policy and the Fractured Myth of Virtuous Power.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 33 (December 2003): 772. Kelly James F. ‘‘Draft Debate Resurfaces.’’ U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 133 (January 2007): 12. Leo, John. ‘‘Fun With Numbers.’’ U.S. News & World Report 139 (August 1, 2005): 62. Lugo, William. ‘‘Violent Video Games to Recruit American Youth.’’ Reclaiming Children & Youth 15 (Spring 2006): 11–14. Maier, Timothy W. ‘‘Pink Slips Greet Returning Soldiers.’’ Insight on the News 20 (January 6–January 19, 2004): 26–27. Mockenhaupt, Brian. ‘‘The Waiting.’’ New York Times Magazine, March 12, 2006: 78. Morrison, James. ‘‘The Thin Red Line.’’ Film Quarterly 53 (Fall 1999): 35–38. Moses, Michael Valdez. ‘‘Virtual Warriors.’’ Reason 33 (January 2002): 54–61. Multi-National Force—Iraq. www.youtube.com/mnfiraq. National Guard. ‘‘VA Expands Services for Guard Combat Veterans’’ 59 (July 2005): 18. Office of Management and Budget. Budget of the United States Government, FY 2007: Department of Veterans Affairs. www .whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/ veterans.html (accessed March 17, 2008). O’Hanlon, Michael E., and Jason H. Campbell. Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in PostSaddam Iraq. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2008). Quindlen, Anna. ‘‘Dissenters in Uniform.’’ Newsweek 150 (25 June 2007): 62. Saad, Lydia. ‘‘Republicans and Democrats Disagree on War, but Support Troops.’’ Gallup News Service, September 2006. www.gallup.com. Sorrells, Niels S., and Jonathan Allen, ‘‘Veterans Look for Sympathy in Senate
After Bipartisan Betrayal in House.’’ Congressional Quarterly, October 4, 2003. Thompson, Nancy. ‘‘War Stories in the Classroom.’’ The Chronicle of Higher Education 52 (July 21, 2006): B5. Weisskopf, Michael. ‘‘The Meaning of Walter Reed.’’ Time 169 (19 March 2007): 100. Williams, Kayla. Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. Wolffe, Richard, Jonathan Darman, and Holly Bailey. ‘‘The Vet Strategy.’’ Newsweek, December 5, 2005: 30–33.
IWO JIMA MEMORIAL On November 10, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated what is officially the Marine Corps War Memorial, better known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, outside the gates of the Arlington National Cemetery. The monument of five marines and one navy corpsman raising the flag on February 23, 1945, was sculpted by Felix de Weldon and based on a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photograph of the second flag raising on the island, which was staged by Joe Rosenthal and taken several hours after the first flag was erected in the heat of combat. That this was a staged, rather than the original, flag raising was not stressed during the ceremonies: three of the four marines who raised the first small flag over Iwo Jima—Harold Schrier, H. O. Hansen, and James Mitchell and the photographer who caught it, Lou Lowery, were present at the dedication. The fourth, Sergeant Ernst Thomas, was killed on the island ten days later: the raising of the flag did not mean the end of the battle or the capture of the island; it was raised to inspire marines still in combat that the enemy’s main defensive position had been taken.
Iwo Jima Memorial Over 6,000 marines, more than onethird of all those killed in the Pacific, died on the island, and over 20,000 were wounded in a battle that went on until March 26. Lowery’s photograph did not capture the triumphant, dramatic image of the battle the Marine Corps and the American public wanted to remember. With a sense of irony, Rosenthal sent Lowery a copy of his photo inscribed, ‘‘To Lou Lowery, who got there first.—a helluva marine and a great guy, from lucky Joe Rosenthal (Marling and Wetenhal, frontispiece.) As sculptor de Weldon put it, the outstretched hands of he men stood for America’s help to the suffering
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people of the world, their outstretched hands striving for the blessings of higher power, and the group symbolizing a united nation in pursuit of a single goal (Marling and Wetenhal 1991, 16). Journalists delighted in describing the monumentality of the state as well: over a hundred tons of bronze in 108 pieces went into the monument in which the men’s thumbs were the size of arms. The huge sculpture reflected American military might and the image of a strong, heroic, united nation that politicians of both parties hoped would be the reality following the war. Once Rosenthal’s photograph was displayed in newspapers all over America, it
Soldiers reenact the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, an image made famous by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, during a Memorial Day parade, the first after a 20-year hiatus, along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, 1998. [AP Photo/ Beth A. Keiser]
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received tremendous praise and the Pulitzer Prize. On the island of Iwo Jima itself, Seabee Waldron T. Rich executed a sculpture based on the photograph on the sides of a cliff. Rosenthal’s 4-F draft deferment was upgraded to 2-A (doing essential war work). A stamp of the photograph appeared in July. President Roosevelt insisted the six men come home. They included the child of immigrants, a Native American, and men from the Midwest, the Plains, and the East, a representative sample of America, The six were detailed to the United States shortly after the battle and toured the country, along with the flag, selling war bonds. Over a million posters depicting the photograph were placed in factories, homes, and railroad stations, and the Marine Corps used it for a recruiting poster. Replicas of the statue were displayed at bond rallies to encourage purchasers in Times Square and appeared on a float at the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, in 1946. Copies the size of paperweights were manufactured to be placed on desks and in curio cabinets. In 1949, the original flag was sent to the marine base, Camp Pendleton, California, for the filming of The Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne. Wayne was nominated for a Best Actor
Academy Award and for the first time became the top box office attraction in pictures thanks to this film. Three of the marines in the photographed appeared to raise the flag in the movie. Ira Hayes, a private and Pima Indian, who only arrived on Iwo Jima in time to be included in the second, staged photograph, did not want to be assigned to tour the country and publicize the event. He was returned to active duty in the Pacific when he was found drunk before an important rally. Hayes subsequently was jailed in Chicago, sent to a sanitarium, released, and arrested again in Los Angeles: the official report of the dedication listed him, however, as an employee of the Indian Bureau so as not to spoil the image of the day. He died three months after the monument’s dedication and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. William Pencak See also American Indian Veterans, Individuals; World War II Veterans
Further Reading Marling, Karal Ann, and John Wetenhal. Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
J draft of 1940 were retained in service. But in 1943, when the government announced it would accept Nisei volunteers, eligible men enlisted. Despite food shortages, loss of nearly all their property, and humiliation at the camps, Japanese Americans jumped at the chance to prove their loyalty. Future senator from Hawaii and war hero Daniel Inouye described how he and over a thousand men literally ran to the draft board on the first day they could enlist. In 1944, the government reinstated the draft for Nisei Americans. Hawaiian Nisei formed the 100th Infantry Battalion while those on the mainland became the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. They later merged and fought in both the European and Pacific theaters. Of 36,000 men, over 18,000 earned decorations for bravery and 8 presidential unit citations, making it the most decorated unit in American history. A greater proportion of Japanese American served than members of any other ethnic group although most were not drafted. More than 700 were killed and
JAPANESE AMERICAN VETERANS The Japanese experience of World War II was starkly different on Hawaii than on the mainland. Only about 1,500 Japanese Americans on Hawaii were interned as enemy aliens, in part because JapaneseAmericans constituted over a third of the island’s population and were essential for both defense and providing food and services, but also in part because they were well integrated into the island’s population. On the mainland, where many Nisei (Japanese Americans) were small farmers who lived apart from the white population, nearly all 110,000 were interned in camps although 70,000 were American citizens and supposedly entitled to all the civil rights of any citizen. Japanese Americans were classified as enemy aliens by the War Department and exempted from the draft as of February 1942, although those who had been drafted already with the first peacetime 249
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Wounded veteran Sgt.Yeichi Kuwayama, fourth from right, presents a check to President Truman in 1945 for a memorial to the late President Roosevelt. Present at the ceremony are left to right, Earl Finch of the War Relocation Authority; PFC George M. Tsujimoto, PFC Terumi Kato, President Truman, Sgt. Kuwayam, Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes, PFC Jesse Hirata, and Dillon Myer. The soldiers had all been wounded fighting in Italy and Europe. [AP Photo]
9,500 wounded, earning the 100th Infantry the nickname of the ‘‘Purple Heart Battalion.’’ Their most famous mission was to fight their way through the German lines and rescue the ‘‘Lost Battalion’’ in France. Future Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye lost an arm when he was hit by a German grenade that he then threw back. Yet the battalion received only one medal of honor during the war. In 2000, when President Clinton upgraded 20 of the 47 Distinguished Service Crosses to that level, Inouye and six other men were still alive to receive the nation’s highest award.
The 442nd’s sterling performance began to change attitudes towards the interned Japanese Americans at home. President Truman himself greeted the returning regiment at the White House on July 15, 1946. ‘‘You fought for the free nations of the world . . . . You fought not only the enemy, you fought prejudice, and you have won. Keep up that fight, and continue to win—to make this great Republic stand for just what the Constitution says it stands for: ‘the welfare of all the people, all the time’ ’’ (Duus 1983, 232). The Office of War Information also praised Japanese
Japanese American Veterans American soldiers in an effort to reduce racism in American society. Generals Mark Clark and Joseph Stillwell, who had commanded the troops in Italy and the Pacific, made speeches urging white Americans to appreciate the Japanese Americans’ heroism. Nevertheless, upon return and release of their families from internment camps, many found their houses burned or vandalized and their possessions stolen by white Americans. Employers would not give them jobs or serve them in restaurants and shops, and restrictive real estate covenants prevented them from obtaining mortgages in desirable neighborhoods. National authorities acted to combat local prejudice. In the most famous incident, the Masuda family near Santa Ana, California, was harassed and received death threats when they attempted to return home after the war, even though a son who had won a Distinguished Service Cross was still in the army. General Stilwell, in a nationally publicized ceremony, pinned that son’s decoration on his mother. When an American Legion post in Hood, Oregon, attempted to remove the names of Japanese Americans from the honor roll in front of city hall, over 12,000 Legion posts protested. One main result of the war was the attempt by the War Relocation Authority and the Nisei themselves to integrate into the mainstream of American society. They had little to go back to, and even before the war were more highly educated than the average American. The postwar era saw a shift to the East Coast and to clerical, sales, technical, and professional jobs with the aid of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, popularly known as the GI Bill. Inouye, along with veterans ‘‘Spark’’ Matsunaga and
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Masato Doi, used their service as springboards for their political careers and to help the Democratic Party become the majority in Hawaii. In 1968, Inouye and Matsunaga sponsored a bill that abolished the Emergency Detention Law so that similar camps could never exist in the United States. One reason those accused of participating in the 9/11 World Trade Center bombings and other suspected terrorists were detained at Guanatanamo in Cuba was because this law would have been difficult to circumvent if they were held in the U.S. proper. Japanese veterans began organizing to fight for their rights soon after the war. The 442nd Veterans Club formed in February 1946, the Nisei Veterans Committee a month later. The first of many all-Nisei Veterans of Foreign Wars posts was established in Sacramento, California, the following year; along with the American Legion, other all Japanese American posts appeared in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, Denver, Portland, Chicago, Cleveland, and Minneapolis. Today, the Japanese American Veterans Association, composed of Japanese American veterans of World War II and subsequent conflicts, works to perpetuate the memory of their contributions, assist veterans and their families, and promote links with other veterans’ organizations to lobby for mutual interests. The Nisei Veterans Committee, the most important all-Nisei veterans’ organization, made assimilation into mainstream American society its goal. It organized youth baseball, basketball, and football leagues to play white and African American teams. It sponsored blood drives, camps, and other public services to show continued patriotism. Many veterans also joined the Japanese
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American Citizens League, which had challenged the internment camps in the courts as unconstitutional during the war, and then formed the AntiDiscrimination Committee to protest continued prejudice after the war. For instance, their lobbying incorporated a measure into the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act of 1952 that allowed Issei (Japanese immigrants) to become citizens. They continued to fight for compensation for property confiscated during the war, although a significant victory did not occur until 1988, when the Civil Liberties Act allotted $20,000 to each interned person. By 1999, when the payments concluded, $1.6 billion had been paid to over 82,000 people. The National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II was dedicated in 2000. It is located in Washington, DC, at the intersection of Louisiana and New Jersey Avenues and D Street NW. The beautiful sculpture by Nina Akamu depicts two cranes confined by barbed wire trying to break free: cranes are Japanese symbols of peace and long life. Japanese cherry trees, a bell, and a pool of water with stones are present to represent Japanese culture while pink walls listing the names of the internment camps partially enclose the memorial. Statements apologizing for the internments and quotations from Japanese American writers appear on the memorial as well. William Pencak
Further Reading Duus, Masayo Umezawa. Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
Japanese American Veterans Association. www.javadc.org. Phillips, Adam. ‘‘Japanese American WWII Soldiers Fought Battles at Home and Abroad.’’ IMDiversity.com website, www .imdiversity.com/villages/asian/history _heritage/voa_nisei_soldiers_0507.asp.
JEWISH VETERANS Jews have served with distinction in the American armed forces from the beginning. In fact, the first recorded political protest by a Jew in the history of what became the United States occurred when Asser Levy petitioned for the right to serve in the militia of Dutch New Amsterdam in 1657 rather than pay a fine to avoid service. Colonel Solomon Bush was the highestranking Jew in the Continental Army during the Revolution, and Majors Benjamin Nones and Francis Salvador distinguished themselves for heroism in Georgia and South Carolina. Salvador was scalped by Indians in 1775, the first Jewish casualty of the war. Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jew to command an American fleet (on the Mediterranean in 1859 and 1860) was instrumental in abolishing flogging in the navy, although his hot temper earned him six court-martials and two courts of inquiry into his conduct, still a record, all of which cleared him, and which were at least in part the result of anti-Semitism. Probably about 5,000 Jews served in the Union and 1,000 in the Confederate forces during the Civil War out of a total male population of perhaps 30,000. (The number is impossible to establish with any precision as many people of Jewish ancestry did not or, as the Jewish community was still forming, could not attend regular worship. Others were not religious or had converted to Christianity.) Seven Jewish Union soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Civil
Jewish Veterans War. The Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery was sculpted by Moses Ezekiel, who as a 17-year-old cadet at the Virginia Military Institute marched out with his classmates to fight at the Battle of New Market in 1864. Yet the 1890s marked a new height of anti-immigration and especially antiJewish sentiment in the nation, as eastern Europeans fleeing persecution and poverty flocked to the New World. Charges began to appear that no Jews had fought in the Civil War, they were all too concerned with profiting off the misfortunes of their fellows. Mark Twain was the most famous author who repeated these charges, though he did not hesitate to apologize once they were proven false. In response, in 1896 78 Jews formed the Hebrew Union Veterans, the oldest Jewish veterans’ group in the United States: the same year, Simon Wolf published The American Jew as Soldier, Patriot, and Citizen, listing every American Jew he could find who had served in the military. Two years later, Jewish veterans of the Spanish-American War formed the Junior Hebrew War Veterans, which soon changed its name to the Hebrew Veterans of the War with Spain, of which President Theodore Roosevelt was proud to be an honorary member. In 1902, at the Salem Field Jewish Cemetery in Brooklyn, they erected the first monument in the nation to Jewish veterans. It reads, ‘‘To the Memory of the Soldiers of the Hebrew Faith, Who Responded to the Call of Their Country and Gave Their Lives for Its Salvation During the Dark Days of Its Need So That the Nation Might Live.’’ Centered in New York, the organization lobbied and succeeded in eliminating restrictions on Jews serving in the New York National Guard.
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The U.S. Army conferred 723 citations for valor on Jews during World War I, at the end of which the two Jewish groups, with only about 200 members between them, merged in 1922 (it took its current name, Jewish War Veterans of the United States, in 1927) as it eagerly awaited new recruits from the American Expeditionary Force. Many of the returning Jewish veterans also joined the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. The association published The Jewish Veteran—its magazine, which is now published five times a year—and engaged in activities such as alerting veterans to the presence of anti-Semitism at home and abroad, opposing the new immigration law which prevented immigrant Jewish veterans from being reunited with their families unless they returned to Europe, and supporting poor Jews abroad and in Palestine. The Jewish War Veterans (JWV) were instrumental in persuading the War Department to allow Stars of David to be placed on graves in veterans’ cemeteries. During the thirties, Jewish veterans were far in advance of others in protesting the Nazis at home and abroad: they led a boycott of German imports and the 1936 Berlin Olympics and they urged all Americans to join them; some New York City veterans broke up a German Bund rally in 1938, while others gathered information on American Nazis and furnished it to the FBI. This information led to the arrest and conviction of Fritz Kuhn, head of the Bund. The Jewish War Veterans also worked tirelessly, but without success, to seek legislation to give preferential consideration to families and immediate relatives of veterans for immigration to the United States.
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During World War II, over half a million Jews served in the armed forces, 4 percent of the total whereas they constituted 3 percent of the population. For the first time, Jews became generals (18) and admirals (4). Admiral Hyman Rickover was the highest-ranking and most famous Jewish serviceman who served in the war. Two other Jews who served were General Mark Clark, who later became supreme commander of the UN forces in Korea at the end of that war, and Admiral Jeremy Borda, future supreme commander of NATO. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Jewish War Veterans began its ‘‘Emergency Program for Victory,’’ which called for civilians to support the war effort. To fulfill this commitment, JWV and its National Ladies Auxiliary sold war bonds exceeding $250 million. They purchased seven fighter planes and named the first ‘‘The Jewish War Veteran’’ and the second ‘‘The Star of David.’’ The JWV also arranged for the U.S. Navy to commission several ships in honor of Jewish naval heroes, the first being Uriah P. Levy. Other efforts included support for the USO, humanitarian aid, supporting federal legislation to ban unfair hiring practices in the defense industry, and fund-raising activities. With the end of the war, the JWV
became involved with problems of the returning veterans, as well as foreign policy issues such as the effects of the Holocaust in Europe and the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine. During the Cold War, efforts were made to help Jews in Soviet Russia, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and the civil rights movement, notably the integration of the armed forces. As late as 2008 the JWV has had to protest harassment of Jewish cadets at the military academies by Christian evangelicals and the placement of large crosses (outside of Christian chapels) on military bases by the commander’s order. John Stoll
Further Reading Jewish War Veterans of America. www.jwv.org. Mosesson, Gloria R. The Jewish War Veterans Story. Washington, DC: Jewish War Veterans of America, 1971.
JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF AMERICA See Jewish Veterans
K concerning the repatriation of prisoners after the war had essentially stalled at the current boundary of North and South Korea. The Department of Defense, journalists, and the public immediately began to question the loyalty of the POWs when they first returned in the spring of 1953. Men were presumed guilty: for instance, Paul Schnur of San Francisco was accused because he managed property for a former Progressive Party leader and his father was a leader in the movement to free Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who had been accused of being Soviet spies. Emaciated men who had just been released were forced to face reporters’ questions of whether they had turned Communist almost immediately after arriving in the states with no psychological counseling. Newspapers spread stories about their lack of heroism and ability, such as the New York Times: the Korean veteran ‘‘is a different breed from his older brother who came back from World War II, the product of special times and a very special war . . . .
KOREAN WAR VETERANS During the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 until 1953, 1.8 million Americans served in the actual theater of the war. Nearly 37,000 died and over 92,000 were wounded. The Korean veterans’ major problem is that they were blamed for losing the first war in American history. As over two-thirds of more than 100,000 Chinese and North Korean prisoners captured did not want to return home, the Chinese hoped to force a large number of American prisoners of war into likewise refusing to come home so their own regime would not appear more oppressive. Much of the controversy surrounding the war’s outcome fell on the 7,140 prisoners of war who were taken by the Red Chinese and North Koreans. Interred under atrocious conditions in which many were tortured and over 2,700 died, some of them listened to lectures on Communism in the hope of relieving boredom, getting warm, or obtaining better treatment. Peace talks dragged on for over two years 255
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The new veterans are disquieting machine-like products of their special times . . . There seems to be an almost robot-like disinterest about him that is in disturbing contrast to the assertive individualism of the World War II soldier’’ (Severo and Milford 1989, 327). Yet such observations obscured the fact that nearly a million World War II veterans were recalled during the Korean War, and over 300,000 were actually sent to Korea. Ultimately, the propaganda that really damaged Korean veterans, both their own self-image and that of the public’s, was that of the United States rather than the Red Chinese government. Extreme anti-Communists such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, collectively accused them of disloyalty. It turned out there was almost no substance to the charges. A total of
565 of the 4,428 released POWs were interrogated by the U.S. Army as to their Communist leadings; 192 were charged, but only 6 convicted of violations of military conduct. But many returned prisoners were forced by the Army to publicly affirm their loyalty, and to add insult to injury were denied the $2.50 per day they should have received for up to almost two years in captivity. Twenty-one soldiers did refuse to return home and remained in China. The most extreme case of persecuting a veteran at the time involved James Kutcher, who had lost both his legs below the knees in World War II. He was employed after the war at a veterans’ hospital in his home city of Newark, New Jersey, but fired in 1948 for ‘‘disloyalty’’ as he had been a member of the Communist Party, although it had expelled him
Two wreaths stand in front of Korean War Memorial statues on June 25, 2000, on the National Mall in Washington, as part of the 50th anniversary ceremonies marking the start of the Korean War. [AP Photo/Heesoon Yim]
Korean War Veterans because he favored Leon Trotsky’s philosophy and opposed Stalin. At the same time his parents were removed from Newark Public Housing. Seven years later, the Veterans Administration also revoked his disability pension. He did get it back, however, along with seven years’ pay for the years he was fired, when Attorney Joseph Rauh of the American Civil Liberties Union pressed the Veterans Administration to charge him with some specific illegal act. The army continued to keep files on many veterans as suspected subversives, however, and passed them on to the FBI. The charges persisted. In 1956, the U.S. Army sent Major William Erwin Mayer on a well-publicized lecture tour of the nation. With no evidence, he charged that one-third of all the Korean POWs had succumbed to Communist brainwashing without coercion or torture. ‘‘The behavior of too many of our soldiers in prison fell far short of the historical standards of honor, character, loyalty, courage, and personal integrity,’’ he insisted (Severo and Milford 1989, 335). Over 600,000 copies of his talk were distributed. Educators and intellectuals joined conservative congressmen and military figures in blaming the Korean War’s generation for a lack of moral fibre and patriotism. Dr. Max Rafferty, California school superintendent and subsequently U.S. senator, warned that the ‘‘vanishing species—the American patriot’’ was being supplanted by ‘‘booted, sideburned, ducktailed, unwashed, leatherjacketed slobs’’ prone to the propaganda of ‘‘the phony sophisticates who clutter up our colleges.’’ Left-wing feminist Betty Friedan also found the new generation ‘‘apathetic, dependent, infantile, purposeless’’ thanks to an abundance of
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overprotective mothers (Severo and Milford 1989, 327). Serious enquiries into the troops and POWs went unheeded. After an extensive study of Korean POWs records, Albert Biderman of the University of Chicago concluded that American prisoners had behaved similarly to those of previous wars. They did in fact try to escape rather than remain passive victims despite the fact that they could have been easily recognized in an Asiatic society. In 1957, director Stanley Kubrick filmed Paths of Glory, which implicitly criticized the scapegoating of American troops by their own military leaders. The film shows three soldiers singled out at random and shot for cowardice by the French in World War I, a practice they resorted to in order to encourage soldiers not to flinch from suicidal frontal attacks on the Germans. At the same time the U.S. Army was criticizing both the Chinese Communists for torturing Americans and Americans for not standing up to it, it was also irreparably harming its own men. Thousands of soldiers were given the hallucinogenic drug LSD in a series of experiments to which they did not consent: the Supreme Court later ruled they could not collect damages from the government. The Army admitted over a quarter-million veterans were exposed at close range to nuclear tests between 1945 and 1963, leading to premature deaths from cancer. Cancer also shortened the average life expectancy of Korean as well as World War II veterans because troops were given free cigarettes, grown and manufactured by tobacco workers who received draft deferments because they worked in an ‘‘essential’’ industry. Like their World War II counterparts, Korean War era veterans (not just those
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Korean War Veteran Louis Valverde, from Long Island, NY, reaches out to touch the wall of the Korean War Memorial at the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Ceremony, July 27, 2003. [AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais]
who fought, but also those who served anywhere during the war years) received their equivalent of the GI Bill, more formally known as the Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952 (see also Servicemen’s Readjustment Act). In common with the 1944 bill, it offered educational and training benefits, as well as home, farm, and business loans. But scandals had arisen in the late forties as some schools had overcharged veterans and the government for their education. As a result, instead of four years’ free tuition plus living expenses, Korean War veterans only received $110 a month (more if they had dependents) out of which they had to pay tuition and living expenses. Further, the payments ran out after 36 months or 1.5 months for each month of military service, whichever was less. Veterans who were unemployed on their return were also compensated with funds voted by
their home state. But given the negative attitude toward the Korean War, the Veterans Administration and hospital also suffered budget cuts in the 1950s. Still, the Korean War veterans benefited greatly from their postwar benefits. Nearly 2,400,000 out of 5,500,000 took advantage of one of the programs: over a million went to college, 860,000 to trade or technical schools, 223,000 received on-the-job training, and 95,000 enrolled in agricultural training programs. Over 1.8 million veterans used loans underwritten by the Veterans Administration totaling over $32 billion to buy homes, businesses, and farms. Nearly 79,000 disabled veterans obtained new jobs through Veterans Administration Rehabilitation programs. In general, Korean War veterans who survived to 1999 were better off than men who were not veterans: they had an average family income of $38,000
Korean War Veterans (as opposed to $31,000) and almost half (as opposed to a third) had some college education. Appreciation for the sacrifices of Korean War veterans began to increase after the Vietnam Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, in 1982. The Korean War Veterans Association was chartered in 1985. Congress authorized construction of a Korean War Veterans Memorial in 1986 and it was completed in 1995 (see Appendix 1, Washington, DC). William Pencak See also African American Veterans, Korean War
Further Reading Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: American in Korea, 1950–1953. New York: Times Books, 1987. Korean War Veterans Association, Inc. www.kwva.org. Severo, Richard, and Lewis Milford. The Wages of War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. Weintraub, Stanley. ‘‘How to Remember the Forgotten War.’’ American Heritage 51 (May/June 2000): 100–106.
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L universities including Yale University, Harvard Medical School, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Lifton’s psychohistory has focused on individuals—such as the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, Vietnam veterans, Nazi doctors, and apocalyptic terrorist cults—placed in extreme situations. Following this theme in Home from the War, Lifton examines the ‘‘socialized warrior,’’ focusing on how the special circumstances of Vietnam brought about ‘‘advanced states of brutalization and psychic numbing, and made massacres like My Lai inevitable’’ (Lifton 2005, 19, 17). According to Lifton, American soldiers encountered a combat environment for which they were completely unprepared. Many veterans later recalled in the ‘‘rap groups’’ that they could not understand what they were doing. They fought an elusive, often unseen enemy, without any logical measure of progress. Indeed, the only standard of achievement was the number of Vietnamese killed, or ‘‘body count.’’ There seemed to be a
LIFTON, ROBERT JAY (1926–) First published in 1973, Robert Jay Lifton’s Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans Neither Victims Nor Executioners (later resubtitled Learning from Vietnam Veterans) is perhaps the most well-known psychohistorical study of American veterans. Home from the War grew out of Lifton’s involvement with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a group of what he dubbed ‘‘antiwar warriors.’’ Lifton spent more than 150 hours in VVAW ‘‘rap groups,’’ and based much of his project on interviews with about 400 veterans. Lifton was born on May 16, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Cornell University and earned his medical degree from New York Medical College in 1948. After being drafted into the U.S. Army, he served as an Air Force psychiatrist in the United States, Japan, and Korea from 1951–1953. He has taught at a number of colleges and 261
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total lack of order, structure, and purpose. Their combat experience offered ‘‘no honorable encounter, no warrior grandeur’’ (38). Lifton describes My Lai as the result of an ‘‘atrocity producing situation.’’ Borrowing from French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, Lifton contends that when advanced industrial societies, such as the United States, carry out counterinsurgency wars against revolutionary guerrillas inseparable from the rest of the population, they often develop Draconian military policies. For the American military such a scenario led to the ‘‘search-and-destroy mission,’’ the ‘‘free-fire zone,’’ and the use of massive firepower and plant defoliants. According to Lifton, these policies lead ‘‘to a compelling internal sequence that constitutes the psychological or experiential dimension of the atrocity-producing situation’’ (41). Yet Lifton argues that many forms of desensitization contributed to My Lai, and the right ingredients meant almost anyone could enter into the ‘‘psychology of slaughter’’ (42). During basic training, new soldiers learned about Vietnamese atrocities, ambushes, and booby-traps from the mouths of Vietnam veterans. These stories helped implant the belief that it was okay to kill indiscriminately. This idea was reinforced by the soldier’s jungle combat experience against an unseen enemy. The deaths of fellow GIs lead many of the men to experience ‘‘survival guilt,’’ rage, and ultimately revenge fantasies. At My Lai, an explosive booby-trap that killed a sergeant led the men to pool these revenge fantasies and form a ‘‘strong psychic image’’ of the murder of unarmed civilians they committed the next day ( 49). Ultimately, Lifton contends that the massacre
allowed the men to overcome their feelings of guilt and impotence and affirm their skill, power, and worth. Home from the War is a foundational work on the psychology of atrocity. It remains relevant as a guide to better understanding what was then called ‘‘post-Vietnam syndrome’’ but is now recognized—thanks in part to Lifton— as post-traumatic stress disorder. In the 2005 edition, Lifton makes the case that much like Vietnam War veterans, Iraq War veterans can recover from the psychological trauma of their war experience through channeling their emotions into political activism. Jeremy K. Saucier
Further Reading Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Learning from Vietnam Veterans. New York: Other Press, 2005. Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans Neither Victims nor Executioners. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veteran’s Movement. New York: Crown Publishers, 2001.
LITERATURE AND VETERANS Veteran literature is not military history, per se, but works of literature—both fiction and nonfiction—that explore the character and experiences of the military veteran in war as well as in the experiences of his or her return to civilian life. Roughly speaking, these books can also be divided up attitudinally: those that have something positive to say and those that are primarily negative. All the books—regardless of
Literature and Veterans attitude—assume that war is evil and should be avoided if possible. But after that shared premise, there is a divergence. In the more pessimistic works, there is little emphasis on heroism and much emphasis on demythologizing war and the warrior. War is only capable of dehumanizing the individual. The other strain, while accepting the truth about the horrors of war, still celebrates the courage and brotherhood of the veteran.
The American Revolution and the War of 1812 Working chronologically, some of the earliest veteran literature can be found in the nonfiction works of Benson Lossing (1813–1891). Born in New York State, Lossing’s parents were Quakers. He was orphaned at age 11 and began an apprenticeship as a watchmaker and silversmith. In 1835, he began his life as a journalist and sketch artist when he became part owner of the Poughkeepsie Telegraph. He is most famous for his series of The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. Lossing’s method for working was to use the letters and diaries of battle participants, to visit the battle sites, to sketch people and places, and—when possible —to interview veterans or their family members. Because of his books, likenesses of people are available that might not otherwise be. Through his pen sketches, he also captured the look of battlefields before they became radically changed by modern life. In his Civil War book, he introduced photography to the mix, partnering with Mathew Brady. While Lossing may not have been the first writer to use these techniques to assemble a book, his methods have,
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nevertheless, become the template for much nonfiction war writing. Another, more contemporary nonfiction writer of the Revolution, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, is historian David McCullough (1933–). A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his biographies, his book 1776 (2007) recounts a crucial year in the Revolutionary War, with particular emphasis on the day-to-day life of the soldier. While more scholarly and focused than Lossing, McCullough nevertheless follows many of Lossing’s methods. McCullough used the diaries of veterans and their family members, visited the battle sites to get a feel for the settings, and immersed himself in the culture of the times. Despite his intense scholarship, McCullough’s books are easily readable and often on the BestSeller List. Charles Royster wrote a scholarly work titled A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783 (1979), for which he won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Organization of American Historians. Unlike most of the nonfiction works described here, Royster’s book is admittedly not narrative in nature but instead analytical. Its importance lies in the fact that it shows the relationship between veterans and the American public at the time of the Revolution. Of an obvious revolutionary bent, the general population was suspicious of a professional army—which Washington’s troops had become by the end of the war. After all, it was in part the power of governments and foreign military against which the American population was rebelling. According to Royster, the army was nevertheless galled by the lack of support
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from the government and the people. It would be years before the military would be perceived as honorable and as necessary for maintaining freedom. Walter Lord (1917–2002) in The Dawn’s Early Light (1994) takes a look at the War of 1812, in particular at the events of 1814 when Washington, DC, was burnt and Baltimore harbor was defended (there is also a more summary sketch of the Battle of New Orleans). This is a war that many of its American participants called the ‘‘second Revolution.’’ In his book, Lord spends a good deal of time discussing politicians and generals and their various motivations; nevertheless, he does (using letters and diaries) focus at times on the average soldier as well as civilian volunteers in the war against the British. One of Lord’s trademarks is that he researches the personal observations of both sides of the conflict. As with Royster, it becomes apparent in this book that the politicians and Americans in general had given little serious thought to the necessity of a professional army.
The Mexican War While there is a good deal of war history written about the Mexican War, there is less written on the veterans themselves. However, one good example of veteran literature for this war is Richard Bruce Winders’s Mr. Polk’s Army. Winders, currently the historian and curator for the Alamo, uses the methodology of many of the best of nonfiction writers whose subject is the soldier in battle. In addition to quotes and summaries from veterans themselves, Winder also includes charts, lists, and contemporary drawings. His chapters focus often
on the men themselves, subdividing the material into sections on the regulars, the volunteers, and on everyday training and living. His notes and bibliography are voluminous.
The Civil War One of the most famous nonfiction writers about the Civil War is Bruce Catton (1899–1978). Born in Petoskey, Michigan, Catton was a prolific writer (13 books on the Civil War alone), but his most read works are those that make up the Army of the Potomac trilogy: Mr. Lincoln’s Army (1951), Glory Road (1952), and A Stillness at Appomattox (1953). This last book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. And like David McCullough, Catton was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As a boy, Catton listened to the stories of Civil War veterans and in his books— as Lossing did—he used the diaries and letters of veterans to put the reader into the mind and experience of the average soldier as well as that of the officers. He also added a scholar’s penchant for factual exactness. Another well-known nonfiction writer about the Civil War is Shelby Foote (1916–2005). Born in Greenville, Mississippi, Foote served in World War II and started his writing career as a novelist. Like Catton, he has a trilogy of books, The Civil War: A Narrative, which includes Fort Sumter to Perrysville (1958), Fredericksburg to Meridian (1963), and Red River to Appomattox (1974). Foote spent 20 years writing the trilogy and like all of the best writers about veterans he used diaries and letters to create his narrative. In addition, he often
Literature and Veterans camped out at battle sites just to get a feel for these places. His trilogy is over a million words long—all of which he wrote by hand with an old-fashioned dip pen. Of the memoir writers from the war, a standout is John Beatty (1828–1914). Born near Sandusky, Ohio, Beatty was a member of the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Starting out as a private, he was soon promoted to captain, then lieutenant colonel, and finally to general. His war diary was first published in 1879 as Citizen Soldier and today it is available as Memoirs of a Volunteer: 1861–1863 (1946). After all of the battles, he ends the book noting the nobility of man. But he also notes, throughout the book, the incompetence and politics of some of his fellow officers (those willing to do most anything for advancement). On the fiction side, there is the recent National Book Award novel Cold Mountain (1997) by Charles Frazier. Frazier was born in 1950 in Asheville, North Carolina. His book is roughly modeled after the life of his great, great uncle who, like the main character in the novel, was a Confederate soldier who was wounded in the Civil War and who deserted the hospital where he was convalescing. The novel shows the realities of life in a Civil War hospital as well as the anguish of innocent people caught up in a war that had very little to do with them. Inman, the main character, is trapped in the dementia and cruelty of a false Confederate patriotism. In a more universal sense, the book is about the difficulties in and the desires associated with returning home from war—difficulties and desires of both the soldier and the family left behind. One of the most read novels about the Civil War is Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895). Crane (1871– 1900) was born in Newark, New Jersey.
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Never having experienced war himself when this book was written, Crane’s novel is nevertheless a remarkable psychological study of the soldier at war as well as a philosophical study of the nature of courage. This is one of the first and best of the non-romantic presentations of war in American fiction.
The Spanish-American War The significant books about SpanishAmerican War veterans are nonfiction, in particular the memoir of Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and the collected journalism of Stephen Crane. The Rough Riders (1899) is Roosevelt’s record of his experiences as an officer (second in command) in the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment during the Spanish-American War. While controversy swells around the book (some saying Roosevelt puts himself too much at the center of the glory), Roosevelt actually does a good job of recreating the battles and giving credit to the officers and soldiers around him. The battle through the jungle on Cuba and the eventual taking of San Juan Hill are described realistically, and Roosevelt is attuned to the intense comradeship of the men around him. Crane’s war journalism has been collected into a book titled The War Dispatches of Stephen Crane (1964). The first half of the book deals with the Greco-Turkish War, but the second half includes his dispatches from the Spanish-American War. Like Ernie Pyle’s writings ofWorld War II, Crane is often right there, on the front lines, listening to the sound of the rifles, bullets, and artillery. In one dispatch entitled ‘‘Regulars Get No Glory,’’ he chides the American public for its fixation on
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socialites participating in the war while ignoring the average man, especially those in the regular army who were being paid but $13 a month.
The First World War American participation in this war was only a year and a half shorter than other countries’. As a result, the literature about American veterans in this war is limited. There are, however, two works of fiction worth noting, both written not by soldiers but by members of the ambulance service: Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He began his career as a reporter. When the United States entered the war, he attempted to join the military but was rejected because of a bad eye. He then signed up as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross. He ended up in Italy where he was wounded by shrapnel. From this experience, he wrote the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). The book is not about the American armed forces, but it is about the war that Americans eventually fought as seen from the perspective of an American doing volunteer work. Known as a great stylist, Hemingway’s sparse prose intensifies his description of the physical destruction of the landscape by war and intensifies his scenes of bedraggled troops moving about the war zone. Dos Passos (1896–1970) joined the Norton-Harjes ambulance service on the Verdun front in 1917. A few months later he became a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy (as was Hemingway). He is often quoted as saying war was like a cancer of lies and any ideas of war being romantic for him were gone. Upon returning home,
he wrote a novel about military life (though he had never been in the service) tracing the life of a group of soldiers in Three Soldiers (1921). The book is divided up into three parts: training, the front line, and desertion in Paris. Highly anti-war (his views would change in later years), the book is critical of the regimentation and anti-individualism of the military.
World War II There is much veteran-oriented literature written about World War II, both fiction and nonfiction. But perhaps no American writer presents the total experience of the American military veteran as sweepingly as does James Jones (1921–1977) in his trilogy of novels, From Here to Eternity (1951), The Thin Red Line (1962), and Whistle (posthumously published in 1978 and finished by Willie Morris [1934–1999]). Like many of the fiction writers in this genre, James Jones lived many of the experiences that he wrote about. He joined the peacetime Army Air Corps in 1939 and was stationed in Hawaii where he transferred to the infantry (the 25th ‘‘Tropic Lightning’’ Infantry Division). As fate would have it, he was garrisoned at Schofield Barracks near Pearl Harbor and witnessed the Japanese bombing on December 7, 1941. His unit was then sent to fight in the battle of Guadalcanal where he participated in hand-to-hand combat, was wounded by mortar fire, received a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He was sent back to an army hospital at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and discharged in 1944. He, himself, has described his trilogy as the record of the evolution of a soldier. The first of his novels, From Here to Eternity, is set on a peacetime base.
Literature and Veterans Written in a naturalistic style, it depicts an often crude and cruel garrison life. Most importantly, it describes the psychological battle between the individualism of American citizens and the loss of individualism that the military demands of its fighters. The Thin Red Line focuses on the veteran as combat soldier. The title refers to the thin line between civilized man and the primitive, bestial man. The setting is again one which Jones himself experienced: the battle for Guadalcanal. Told from multiple points of views, it might be seen as the anti-Band of Brothers novel, arguing that combat is an isolated experience. Jones is realistic in presenting the horrors of combat. In Whistle, Jones describes the life of the returning veteran, especially as lived in an army hospital. Not considered his best book (he, of course, died before he could finish it himself), it nevertheless realistically explores guilt and other complex emotions that combat soldiers often feel upon returning to civilian life. In addition to James Jones, there is a large pool of exceptional fiction written about World War II. Some of the authors include Edward Latimer Beach Jr., Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Joseph Heller. Edward Latimer Beach Jr. (1918– 2002) was born in New York City. He attended the Naval Academy and served in the Pacific, primarily on submarines, and was awarded the Navy Cross, among other awards for bravery and service. His novel Run Silent, Run Deep (1955) realistically depicts naval submarine combat during the Second World War. The action part of the story deals with a duel between the fictional American submarine, the USS Eel, and an infamous Japanese antisubmarine force led by a crafty,
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competent Japanese captain nicknamed Bungo Pete. Norman Mailer (1923–2007) was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and was drafted into the army. His experiences in the Philippines gave him the material to write The Naked and the Dead (1948). Mailer himself did not see much combat (his primary job was as a cook) but the book is filled with graphic details and he is a talented writer. The book explores the petty, senseless power structure of the military (as Mailer saw it) and the tragic results of men too immature and too callous to handle the power of life and death that officers and NCOs have. In the book, the average soldier has his personal pride and individualism taken away and dies for less than noble reasons. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.—one of the premier writers of the twentieth century—was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1922 and died in 2007. Vonnegut was a member of the army infantry during the war and was a prisoner of war in Dresden during its fire bombing. He survived because he was in an underground meat locker. As the title of his novel Slaughterhouse 5: or, The Children’s Crusade (1969) suggests, the book revolves (in a science fiction, time traveling way) around the main character’s survival of the fire bombing. The subtitle is important also because, like Paul Fussell (see below), Vonnegut wants to remind the reader that the war was fought by young men, not he-man heroes as portrayed in some movies. The humor in the book (as in most of Vonnegut’s books) is a dark humor that is critical of man’s inhumanity. Like Vonnegut, Joseph Heller (1923– 1999) was a satirist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was a member
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of the Army Air Corp during the Second World War. He was a bombardier on a B-25 and flew 60 missions. His novel Catch-22 (1961) added the popular phrase ‘‘catch-22’’ to the American vocabulary and provided an acerbic critique of the bureaucracy and greed that can be associated with war and with the military-industrial complex. Some of the nonfiction standouts about World War II include the works of Ernie Pyle (1900–1945), Stephen Ambrose (1936–2002), Walter Lord, and Paul Fussell (1924–). Journalist Ernie Pyle was born near Dana, Indiana, and had a long career as a popular columnist before joining the press corp covering World War II. He was one of the best-known and most liked correspondents during the Second World War. Like Stephen Crane, he put himself right there in the thick of battle and reported on the life of the average soldier. In 1944, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from the battlefield. He began his war correspondence by recording the bombing of Britain. Then he moved to North Africa, Europe (he was in Normandy on the day after DDay), and finally to the Pacific. In 1945, he was killed during the Battle for Okinawa. His dispatches have been edited and collected by David Nichols and published as Ernie’s War: The Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches (1986). Stephen Ambrose, perhaps the premier (in terms of popularity) nonfiction writer of the Second World War, was born in Decatur, Illinois. He was the official biographer of Dwight Eisenhower, a professor in 1970 at the Naval War College, and founded the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. Ambrose championed the citizen soldier but could be critical at times, as well.
One of his most popular books is Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (1992). Using the traditional Benjamin Lossing technique of interviews, letters, and official reports for his sources, Ambrose follows E Company from training until the end of the war in Europe. Other books on World War II include Pegasus Bridge: 6 June, 1944 (1984), Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany (1997), The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys—The Men of World War II (1998), Wild Blue: The B24s Over Germany, 1944–45 (2001), and D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (1994). He is sometimes criticized for writing too quickly and too sloppily in order to take advantage of his popularity with readers, but in any case, he is generally admired for presenting a positive and realistic picture of veterans during the Second World War. In addition to his book on the War of 1812, Walter Lord has also written extensively on the Second World War. Again, he has used the techniques of interviews, reports, and memoirs and has narrated the experiences of veterans, both American and Japanese. In Day of Infamy (1957), Lord traces the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting on December 6 and ending on December 8 with the radio announcement of Franklin Roosevelt. He also wrote a book, Incredible Victory (1967), which documents the Battle of Midway using the same techniques he used in his other books. English literature Professor Paul Fussell was born in Pasadena, California. He served during the Second World War as a second lieutenant in Europe and was wounded in France. It is his
Literature and Veterans crusade to forever banish any vestige of romanticism, patriotism, or honor from war. In an interview, Fussell commented on the Steven Spielberg movie Saving Private Ryan. From Fussell’s perspective, the scenes of the landing were realistically gruesome but the rest of the movie was nothing but a tale of cowboys and Indians. He did, however, like the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) which, for him, shows a more realistic picture of the military with brainwashing, bullies, incompetence, atrocities, foul language, and desertions. His book The Boys’ Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944–1945 (2003) creates a collage of anecdotes and facts that he hopes will deromanticize war. He reminds people that war is fought by adolescent boys, that there are deaths by friendly fire, that there are desertions and self-inflicted wounds, that there are special units that collect the bodies from the battlefield, and that officers often (according to him) send out other officers who have offended them (a la Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead [1948]) to be butchered.
The Korean War Sometimes called the ‘‘forgotten war,’’ the Korean War has not been forgotten by its participants. From the fiction perspective, we have James A. Michener’s The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1953), James Salter’s The Hunters (1956), and James Brady’s The Marines of Autumn (2000). In addition, there is Brady’s memoir, The Coldest War (1990). Michener (1907–1997) is most often known for his romantic, panoramic novels of place: the South Pacific, Texas,
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the Chesapeake area, Alaska, and so on. He was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and served as a naval officer during World War II. His book The Bridges at Toko-Ri would no doubt be put in the category of romantic warfare according to Paul Fussell. It is the story of navy pilots flying missions over Korea. James Salter (1925–), like Michener, writes about combat pilots. Born in New York City, Salter attended West Point and then joined the air force as a pilot. He remained in the air force for 12 years and flew over a hundred combat missions as a fighter pilot in Korea. His novel The Hunters is not the nitty-gritty foxhole story where soldiers encounter death on a very gruesome, personal level. But it is certainly not the romanticism of Michener, either. What Salter does especially well is put you right there in the cockpit, flying at 500 plus miles per hour, locked in split-second combat with MiG-15s while, at the same time, giving you insight into the mindset of the combat pilot during the Korean War. James Brady (1928–) was in college when the draft was reinstated for the Korean War. He had no desire to be a soldier in the army so he joined the U.S. Marines to become an officer. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corp Reserves and was called up to active duty, arriving in Korea in 1951. As a result, he missed the Chosin Reservoir Battle, but using his personal experiences and interviews with marines who had been in the battle, he wrote the novel The Marines of Autumn (2000). The novel follows the life of a marine officer (a Chinese expert who has been called back into service) who is there to monitor Chinese radio traffic. The book chronicles the push northward as well as the retreat to the sea.
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In The Coldest War (1990), Brady relates his own combat experiences in Korea. For Brady, the war is mostly fought on frozen ridges where both sides have their artillery zeroed in on each others’ positions. It is, for Brady and his fellow marines, a war of combat patrols in the middle of the night where men walk through treacherous mine fields and booby traps, testing their courage, their skills, and their loyalty to each other. Unlike Jones or Mailer, Brady in the end is proud to have served (though he realizes that not every officer was competent) and proud to have been a marine.
The Vietnam War In many respects, the books about veterans and veteran experiences that came out of the war in Vietnam are similar to the literature of the First World War (written primarily by the British and Europeans). They are often in the pessimistic strain where writers focus on atrocities and the inability to adjust to civilian life. Two of the exceptions to this trend are We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young (1992) and Faith of My Fathers (1999), both nonfiction. Written by Harold G. Moore (1923–) and Joseph L. Galloway (1941–), We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young is the totally honest depiction of two of the bloodiest and most brutal engagements of the Vietnam War: the battle of Landing Zone XRay and the battle of Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley. In 1965, Harold Moore was in command of Landing Zone X-Ray as a lieutenant colonel. Joseph Galloway was a reporter for UPI who was at Landing Zone X-Ray with Moore. The troops that came in by helicopter were outnumbered (450 to 4,000) and surrounded by the North Vietnamese Army.
The book is peppered with interviews with various soldiers, giving firsthand accounts of the battle. Through a great deal of leadership and even more courage from the American infantry, the Americans were able to overcome the attack on their position. The soldiers at Landing Zone Albany were less successful. The book also includes Moore’s criticisms of the way the war was fought in Vietnam. John McCain (1936–) with Mark Salter wrote Faith of My Fathers (1999). About a third of this book is the presentation of the military life of John McCain’s grandfather and father—both navy admirals. The last two thirds of the book do something unique in books about veterans: it follows the development of a veteran from baby to POW. The heart of the book, though, is McCain’s narrative of his life and the life of his fellow prisoners in Hoa Lo, the ‘‘Hanoi Hilton.’’ The book and McCain’s attitude is neither naı¨ve nor romantic, but at the same time not bitter, holding steadfast to his belief, as he says at the end, in the virtue of brave men. (See also Prisoners of War/Missing in Action.) In a more pessimistic tone, Philip Caputo (1941–) has written a memoir vividly recalling his time in Vietnam as a marine lieutenant. In A Rumor of War (1977), he relates how he is overwhelmed by moral uncertainty and senseless carnage. Though he is capable of courage and is even a good combat officer, he begins to become unhinged. In the end, he orders a patrol to snatch two boys who are suspected to be Viet Cong from a village; they are killed and he is court-martialed. The military court finds him not guilty, but reprimands him for attempting to cover the incident up. After his discharge, he joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War and sends his campaign ribbons to the White House.
Literature and Veterans It has been said that there are thousands of books written on the Vietnam War. But there are two author/veterans who stand out for their fiction: Tim O’Brien and Larry Heinemann. Tim O’Brien (1946–) was born in Worthington, Minnesota. He served in the infantry from 1968 until 1970 and saw combat in Vietnam. While he wrote a memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973), he is most famous for his book of interconnected short stories, The Things They Carried (1990). In his collection, the main character (also called Tim O’Brien) has allowed himself to be drafted not because he believed in it (he most assuredly did not) but because he was too embarrassed not to. The stories relate the fears, guilt, and preoccupations of the men in the platoon. A talented writer, O’Brien does not skimp with gory details. For him, the war has no patriotism, no reason, just a disturbing sadness. War stories, says the narrator, should never have anything positive to say about war. Larry Heinemann (1944–), born in Chicago, also served in the infantry in Vietnam. His novel Paco’s Story (1979) won the National Book Award for fiction. This is mostly the story of the aftereffects of war and of the inability of Paco to integrate back into civilian life. There are flashbacks to his combat experience, but the story primarily follows the wanderings of Paco who is an object of curiosity rather than respect.
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and Islamic extremism. One of the historical changes in the military during this most recent time period is that the military is now both professional and voluntary. This trend is reflected in two nonfiction books written by Mark Bowden and Michael Yon. Blackhawk Down (1999) by Mark Bowden is a recreation of the mission by American Special Forces (Delta and Seals) in Mogadishu, Somalia, that went wrong. Bowden, born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1951, is a journalist. To write the book, he interviewed the survivors and used videos of the fighting as well as audio of the radio conversation of the men during the battle. And like Walter Lord, Bowden also interviewed some of the Somali participants. Bowden makes the point that war delves deeply and profoundly into what it means to be a human being. The men—until Bowden wrote the book—felt as though they had been forgotten by their country. Moment of Truth in Iraq (2008) is Michael Yon’s attempt to give an accurate picture of the war in Iraq. Yon (1964–) is a former Green Beret who has been a journalist in Iraq. While he was critical of some of the policies and strategies in the beginning of the war, he now argues—through a presentation of anecdotes demonstrating the life and actions of American service personnel—that much good is being done. In addition, Yon reports on the humanitarian side of American warriors that is present in all wars, countering the image that some like to give of the American military as a band of beasts who only commit atrocities.
The African and Arabian Campaigns
The Gulf and Iraq Wars
Somalia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq have all been battlefields since Vietnam and are part of the larger war on terrorism
Several fine works of literature have been published about the Gulf War. The lives and relationships of soldiers who spent
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more time waiting to fight than waging a war whose ground action was over in a matter of days tends to be the main theme. Novels We Pierce by Andrew Huebner (2003), Tom Paine’s Pearl of Kuwait (2003), and The Consignment by Grant Sutherland (2003); and memoirs Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford (2003) and Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir by Joel Turnipseed deal with faulty weapons and technology, stifling heat, and the tensions and friendships that arise among men who expect to engage in serious combat only to be surprised at the lack of any closure besides encountering surrendering civilians and soldiers. The Iraq War has yet to inspire important fiction, but several powerful memoirs have emerged. David Bellavia House to House: An Epic Memoir of War (2007) and Nathanael Fick’s One Bullet Away (2007) are the stories of a soldier and marine lieutenant, respectively, who take pride in their professionalism and ability but inevitably wind up killing civilians and failing to experience victory or satisfaction. Kayla Williams, in Love My Rifle More Than You (2007), tells the war from a woman soldier’s perspective, emphasizing the sexual tension and harassment women veterans frequently experience. Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq (2008) is a sardonic comment on the absurdity of war by a young man tempted by a recruiter’s promises of an easy life. The memoir is based on his internet blogs, which attracted a huge following and turned him into a writer in spite of himself.
survey here is just that: a survey, an overview, a mere sampling. But all of the literature in some way or another asks the same philosophical question: Is the man in war capable of nobility, or is he forever only a victim? There are a variety of answers represented here. On the side of nobility, writers often note the humanistic camaraderie of soldiers—the Band of Brothers phenomenon—the ennobling effects of courage, the existential nobility of sacrifice, and the nobility of fighting for a just cause. Those who see the veteran as a victim bemoan the loss of individualism (especially in a country that holds individualism as a primary virtue); they find themselves overwhelmed and shocked by petty uses of power, and they decry the lasting negative psychological effect of war on men and women as too high of a price to pay. Both groups have written about war as they understand it; most writers, even those who see war’s ennobling possibilities, have avoided romanticism and written as accurately and realistically about the American veteran as they can. Most importantly, all of their books—and all of the writers would agree—act as the permanent memory for the American public of the sacrifices made by good men and women for their country.
Conclusion
Further Reading
People have been writing about the American veteran for over 200 years now. The
Dawes, James. The Language of War: Literature and Culture in the U.S. from the
William P. Toth See also Film and Veterans; Lifton, Robert Jay; Music and Veterans; Revolutionary War Veterans; War of 1812 Veterans; Mexican War Veterans; Civil War Veterans; Spanish-American War Veterans; World War I Veterans; World War II Veterans; Korean War Veterans; Vietnam War Veterans; Gulf War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans
Logan, John (1826–1886) | 273 Civil War through World War II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Dunnigan, James F. The World War II Bookshelf. New York: Citadel Press, 2004. Fussell, Paul. ‘‘Uneasy Company: Band of Brothers Is Private Ryan for Grown-Ups.’’ Slate September 7, 2001. www.slate.com/ id/114810. ‘‘Gulf War.’’ Overbooked: A Resource for Readers. www.overbooked.org/booklists/ subjects/war/gulfwar.html. Walsh, Jeffrey. American War Literature, 1914 to Vietnam. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.
LOGAN, JOHN (1826–1886) John A. Logan was a Union general during the American Civil War and most notable as a veteran for his connection with the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan grew up in Illinois, serving as a lawyer, member of the state House of Representatives, and congressman, as a member of the Democratic Party. He served in the Mexican-American War as a second lieutenant with the First Illinois Infantry. When the Civil War broke out, Logan fought at Bull Run as a civilian, but soon resigned his Congressional seat and became colonel of the 31st Illinois Infantry. Logan is credited with ending secessionist talk in southern Illinois at the same time. During the war, Logan served under Ulysses S. Grant in the western theater and saw action at the battles of Belmont, Fort Donelson (where Logan was wounded), siege of Corinth, and commanded the Third Division of the XVII Corps, which was the first unit to enter Vicksburg.
After Vicksburg, Logan briefly commanded the Army of the Tennessee during the battle of Atlanta until relieved. Logan then led the XV Corps during the Carolinas campaign. Logan was sent by Grant to relieve George Thomas during the battle of Nashville, but he was halted when Thomas achieved victory. During the war, Logan rose from colonel to major general. After the war, Logan was active in politics, but as a Republican. He served in the Congress and the Senate and was the vice presidential nominee with James G. Blaine in 1884. In addition to his political career, Logan was active in the Grand Army of the Republic, serving as commander in chief of the organization for several years, and was instrumental in establishing Memorial Day as a national holiday. His General Order No. 11, which established Memorial Day on May 30, 1868, is well known, and is read at many Memorial Day ceremonies across the country. Logan’s order described the goal of the holiday as . . . designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
(General Orders No. 11)
In addition to his political activism for veterans, Logan was also an ardent supporter of education. He delivered a speech in March 1882 on education to advocate support for a bill that he introduced, which required that taxes on alcohol be used to expand educational
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opportunities to all children in the United States. In the speech, Logan argued that the millions of children attending school were a better defense for the nation than a large standing army. Logan’s legacy is preserved every year by the Memorial Day holiday, in which Americans gather to honor all veterans who gave their lives in service to their country. He is also memorialized with statues in Chicago and Washington, DC. Several locations bear his name, including Logan County, Kansas, as well as John A. Logan College, a community college in Carterville, Illinois. Logan is considered by several historians as one of the best volunteer generals of the Civil War. Daniel Sauerwein
Further Reading ‘‘A Brief Biography of John A. Logan.’’ www.jalc.edu/johnlogan.html. ‘‘General John A. Logan MuseumBiography.’’ www.loganmuseum.org/ genjal.html. John A. Logan College. www.jal.cc.il.us. General Order No. 11. Washington, DC: Headquarters Grand Army of the Republic, May 5, 1868. www.jal.cc.il.us/ loganmemorial.html.
LOST CAUSE See Confederate Veterans Associations
M Having his first tour of duty in the Philippines, he was an aide-de-camp to his father and was in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. In 1914 he served on the Vera Cruz Expedition to Mexico and was chief of staff of the 42nd Division in World War I. He ended World War I as the most decorated U.S. officer from the war. Returning to the United States, MacArthur was appointed as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he was credited with modernizing the curriculum. From 1922 until 1930 he was back in the Philippines, being promoted to the rank of major general in 1925—the youngest officer to hold that rank at the time. In 1930 MacArthur returned to the United States as chief of staff of the U.S. Army, where he once again turned to modernizing tactics and equipment. He was ordered by U.S. President Herbert Hoover to disperse the ‘‘Bonus Army’’ made up of discontented veterans who were protesting against government inaction during the first years of the
MACARTHUR, DOUGLAS (1880–1964) Douglas MacArthur fought in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, becoming one of the few men to become a full or five-star general of the U.S. Army. He was born on January 26, 1880, in the Tower Building of Little Rock Arsenal in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father was Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur Jr., who had served in the U.S. Civil War in the 24th Wisconsin Infantry and then was a member of the regular army, seeing action in the Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection. His son was destined for the military at a young age, and with the family moving to Texas in 1893, Douglas MacArthur went to the West Texas Military Academy and then to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated first in his class (of 930) in 1903, an achievement he shared with Robert E. Lee among other important military leaders. 275
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Great Depression (see Bonus March). Despite President Hoover’s order not to fire on their camp at Anacostia Flats, he did so and was sent back to the Philippines. In 1935 when the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established— giving it a semi-independent status— MacArthur was commissioned by President Manuel Quezon with creating a Philippine Army. Initially MacArthur was able to remain on the active list of U.S. officers. However, in 1937 he had to resign to become field marshal of the Philippine Army, remaining not only the only person to hold that rank, but also the only U.S. military officer to hold it. With the threat of a Japanese attack, in July 1941 MacArthur was recalled to active duty in the U.S. Army and was appointed commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Far East. As Allied commander in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked in December 1941, MacArthur became famous for his establishment of the island fortress of Corregidor (see American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor). In March 1942 MacArthur left the Philippines for Melbourne, Australia, on orders from President Roosevelt, famously promising ‘‘I shall return.’’ Then as supreme commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, MacArthur not only had control over U.S. soldiers, but also Australians involved in the fighting in New Guinea. MacArthur’s Pacific strategy of advancing from the Dutch West Indies island by island toward the Japanese mainland while U.S. planes and ships prevented their reinforcement was successful. On October 20, 1944, fulfilling his vow to return to the Philippines, MacArthur landed at Leyte Island, recaptured the Philippines, and then pressed on with plans for an invasion of the Japanese
mainland. While the Japanese were prepared to fight the invasion, the dropping of the atomic bombs changed their minds. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. On the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor, on September 2, 1945, MacArthur formally received the Japanese surrender. MacArthur was then appointed to exercise authority over the Japanese government, becoming virtual dictator in that country while reconstruction plans for Japan were put into motion. Controversially, MacArthur decided not to put Emperor Hirohito on trial, or depose him, for fear of causing conflict in the country. He is credited with smoothly effecting the transition in Japan to a democratic government. In June 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, MacArthur was put in charge of UN forces empowered by the world body to drive back the North Koreans who, at that stage, occupied most of the Korean peninsula. MacArthur injected energy into the UN soldiers—dominated by the United States—and after landing at Inchon way behind enemy lines, drove back the North Koreans to the Yalu River marking the border with China. The use of such devastating firepower against the North Koreans, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, was much criticized at the time, including by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Many writers have also been critical of his inability to fight a limited war. Indeed, at the time the Chinese, worried about a possible invasion of their country, sent troops into Korea, thereby widening the conflict considerably. MacArthur wanted permission to bomb Chinese bases in Manchuria. Harry S Truman felt that this could lead to a full-scale Chinese invasion or drag the Soviet Union into the war, and after the
McCain, John (1936–) two publicly disagreed, Truman sacked MacArthur, who returned to Washington, DC, in 1951—his first visit to the continental United States since 1940. He made a farewell speech to the U.S. Congress in which he defended his position against Communism and concluded with the remark ‘‘Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’’ The speech was interrupted by 30 ovations. Many U.S. veterans viewed MacArthur as a hero despite his dispersal of the Bonus marchers, and he was enthusiastically received by the American Legion and members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars for his outspoken patriotism. Although there was pressure for MacArthur to stand in the U.S. presidential elections, he chose not to do so as early indications suggested most of the public agreed with Truman in dismissing him. In 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had served under MacArthur, was elected president. In retirement, MacArthur’s counsel was sought by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 just after the Bay of Pigs invasion. MacArthur urged Kennedy to try not to get too entangled in Vietnam. A move to raise MacArthur to the rank of a six-star general, mooted by U.S. Senator Joseph Martin in 1956, failed, and MacArthur spent the last few years of his life with his second wife in a New York City penthouse at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He died on April 5, 1964. Justin Corfield See also World War I Veterans; World War II Veterans; Korean War Veterans
Further Reading Blair, Clay. MacArthur. London: Futura, 1977.
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Gunther, John. The Riddle of General MacArthur. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1951. Hunt, Frazier. The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur. New York: The Devin Adair Company, 1954. Manchester, William. American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964. London: Hutchinson, 1978.
MCCAIN, JOHN (1936–) Republican U.S. Senator John Sidney McCain III, from Arizona, was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2008. A prominent veteran, his father and his paternal grandfather were both admirals in the U.S. Navy, his grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., being the commander of naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. John S. McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone—which at the time was U.S. territory making him eligible to contest the U.S. presidential election. His father had many naval postings, and McCain attended a number of schools before going to the Episcopal High School at Alexandria, Virginia, and then the U.S. Naval Academy. Serving in the U.S. Navy, McCain was in the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in 1967 took part in Operation Rolling Thunder which saw major bombing raids on North Vietnam. During the bombing, McCain and others in the air force were angered at the targets nominated by the White House, and although his first air operations were successful, on October 26, 1967, he was shot down near Hanoi. Landing at the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi, a crowd of Vietnamese attacked him and then took him to the Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi, nicknamed the ‘‘Hanoi Hilton.’’ Interrogated and beaten,
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soon the North Vietnamese discovered that McCain’s father was the commander in chief of the Pacific Command, and hence the overall commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam. To try to gain goodwill, the North Vietnamese offered to release him quickly. However, he refused unless all those captured before him were also released. Held as a prisoner for five and a half years, McCain was finally released in 1973 after the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement. Returning to the United States, he worked with Hensley & Company in charge of the Anheuser-Busch beer distribution, run by his father-in-law. A lifelong Republican, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1982 until 1987. Then he was elected to succeed Senator Barry Goldwater who was retiring from the U.S. Senate. Becoming a major speaker on defense and related matters, McCain quickly became seen as a possible contender for the presidency. His book Faith of My Fathers, published in 1999, was a huge success, and in 2000 he contested the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency. He decided not to pay too much attention to the Iowa caucus, concentrating on the New Hampshire primary in which he defeated George W. Bush. However, Bush managed to rally the Republicans to defeat him in South Carolina. It was during the campaign in this state that rumors were spread that McCain had had an affair with an African American and had an illegitimate daughter. These allegations were untrue —McCain had adopted a girl from Bangladesh—but the rumors did much to damage his image. During his 2008 campaign, McCain continued to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as necessary to defend the United States. His military service
and time spent as a prisoner of war figured prominently in his campaign advertisements as signs of his courage and patriotism. However, an economic tailspin under a Republican president occurred during the last weeks of the campaign, which probably would have made it impossible for any Republican to have been elected president, and McCain lost the campaign to Democrat Barack Obama. Justin Corfield See also Vietnam War Veterans; Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)
Further Reading McCain, John. Faith of My Fathers. New York: Random House, 1999. Timberg, Robert. John McCain: An American Odyssey. New York: Free Press, 2007.
MEMORIAL DAY People, especially women, began to decorate the graves of deceased soldiers during the Civil War. About 30 communities claim to have originated the practice. In the summer or fall of 1864, Emma Hunter of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, placed flowers on the tomb of her father Colonel James Hunter, who commanded the 49th Pennsylvania Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg. Former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, reburied union soldiers who had been interred in a mass grave in individual plots, fenced off the area, and built an arch declaring it a Union graveyard in 1865. Such brave actions may have been one of the reasons Southerners retaliated against African American Civil War veterans in the days immediately following the Civil War.
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Women decorate Confederate graves in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1903. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-10233]
Belle Isle in the James River, Virginia, also claims to be the first community to have originated the practice as women decorated the graves of Union prisoners of war at a Confederate prison camp on May 30, 1866. The town of Waterloo, New York, received legal recognition as ‘‘the Birthplace of Memorial Day’’ by act of Congress on Mary 17, 1966. A druggist of that town, Henry C. Welles, and local general John Murray approved the idea in May 1865. Murray was a close friend of General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, who suggested, during a speech in his home state of Illinois in 1866, that the practice be generally followed. Memorial Day was at first known as Decoration Day, only acquiring the name Memorial Day gradually after World War II and officially in 1967. It first became publicized nationwide in 1868, when Logan sent an order to all the GAR’s posts recommending that May 30 be observed ‘‘with strewing with flowers or
otherwise decorating the graves of the Comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion . . . with the hope that it will be kept from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of the departed.’’ The GAR began to pressure state legislatures to make the holiday official: New York was the first state to do so in 1873. By 1890 all the northern states had made the holiday official. The South refused to do so and used a variety of other holidays, most frequently the birthdays of Robert E. Lee (January 19) or Jefferson Davis (June 3). At the present time, eight former southern states have a separate day to honor the Confederate dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’s birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. Memorial Day was always observed on May 30 until passage of the Uniform Federal Holidays Act in 1968, which to
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achieve a maximum number of three-day weekends changed it to the final Monday in May beginning in 1971. Beginning in 1987, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, himself a wounded World War II veteran, urged without success that the holiday be restored to May 30, as have the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They insist that having a three-day weekend undermines the solemn meaning of the day and makes the public regard it as a celebration rather than a chance to reflect on the sacrifices of veterans. In 2000, Congress passed ‘‘the National Moment of Remembrance Resolution’’ asking Americans to observe a moment of silence or listen to ‘‘Taps’’ at 3:00 P.M. on Memorial Day to remember the true meaning of the holiday.
In fact, the Memorial Day weekend has become at least as important a marker of the unofficial beginning of summer as a chance to honor veterans. Many beaches and swimming pools open this weekend. Baseball has traditionally held doubleheaders on Memorial Day, and the Indianapolis 500 Race has occurred on the Memorial Day weekend since 1911. Parades in which local veterans’ organizations are joined by fire departments, emergency vehicles, politicians, and school bands are followed by barbecues and picnics. William Pencak
Further Reading Henderson, Helene. Patriotic Holidays of the United States: An Introduction to the
The Sons of Confederate Veterans along with the Military Order of the Stars and Bars of Alexandria, Virginia, march down Independence Avenue in the first National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, May 30, 2005. It was the first Memorial Day parade in Washington, DC, since World War II. [AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke]
Merchant Marine Veterans | 281 History, Symbols, and Traditions Behind the Major Holidays and Days of Observance. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2006. Myers, Robert J. Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.
MENTAL ILLNESS See Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
MERCHANT MARINE VETERANS Each year during World War II, the president of the United States proclaimed National Maritime Day on May 22 and directed the flag be displayed to honor ‘‘the thousands of patriotic men and women . . . toiling through the long hours of the day and night in the construction of the great fleets of vessels that carry the goods of victory to the distant battlefronts of the United Nations,’’ and ‘‘the officers and seamen all of whom have left the security of their firesides and many of whom have given their lives.’’ National Maritime Day had been approved by a joint resolution of Congress in 1933 (National Maritime Day Proclamations, www.usmm.org/md/ maritdayfdr.html). The U.S. Maritime Service (USMS) was established as an official U.S. training program with the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. Training operations began in 1938 and over a quarter of a million men were taught all aspects of operating ships as well as given the weapons training needed to meet potential enemy ships on the high seas. The USMS training operation began in September 1938 and continued until 1954. President Roosevelt understood the need for a strong
U.S. Merchant Marine for the coming war. The USMS was an armed, uniformed service that faced the enemy on its many training ships. Then the trainees were assigned to ships of the U.S. Merchant Marine, Army Transport Service. During World War II, the Merchant Marine engaged in the greatest transport effort in world history. Estimates of Merchant Marine casualties vary as no official statistics were kept and the government kept the numbers secret during the war to continue to attract recruits. The lowest number of deaths is 5,662 and the highest 8,421 with an additional 1,110 mariners dying later of wounds. About 12,000 mariners were wounded. Six hundred eighty ships were sunk, nearly a thousand more damaged, and 663 to 721 mariners were taken as prisoners. One in 26 mariners were killed in the war, as opposed to 1 in 34 for the marines, 1 in 48 for the army, and 1 in 114 for the navy. Thirty-five percent of the ships were damaged or sunk and 52 percent of the deaths occurred in 1942. The Merchant Marine began supplying Britain with weapons and other supplies soon after World War II began in September 1939. The City of Flint was the first American ship boarded and captured by the Germans on October 9, 1939. Since the Germans were trying at the time to keep the United States out of war, the ship was returned and arrived in Baltimore on January 27, 1940. The first merchant marine vessel sunk in the war was the City of Rayville that struck a mine near Melbourne, Australia, on November 8, 1940: one man was killed and the rest were rescued. The sinking of the freighter Robin Moor by a German u-boat on May 21, 1941, led President Roosevelt to denounce submarine warfare: all the crew managed to escape into
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lifeboats and were rescued after 13 days at sea. Several other American ships, some carrying Panamanian flags, were sunk with loss of life before war was formally declared. The greatest disaster suffered by the Merchant Marine occurred at Bari in Italy on December 2, 1943. Seventeen Allied merchant ships were sunk and over 1,000 lives lost. One hundred tons of mustard gas on the SS John Harvey exploded and poisoned 83 military personnel and an uncounted number of civilians. Through the Murmansk Run, the Merchant Marine supplied the Soviet Union with 15,000 aircraft, 7,000 tanks, 350,000 tons of explosives, and 15,000,000 pairs of boots. Over 2,700 merchant ships accompanied the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, receiving fire as they landed the troops and supplies. One thousand volunteers sailed and sunk, near the shore, 22 ships which could then be used for landing sites. In the Pacific, the Merchant Marine was present at all the island battles from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and lost 44 ships. During the invasion of the Philippines, it shot down over a hundred planes and landed 30,000 troops and a half million tons of supplies. A Japanese submarine committed an atrocity against the SS Jean Nicolet on July 2, 1944. It was in the process of executing the 59 Americans who survived when it dove to evade a British plane: only 23 men survived. The wartime Merchant Marine continued to recruit and sail well into 1946, transporting supplies for troops still overseas and also returning the troops home. Despite its heroism and testimonials from leading generals and admirals, the Merchant Marine did not have a good reputation during the war. The public generally believed men joined it to avoid
the draft and receive high pay, although the service was more dangerous and the pay comparable to the other services. Yet Congress did not grant the Merchant Marine personnel veterans’ status: they paid for their own hospital bills and did not enjoy the educational and financial benefits of the GI Bill. Beginning in 1977, when the WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots) received veterans’ status (see Women Veterans, World War I to the Present) the Merchant Marine began to lobby vigorously for a change in their status. They were admitted as members and supported by the American Legion. Nevertheless, the secretary of the air force, who was charged by the Defense Department with determining who was in fact a veteran, turned them down four times. Only in 1988, following a federal lawsuit, was the Defense Department compelled to acknowledge their claim. Federal Judge Louis Oberdorfer ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by three former seamen with the support of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. Oberdorfer concluded that as women who had not officially been part of the service and groups such as telephone operators, dieticians, and clerks had been granted veterans’ status, the secretary of the air force had not let the men present their case fairly. His denial constituted ‘‘an abuse of discretion,’’ was ‘‘arbitrary and capricious,’’ and ‘‘contrary to law.’’ Only ‘‘unstated and vague criteria’’ were used to deny the application. However, the air force secretary then designated the war period for the Merchant Marine as being from December 7, 1941, until August 15, 1945, although Congress officially declared it ended for other veterans eligible for benefits on December 31, 1946. Despite proposed
Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) | 283 Congressional legislation, the date has yet to be changed. William Pencak See also World War II Veterans
Further Reading Bunker, John. Heroes in Dungarees: The Story of the American Merchant Marine in World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Moore, Arthur R. A Careless Word—A Needless Sinking: A History of the Staggering Losses Suffered by the U.S. Merchant Marine, Both in Ships and Personnel, during World War II. Kings Point, NY: American Merchant Marine Museum, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, 1983–1998. United States Merchant Marine. www.usmm.org. ‘‘Wartime Merchant Seamen to Get Veterans Status.’’ New York Times, January 21, 1988.
MERRY, JOHN FESTUS (1844–1917) Notable Civil War veteran John F. Merry was born in Summit County, Ohio, but moved to Iowa as a child. In 1862, he enlisted in the 21st Iowa, but was mustered out because of his wounds in the spring of 1863. Subsequently recovering his health, in 1864 he recruited a company of the 46th Iowa, a hundred-days regiment, and mustered out as a brevet captain. After the war he taught in his hometown of Manchester. His success at organizing Methodist church outings led to his employment with the Illinois Central Railroad, where he rose to be assistant general passenger agent. Merry became active in a variety of veterans’
organizations, including the Grand Army of the Republic and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and developed a keen interest in Civil War memorialization projects, serving on the commission that erected the Iowa Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Des Moines in the 1890s. He became best known for his efforts to promote the creation of a park that would preserve the battlefield at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Working with other Union and Confederate veterans, he was instrumental in securing congressional legislation that created the Vicksburg National Military Park in 1899 (see also Battleship Preservation). He then worked closely with fellow Iowa veteran William T. Rigby, park historian, to secure appropriations from northern and southern states to erect monuments in the park. Travel to Vicksburg also benefited the Illinois Central, the city’s major north-south rail link, and Merry was generous with passes and other support for the state commissions established to mark positions and erect monuments. Merry himself chaired the Iowa Vicksburg Monument Commission. Elected state commander of the GAR for 1915–1916, he successfully lobbied the state legislature for a change in the law to make it easier for county governments to fund monuments. He died on January 30, 1917. William C. Lowe
Further Reading Swisher, Jacob A. The Iowa Department of the Grand Army of the Republic. Iowa City, IA: Iowa State Historical Society, 1936. Waldrep, Christopher W. Vicksburg’s Long Shadow: The Civil War Legacy of Race
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Mexican Expeditions, 1914–1917 and Remembrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
MEXICAN EXPEDITIONS, 1914–1917 By the late-nineteenth century, the United States had a large economic stake in Mexico. Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz had encouraged foreign investment since taking power in 1876. When revolutionaries ousted him in 1910, the United States produced over half of Mexican oil and controlled threequarters of the mining industry. The civil war that ensued took on a strong antiAmerican overtone. The subsequent government of General Victoriano Huerta was not recognized by the United States since Huerta had not been democratically elected, was corrupt, and exercised little control over the country. President Woodrow Wilson ordered the port city of Vera Cruz captured upon receiving reports of German arms being sent to Huerta. On April 21, 1914, the U.S. Navy shelled the city and U.S. Marines stormed the shore to occupy it. Vera Cruz was secured the following day after bloody street fighting resulted in a large number of Mexican casualties. The Fifth Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army occupied Vera Cruz until November 1914. As a result, Huerta resigned and went into exile in Spain. On October 19, 1915, heeding the advice of several Latin American countries, the United States recognized the government of Venustiano Carranza. This recognition angered the Mexican leader, Francisco ‘‘Pancho’’ Villa, a popular general who felt betrayed by the U.S. government. Villa, who roamed the northwest territory of Mexico known as Chihuahua
and knew the 94,000 square miles of terrain intimately, began retaliating against U.S. citizens. Villa’s forces, known as Villistas, removed 16 American mining engineers from a Mexican train near Santa Ysabel and executed them. On March 9, 1916, Villa and approximately 450 Villistas attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 Americans, including 7 soldiers, and wounding 8. The following day, President Wilson’s administration released the following statement: ‘‘An adequate force will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays.’’ This operation under the command of General John ‘‘Black Jack’’ Pershing became known as the Punitive Expedition. While Pershing moved into Mexico, setting up headquarters in Colonia Dublan, President Wilson called up the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona National Guard to protect the borders; in June 1916, Wilson conscripted more state militias for border patrol. Over 135,000 National Guardsmen would serve on the Mexican-U.S. border during the Punitive Expedition. There were two border attacks, one at Glenn Springs, Texas, and the other at San Ygnacio, Texas, but for the most part guardsmen settled in for a monotonous routine of guard duty and drill. Villa proved elusive and combat was rare. On April 13, 1916, Villistas attacked American forces entering Mexico at Parral before being repulsed by U.S. reinforcements. One of the more successful American missions featured a young lieutenant named George S. Patton Jr., who along with 10 infantrymen killed one of Pancho Villa’s personal bodyguards. Like the national guardsmen patrolling the border, Pershing’s forces
Mexican War Veterans settled in for humdrum duty amid the arid Mexican terrain. Although Villa would never be captured, the U.S. Army gained invaluable experience from this expedition. The army utilized motor trucks to supply its troops when the Mexican government refused access to the local railroads. Uniforms that proved to be inadequate for the harsh Mexican climate were improved. Medical and sanitary conditions of large outdoor camps were refined. Aircraft were used for military reconnaissance for the first time. Finally, the National Guard was reorganized when it was found that many units suffered from inept officers and lack of structure. The lessons learned from the Punitive Expedition served the army well in Europe during World War I. In February 1917, American forces withdrew back into the United States. Congress authorized the Mexican service badge in December 1917, and the Mexican Border Service Medal was authorized in July 1918 for veterans who patrolled the border but did not enter Mexico. Troops would remain on the border until 1923. Veterans of the Mexican campaigns were eligible to join the Veterans of Foreign Wars. William Whyte III
Further Reading Jore, Jeff. ‘‘Pershing’s Mission in Mexico: Logistics and Preparation for the War in Europe.’’ Military Affairs 52 (July 1988): 117–21. Sandos, James A. ‘‘Pancho Villa and American Security: Woodrow Wilson’s Mexican Diplomacy Reconsidered.’’ Journal of Latin American Studies 13 (November 1981): 293–311.
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Yockelson, Mitchell. ‘‘The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition: Part 1.’’Prologue 29 (Fall 1997). www.archives.gov/publications/ prologue/1997/fall/mexican-punitiveexpedition-1.html. ———. ‘‘The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition: Part 2.’’Prologue 29 (Winter 1997). www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/ 1997/winter/mexican-punitiveexpedition-2.html.
MEXICAN WAR VETERANS The 1846 war between the United States and Mexico began when U.S. President James K. Polk ordered U.S. troops into an area claimed by both Mexico and the newly annexed Republic of Texas, provoking an exchange of fire that, after a string of impressive military victories by the United States, ultimately led to the occupation of Mexico City by General Winfield Scott’s troops in September 1847. In early 1848 Mexico ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, transferring over half of her territory to the United States in exchange for $15 million. Gone were the provinces of Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, and parts of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Sonora. That land became California, Nevada, and Utah and parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. The ratified treaty arrived in the United States on the fourth of July in 1848 to ecstatic celebration. In its first war fought on foreign soil, the United States had won an ‘‘empire,’’ and in the eyes of many U.S. citizens virtually every battle made manifest the heroism and superior fighting abilities of the North American soldier. Volunteer enthusiasm for the war against Mexico
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was high, particularly outside New England. Victories like that at Buena Vista, where less than 5,000 U.S. soldiers defeated a Mexican army of 20,000, seemed to support the widely held belief that the American volunteer had no equal in skill or bravery, although in point of fact most battles of this war were won by regulars in the army and not by volunteers. Of the 85,000 American soldiers who served in the war between 1846 and 1848, 72,500 of them returned to the United States alive. The twin ideals of the citizen soldier, and of military service as the clearest grounds for citizenship, were firmly grounded in the republican political culture of the early republic, so one might assume that these men would return to a hero’s welcome and would reap the rewards of their sacrifice to the nation. But such was not the case. This was a relatively short war with a number of glorious victories, and it resulted in the United States becoming a continental power. But few groups of veterans in the history of the United States have been as disdained and forgotten as those of the U.S.-Mexico War. When President Polk first declared that Mexican troops had shed ‘‘American blood on American soil,’’ thousands of American men rushed to find adventure and glory in Mexico. But for the most part, service in Mexico was a profoundly alienating experience. The U.S.-Mexico War had both the highest casualty rate (almost 15 percent of soldiers died, almost exclusively from disease) and the highest desertion rate of any American war. While the volunteers were widely lauded in the national press during and immediately after the war, veterans of this conflict returned to a country deeply divided over both the righteousness of
invading and dismembering a weaker neighbor, and the implications of the Mexican territorial cession on the expansion of slavery. In New England, where anti-war fervor was strongest, there was little honeymoon period for these soldiers. Lieutenant William Watts Hart Davis, a wealthy Pennsylvanian who worked to help Massachusetts’ single regiment meet its quota, complained that volunteers in the Bay State were ‘‘slandered and vilified daily . . . denounced as murderers and robbers.’’ Many veterans of the war found that they were met with suspicion, both because of the growing unpopularity of the war itself and because of some of their rowdy behavior once they were back home. Veterans of this conflict, like those of other American wars, fought, drank, and failed to find jobs. As early as the summer of 1847, when the first soldiers returned from a yearlong tour of duty, critics complained that service in Mexico had damaged their morals. One of the foremost politicians of the nation, Henry Clay of Kentucky, claimed that many veterans had been disqualified by a ‘‘wild spirit of adventure’’ from returning to civil society. The Civil War, which followed a mere 13 years later, did even greater damage to the reputation and status of U.S.-Mexico War volunteers. Even the most dramatic victories in Mexico paled in comparison to the epic engagements of the Civil War, and the accomplishments of the veterans of 1846 were likewise diminished. One ‘‘engineer officer’’ struck a tellingly apologetic tone when he recounted the battle of Buena Vista for a newspaper in 1871, offering his account ‘‘with some hesitation, because this battle, which appeared to us and to the country as of such great importance at the time, is
Mexican War Veterans now dwarfed into insignificance by the giant struggle of these later days.’’ Veterans of the Civil War certainly shared this opinion: the Grand Army of the Republic had little time for veterans of the earlier war, unless, of course, they fought for the North in the 1860s as well. In fact, a large number of veterans of the Mexican conflict hailed from the South, where volunteer enthusiasm was highest. These men, including, notably, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, later fought for the Confederacy. Southerners embraced the U.S.-Mexico War in the hope that it might bring new slave territories into the nation. They were wrong, of course, and in the minds of many Northerners the entire war was tainted by the proslavery ambitions of many partisans. In 1885 former president Ulysses S. Grant, who like most Civil War generals gained key military experience in the Mexican conflict, described the war with Mexico as ‘‘one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.’’ He declared the Civil War ‘‘our punishment’’ for that ‘‘transgression.’’ At the time this view was mainstream. While Grant had been a member of the pro-war Democratic Party in the 1840s and 1850s, he was a Union general and Republican president and accepted the anti-war Whig Party as his party’s forebears. Although the Democrats promoted and won the war with Mexico, it was a pyrrhic victory for the party, because ultimately the views of Whigs, who maintained that the war was unjust, immoral, and part of a land grab on the part of slaveholders, held sway. The 1847 resolution by the Massachusetts House of Representatives that ‘‘an offensive and unnecessary war is one of the highest crimes which man can commit
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against society; but when is superadded a war for the extension of slavery, its criminality stands out in the boldest possible relief’’ had become the reigning belief among the reigning political party of the postbellum period. Veterans of this ‘‘criminal’’ conflict found themselves reviled as a result and forced to organize to receive the benefits and recognition they thought their due. After the War of 1812 veterans were awarded pensions of $8 a month in 1871, California printer (and veteran) Alexander M. Kenaday founded the National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War (NAVMW) in Washington, DC. The group’s first national convention was held in 1874. Under Kenaday’s leadership, the association held yearly meetings of veterans, published The Vedette, a newspaper for and about Mexican War veterans, and above all else lobbied Congress for pensions. Kenaday held the position of secretary in the NAVMW from 1874 until his death in 1897. By the end of the 1870s, U.S.-Mexico War veteran groups were meeting on a regular basis in 13 states, from California to Louisiana to Massachusetts, and over 5,000 veterans applied to receive one of the National Association’s official badges by 1893. But the lobbying organization was notably less successful than the Grand Army of the Republic on which it was modeled. For 13 years U.S.-Mexico War veterans were thwarted by northern Republicans who pointed to the presence of former confederates among the surviving veterans and denounced the pension bill as ‘‘a southern war claim.’’ After Jefferson Davis renounced any personal benefit that might result from the passage of a pension act, Congress finally relented, and the Mexican War Service Pension
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Franklin Pierce’s military record during the Mexican War became a campaign issue when he ran for president in 1852. In the left frame, ‘‘New Hampshire,’’ Pierce trains a band of volunteer militia, but when he arrives in battle, ‘‘Mexico,’’ the right frame, he holds his stomach in pain and says he has to resign. [American cartoon print filing series, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-7184]
Act was signed into law on January 29, 1887. By the end of that year there were a little more than 8,000 recipients on the pension rolls. The number of recipients reached its peak in 1890 when more than 17,000 veterans and more than 6,000 widows were on the rolls. The amount of the pension was $8 a month. After the turn of the century, this amount was raised to $12, later to $20. After the passage of the pension act, membership in the NAVMW began to decline, and the organization had trouble maintaining itself. After Kenaday’s death in 1897, the NAVMW effectively ceased to exist, although veterans continued to hold national meetings until 1910. The passage of the Mexican War Service Pension Act neither resulted from, nor caused, an increase in the status of the veterans. In the late-nineteenth century these men were more often charged
in pension abuse expose´s than were soldiers from other wars. Efforts by the veterans to erect a national monument and to preserve battlefields in Texas were also blocked by Congress in the 1880s and 1890s. Ambivalence about both the causes and outcomes of the 1846 war was fairly widespread during this period, even among the veterans themselves. On the rare occasions when veterans spoke publicly about the war they generally adopted a defensive tone—still attempting to justify the war decades after its successful conclusion. In an address on the topic of ‘‘the Rationale of the Mexican War,’’ to the Illinois Association of Mexican Veterans at Peoria, in 1880, Judge E. S. Holbrook, a lieutenant in the first Illinois volunteers, reassured his audience that ‘‘no honest patriot’’ need ‘‘blush for the part he took’’ in the war ‘‘as a volunteer’’ since ‘‘not only did the
Mexican War Veterans attempt to make this new acquired territory, slave territory, fail, but this same new territory has been one of the grand forces that have destroyed slavery where it was before; and so now all is free.’’ Although he admitted that there were still many minds ‘‘biased’’ against the veterans, ‘‘I think it is true that a general good to the human race has grown out of the Mexican war, notwithstanding the then present local evils attending it.’’ By the end of the nineteenth century, however, one might imagine that those aged veterans of the U.S.-Mexico War would be ripe for veneration and public embrace. The final decades of the century were a period of national reconciliation and reunion, as Northerners romanticized the Old South and both sides attempted to find common ground in the aftermath of the Civil War. Veterans of the U.S.-Mexico War took part in the ‘‘swelling refrain for harmonious reunion,’’ pointing to the 1840s as a period when, in the words of veteran Gideon Pillow ‘‘We knew no North, no South.’’ Veterans upheld their war as one of a common united purpose and sacrifice. But even on the fiftieth anniversary of the successful conclusion of the U.S. -Mexico War, in 1898, there was little celebration of the surviving veterans of that war. Some states celebrated their own semi-centennials in 1896 or 1898, but the war itself was largely ignored in these ceremonies. The fiftieth anniversary of Buena Vista came and went without either local or national fanfare. Although 1898 saw a second war for empire in the Western Hemisphere, against Spain, most Americans still preferred to forget about the violence that led to the conquest of California. The NAVMW was not the only veterans’ organization to emerge from the
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war. The Aztec Club, an elite social club which originally limited its membership to officers of the U.S.-Mexico War and their eldest sons, was started by seven officers in Mexico City on October 3, 1847, during the extended occupation of that city by Winfield Scott’s army. After the withdrawal of the army from Mexico, the members of the club reorganized as a hereditary society which would meet in the United States once a year for dinner, with the intended purpose of preserving and honoring the war and continuing the social bonds the officers had formed in Mexico. Club members included Ulysses S. Grant, George McClellan, Winfield Scott Hancock, P. G. T. Beauregard, Robert E. Lee, and James Longstreet. The Aztec Club is still active today, although it has long since extended membership to blood relations of officers nominated by current members. Pennsylvanian Owen Thomas Edgar, the last surviving veteran of the U.S. -Mexico War, died in 1929. But another group continues to uphold the memory of the veterans. The Descendants of Mexican War Veterans (DMWV), chartered by the state of Texas in 1989, is a nonprofit lineage society of over 500 members that has declared itself heir to the now defunct National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War. The group’s mission is to help commemorate the ‘‘heroes of 1846,’’ and it states, America’s U.S.-Mexico War soldiers ‘‘have no national monument and to this very day, nearly 11,000 U.S. servicemen still lie buried in forgotten, neglected graves all over Mexico (as well as parts of the American Southwest). Only a few individual states and organizations have erected monuments or memorials to their memory’’ (DMWV). This organization has arguably had greater success than
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the NAVMW. Although the earlier association always hoped to establish a site of national commemoration, it wasn’t until 1992, after lobbying by the DMWV, that an act of Congress created the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site. Amy S. Greenberg
Further Reading Breithaupt, Richard H. Aztec Club of 1847 Military Society of the Mexican War: Sesquicentennial—History, 1847–1997. Universal City, CA: Walika, 1998. Davies, Wallace E. ‘‘The Mexican War Veterans as an Organized Group.’’ The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 35, no. 2 (September 1948): 221–38. Descendents of Mexican War Veterans. www.dmwv.org/index.htm. Foos, Paul. A Short Offhand Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. New York: Charles Webster and Co., 1885. Pinheiro, John C. Manifest Ambition: James K. Polk and Civil-Military Relations during the Mexican War. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007.
MILITARY CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION The Military Chaplains Association exists to aid military chaplains in their mission of providing religious support to military personnel. Founded in 1925, the association is composed of chaplains from the active, reserve, and National Guard forces, former and retired chaplains, as well as chaplains from the Civil Air Patrol and Department of Veterans
Affairs. Associate memberships are available to military and civilian personnel who desire to support the chaplaincy’s mission. The association began in 1925 as the Army Chaplains Association and functioned as an informal advisory group to its founder, the first Army Chief of Chaplains, John Axton. By the 1930s, the group held annual conventions and produced the magazine The Army Chaplain. In 1940, it expanded to include navy chaplains, becoming the Army and Navy Chaplains Association. Upon the entrance of air force chaplains in 1948, the group was renamed the Military Chaplains Association (MCA), and in 1950 was incorporated as a federally chartered organization. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the association faced financial and membership struggles. In the 1990s, it responded by concerted efforts to increase membership, establish and maintain trust funds, such as its Emerson Foundation, expand regional chapters, and increase the effectiveness of its annual conventions to obtain publicity and recruits. The MCA joined the Association of the Independent Charities of America Inc., the Combined Federal Campaign, and the National Veterans Day Committee as well as increased its presence by lobbying Capitol Hill on chaplain-related issues. Today the association provides veterans with an active role in supporting the mission of the military chaplaincy. It provides chaplains, religious leaders, and media outlets with information regarding religious freedom issues of free exercise and free speech. The group fosters public awareness of chaplaincy issues by lobbying members of Congress on issues of religious freedom, participating in religious forums with faith group
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) communities, and providing educational outreaches to military, civilian, and religious leadership. Through the publication of a bimonthly magazine, The Military Chaplain, and annual meetings, the association informs members of issues facing the chaplaincy and provides them with a professional forum for peer discussion. At the annual meeting, the association honors both civilian and military personnel for their important contributions to the welfare of active and veteran members of the armed forces. The association supports the development of the chaplain branch by providing annual scholarships awarded to several chaplain candidates enrolled in seminary and by giving annual recognition to chaplains for distinguished service. The association provides counsel on issues of religious expression, assists with the mobilization and demobilization process, and provides chaplain services to needed areas. Through participation in the 36member Military Coalition of service organizations, the group remains committed to providing support to and maintaining awareness of veterans’ issues that affect over 5.5 million current and former service members and their families. Association members provide support and play a role in the Department of Veterans Affairs chaplaincy. Partnering with the Veterans Administraton, the MCA seeks to provide both spiritual and emotional help to service members who return home without a support network. Group members also focus their efforts on the growing number of veterans who are suffering from combat stress or posttraumatic stress disorder. To accomplish these missions, the group promotes the concept of ‘‘Chaplain for Life’’ to encourage retired chaplains to continue their ministry through volunteer
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outreaches and mentoring younger chaplains. The MCA networks its members with areas of chaplain need by maintaining a database of over 8,000 former and current chaplains. When active duty personnel are unavailable, members fill in to provide support, ranging from counseling to funeral duty. Through such outreaches, the MCA seeks to continue and expand the availability of moral, ethical, and religious support to current and former members of the armed forces. Jonathan Newell
Further Reading Military Chaplains Association. www .mca-usa.org. The Military Chaplains Association of the United States of America. Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing, 1996.
MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES (MOLLUS) The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) was an organization created in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865, when three Union officers met in Philadelphia to discuss the tragedy of the event. The original three served as part of the honor guard for Lincoln’s funeral. After the funeral, the officers decided to form MOLLUS to renew patriotism for the Union. MOLLUS was originally an organization composed of commissioned Union officers designed to serve as the Civil War equivalent of the Society of the Cincinnati. At its height, MOLLUS boasted almost 12,000 officers as members,
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including many prominent Union Civil War veterans, such as Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and future presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley. With the aging of eligible members, MOLLUS eventually opened up its membership to male descendants of Union officers. The fame of MOLLUS caused John Philip Sousa to write a march to commemorate the twentyfifth anniversary of the founding of MOLLUS, entitled The Loyal Legion March. The objectives of MOLLUS are ‘‘to foster military and naval science, promote allegiance to the U.S. government, perpetuate the memory of those who fought to preserve the unity and indivisibility of the Republic and to honor the memory and promote the ideals of President Abraham Lincoln’’ (MOLLUS). To achieve its objectives, MOLLUS participates in a wide variety of activities. These include programming honoring Lincoln and those who served during the Civil War, preservation efforts for Civil War battlefields and sites, awards for Civil War research and writing, erecting plaques and other memorials to commemorate events and personalities of the war, and other patriotic and educational activities (see Battlefield Preservation). Many original members of MOLLUS were also members of the Grand Army of the Republic. Similarly, current MOLLUS members are often members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW). MOLLUS currently is organized into 19 commanderies, as well as two provisional commanderies. In addition, MOLLUS has posted many of its War Papers on the Internet. These are written accounts of the Civil War by those who served in the war and
are being digitized by Google. These papers serve as a valuable online repository of firsthand accounts of the war for historians and other researchers. MOLLUS also publishes a newsletter for its members. Additionally, the organization founded and operates the War Library and Museum of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States on Pine Street in Philadelphia and serves a valuable purpose both as an organization for descendants of Union officers as well as an educational group for the story of the Civil War. In 1899, 51 wives and daughters of Union officers formed the Dames of the Loyal Legion of the United States (DOLLUS), although MOLLUS did not officially recognize it until 1915. Among its achievements have been the restoration of the room in which President Lincoln died, in the Peterson House opposite Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, and the planting of 54 oak trees around Grant’s Cabin in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Grant asked to have his headquarters cabin moved from City Point, Virginia, where he had directed the final successful campaign of the war, to Philadelphia to honor its citizens for their loyal support. With 311 trees, it is now the largest memorial grove in the nation. Daniel Sauerwein
Further Reading Anonymous. Companions of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. New York: L. R. Hamersly, 1901. Daughters of the Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. www.suvcw.org/ mollus/dollus.home.htm. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. www.suvcw.org/mollus/ mollus.htm.
Music and Veterans
MUSIC AND VETERANS Music about veterans can be patriotic music or wartime songs as well, but not all patriotic or war music is necessarily about veterans. Since humans first went to war, they have written songs describing, honoring, and often mourning the sacrifice that veterans endure, the horrors they face on the battlefield, and their experiences when they return home. Music about veterans can be a celebration of patriotism, but it can also often be among the most famous of protest music. The response to veterans’ stories and sacrifice can be as varied as the range of political opinions, immortalized in song by genres from folk to country to pop to metal to American Indian powwow music and black spirituals.
Civil War In the United States, the first veterans’ songs were traditional folk tunes, often influenced by older songs from Europe, or by chants sung by African slaves. The most famous, ‘‘John Brown’s Body,’’ later also widely known as ‘‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’’ has variously been claimed to have come originally from a black folk song, a black wedding song, a British sea chantey, or a Swedish drinking song. As ‘‘John Brown’s Body,’’ the song is primarily a call for the religious faithful to fulfill Brown’s mission to free the slaves and ‘‘hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree.’’ As ‘‘Battle Hymn,’’ it declares that the cause of the Union is blessed by God as it proclaims ‘‘the glory of the coming of the Lord.’’ The Civil War produced an enormous number of veterans’ songs. The most celebrated of Civil War songwriters, George Root, wrote ‘‘Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,’’
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told from the point of view of a POW in a Confederate prison, writing to his mother of the day when he can return home and the war is won. ‘‘Just Before the Battle Mother’’ also includes a message to home, this time a soldier telling his mother to remember him and the rightness of the Union cause should he fall in battle. ‘‘The Vacant Chair’’ is the tale of a Union soldier’s family remembering a soldier killed on the battlefield. By contrast, Patrick Gilmore’s ‘‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’’ is a rousing celebration of a Southern veteran, ‘‘Johnny Reb,’’ returning home after a predicted triumph. It has therefore been used ironically after the war, most notably in the film satire Dr. Strangelove. The war also brought an outpouring of a number of other sentimental or mournful songs of returning veterans, among them ‘‘Weeping Sad and Lonely (When This Cruel War Is Over).’’ Other songs mourned the loss of life and soldiers killed in the war, such as ‘‘All Quiet Along the Potomac,’’ ‘‘The Drummer Boy of Shiloh,’’ and ‘‘The Faded Coat of Blue.’’ The two ethnic groups that made up the greatest portion of the Union volunteers during the Civil War, blacks and German-Americans, each contributed veterans’ songs. ‘‘Babylon Is Fallen’’ is a former slave’s celebration of the fall of plantation slavery, seeing his former master taken prisoner by black soldiers and losing his seat of power during Reconstruction. ‘‘Kingdom Come (Year of Jubilo)’’ goes even further, with exslaves mocking their former masters as cowards. The most famous GermanAmerican song of the war, ‘‘I Goes to Fight Mit Siegel,’’ Franz Siegel being the leading German-American general for the North, was a rallying cry for both
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The sheet music for this march dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic, deposited in the Library of Congress in 1869, shows scenes of veterans at home and on the field and women honoring veterans. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LCUSZ62-89300]
German Union soldiers and veterans after war’s end.
American Indians Of all ethnic groups in the United States, American Indians joining the U.S. military likely produced the highest number of veterans’ songs, based on long traditions of honoring warriors which were transferred to newer veterans’ traditions. The first Native American veteran song we have a written record of is Joseph
Gauthier’s ‘‘Song of Enlistment,’’ describing members of the Menominee joining the Union Army in the Civil War. World War II saw an explosion of American Indian Honor Songs for veterans. There was even an ‘‘Honor Song for General MacArthur’’ referred to in the song by his Indian name, ‘‘Wise Eagle.’’ Probably the best-known songs from American Indians during the war come from the best-known American Indian veterans, the Navajo Code Talkers (see American Indian Veterans,
Music and Veterans Individuals). They produced their own versions of both ‘‘The Marine Corps Hymn’’ and ‘‘America the Beautiful,’’ sung in the Dineh language. Honor songs continued to be composed by Native veterans and their families through the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars. The most recent honor song we have a public record of, ‘‘Honor Song for Sheldon Ray Hawk Eagle,’’ is a Lakota (Sioux) song about a soldier from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation dying in the Iraq War, written by his cousin Winona Washburn. Both the Black Lodge Singers and Lakota Thunder, two favorites on the powwow circuit, have recorded entire albums devoted to American Indian veterans’ experiences. Some tribes have warrior societies or women’s societies that are in large part dedicated to reintegrating veterans into civilian life, including by the use of honor songs. Among the best known are the Kiowa Black Legs, Gourd Dance Societies common to many of the tribes of the Plains and the Southwest, or the War Mothers Societies among the Kiowa, Comanche, Osage, Otoe, Ponca, and other tribes.
Country Music Mainstream Americans also developed songs honoring veterans, notably in country music. Country music arose from both the folk ballad and country blues. A central part of much country music has been patriotic concerns, often against what many of its fans perceive as liberal or upper-middle-class elitism. The largest collection of country music devoted to veterans came in the album A Country Music Offering for a Moment of Silence for Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans (1996) from artists Kenny Rogers, John Akers, John Anderson, Barbara
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Mandrell, Johnny Paycheck, Dolly Parton, David Houston, and the Oakridge Boys. These Colors Won’t Run (1996) also combined patriotism and tributes to veterans with songs from Bobby Bare, Freddie Hart, Jeff Moore, B. J. Thomas, Craig Harris, Moe Bandy, Billy Parker, Charley Pride, Billy Walker, Johnny Paycheck, Riders In the Sky/Michael Horton, The Kendalls, Johnny Rodriguez, and Stan Garland. Country music singer Toby Keith is also noted for his patriotic songs such as ‘‘American Soldier’’ (2002) and ‘‘Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue’’ (2004). Yet country music also is responsible for its share of rebellious and controversial material, works that often predated the emphasis on patriotism after 9/11. It produced both ‘‘Okie From Muskogee’’ and ‘‘The Fightin’ Side of Me’’ from Merle Haggard with its defense of the flag from anti-war protesters; yet also from country music came the ‘‘Ballad of Ira Hayes,’’ one of the soldiers depicted in the Iwo Jima Memorial, with its searing indictment of unjust treatment of the American Indian veteran in American history. It was recorded by Oliver Lafarge and later Johnny Cash and Floyd Redcrow Westerman. Both Haggard and Cash would later pen anti-war songs that were also about soldiers and veterans: Haggard’s ‘‘That’s the News’’ and Cash with ‘‘What Is Truth’’ and ‘‘Man In Black.’’ Cash also wrote ‘‘Drive On’’ and ‘‘Like a Soldier,’’ both about a Vietnam War veteran’s alienation. Willie Nelson’s ‘‘Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth’’ combined criticism of the Second Iraq War with a song about veterans and the celebration of Christmas. Steve Earle and the Dixie Chicks both faced a wave of criticism, boycotts, and even death threats for their stance on the
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Iraq War. In Earle’s case, his song about an American who fought for the other side, the Taliban, in ‘‘John Walker Blues’’ brought a ban from radio. Yet Earle has probably written more songs about veterans’ concerns than any musician in modern memory, among them ‘‘The Gringo’s Tale’’ about a veteran of Grenada and Panama; ‘‘Home to Houston’’ about an army truck driver in Iraq; ‘‘Copperhead Road’’ about a Vietnam veteran turned drug smuggler; ‘‘Warrior’’ a spoken word performance piece from a veteran’s point of view; ‘‘Rich Man’s War’’ about men in poverty driven to join the military (including in Arab countries) and coming home as poor as before they joined; ‘‘Ben McCullough’’ about a bitter Confederate veteran; ‘‘Dixieland’’ about an Irish immigrant Union veteran; ‘‘Johnny Come Lately’’ about a San Antonio veteran marrying a British woman; and ‘‘Mercenary Song’’ about American veterans looking to join up with Pancho Villa. The Dixie Chicks faced a corporate CEO-ordered campaign directed against them—from Lewis Dickey Jr., CEO of Cumulus Radio, which controls the leading country music stations in the United States—but still wrote and recorded ‘‘Travelin’ Soldier’’ about a young girl mourning her boyfriend’s death in the Vietnam War.
Folk Music Probably no genre of music is better known for producing protest songs than folk music, and war and veterans have been the subject of many famous folk songs. Folk icon Woody Guthrie paid tribute to those lost on a U.S. destroyer in ‘‘Sinking of the Reuben James,’’ later released as ‘‘Dear Mr. President.’’ Pete Seeger redid the Irish folk song ‘‘Mrs. McGrath,’’ the story of a mother
describing the return of her badly scarred veteran son. Bruce Springsteen also recorded a version of the song. Bob Dylan’s ‘‘John Brown’’ depicts a returning veteran, now missing his eyes and hands, who castigates his mother for once urging him to enlist and be a war hero. The song ends with him accusing her of cowardice and throwing his medals at her feet.
Popular Music Within pop music, examples from the post-World War II era include the Shirelles’s ‘‘Soldier Boy,’’ a simple love song about a girl’s devotion. Bobby Vinton’s ‘‘Mr. Lonely’’ is about a soldier feeling isolated and forgotten. The best-known pop song about veterans is Marvin Gaye’s ‘‘What’s Going On.’’ Inspired by his brother’s return from the Vietnam War, Gaye simultaneously mourned the pain experienced by veterans and issued a heartfelt call for understanding and peace. Perhaps the second best-known pop song about veterans is Bruce Springsteen’s ‘‘Born in the USA’’ about a Vietnam War veteran unable to find work. Many conservatives of the time misinterpreted the song to be unambiguous patriotism, most notably President Ronald Reagan. Springsteen would write about hardships of returning veterans again in ‘‘Ballad of Tom Joad.’’ Green Day’s ‘‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’’ was originally a wistful look at the death of a band member’s father. The lyrics (and subsequent video) are ambiguous enough that many interpreted the song to either be a tribute to those lost in the terrorist attacks on September 11 or a tribute to members of the military deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Carrie Underwood’s ‘‘Just a Dream’’ tells the
Music and Veterans story of an exuberant young woman going to church to wed her military love who is home from the war; when she arrives she is instead at his funeral. Metal music, with its often brutal choice of subject matter, has not shied away from depicting the horror of combat and the pain endured by survivors. Alice in Chains’s ‘‘Rooster’’ was written about the singer’s father returning from the Vietnam War, though it did make the mistake of repeating the urban legend of spat-upon veterans. Slayer’s ‘‘Mandatory Suicide’’ was about a drafted soldier while ‘‘Eyes of the Insane’’ depicts in graphic detail the horror of a veteran suffering from trauma. Metallica’s ‘‘One,’’ itself inspired by the Dalton Trumbo novel, Johnny Get Your Gun (1938), depicts a quadriplegic and suicidal veteran of World War I. Two other Metallica songs, ‘‘Disposable Heroes’’ and ‘‘For Whom the Bell Tolls,’’ are both songs about veterans and anti-war songs simultaneously. Ironically, very few of the songs described above have come from actual veterans, whether intended to be patriotic or anti-war songs. One of the more recent songs to break with that trend is Iraq War
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veteran Dennis Kyne’s ‘‘Support the Truth.’’ Paralyzed Iraq War veteran Tomas Young also produced Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran (2008) with music from Pearl Jam, System of a Down, John Lennon, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Roger Waters. Al Carroll See also Civil War Veterans; World War I Veterans; World War II Veterans; Anti-War Veterans Associations; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Film and Veterans; Literature and Veterans
Further Reading Cornelius, Steven H. Music of the Civil War Era. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Jones, John Bush. Songs that Fought the War: Popular Music and the Homefront, 1939– 1945. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2006. Perone, James. Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 2001. Tatum, James. The Mourner’s Song: Songs of War and Remembrance from the Iliad to the Vietnam War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
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N participated, or who served as above in connection with the Revenue or Privateer Services’’ and their descendants. Initially only officers could join the Order, but since 1998 the Naval Order allows enlisted personnel to become members (Naval Order 2003, 8–9). The Order’s structure has changed little since its founding. Local chapters, or commanderies, are formed in various cities and states throughout the country. These local commanderies elect delegates to attend the General Congress, which is the primary venue for Naval Order business. The General Congress met triennially until 1963 and biennially until 1988 when meetings finally became an annual event. At the General Congress, the local delegates elect national officeholders including the Order’s chief executive known as the commander general as well as other positions, such as the historian general. The national officeholders also comprise the General Council which manages Naval Order business while the General Congress is not in session; however,
NATIVE AMERICAN VETERANS See American Indian Veterans
NAVAJO CODE TALKERS See American Indian Veterans, Individual
NAVAL ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES Founded in 1890 as the Naval Commandery in Boston, the Naval Order of the United States adopted its present name and grew into a national organization three years later when it merged with a like-minded group, the Naval Legion. Its founders intended the Naval Order to be an apolitical forum for veterans and other interested individuals to gather and discuss issues related to naval history. Eligibility for membership was initially based upon service ‘‘in any of the wars or in any battle in which the United States Navy or Marine Corps has 299
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the council’s importance has diminished somewhat as the General Congresses have become more frequent although they proved vital in holding the Order’s elections when its 2005 General Congress in New Orleans fell victim to the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. The Order has included several notable naval figures on its membership rolls since its founding, including James V. Forrestal and other secretaries of the navy, Arleigh Burke and other chiefs of Naval Operations, World War II era figures such as William F. Halsey, and former presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush. Hollywood actor and naval veteran Ernest Borgnine is also a companion of the Naval Order. Most importantly to the Order itself, Admiral George Dewey joined the organization just two weeks after his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War on May 1, 1898. Admiral Dewey later served as the Order’s commander general from 1907 until his death in 1917. The Order grew rapidly in its early years, and by 1900 had established local commanderies in six states. A period of stagnation and decline followed this rapid growth, and for a time the Naval Order shrank down to only three functioning commanderies during the 1920s: Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. Following World War II, however, the Order began a new round of expansion later followed by the creation of several new commanderies since the 1970s. As of 2008, the Naval Order has 25 commanderies scattered across the country although most of these are in coastal areas. Since its founding, the Naval Order has counted more than 8,500 men and women as companions.
Indicative of the era of its founding which saw the frequent use of history to promote contemporary naval policy, the Order’s founders intended the group to function as a forum for veterans to discuss naval history and help promote it to others. The Naval Order’s interest in preserving and commemorating America’s naval history has been the organization’s most significant activity. Early meetings of the Order were often scheduled to coincide with significant dates in American naval history; in addition, the Order sought to raise public awareness of important naval engagements, such as the duel between the Monitor and Virginia (better known as the Merrimac) in the Civil War, by sending copies of a description of the engagement to all Congressmen in 1898. During the interwar period, the Naval Order began to emphasize the construction of permanent historical monuments. In 1926, Herbert Satterlee proposed that the Order raise funds to construct a bust of Admiral Farragut to be placed in the Hall of Fame at New York University. Although the plans nearly fell through, a last minute appeal for funds made by New York University placed in the New York Times allowed the Order to dedicate the bust in 1927 on schedule. Perhaps the most significant evidence of the Order’s commitment to preserving the navy’s history prior to World War II came in its participation in the drive to restore the USS Constitution in the 1920s. After the ship began to decay following its decommissioning in 1882, an effort known as the Save ‘‘Old Ironsides’’ Fund began with a goal of completely restoring the Constitution with an eye towards its public display. In order to solicit contributions for the fund, the Naval Order included in a 1927 booklet
Naval Order of the United States | 301 information about the ship’s history as well as a request for donations from companions. The booklet contained other information about the Naval Order, including its history and portions of its own constitution, and it is not known how much the Order or its companions contributed to the restoration drive. That said, the Constitution became a popular public attraction after its recommissioning in 1931 and continues to be one to this day, drawing over 300,000 visitors annually. Despite its emphasis on the indirect promotion of the navy through history, the Order has at times engaged in more direct commentary or influence upon American naval policy. These instances have generally occurred at critical moments of American national or naval policy. Lieutenant Commander John Codman Soley and Satterlee, two early members of the Naval Order, were instrumental in the creation of naval militias in the decade prior to the SpanishAmerican War. These militias, formed in 15 states, became the primary naval auxiliary in the late-nineteenth century, contributing ships and over 4,000 men to the navy during the SpanishAmerican War. Though they did not fulfill their intended function of providing a viable manpower base for the navy, they eventually formed the nucleus of the Naval Reserve Force created in 1917. Its most significant attempt to directly affect American naval policy came in 1902 when Satterlee again helped found the Navy League of the United States. In fact, 12 of the 15 men who signed the League’s articles of incorporation in December 1902 were also current companions of the Naval Order. Little formal connection existed between the two
organizations in spite of the dual membership of some individuals, although the Naval Order did provide financial compensation to the League in exchange for managing the Order’s records in the early 1900s. The Navy League of the United States, modeled after the Navy League in Great Britain, assumed its primary responsibility of public lobbying on behalf of the navy. The League would include former naval officers and interested civilians in its membership rolls but not officers on active duty since the latter wished to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest by either the public or other veterans groups such as the Grand Army of the Republic. Although the League’s effect on American naval policy is often overstated, historian Armin Rappaport concluded that the League proved effective in spreading the navy’s message to the public and vital in keeping navalism alive during the drawdown of the interwar period. The Naval Order also attempted to counteract the disinterest in continued naval construction during the interwar period. In 1921, widespread beliefs that naval arms races and the resulting alliance system had caused World War I resulted in the Washington Conference. At the conference, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes successfully lobbied for a comprehensive series of disarmament and collective security agreements, most notably the Five Power Treaty which helped set the infamous ‘‘5-5-3’’ ratio of capital ship tonnage between the United States, Britain, and Japan. The Washington treaties and their successors meant that arms limitation became perhaps the strongest influence on the development of the navy in the decades prior to World War II.
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Following the conference, widespread criticism of the treaty erupted from supporters of the navy, most notably retired Captain Dudley W. Knox, who criticized the apparent zeal with which the political leadership squandered America’s impending naval superiority over Great Britain. The Naval Order, however, did not resolve to criticize publicly the results of the conference; rather, they instead passed a resolution calling for the United States to build up to the tonnage limits set by the Five Power Treaty and sent this resolution to the secretary of the navy. While even supporters of the treaty, most notably Captain (later Admiral) William Veazie Pratt, also argued for construction up to the treaty limits, the parsimonious Republican administrations of the 1920s ignored such requests. Not until the first term of the Franklin Roosevelt administration was additional support for naval construction forthcoming, but the navy only filled its treaty tonnage quotas in the years just prior to World War II. The Naval Order also nearly became involved in the controversies which eventually came to a head during the socalled ‘‘Revolt of the Admirals’’ in 1949. The dispute originated in the postwar debates over the roles and missions of the different branches of the military as well as the status of America’s nuclear arsenal. The crisis came to a head when Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson canceled the United States’ first flush deck just days after the laying of its keel in favor of renewed emphasis on air force heavy bombers such as the B-36 Peacemaker. Senior naval officers, incensed that they had lost their carrier capable of launching nuclear equipped aircraft, began launching private and public attacks against the air force which
eventually led to the resignation of Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan and the dismissal of Chief of Naval Operations Louis Denfeld. A year prior to the Revolt of the Admirals, the Naval Order nearly became involved in a protest against Secretary of the Air Stuart Symington. Members of other organizations believed criticisms made by Symington against the navy during the course of these debates represented a malicious attack on the service and attempted to mount a protest. Robert E. McCord of the Navy Council solicited the Order’s support for a round robin letter which refuted statements made by Symington against the navy. The Order’s Commander General William A. Read declined to participate in any such action, believing that the letter could undermine Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, a former naval officer, and had the potential to only inflame the situation further. In the late 1970s, the Naval Order attempted to respond to nuclear disarmament. President Jimmy Carter attempted to continue the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) process begun by the Nixon administration, and in 1979 agreed to terms with the Soviet Union on the SALT II Treaty. While the first SALT Treaty only placed limits on current and future American and Soviet and nuclear arsenals, SALT II called for both superpowers to reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately for the Carter administration, the SALT II Treaty came at a time when the de´tente between the two nations began to crumble due to controversial Third World proxy wars. The Naval Order passed a resolution stating its opposition to the treaty at its 1979 General Congress in Buffalo and initiated a letter-writing campaign to
Naval Order of the United States | 303 congressmen in an attempt to prevent its ratification. Several high-profile senators, including John Tower (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Jesse Helms (R-NC), received letters and sent favorable replies to the Order’s Commander General Captain Fred Kempe. Republican Representative Eldon Rudd of Arizona responded quite favorably to the Order’s letter. He inserted the text of the Order’s resolution into the Congressional Record and stated his concurrence with it. While it is impossible to state what, if any, effects the Order’s letters had upon the growing opposition to the SALT II Treaty in Congress, the treaty appeared likely to languish in Congress before President Carter’s decision to withdraw it from consideration after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. These attempts to initiate direct action on behalf of the navy notwithstanding, the Order’s efforts to promote the navy indirectly through history are more typical of its activities since its founding. In fact, the Order has continued to promote naval history through a variety of means in recent decades. In 1970, the Order began sponsoring the creation of ‘‘navy corners’’ in public libraries which contained books on naval history. The New York Commandery created the Samuel Eliot Morison Award in 1982, giving it each year to authors who have published a significant book on naval history. The first award went to its namesake posthumously although Morison’s daughter accepted the award on his behalf. More recently, the San Francisco Commandery in 1999 began publishing a newsletter entitled Mission: History designed to call further attention to the history of the navy. Unfortunately, this newsletter
ceased publication in 2001 as its primary author, Ric Teague, was dying of cancer. The Order has also increased its support for the construction of naval monuments since the 1970s. In 1973, the Order sponsored the creation of a bronze relief of Admiral Dewey at Battery Park in New York City. At the 1987 General Congress the Order took up sponsorship of a relief of the Great White Fleet to be placed at the Navy Memorial across from the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. In 1994, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy landings, the San Francisco Commandery dedicated a plaque at the National Liberty Ship Memorial with the SS Jeremiah O’Brien on the San Francisco piers (see Appendix I, California). The Texas Commandery dedicated a memorial to the heavy cruiser USS Houston in its namesake city in 1995 commemorating that ship’s loss at the Battle of the Java Sea during the disastrous opening months of World War II. Recently, the Order raised funds to create a monument honoring the U.S. Navy’s participation in the Normandy invasion. The memorial was dedicated at its site on Utah Beach on September 27, 2008. Ryan Wadle
Further Reading Hart, Kevin R. ‘‘Towards a Citizen Sailor: The History of the Naval Militia Movement, 1888–1898.’’ American Neptune, October 1973, 264–76. Naval Order of the United States. Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing, 2003, Records of the Naval Order of the United States, Cushing Library, Texas A&M Library, College Station, Texas.
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NEWBURGH CONSPIRACY By late 1782, victory was secure in the American Revolution although the final peace was not yet negotiated and ratified. The Continental Army had to retain some presence to keep the still powerful British Army in New York City in check, which was difficult after the triumph at Yorktown in September 1781. The army officers, many of whom had served for most of the war, had not been paid for four years; many had dipped deeply into their own funds to support themselves, their troops, and junior officers. They were threatening to refuse to disband at the end of the war unless they received all, or at least some, of the half-pay for the rest of their lives Congress had promised them in 1780 to keep them in the service. Congress, however, had no money aside from promissory notes and paper money: unless the states would agree to the impost, a tax on imported goods to be paid in gold or silver, it would lack the power to meet its obligations in any form except relatively worthless paper. General Alexander McDougall and Colonels John Brooks and Matthias Ogden met with Congressional delegates on December 29, 1782, warning them of a mutiny and possible overthrow of the republic if their demands were not met. They found willing listeners in congressmen led by Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, who wanted to obtain the impost to replace requisitions from the states to fund the bankrupt government and give the federal government the power to tax and fund itself independently of the states. Hamilton and Morris did not want a military coup but found it useful to
encourage the soldiers to voice their threats, thereby hoping to pressure the states into finally accepting Congressional taxation. The officers needed a prestigious leader, however, who commanded wide support in the army. Henry Knox, whom they first approached, turned them down. Horatio Gates did not, and historians to this day debate whether he and his associates were planning to overthrow Congress or intended to confine their efforts to threats that would produce a stronger government that paid them. What is certain, however, is that Alexander Hamilton alerted George Washington that the officers planned a meeting to plot their future course. Washington forbade the meeting, and when it occurred anyway, on March 15, Washington strode in and displaced Horatio Gates as its chairman. He denounced the gathering as ‘‘unmilitary’’ and ‘‘subversive of all order and discipline.’’ He recalled the virtue and selfsacrifice required by a republican people, and reminded the officers that history would judge them based on their actions of that day: by refraining from a coup, ‘‘You will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion for Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to Mankind, ‘had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.’ ’’ As he then prepared to read a letter from a congressman promising an attempt to meet the officers’ demands as best as Congress could, Washington reached into his pocket for his spectacles, stating, ‘‘Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind’’ (Ford 1904–1937).
Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) The attempted coup, if it was that, was over. Washington not only would not be a king, he would not be a military dictator. Many officers rushed to take Washington’s hand and assured him, with tears in their eyes, of their loyalty. The officers then penned a number of addresses, declaring their confidence in Congress and abhorrence of a plot which they themselves had perpetrated. On April 18 Congress commuted the promised half pay for life to five years’ full pay, which the army accepted after the senior officers pressured their juniors that this was their only option. Even this sum was not immediately forthcoming: the best Congress could do was print new promissory notes equal to three months’ pay to enable the officers to return home as the army began to demobilize in June. Congress also referred the impost to the states, but it failed to pass when New York alone refused to assent. Within a month of the conspiracy’s failure, on April 15, General Henry Knox initiated the Society of the Cincinnati so that the officers could maintain their interests within the structure of American society. Yet what the soldiers looked upon as a reasonable, restrained means of ensuring they received justice, many of their countrymen would regard with suspicion as portending that very military government for which it was designed as a legal, republican substitute. William Pencak See also Benefits; Revolutionary War Veterans
Further Reading Ford, Worthington C., et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress 24:306–10. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–1937.
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Kohn, Richard H. ‘‘The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d’E´tat.’’ William and Mary Quarterly (3rd ser.), 27 (1970): 187–220.
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS ASSOCIATION (NCOA) The Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) is a congressionally chartered organization with the goal of improving the quality of life for noncommissioned officers and their families of all branches of the armed forces. It was created in 1960 and offers members benefits grouped into three categories: ‘‘Legislative Representation’’ to advocate the interests of noncommissioned officers and their families through the National Capital Office in Alexandria, Virginia; ‘‘Social Improvement Programs’’ to ensure their well-being while in service, in the transition to civilian life, and then in retirement; and finally ‘‘Affinity Programs’’ which obtain discounts for members from participating merchants. NCOA also lobbies Congress on behalf of members to ensure and enhance the quality of life of enlisted personnel in the military. Congress honored the group for its work by granting it a Congressional charter in 1988. Many member benefits fall under the Social Improvement Programs that benefit members and their families. Some benefits include the NCOA Scholarship Fund, which provides a scholarship to members’ children or spouses. In addition, a medical fund, disaster relief fund, and various employment aids exist to assist members and their families in times of need. The Affinity Programs category contains benefits that save
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members money. Some benefits include discounts at FedEx, hotel discounts, life insurance, and rental cars, as well as identity theft protection. NCOA has chapters to serve members around the world. The group also recognizes outstanding enlisted cadets in Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) through its award program, which presents deserving cadets with a certificate, ribbon, and medal. Overall, the NCOA provides senior enlisted persons with a great organization
that stands up for their interests and offers helpful benefits to members and their families. Daniel Sauerwein
Further Reading NCOA, Journal of the Non-Commissioned Officers Association, published since 1967. The Non-Commissioned Officers Association. www.ncoausa.org.
O the college newspaper, the Mac Weekly. In 1970—soon after his tour in Vietnam —O’Brien entered graduate school at Harvard University. Undoubtedly inspired by his war experience, he studied government and began a Ph.D. dissertation examining American military interventions. Although he never finished his dissertation, he served as an intern and national affairs reporter for the Washington Post and wrote his first three books during these years. Since 2003, O’Brien has taught regularly in the creative writing program at Texas State University. If O’Brien’s 1973 memoir and 1975 novel Northern Lights were well received critical successes, his 1978 novel, Going After Cacciato established him as a serious and award-winning writer. The novel focuses on Specialist Fourth Class Paul Berlin and his chaotic experiences during the Vietnam War. Berlin engages in an imaginary search with other members of his squad for Private Cacciato, a fellow soldier who has left the war to walk to Paris. The trek is an escape from the
O’BRIEN, TIM (1946–) Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran and the author of eight books, including his 1973 memoir If I Die in the Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home and his 1978 National Book Awardwinning novel Going After Cacciato. O’Brien was born October 1, 1946, in Austin, Minnesota, where he spent the first 10 years of his life before he and his family moved to nearby Worthington, Minnesota. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1968, where he served a 13-month tour as an infantryman, radio telephone operator, and clerk in the 46th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade in Vietnam. He earned a Combat Infantry Badge, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star. Before entering the army, O’Brien received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Macalester College in May 1968. While at Macalester, O’Brien became active in politics as student body president and a supporter of Eugene McCarthy. He also wrote a number of editorials against the Vietnam War for 307
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horrors of war into fantasy, the only true escape from the absurdity he experiences in battle. Over the next two decades O’Brien became synonymous with the Vietnam War. In 1985, he published The Nuclear Age, a novel whose protagonist is an anti-war veteran of the 1960s who cannot come to terms with his past, Vietnam, and what seems like America’s effort to forget about the war. Although O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (1990) and In the Lake in the Woods (1994) defy easy categorization, both address O’Brien’s broader concerns with the burden of memory and the deep psychological wounds of the war. In the aftermath of a war that cast such a large shadow over American life, O’Brien’s fiction seemed to tap into American anxieties in the post-Vietnam era. Many veterans identified with characters that faced the same dilemmas, challenges, and horrors during the war. At the same time his work gave voice to many disillusioned veterans and resonated powerfully with a generation of Americans ambivalent about the Vietnam War experience. Jeremy K. Saucier See also Literature and Veterans; Vietnam War Veterans
Further Reading O’Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Smith, Patrick A. Tim O’Brien: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.
OLDEST SURVIVING VETERANS The last recorded survivor of the American Revolution was John Gray, who died on March 29, 1868, near Hiramsburg, Ohio. He was born near Mount Vernon, Virginia, on January 6, 1764, and served only two and a half months in the Revolution, which did not entitle him to a pension. He enlisted in July 1781 in Virginia, and returned home following Cornwallis’ surrender that September. He finally received a pension of $500 a year in 1867 by special act of Congress. Other long-lived revolutionary veterans include Lemuel Cook of Clarendon, New York. He died on May 20, 1866, and was born on September 10, 1759, at Plymouth, Connecticut. He was a private in the Second Connecticut Light Dragoons. William Hutchins, born in York, Maine, in 1764, died in Penobscot in that state on May 3, 1866. He participated in the Fourth of July ceremonies in Bangor the year before he died. Daniel Waldo, born in Windham, Connecticut, on September 10, 1762, died on July 30, 1864; he became a Presbyterian clergyman and served as chaplain of Congress in 1855 and 1856. Hiram Cook, born on April 29, 1800, who died on May 13, 1905, was the last surviving veteran of the War of 1812. He was born in Frankfort, New York, and enlisted with his father and two brothers on August 4, 1814. He served in the defense of Sackett’s Harbor and was discharged after three months’ service. He obtained a pension of $12 a month, increased in 1903 to $25, and a special pension of $72 from New York state. He spent most of his life as a shoemaker, and chewed tobacco and drank
Oldest Surviving Veterans | 309 wine until he died. His death and funeral at New York’s City Hall were covered in major newspapers and, as a result, 25,000 people passed his coffin. Owen Thomas Edgar, who was born on June 17, 1831, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died on September 3, 1929, was the last surviving veteran of the Mexican War. He had served on the frigates USS Potomac and Allegheny during the war, after which he worked as a printer. He lived in Washington, DC, for the last 50 years of his life. Frederick Fraske, who was born on March 8, 1874, in Posen, Germany, and came to America at the age of three, died in Chicago, Illinois, on June 18, 1973; he was the last survivor of the Indian Wars. He lived in Chicago all his life except for the years he served as a first aid man and litter bearer with the cavalry in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the 1890s. He worked as a painter and then as a security guard until he was 88 years old. Nathan Edward Cook, born October 10, 1885, and died September 10, 1992, is one of two possible claimants to be the last surviving veteran of the Spanish-American War. Jones Morgan claimed to have been born on October 23, 1882, and who died on August 29, 1993, but his birth certificate was destroyed in a fire in 1912. An African American, Morgan enlisted at the age of 15 and took care of Theodore Roosevelt’s horses and did domestic duties at the Rough Riders’ camp in Cuba. His parents forced him to return home when he was 17. Morgan may have been a civilian employee of the army, which was why there were no records, along with the fact that he was underage. At any event, he attended the unveiling of the Buffalo Soldier memorial at Leavenworth, Kansas, at the age of 108, met President George H. W.
Bush, served as grand marshal of Veterans of Foreign Wars parades, and was a hero to the people of his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, in his old age. Apart from Morgan, the oldest survivor of the Spanish-American War was Jasper Garrison of Marion, Illinois, who died at the age of 107 on June 5, 1987, at the Veterans’ Hospital. He never smoked or drank. He was born on May 1, 1880, in Wayne County, Illinois, and enlisted in the Fourth Illinois Volunteers in June 1898. He spent nine months in Cuba during the war. The last authenticated surviving Civil War veteran was Albert Woolson, who died on August 2, 1856, at the age of 106. He enlisted at the age of 14 as a drummer in the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery on October 10, 1864, and never saw action. He was born in Antwerp, New York, but moved with his mother to Windom, Minnesota, where his mother went to accompany his father, who was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh and died in a military hospital. He lived most of his life in Duluth. When he heard that James Hard, the next-to-last Union veteran, had died on March 12, 1953, at the age of 111 in Rochester, New York, he stated that he felt ‘‘like a million’’ and promised to carry on ‘‘the highest traditions of Abe Lincoln’s forces until the very end’’ (The Last Veterans Obituaries). Woolson was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and that organization officially died when he did although its final encampment was held in 1949. Hard had enlisted at the age of 19 four days after the war broke out in April 1861 and served throughout the conflict, meeting President Lincoln twice. The last authenticated surviving Confederate veteran was Pleasant Riggs
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Crump, who was born on December 23, 1847, in Crawford’s Cove, Alabama, and died on December 31, 1951, in Lincoln, Alabama. He enlisted in the Tenth Alabama Infantry in November 1864, and witnessed Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox. The claims of John Salling and Walter Williams, who survived longer, to be Confederate veterans were later discredited. The final surviving U.S. veteran of World War I is Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia, who was born on February 1, 1901, and drove an ambulance on the Western Front. He was anxious to get to the front and was told by his recruiter the fastest way to do so was to join the ambulance corps. He was
a civilian in the Philippines when World War II broke out, and he spent 39 months in a Japanese prison camp. He has lived all his life on his family’s cattle farm. On March 8, 2008, he was greeted by President Bush at the White House and given a tour of Washington, DC. William Pencak
Further Reading CNN.com. ‘‘Last Surviving World War I Vet Honored by President’’ March 8, 2008. www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/07/ war.veteran/index.html. The Last Veterans, Biographies and Obituaries. http://genealogytrails.com/main/ lastveteranobits.html#hard.
P and in 1958 held an official founding dinner, with the 11 survivors present at the original meeting in 1954, all being proclaimed the Founding Fathers of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Other founders were Clarence Bonn, George Haines Jr., Raymond LeBer, George Schafer, and James C. Taneyhill. Soon after this gathering, it was decided to search out others who had been at or near Pearl Harbor, either as service personnel or as civilians. At a dinner held on December 7, 1960, it was decided to form an organizational caucus, and the first organizational convention was held on December 7, 1961, at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California, with 300 survivors attending. Most wore Hawaiian shirts which soon became a major feature of the meetings. Mark Ferris was elected president, James Daw first vice president, and Clarence ‘‘Smiley’’ Bond second vice president, with Dan McCarthy donating a newly designed Pearl Harbor Survivors flag. The event received much attention in the press and in veterans’
PEARL HARBOR SURVIVORS ASSOCIATION Founded in 1958, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association was formed for people who were in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during the Japanese bombing of the port and nearby areas on December 7, 1941. The idea to establish the group came from a meeting of some survivors of the attack on December 7, 1954, at the Del Camino Room, in Gardena, California. The founder was Mark Ferris, the editor of the Gardena Tribune, who had been covering the reunion of men from the USS West Virginia. Ferris had been a member of the 72nd Bomb Squadron at Hickam Field during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He invited Ed Staffa; Louis P. Smith; two brothers, Edward ‘‘Eddy’’ Kronberger and Robert ‘‘Bob’’ Kronberger; and their father, Samuel ‘‘Sam’’ Kronberger, to that meeting. They decided to commemorate Pearl Harbor with an annual gathering 311
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circles, and on December 7, 1962, more than 1,000 survivors attended the convention held at the Lafayette Hotel in Long Beach, California. This saw the constitution ratified by members and Mark Ferris elected as the first national president, Joseph T. Toker first vice president, James Daw second vice president, Ted Nicolai treasurer, and Robert Farnham the association’s secretary. The motto was established as ‘‘Remember Pearl Harbor—Keep America Alert—Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.’’ Incorporated under the laws of the state of California, the association was recognized by the U.S. Congress in 1985. Senator Bob Dole and actor Tom Hanks started helping with collecting funds to build a memorial. Subsequently the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors was established. On December 3–8, 2001, the association met at the ALA Moana Hotel in Oahu to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, with another large gathering in Hawaii on December 7, 2006. This was compared to the 1938 American Civil War gathering at Gettysburg which was considered the ‘‘last hurrah’’ for Civil War veterans. Justin Corfield See also Reunions; Civil War Veterans; World War II Veterans
Further Reading McKinley, Jesse. ‘‘Final Hawaii Reunion for Pearl Harbor Veterans.’’ New York Times, December 8, 2006. Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. www .pearlharborsurvivorsonline.org/html/ events.htm.
PEEKSKILL RIOT African American singer, athlete, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson (1898–1976) was outspoken in his admiration for the Soviet Union and what he believed was the equality it had achieved for all people, including its handful of black citizens, by the 1940s. He had made this announcement only a few months before the riot of 1949. He had also been active in founding and raising money for two organizations considered subversive by the House Un-American Activities Committee: the Council on African Affairs and the Civil Rights Congress. Peekskill, New York, is a small city on the Hudson River about 90 miles north of New York and was a frequent vacation retreat for left-wing New Yorkers. Robeson had previously given three concerts there and was planning to offer one on August 27, 1949, to benefit the Civil Rights Congress, which had just successfully appealed the conviction of six black New Jersey men sentenced to death for murder. Spurred on by articles in the Peekskill Evening Star, a conservative, antiunion paper, the veterans’ groups in the area planned to picket the concert which was scheduled for the nearby Hollow Brook Country Club, which had been abandoned. Leonard Rubenfeld, a state supreme court justice and head of the local Jewish War Veterans (see Jewish Veterans) and chairman of the Joint Veterans Committee for the city, and Milton Flynt, head of the local American Legion post, boasted that they had successfully deterred the concert-goers and Robeson himself from appearing by showing up armed with baseball bats
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Veterans protesting a scheduled concert by left-wing singer Paul Robeson march down a road alongside the grounds of a former golf club about four miles northeast of Peekskill, New York, on September 4, 1949. [AP Photo]
and rocks. Interestingly, the last time the local veterans had prevented a meeting was when the Ku Klux Klan attempted to stage a rally in nearby Verplanck. The following week, on September 4, the concert was in fact held. Over 2,000 union members from New York City appeared, wearing insignia and identifying uniforms and carrying baseball bats to counter similar weapons. Some 20,000 people attended the concert, which itself went off without incident. As the spectators were leaving, however, state troopers and local police officers did nothing as the veterans and other locals pelted cars and buses with rocks and bats and pulled some people from their vehicles and beat them. One estimate is that about 145 people were injured.
An investigation into the riot ordered by Governor Thomas Dewey exonerated the veterans and the authorities and blamed the incident on the provocations of Communists. No one was arrested or punished. William Pencak
Further Reading Courtney, Steve. ‘‘The Robeson Riot of 1949.’’ The Reporter Dispatch (White Plains, New York), September 5, 1982. www.bencourtney.com/peekskillriots. Fast, Howard. Peekskill USA. New York: Civil Rights Congress, 1951. www.trussel.com/hf/pka3.htm. Walwik. Joseph. ‘‘Paul Robeson, Peekskill and the Red Menace.’’ In Paul Robeson:
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Pensions, Civil War Life and Legacy, edited by Joseph Dorinson and William Pencak. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004.
PENSIONS, CIVIL WAR In February 1862, the Union granted pensions to disabled veterans as a direct consequence of military service or injuries or disease traceable to it. Termed one of the wisest and kindest pieces of legislation ever passed by any nation by Secretary of the Interior J. P. Usher, the law determined pensions by both rank and disability. Lieutentant colonels or those ranked higher received a maximum of $30 per month and a private $8, with other ranks rated in between. Partial disabilities were compensated ‘‘proportionately,’’ with specifics laid down in 1864: for instance, a soldier who lost both hands or eyes received $25 monthly, the loss of an arm above the elbow $15, with ‘‘equivalent’’ injuries to be determined by doctors and the Pension Bureau. Congress later raised the amounts from time to time. One dependent member of each family of a deceased soldier (at first only widows, orphans, sisters, and mothers, but later brothers and fathers) could receive an amount equal to a totally disabled soldier of that rank: in 1873 additional benefits passed for each dependent child. At first, relatively few veterans and dependents applied for pensions. For instance, of 1,654,000 surviving veterans as of 1875, only 107,114 had received military pensions, 6.48 percent of the total, or only about 43 percent of those eligible. Similarly, only about a quarter of the survivors of the Union dead applied. Although these figures exclude the fact 28 percent of applicants were turned down by the Pension Bureau, most of those eligible for federal assistance did not apply. Relatively young,
healthy, and employed men, or women who remarried and found other means of support, probably shared the nineteenth-century belief that public or private charitable assistance was a last resort deserved only by those who could not support themselves at all. Despite logical predictions that Civil War pensions and applicants had peaked by the early 1870s, in fact the number of pensions increased to a maximum of 741,259 by 1890: as late as 1915, 396,370, over 93 percent of surviving veterans at the time, were collecting them. Sums spent increased from under $40 million in 1875 to a fairly steady rate of between $140 and $170 million per annum between 1890 and 1920, or about one-fourth of all federal revenues. Confederate veterans never received any national pensions. The pension rolls grew thanks to three laws. In 1879 Congress passed the Arrears Act, which allowed that soldiers who had developed disabilities in the years since the war were entitled to back pensions dating back to the war. Dependents similarly could collect back to the time when the bread-winning veterans died. Unlike future bills that received only partisan support from the Republican Party and the Grand Army of the Republic, almost all northern Democrats joined with the Republicans in supporting the Arrears Act (the House of Representatives was Democraticcontrolled when the bill passed, and the GAR had yet to become powerful). The Arrears Act stemmed in part from genuine concern because pension attorneys— limited by federal law to collecting $10 per pension—canvassed the country to alert veterans and dependents to their eligibility, as they could only prosper if they handled a large number of cases.
Pensions, Civil War The Arrears Act, however, opened the door to even more problems, especially after Congress turned down the ‘‘Sixty Surgeon Pension Bill,’’ a civilservice style reform that Commissioner of Pensions J. A. Bentley had been urging for years. Here 60 surgeons, aided by clerks and two commissioners, would have the final word, after examining the evidence, regarding whether anyone was entitled to a pension or not. Applicants had to prove wartime disabilities, which the Pension Bureau had to approve. During the 1880s, thanks to the role of the GAR and the continued presence of pension attorneys, the Pension Bureau was deluged with cases. This meant letters from physicians, friends, and former officers to prove a wartime connection. Support from appropriate political and business leaders, whether the disabilities were genuine or not, guaranteed results. By the late 1880s, congressmen were forwarding over 150,000 requests a year to the overworked bureau. When that failed, applicants turned to Congress, and nearly half the legislation passed by Congress consisted of private laws granting pensions to particular individuals overruling the bureau. (Democratic President Grover Cleveland holds the record for the most vetoes by any president, largely for refusing these laws.) Undoubtedly, too, the beginning of federal civil service reform (following the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by an office-seeker) contributed to the increase, as all federal jobs could no longer be given to veterans as patronage. Furthermore, once the GAR began to help veterans with their cases under the Arrears Act—it established its own pension bureau in Washington, DC,
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in 1881—it grew to about 360,000 members (about 39 percent of surviving veterans) by 1890, its peak strength, and became an important arm of the Republican Party. In 1890 the Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. The Dependent Pension Act of 1890 allowed any honorably discharged veteran who had served 90 days in the Union army—whether in combat or not—and was disabled through manual labor—whether during military service or not—to collect a disability pension. In effect, since nearly everyone suffered some serious injury at some point in life, or became too old to work, veterans’ pensions approached nearly universal old age pensions, but only for Union ex-servicemen and their relatives. In 1906, any veteran reaching the age of 62—‘‘which shall be considered a permanent specific disability within the meaning of the pensions laws’’—could receive federal funds. More Union veterans and their relatives received pensions than the entire number of aged people in Great Britain, and at three times the cost. There, old-age pensions had become universal in 1913. Abuses of pensions, while not the rule, became more frequent as time went on. Elderly men married young women who soon became their widows: the last surviving Civil War ‘‘widow,’’ Alberta Martin, died on May 31, 2004, having married her 84-year-old husband at the age of 24 in 1927. Men claiming to be veterans suddenly turned up well into the twentieth century, adopting the identities of deceased veterans with the endorsement of their communities. By the twentieth century, Union Civil War veterans received the best pensions
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in the world. They became eligible at age 62 (still acceptable for reduced Social Security retirement payments), whereas in Europe outside Denmark (where it was 60) the age was 70, far above the average age of death. Moreover, the average payments to Union veterans and widows had reached $140 per month, whereas in Britain they were $65 and in Germany $40. About onefifth of all elderly Northerners received pensions by 1910, with the highest concentrations (naturally) in New England and the Midwest, those areas that supported the Civil War most strongly, and the lowest in urban, predominantly Catholic areas, where the urban machines fulfilled many functions of the modern welfare state. Confederate veterans were less fortunate. Their benefits, following in the wake of those offered to Union soldiers, were always limited to the servicedisabled and poor and were obtained by passing higher taxes onto the citizens of the nation’s poorest states. Fewer than 20 percent of all Confederate veterans ever obtained assistance, and at a rate of about a fifth of the sums allotted to Union veterans. Furthermore, all the Union states except six added to the pensions granted by the federal government. In Massachusetts, for instance, by 1915 the average pensioner received $125 from the state in addition to $190 from the federal government (see Confederate Veterans Associations). The same was true of care for the disabled. In 1865, the federal government established the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Washington, DC. Ultimately there were nine branches. Dependents could use these homes as well. As the veterans with severe wartime disabilities died off and others recovered,
veterans were admitted regardless of how they became disabled, a practice institutionalized in 1884. Twenty-eight states also established homes by 1890, and Congress paid them $100 per year for each soldier they housed beginning in 1888. All 11 Confederates states also established homes, but with far less support: by 1910, 5 percent of all union veterans and only 1 percent of Confederates were living in homes (see Veterans’ Homes). Union pensions came in for a great deal of criticism, most of it connected with the political influence of the Grand Army of the Republic, which became a target of civil service and Progressive reform. Pensions did not always aid the neediest. Defenders insisted that soldiers had earned their benefits, that they were not charity and at best partial compensation for the sacrifices endured. Also, they spread the burden of supporting the disabled equitably throughout the nation, taking the burden off local sources that supported most charities at the time. With the Republicans in control of either the presidency or at least one house of Congress until the 1930s, benefits for Union veterans continued to rise until the inevitable deaths lowered them in the twentieth century. William Pencak
Further Reading Dearing, Mary. Veterans in Politics: The Story of the GAR. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952. Skocpol, Theda. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA. Belknap Press, 1992. White, William. The Confederate Veteran. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company, 1962.
Philippine War Veterans
PHILIPPINE WAR VETERANS Unlike the Spanish-American War, which lasted a little over eight months in 1898, it took the United States three years to put down the uprising in the Philippines that followed. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine revolution against Spain, had fought with the Americans in the hopes that this cooperation would gain independence. The United States, however, fearing some other nation would seize the islands—there were French, British, and German warships in the vicinity—decided to keep the islands until it deemed the people ready to rule themselves. This was a controversial decision which led opponents of annexation, led by Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, to charge the United States was replacing Spain as an imperialist power. Hostilities between the Philippine army and the United States broke out on February 4, 1899, when a U.S. sentry fired on some Filipinos who approached his position. The war degenerated into a guerrilla conflict with torture and massacre on both sides; between 200,000 and 500,000 Filipinos were killed before the war ended following Aguinaldo’s capture in March 1902. American casualties were 1,053 killed in battle, 3,220 deaths from other causes (mostly tropical diseases), and 2,840 wounded, almost twice those from fighting the Spanish. Another 130 Americans died and 300 were wounded between 1902 and 1913 putting down continued resistance from the Moros (Muslims; most Filipinos were Catholics). Veterans of the Philippine conflict formed four organizations. The Colorado
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Society, Army of the Philippines, began in Denver on December 1, 1899. It was organized by a West Point graduate, Brigadier General Irving Hale, commander of the First Colorado Volunteer Regiment—all military personnel in the Philippines were volunteers. More than a thousand men from every state west of the Mississippi, along with Tennessee and Pennsylvania, attended the first general meeting on August 13, 1900. It then changed its name to the National Association of the Army of the Philippines and to the Army of the Philippines on October 5, 1905. By this time it had 1,314 members and the president for 1906 was General Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur, who had commanded the troops in the Philippines. Unlike the other societies formed at this time, it only admitted men who had fought in the Philippines but allowed their sons to join as well to perpetuate the organization. Three basically Philippine but more inclusive veterans’ groups also formed in Pennsylvania. Two named the Philippine War Veterans were organized respectively in Altoona on July 7, 1901 and Pittsburgh on October 13, 1901, the latter changing its name to Foreign Service Veterans in 1902. Taking account as well of the Americans who assisted in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China during 1900 (in which 53 Americans were killed in battle, 51 died of other causes, and 253 were wounded), Philadelphia veterans called the society they formed on July 24, 1902 the American Veterans of Philippine and China Wars. Captain Robert S. Hansbury led the Philadelphians, whose constitution pledged ‘‘to preserve and strengthen the fraternity among the membership; to assist worthy comrades and their widows
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and orphans: to perpetuate the memory and history of our dead and to maintain true allegiance to the United States of America and fidelity to its Constitution and laws.’’ In 1903 the three Pennsylvania groups met in Altoona, merged, and changed their name to the American Veterans of the Philippine, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and China Wars to signify the inclusion of veterans who had fought against Spain. They simplified their name to the American Veterans of Foreign Service (AVFS) that September and began publishing a magazine of that name. In 1904, they learned for the first time about the society with the same name formed in 1899 in Columbus, Ohio, by veterans of the war against Spain (see SpanishAmerican War Veterans). The two joined together in September 1905; as of 1910 the AVFS had 1,203 members who belonged to 34 ‘‘camps.’’ The Army of the Philippines, however, had adopted a rule requiring every single member of that society to consent to any merger. Nevertheless, despite a few holdouts, the vast majority approved of joining the AVFS on August 20, 1913. The temporary name adopted on that date, the Army of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, became the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States at the group’s next meeting on August 1, 1914. William Pencak
Further Reading Kramer, Paul Alexander. The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2006. Wecter, Dixon. When Johnny Comes Marching Homes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1944.
POLISH LEGION OF AMERICAN VETERANS At the end of World War I, many U.S. exservicemen of Polish descent and ancestry decided to establish veterans’ organizations in part for social and cultural reasons, but also to support President Woodrow Wilson’s policy for the establishment of an independent Poland. The first meeting to set up an association took place in a small cottage in Hawthorne, Illinois, where First Lieutenant Michael Komorowski decided to found the Alliance of Polish-American Veterans. It was established in Illinois in the summer of 1920, drawing members from Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The association held a provisional convention in December 1920, and in September of the following year held its first regular convention, changing its name to the Alliance of American Veterans of Polish Extraction. In September 1923, a Ladies Legion was formed as an auxiliary, and in 1930 the Alliance of American Veterans of Polish Extraction sent its commander, Stanley A. Halick, a machinist who lived in Chicago, to New York City where the Polish Legion of the American Army was meeting along with a unit from Michigan. The three met in September 1931 and merged to form the Polish Legion of American Veterans. The Polish Legion was granted a Federal Charter by President Ronald Reagan on July 23, 1984. However, in 1992 it dropped from its requirements of membership any restrictions which only allowed those of Polish ancestry to join. In fact to join, a prospective member only has to be an American citizen who has served in the U.S. armed forces,
Politics, Veterans in National Guard, or reserves, and has received an honorable discharge, or who is current member of the armed forces, National Guard, or reserves. In addition, American citizens who served in the Merchant Marine, Navy Transportation of Department of Defense during World War II were also allowed to join, along with American citizens who, between 1917 and 1975, had served in the armed forces of a U.S. ally in World War I. Part of the role of the Polish Legion of American Veterans has been to help commemorate the role of Poles in U.S. military history. Casimir Pulaski (1747– 1779) and Thaddeus Kosciuszko (1756– 1817) both fought in the American War of Independence and were commemorated by Polish postage stamps issued in 1976. General Joseph Karge´ (1823– 1892), General Wladimir Kryzanowski (1824–1887), and Captain Alexander Bielawski served in the Civil War. Of the many other people of Polish heritage who have served the United States in World War I, Sergeant John J. Czajka is probably the most well known, when on November 13, 1917, he became one of the first group of American soldiers to die in World War I when on patrol. Ten Americans of Polish ancestry received the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II and one posthumously received the Medal of Honor for service in Korea. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Jakubiak, Piotr. Polish Legions in the First World War 1914–1917. Ottawa: Piotr Jakubiak, 2002. Polish Legion of American Veterans. www.plav.org.
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POLITICS, VETERANS IN Revolutionary War Veterans The nature of veterans’ participation in politics arose as the American Revolution was ending. The Continental Army officers formed the Society of the Cincinnati as a hereditary society in 1783, shortly after they had organized to threaten Congress with a coup d’etat (see the Newburgh Conspiracy) if they were not paid. Although most did not intend to follow through and overthrow the government on the threat and George Washington put a stop to the machinations, fear arose that veterans would be involved in a military takeover or, at the very least, organize themselves to plunder the Republic legally after they obtained public office. By the twentieth century, in fact, a reverse opinion that now carries considerable credence has replaced it: competent and successful soldiers, especially if they are not connected with politicians (who have become somewhat disreputable) in fact make superior candidates and administrators having demonstrated leadership abilities and disinterested patriotism. Fears of military domination did not come true, in part because nearly all troops left for home as quickly as possible after the Revolution, because Washington insisted the Cincinnati restrict itself to memorial and social gatherings, and because military service did not carry that much of an advantage in obtaining office. In several states, leading generals became governors after the Revolution, but state executives did not have great power—in many cases, they were denied the veto and limited to a number of terms by the new constitutions fearing executive power.
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Leading generals who did attain important posts were John Sullivan, governor of New Hampshire, 1786–1788 and 1789– 1790, William Moultrie, governor of South Carolina, 1785–1787 and 1795–1797, Richard Caswell, victor over the state’s loyalists at Moore’s Creek in North Carolina, governor from 1776 to 1780, and William Smallwood (1785–1788) and John Eager Howard (1788–1791), governors of Maryland. Howard was a U.S. senator from 1797 to 1803. The Federalists ran him for vice president in 1816 in an election Rufus King lost overwhelmingly to James Madison, just as the presence of General Charles Coatesworth Pinckney on the ticket failed to secure victory for John Adams in 1800, when they narrowly lost to Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. (See also Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas.) Of course, George Washington was the most distinguished veteran to hold public office on account of his Revolutionary service. Washington was aware of the public fears of a takeover by veterans in the manner of the Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome—the antithesis of the general Cincinnatus who protected his country and returned home—and acted to assuage it. He did not associate the presidency with military insignia or artifacts, and made sure (as he had when he commanded the Continental Army) that he neither used his influence to endorse political candidates—he made a friend who ran for Congress in Maryland deny such an endorsement took place—and observed the careful limits of his office by making sure Congress approved his policies. The first president did choose two of his most able subordinates, General Henry Knox, as secretary of war, and Colonel Alexander Hamilton, as secretary of the treasury.
War of 1812 Veterans As more states chose their presidential electors by popular vote and fewer by the state legislatures (the last to change was South Carolina in 1860), it became more important for candidates to have popular appeal than influence with the more elite representatives. Andrew Jackson won the presidency, the first candidate of the modern Democratic Party, in 1828 and 1832 based on his overwhelming victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 even though it was militarily meaningless, the peace treaty having been signed two weeks before. His campaign song, ‘‘The Hunters of Kentucky,’’ was all about the battle and the overwhelming defeat of ‘‘John Bull in Pomp.’’ Senator Henry Clay, one of his three opponents, complained that ‘‘I cannot believe . . . that killing 2,500 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various, difficult and complicated duties of chief magistrate’’ (Boller 2004, 36). In 1836, the Whigs tried a military hero of their own, former Senator William Henry Harrison of Indiana, who had defeated the Indians in the Northwest Territories decisively at Tippecanoe in 1811 and again in Canada at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. He lost that year but won overwhelmingly in 1840. While stressing that Harrison was born in a log cabin to give him the common touch (he was actually the son of a wealthy plantation owner who signed the Declaration of Independence), his military service figured most prominently as his slogan called him ‘‘Tippecanoe’’ with (John) ‘‘Tyler too’’ added for his vice president. With no effect, the Democrats called him ‘‘Granny Harrison, the Petticoat
Politics, Veterans in General,’’ both due to his age (he was 68) and because he resigned his commission before the War of 1812 before resuming it to win his victories. His supporters forbade him from speaking on any important issues, of which he knew little. He served only one month, however, having caught pneumonia by giving a long inaugural address in bad weather.
Mexican War Veterans The war with Mexico led to a spate of Whig and Democrat generals challenging each other for the White House, as both sides hoped to nominate candidates who would not alienate either section by having pronounced views on slavery. In 1848, General Zachary Taylor, the commanding general of the U.S. Army that invaded northern Mexico, did not belong to either party and was not known to have voted more than once when he was nominated by the Whigs. The Democrats unsuccessfully selected William Orlando Butler, Taylor’s second-in-command, as their candidate for vice president. While
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Democratic campaign posters were careful that Butler was depicted in his uniform, Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln made fun of the Democratic nominee, Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, for breaking his sword ‘‘in desperation’’ rather than surrendering it to the British in the unsuccessful defense of Detroit during the War of 1812. Throwing consistency and recent memories of Andrew Jackson to the winds, the Democrats castigated Taylor as a ‘‘military autocrat’’ who swore at his troops and hoped to lead the nation in another war to add to his martial glory. Four years later, Democrats mocked the commander of the major army that took Mexico City, the Whig Winfield Scott, as ‘‘Old Fuss and Feathers’’ (he was 66 years old), a career soldier who ‘‘grew up with epaulettes on his shoulders . . . a canteen on his back, and a breastplate on his REAR’’ (Boller 2004, 88). Scott was defeated by the amiable Democrat New Hampshire General Franklin Pierce, despite the fact that he had a drinking problem (the Whigs
A political cartoon suggesting that General William Henry Harrison’s military experience did not fit him for the presidency, but instead made him a likely puppet of Whig Senator Daniel Webster (left) and Congressman Henry Wise (right). [American cartoon print filing series, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-14982]
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called him ‘‘the hero of many a bottle’’), and his supposed fainting in combat (his horse had tripped and thrown him) became a major campaign issue. Scott lost largely because the Whig Party had already divided sharply on the issue of slavery. In 1856, with the Whig party having disappeared, the new Republicans nominated General John C. Fremont, a strong antislavery candidate whose popular appeal lay in the fact that he had seized California during the Mexican War. Although Democrat James Buchanan won the entire South and three northern states enabling him to become president, the Republicans in their first campaign, much like the Democrats had in 1824, realized that a war hero who had not offended a significant wing of the party through political activity was the best candidate.
Civil War Veterans The critical election of 1860 saw no military candidates as each of the four men who ran had a specific position on slavery that attracted or repelled much of the nation. In 1864, the Democratic Party in the North ran General George McClellan, twice commander of the principal Union army of the Potomac, as the peace candidate against Republican Abraham Lincoln. He won 45 percent of the vote and only two states, but would have done considerably better if Union victories in 1864 had not arrived in a timely fashion. From 1868 until 1900, the Republican Party waved the ‘‘bloody shirt’’ and tainted its rival with ‘‘Romanism and Rebellion.’’ Republicans and the veterans’ organization the Grand Army of the Republic that was their major political arm, linked the Democratic Party with
both the Irish immigrants—many of whom had opposed the war and who comprised much of that party’s urban constituency—and their Catholic religion as an alien force that sought to overthrow the republic. (It did not help that Pope Pius IX was a defender of monarchical authority who officially received Confederate envoys.) Ulysses S. Grant was the logical candidate in 1868, and won reelection in 1872 even after his administration’s corruption became a national scandal. Democrats tried without success to link his military record with his support for African American rights in the song ‘‘I Am Captain Grant of the Black Marines/The Stupidest Man That Ever Was Seen.’’ His successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, was an Ohio brigadier general who was wounded three times and had four horses shot out from under him during the war. The most famous speech of the campaign by orator Robert Ingersoll—candidates did not campaign personally in those days— proclaimed that ‘‘Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat!’’ (Boller 2004, 134). Hayes’s personal bravery as well as the Republicans’ reputation as the party of unity were both stressed in the campaign. In 1880, the Democrats decided to nominate a war hero of their own, Winfield Scott Hancock, whose command of the second corps at the Battle of Gettysburg was critical in the victory and who was universally respected by the army. An incorruptible man in a corrupt age who had shown little interest in politics, he lost to Republican James A. Garfield by 7,000 popular votes out of over 4,000,000 cast; Garfield himself had been a successful major general during the war. (Hancock went on to serve as
Politics, Veterans in president of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.) Nevertheless, Republicans branded Hancock a traitor to the cause for which he fought because he favored conciliating the South: ‘‘The Northern [war] debt let us forget,/you want repudiation; And eighty thousand soldiers rebs/We’ll pension on the nation’’ (Boller 2004, 145). 1884 was the first election since 1860 in which neither party ran a former general for president. The Democrats were able to elect New York Governor Grover Cleveland despite the fact that he had hired a man (a convict, the Republicans falsely charged) to serve for him in the Civil War (and also admitted to fathering and supporting an illegitimate child) over Maine Senator James G. Blaine in 1884, who spent the war in Congress. In the final week of the campaign, Blaine sat on a platform where the Reverend Samuel G. Burchard accused the Democrats of being the party of ‘‘Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion’’—Blaine lost New York, a state with a large Catholic population, by a narrow margin and thus the election. But Blaine’s running mate, John A. Logan, was a war hero who had first served as a representative and senator from Illinois as well as National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Four years later, Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated Cleveland. Cleveland angered Union veterans by vetoing a record number of bills—mostly private pension bills for influential veterans— and returning captured Civil War flags to the former Confederate states. Harrison defeated him in 1888 and an improved pension bill for Union veterans passed Congress (see Pensions, Civil War). Cleveland won his third match with Harrison in 1892.
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The last Civil War veteran to become president was William McKinley, who was barely 18 years old when he enlisted in 1861 as a private, but was noticed by his commander Rutherford B. Hayes and ended the war as a brevet major. His military career was not an issue, though, in the election of 1896 when the question of remaining on the gold standard and economic recovery from the Depression of 1893 were at stake. The SpanishAmerican War, fought in 1898, did lead to placing Theodore Roosevelt, the leader of the ‘‘Rough Riders’’ who had taken San Juan Hill in Cuba from the Spanish, on the ticket as McKinley’s running mate in 1900. A political maverick whose ideas about government intervention on behalf of the unfortunate frightened party leaders, Roosevelt had been elected governor of New York based on his military record and was ‘‘kicked upstairs’’ to what was considered the harmless position of vice president. That changed, of course, after McKinley’s assassination, when ‘‘that damned cowboy,’’ as the boss of his own Republican party Robert Hanna called him, became president. In the late-nineteenth century, veterans both North and South used their military credentials to win elections. For instance, political leaders in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most corrupt (and unshakeably Republican) state in the nation, ran former generals and military heroes for governor while the political bosses, U.S. Senators Simon Cameron and Matthew Quay, dominated the state. Even Quay, who proudly confessed his underhanded tactics in managing Harrison’s successful presidential campaign in 1888, had won the Congressional Medal of Honor at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
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hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, was the first governor of Maine elected after the war (1867–1871). Even unsuccessful generals could be good politicians. The popular Ambrose Burnside, after serving as president of the Grand Army of the Republic and first president of the National Rifle Association, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island in 1880 and made chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, although he died shortly after he took office. Benjamin Franklin Butler of Massachusetts had no trouble winning election to Congress (1867–1875, 1877– 1879) but lost five election bids to become governor of Massachusetts until he finally won in 1882. New York’s General Daniel Sickles, who lost a leg at Gettysburg and nearly lost the battle by advancing his corps ahead of the army, served as Ambassador to Spain (1867– 1874) and as a congressman from New York from 1893 to 1895. Sickles was instrumental in having the Gettysburg Battlefield preserved as a national monument. The same was true in the South. Wade Hampton of South Carolina served twice as the state’s governor—once Reconstruction came to an end—and as one of its U.S. Senators until his death in 1891. Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of General Robert E. Lee, was governor of Virginia from 1886 to 1890 and then served as a U.S. general in the Spanish-American War. General John Brown Gordon governed Georgia from 1886 to 1890. All of these men remained true to the Democratic Party, but Lee’s second-in-command General James Longstreet, stung by charges that his incompetence had lost the Battle of Gettysburg, became a Republican, endorsed Grant for president in 1868, and promptly received a job as
customs collector of the port of New Orleans, the largest in the South. He ultimately became minister to Turkey and served as U.S. commissioner of railroads under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt (see Confederate Veterans Associations).
World War I Veterans World War I veterans did not have much success in obtaining the highest political offices. Most notably, General Leonard Wood, a leader in the preparedness movement and close associate of Theodore Roosevelt, failed to be nominated at the Republican convention in 1920. (Roosevelt wanted to run and probably would have been nominated by the Republicans, who won overwhelmingly with a nobody—Harding). Two years later, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. lost a bid to become governor of New York to Democrat Al Smith. The younger Roosevelt was one of the founders of the American Legion. Fears that veterans would use their influence to inflate pensions as the Grand Army of the Republic had done was part of the reason veterans failed to make an impact on the political scene in the 1920s and 1930s as they had after the Civil War. Yet communities were much more likely to honor their own veterans with political office: by World War II, 164 members of Congress were World War I veterans. Still, there was some connection between veterans and politics. While neither the Veterans of Foreign Wars nor the American Legion formally endorsed candidates, neither hesitated to praise those who supported their policies and condemn those who did not. Candidates spoke to state and national conventions: it is customary for the presidential
Politics, Veterans in candidates of both major parties to address both major veterans’ national conventions to this day. It is also true that nearly every eligible lawmaker joins both organizations: in the years when most American men were World War II veterans, about two-thirds of Congress belonged to one or both groups. Veterans’ organizations became involved in politics during the interwar period. First, they facilitated passage of the Veterans Bureau (see Veterans Administration) and veterans’ hospitals on the national level, along with payments for disabilities and numerous state and local veterans’ benefits (such as civil service preference). Second, they endorsed the Bonus (adjusted compensation)— the VFW at once, the Legion reluctantly —and then during the Depression pressured Congress and the presidents to pay it immediately rather than in 1945 (see Bonus March). But there were too many Democrats and Republicans in the Legion and VFW for either organization to come out strongly for or against a particular administration. The American Legion National Commander in 1932, Louis Johnson, a Democrat, successfully worked to keep his organization from denouncing the Roosevelt administration for massively slashing benefits: he became Roosevelt’s secretary of war in 1940. James Van Zandt, commander of the VFW, was elected to Congress from Pennsylvania as a Republican largely due to his campaign for payment of the Bonus money.
World War II Veterans Eighty-eight members of Congress served in World War II, and 70 percent of the House of Representatives in the first postwar Congress were veterans.
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Veterans would be more involved in politics simply because most American men of military age were veterans. Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas, kept stateside to protect him, chafed for a combat assignment and was finally awarded a Silver Star after he was allowed to observe a bombing mission. Veterans’ measures such as the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act) were not political issues except for fine-tuning, but rather bipartisan gifts of a grateful nation. In the aftermath of the war, both parties seized the possibility of running young veterans for office to displace the aging establishments of the opposite party. Ninety members of Congress as of 1946 were World War veterans: one, Edward Martin of Pennsylvania, had served in the Spanish-American, World War I, and World War II, enlisting as a private, holding all ranks up to major general, and earning two Purple Hearts and two Distinguished Services Crosses. Massachusetts had always been an overwhelmingly Republican state, but a concerted effort by the Democrats in 1946 to nominate veterans led to ‘‘Tip’’ O’Neill and John F. Kennedy’s first political jobs in the state legislature. Senator Joseph McCarthy, the anticommunist crusader, won his senatorial campaign with the slogan ‘‘Wisconsin Needs a Tail Gunner in the Senate.’’ In southern California, Republicans placed an advertisement in local newspapers for a young veteran to oppose liberal Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas: they selected Richard Nixon from among 26 applicants. He campaigned in uniform as ‘‘Lieutenant Commander Richard M. Nixon.’’ In the aftermath of the war, however, it was the general who remained aloof from politics who succeeded politically.
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General Douglas MacArthur tried to rally support for his public opposition to President Truman during the Korean War in suggesting that a full-scale invasion of Communist China rather than a war limited to Korean soil was the appropriate response. Despite some support, the Republican Party did not take him seriously as a presidential contender, both because it feared a larger war and because he had violated the military’s traditional role of subordination to elected officials. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, was their nominee in 1952 over the political leader Robert Taft. Eisenhower was courted by both political parties as he had previously identified with neither. John F. Kennedy’s successful promotion of his World War II career in his book (most of it written by his advisor Theodore Sorenson) Profiles in Courage (1955) may have been one of the factors that led to his narrow victory over Republican Richard Nixon—a Quaker who had broken with his faith to serve in the military as well— in 1960. Military service was not an issue in a presidential campaign again until 1988, when the Republican campaign for George H. W. Bush was able to make fun of images of Democrat Michael Dukakis driving a tank with a helmet that seemed too big for his head. But the image, rather than the service, was the issue, and other matters (prosperity under eight years of Republican rule for middle- and upperclass Americans) decided the election. Similarly in 1992, war aviator Bush’s attempt to gain moral superiority over Democrat Bill Clinton, who had gone to graduate school at Oxford University in England to avoid service in the Vietnam War, did not matter much as the economy was in a tailspin. In 1996, Republican Nebraska Senator Robert Dole’s paralyzed
arm and war record did not help enable him to defeat Clinton as the economy improved.
Vietnam War Veterans Service records came to the fore in the 2004 presidential election, however. Democrats claimed that Republican George W. Bush, who had served in the Texas National Guard rather than the jungles of Southeast Asia, had evaded even this minimal commitment and missed tours of duty. Republicans not only pointed to the indisputable fact that Democrat Senator John Kerry had thrown his two decorations for bravery and three purple hearts back during a Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest in the 1970s—Kerry was a leader of the group—but also had lied about his deeds to achieve the decorations in the first place. A group of wealthy Texans, including the state’s largest Republican campaign donor, known as the ‘‘Swift Boat Republicans,’’ launched a nationwide advertising campaign to besmirch Kerry’s record, largely with affidavits from biased third parties. Two years earlier, Republican strategists had successfully defeated the reelection bid of Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a Vietnam veteran who lost both arms and a leg in combat, by picturing him with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden for failing to approve the president’s Homeland Security measures. In his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, Senator John McCain of Arizona made much of the five and a half years he endured as a prisoner of war in Hanoi during Vietnam. Son of a U.S. admiral, he could have been released quickly but refused to leave before other captives. His time in prison has been an
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder important element in his political rise, and he has impressed many voters with his patriotism and willingness to sacrifice for his country. McCain is not the only Vietnam veteran in Congress: in 1978, over a hundred veterans formed a caucus called Vietnam Veterans in Congress to work for issues relating to veterans of that war. Many of American’s most notable veterans refused to enter politics. The principal ones include Civil War General William T. Sherman of Ohio, who famously declared when asked if he would succeed Grant ‘‘if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.’’ General John Pershing remained aloof from politics following World War I, and following World War II General George C. Marshall preferred service in President Truman’s cabinet to political office. General Norman Schwarzkopf, leader of the Gulf War in 1989, has refused offers to run for the senate from Florida, as has Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who has refused to run for office after serving as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state. If anything, their unwillingness to become involved in what nearly every American regards as a more sordid occupation than military service has added to their stature. William Pencak See also Pensions, Civil War; Benefits; Bonus March; Afghan War Veterans; Gulf War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans
Further Reading Boller, Paul F., Jr. Presidential Campaigns, 2nd ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 2004. Davies, Wallace E. Patriotism on Parade: The Story of Veterans and Hereditary
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Associations in America, 1840–1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955. Dearing, Mary. Veterans in Politics: The Story of the GAR. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952. Polsby, Nelson, and Aaron Wildavsky. Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics, 12th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Fred L. Israel, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and William P. Hansen. Presidential Elections: 1789–2001, 4 vols. (New York: Chelsea House, 2001.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a diagnosis for conditions of many veterans and others used with increasing frequency since 1980. PTSD can be acquired from a wide range of trauma. It is often accompanied by other conditions and circumstances, such as mild traumatic brain injury and behavioral disorders. PTSD occurs when a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, in which death, serious injury, or extreme shock occurred (including auto accidents, earthquakes, rape, driving a truck through a minefield, or jumping out of a helicopter that was shot at). PTSD results when intense fear, helplessness, and horror is the reaction. It manifests itself by recurring dreams, flashbacks, or recollections of the event and intense distress at cues that might remind the sufferer of the event (loud sudden noises, for instance, reminding someone of gunshots). Reactions to these stimuli include trying to avoid thoughts or feelings related to the traumatic event (not thinking about the war, never trying
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to get close to people because a friend was killed, not watching war movies or going to Veterans Day parades). More general results include an inability to remember the trauma, feelings of estrangement from others, a general sense of indifference, and a sense that there is no future or the future does not matter. Only following the Vietnam War did the term post-traumatic stress disorder come into use. Previously, shell shock was the most common term for similar symptoms. Vietnam soldiers had a lower rate of psychological breakdown than veterans of previous wars: 12 per 1,000 as opposed to 37 per 1,000 in Korea and 28 per 1,000 in World War II. The reason is that tours of duty were fixed at one year, combat was intermittent for most men, rotation to bases where they were well-cared for was usual, and most troops (7:1) were not in combat. Nevertheless, by 1972 three-fifths of the troops who were evacuated for medical reasons were psychological cases, usually due to heroin addiction. Following Vietnam, the Veterans Administration at first regarded symptoms that later came to be considered PSTD as preexisting, and nonservice connected if they persisted for more than six months. Thus, many Vietnam War veterans received no help in adjusting to civilian life, and their homelessness and suicide rates were high. The term post-traumatic stress disorder originated in the 1970s, and was recognized officially as a disease in 1980 appearing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMIII) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Because of different psychological criteria and measurements, estimates of the number of
Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD has ranged between 50,000 and 1.5 million, or between 2 and 50 percent of the 3.14 million Americans who served in Vietnam. PTSD is now also one basis for receiving disability benefits claimed by U.S. war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has also been used as a defense to criminal charges. PTSD’s definition changed in the 1987 revision of DSM-III, and again in DSM-IV’s release in 1994. A major change between DSM-III and DSM-IV was the recognition that PTSD could be a ‘‘normal’’ reaction. The revised manual removed the requirement that PTSD come from trauma outside of ‘‘normal human experience.’’ PTSD’s definitions will likely change again with the release of DSM-V, expected in 2012 from the APA with input from the World Health Organization and World Psychiatric Association. The World Health Organization added PTSD to its International Classification of Diseases in ICD-10, adopted in 1992, to be succeeded by ICD-11 in 2015. Although having many similarities to PTSD in the DSM, the definitions are not identical. (For instance, in the ICD the symptoms of PTSD must occur within six months of the ‘‘stressor’’; the DSM does not have this requirement.) Most analysts perceive continuity between PTSD and earlier diagnoses such as ‘‘irritable heart’’ and ‘‘shell shock.’’ For instance, a 2008 press account referred to ‘‘so-called ‘shell shock’ or post-traumatic stress disorder.’’ The Vietnam conflict produced a focus on PTSD, sometimes described as ‘‘post-Vietnam Syndrome.’’ The exhaustive National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study includes detailed information on veterans with PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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A Vietnam veteran and former marine speaks during a veterans’ group counseling session at Vet Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 2003. Images streaming in from 24-hour news coverage of the war in Iraq remind many veterans of their service. Counselors point out similar symptoms among veterans of the Vietnam War, World War II, and the First Gulf War. [AP Photo/Marianne Armshaw]
Frequency of PTSD was much greater in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than in previous conflicts, with 15 to 20 percent of veterans reporting PTSD or related conditions. In 2005, worried about budget cuts and over 72,000 cases of veterans receiving disability payments for PTSD, the Department of Veterans Affairs had threatened to cease dealing with the problem until massive outcries by veterans’ associations and the public forced it to reconsider. Yet in 2006, the Government Accountability Office found that only about a fifth of troops identified as being at risk for PTSD were referred for a mental health examination. The government was only able to treat 20,000 out of 400,000 pending cases because the Veterans Administration had
failed to anticipate the extent of the problem. Treatment for PSTD usually involves an effort to get patients to rediscover and confront the trauma that originally led to the flashbacks and fears. This is either done in an individual or a group setting. It is thus an expensive and timeconsuming cure, with protracted counseling after the discovery is made. Government bureaus have dealt with PTSD unevenly and inconsistently. A 2008 Defense Department declaration that veterans with PTSD would be ineligible for the Purple Heart (awarded to soldiers wounded or killed during service) harkened back to distinctions according more legitimacy to wounds accompanied by blood than to
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psychological conditions. Gaps in disability, employment, and many other policies regarding PTSD confronted policymakers in Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Government attention to PTSD issues has been sporadic. Detection of PTSD and eligibility for benefits were fraught with delays, and criteria were frequently perceived as arbitrary. Courts considered cases of veterans ruled ineligible for benefits. Of the 19 (U.S.) Government Accountability Office reports dealing with PTSD and policy, the earliest was issued in 1987, the second in 1995, and reports were issued much more frequently during the twenty-first century. In the 110th Congress (2007–2008) a record 36 pieces of proposed legislation dealt with PTSD; in contrast, in the 1980s, little PTSD-explicit legislation was introduced. Most, though not all, of the PTSD legislative activity dealt with veterans’ issues. Two examples were the Veterans Health Care Act of 1984, introduced by Representative ‘‘Sonny’’ Montgomery (D-MS), that resulted in the 1989 creation of the National Center for PTSD and the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act (2007), introduced by Representative Leonard Boswell (D-IA). Veterans’ organizations smoothed the acceptance of new definitions and advocated (with mixed success) for the development of coherent policies. Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion were joined by activist organizations including the Winter Soldier Investigation, Vietnam Veterans of America, and Veterans for Common Sense. They gained recognition of multiple forms of long-lasting war neuroses, exposed major gaps in diagnosis and treatment, and promoted government aid to veterans with psychological disease.
Despite changing labels, veterans’ psychological conditions have raised common issues. These include pensions, access to health care, social support, and use of war. Because it raises vital concerns regarding veterans’ participation in society, PTSD was aptly described as the ‘‘signature injury’’ of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts and is likely to gain in importance in future analysis and policy-making. Arthur W. Blaser See also Benefits; Afghan War Veterans; Gulf War Veterans; Iraq War Veterans; Vietnam War Veterans; Veterans’ Hospitals
Further Reading Dean, Eric T., Jr. Shook Over Hell: PostTraumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Kulka, Richard A., et al. Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation: Report of Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. New York: Brunner/ Mazel, 1990. Lifton, Robert Jay. Home from the War: Learning from Vietnam Veterans. New York: Other Press, 2005. Military Veterans PTSD Reference Manual. www.ptsdmanual.com. Paulson, Daryl S., and Stanley Krippner. Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans Including Women, Reservists, and Those Coming Back from Iraq. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Tanielan, Terri, and Lisa H. Jaycox, eds. Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008. Young, Allan. The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Preferences in Government Employment
PREFERENCES IN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT Veterans’ preferences consist of legislative or administrative requirements at the federal level, in most states, and in many counties and municipalities. People who have rendered service in the armed forces will, to varying degrees, be given limited or substantial advantages in making careers in government. Veterans’ preference measures are hardly confined to the United States, but they seem to have gone much further here than in other countries, and because of their pervasiveness, they have produced more controversy than elsewhere. Although veterans’ status has sometimes been a factor in appointments in governmental entities without civil service systems, most of the impact of the principle falls on civil service personnel structures. Making generalizations about veterans’ preferences in the United States is difficult because of the large number of jurisdictions that have preferences, but the principle seems to have been applied even more extensively by states, counties, and municipalities than by the federal government. Veterans’ preference has taken three forms that are often joined into a system. Additional points may be given to veterans when their records, including examination scores, are assessed. More important is the placement of veterans on eligibility lists ahead of nonveterans. Finally, public workers who are veterans may be given special protection in the case of ‘‘reductions in force,’’ that is, layoffs. Depending upon the jurisdiction, either disabled veterans or all veterans will be placed on applicant lists
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ahead of non-veterans. Civil service advocates who have been critical of veterans’ preferences have been especially concerned about the affects of preferences in giving jobs to veterans who are less qualified than other applicants. Several views of veterans have converged to create veterans’ preferences. One assumption has been that for various reasons veterans may not return to civilian employment. For example, veterans may have received training during their military service that they enjoyed, and they may wish to pursue similar work in a governmental agency, or they may simply have been made restless by their military experience and seek a change in employment. Another assumption is that by their service, veterans have lost time in career development that can be made up through government employment. The federal government, for example, considers military service to have been federal employment and, therefore, includes time spent in the military in seniority calculations. Many states also count periods of military service when determining seniority. Veterans not only benefit from additional seniority, protecting their jobs, but they also can apply military service time to calculating their entitlement to given levels of retirement payments. An especially important, and widely accepted, component of veterans’ preferences is the view that the nation owes a special debt to veterans who are disabled because of combat wounds or accidental injuries incurred during military service. Owing to the cogency of the ‘‘special debts’’ argument and to what are mercifully limited numbers of disabled veterans, measures to assist this class of veteran are the least controversial elements of preference programs. Those
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measures have usually taken the form of giving positions to disabled veterans ahead of all other applicants, including other veterans, or, at least, giving disabled veterans a high number of preference points. As early as 1865, legislation was passed in favor of former Union sailors and soldiers who were considered disabled (see Civil War Veterans; Pensions, Civil War; Disabled Veterans). For decades, veterans’ preferences developed at the federal level through administrative and executive orders rather than through legislation, except for the disabled. Only after World War I was legislation passed to elaborate, to consolidate, and to expand the scope of veterans’ preferences. Post-World War I legislation permitted veterans without disabilities to claim a preference when applying for federal jobs, increasing the impact of the principle considerably. Veterans’ organizations, especially the politically powerful American Legion, had thus succeeded in having veterans’ preferences broadened and significantly strengthened. The Legion’s influence extended into state and municipal employment, moreover, and its commitment to veterans’ preferences has continued to the present (see World War I Veterans). World War II, and the millions of veterans it produced, made further legislation necessary. The Veterans Preference Act of 1944 was the result at the federal level. It included a special process for veteran employees to appeal adverse personnel actions directly to the Civil Service Commission. The legislation also gave veterans preference in case of layoffs, provided that the individual veteran had a work evaluation of at least ‘‘good.’’ Because of the many veterans claiming preference in the post-World War II
years, efforts were made to modify wartime legislation. In 1953, veterans were required to pass applicable civil service examinations before using their additional points to determine their final scores, for example. Significant attempts to reduce veterans’ preferences were made during the Carter administration, but the American Legion worked with its supporters in Congress to prevent major changes. Among the proposed changes were time limits for the use of preferences by veterans for their initial employment and for protecting themselves in the event of layoffs. Despite continuing criticism of veterans’ preferences and moves to curb the practice, veterans continued to hold about half of all federal civil service positions for many years (see World War II Veterans). Public managers who have been concerned about the effects of veterans’ preferences have not lacked means for working within the protections created by legislation and executive orders from presidents or state governors while gaining their objectives. There are various methods that public managers can use to avoid hiring veterans they do not want for particular positions, thereby selecting non-veterans who seem to fit the agency’s needs. A position can be left vacant for a while, for example. Internal candidates who are not veterans may be pitted against veteran applicants for positions beyond the entry level, moreover (Redd 1995, 10–11). Over the years, civic organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, opposed veterans’ preferences because they seemed to conflict with the merit principle. Many civil service supporters have agreed with the assertion that ‘‘veteran preference . . . is a direct negation of the merit system’’ (Miller 1935, 257).
Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) | 333 Concerns were eventually raised by various groups about the impact of veterans’ preference on the hiring of women generally and on the hiring of minority group members, as the belief developed that civil service must be ‘‘representative’’ of the general population both in gender and in race. A major victory for advocates and beneficiaries of veterans’ preferences came in 1979, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Massachusetts’ stringent preference system did not discriminate against women (Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 [1979]). Although the case dealt with only one state, the principle of veterans’ preferences received even greater legitimacy. Moreover, some studies suggest that veterans’ preferences may not impede the employment and advancement of women in the federal civil service as much as has often been claimed (Lewis and Emmert 1984; Mani 1999). Veterans’ preference is likely to persist as a factor in public employment, although its importance is decreasing as the percentage of veterans in society decreases, partly because of the retirement of most World War II and Korean War veterans. The gender factor is being affected somewhat by the increasing number of women veterans who are seeking government employment. The principle, nevertheless, continues to be controversial, and its application will doubtless generate further legal battles. Benjamin R. Beede
Further Reading Emmert, Mark A., and Gregory B. Lewis. ‘‘Veterans Preference and the Merit System.’’ In Centenary Issues of the
Pendleton Act of 1983: The Problematic Legacy of Civil Service Reform, edited by David H. Rosenbloom. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1982. Lewis, Gregory B., and Mark A. Emmert. ‘‘Who Pays for Veterans’ Preference?’’ Administration & Society 16, no. 3 (November 1984): 328–45. Mani, Bonni G. ‘‘Challenges and Opportunities for Women to Advance in the Federal Civil Service: Veterans’ Preference and Promotions.’’ Public Administration Review 59, no. 6 (November/December 1999): 523–34. Miller, John F. ‘‘Veteran Preference in the Public Service.’’ In Problems of the American Public Service: Five Monographs on Specific Aspects of Personnel Administration, edited by Carl Joachim Friedrich. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935. Redd, Harry C. III. ‘‘Let’s Reinvent Veterans Preference Now.’’ The Public Manager 24, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 9–12. Torresi, Brian. ‘‘Operation Rewarding Sacrifice: A Proposal to Amend the Definition of ‘Veteran’ in Title 5 to Fully Effectuate the Purposes of Veterans’ Preference.’’ Penn State Law Review 110, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 209–31.
PRISONERS OF WAR/ MISSING IN ACTION (POW/MIA) Revolutionary War Although the British technically considered the American revolutionaries as traitors rather than fellow military combatants, in practice each side treated the men it captured as prisoners of war to avoid retaliation against their own prisoners. Some officers were allowed to remain free on their word of honor in territory controlled by the enemy, although the British sometimes balked
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at granting American officers this privilege as most did not have the training, appearance, or social status of European officers. Most officers, however, were paroled and allowed to return to their own lines upon giving their word of honor they would not fight until formally exchanged for a captive on the other side. This practice continued into the Civil War, and those taken prisoner on both sides tended to keep their word. Both sides preferred to exchange prisoners if at all possible, as it lessened the need to feed extra mouths and divert troops to guard them. A major problem was that Germans, especially Hessians, captured by the Americans did not want to return: most were allowed to live with light or no confinement in Pennsylvania German country where they took jobs and melted into the general population. Both the British and the Americans maintained commissioners within the lines of the other side whose job it was to contract for food, clothing, and other supplies required. Early in the war, however, and for much of the conflict, the Americans lacked the means to purchase these items in British-controlled territory as they could not offer hard money, as the British could. Even with the British, supplies and communications broke down, and the Commissioner for Prisoners David Franks had to advance a good deal of his money to prevent captured Britons from starving. The British, for their part, allowed captured Americans two-thirds of the rations of a British soldier. Early in the war, some American prisoners were taken to Quebec or Halifax in Nova Scotia: those captured during the 1775 invasion of Canada remained there. Most of those captured, however, were confined on prison ships in New York Harbor, as
the British controlled that city from fall 1776 until the end of the war in November 1783. Conditions there were terrible, as the men were exposed to heat and cold in the harbor or forced to remain below deck in fetid conditions without razors, soap, fresh clothing, and frequently medical supplies. Poor knowledge of nutrition meant they were fed meat and grains rather than vegetables —the British themselves had yet to discover that fruits cured scurvy. This neglect of vegetables in the diet persisted through the Civil War, where it killed many Confederates in northern prisons. About 10,000 men, although the number will never certainly be known, died on board the Jersey, Scorpion, Strombolo, and Hunter, the four ships in the harbor. Buried in shallow graves in Brooklyn or thrown overboard, their remains came to the surface for decades afterwards. The Americans, in turn, forced British prisoners to work in copper mines near East Granby, Connecticut, and established prison ships of their own on the Thames River near New London, Connecticut. American naval personnel or privateers captured at sea were imprisoned either in England, mostly at Plymouth, or near where they were captured. Americans frequently escaped from prison, which some scholars have presented as evidence of their loyalty to the cause. However, as the British provided rewards for both those who turned in escaped prisoners and the soldiers who went to recapture them, it seems a scheme developed in which the Americans would be allowed to escape, and they would receive a cut of the reward for their own capture, which they could then spend on liquor, food, clothing, or other items that merchants brought into the
Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) | 335 prison to sell. At the end of the war, prisoners on both sides were returned except for those, mostly Hessians, who did not wish to go home (see Revolutionary War Veterans).
North Africa—Barbary Pirates Before the Revolution, American sailors in the Mediterranean Sea were not captured by the navies of the North African city-states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, known as the ‘‘Barbary Pirates,’’ because they were covered by protection money paid by the British. After the Revolution, American ships trading in the region were seized beginning with the Boston brig Betsey in 1784. Prisoners were held for ransom in dungeons, and for the most part treated terribly, put to work on quarries or harbors, and beaten if they failed to become Muslims. The seizures continued until 1795 for Algiers and 1797 for Tunis and Tripoli, when men captured were repatriated in return for tribute that amounted to about $2 million. In 1801, the ruler of Algiers chopped down the flagpole on an American ship, which prompted President Thomas Jefferson to send a squadron in September 1803 to demand satisfaction. The Philadelphia, commanded by Captain William Bainbridge, was captured after it ran aground at Tripoli and could not return fire from land: its 309 officers and crew members were held for ransom. They were meanwhile set to work improving the city’s defenses, repairing their ship, and at least five converted to Islam for better treatment. In 1804, Commodore Edward Preble was able to approach the Philadelphia and set fire to it so the Arabs could not use it. The captives were held until 1805, when a treaty was negotiated
releasing them. The pasha was pressured by the fact that the Americans were intriguing to depose him if he failed to return the Philadelphia’s men; he also received a $60,000 ransom. Following the War of 1812, during which American ships were again attacked and captives seized, President James Madison sent Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur to chastise the North Africans. Their ships sailed in 1815, and by appearing at the three cities with overwhelming force led to the release of all American captives. The British bombarded Algiers in 1816 and 1824 when further captives were taken; when this failed to stop the practice, France occupied Algeria in 1830 (see Tripolitan War Veterans).
War of 1812 Nearly 3,000 Americans were captured on land, mostly the 2,000 men seized when General William Hull surrendered Detroit to a superior British and Indian force, and the 900 taken at the Battle of Queenstown in Ontario during an unsuccessful invasion of Canada. Most were exchanged except for 23 men the British identified as Irish although they had been naturalized as American citizens: the British originally wanted them tried for treason but American threats to retaliate led them to be sent to England. Most Americans (1,700) held in England were incarcerated at Dartmoor Prison and another 1,000 on ships that served as floating jails. In total, 59 Americans enlisted in the British navy to escape prison, but most refused to gain their freedom this way. The British allowed the Americans to govern themselves at Dartmoor with
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minimal supervision. They created their own democratic governments, and those who misbehaved were subject to the typical naval punishment of flogging. King Dick was the leader of the segregated black prisoners and both taught boxing and preached religion to prisoners both black and white. The memoirs of Dartmoor prisoners showed they had contempt for the prisoners of other nations, such as the French, who were also kept there, since they refused to try to escape, which the Americans repeatedly did, digging three tunnels that were betrayed to the British. They believed it was the duty of free men to refuse captivity and constantly goaded their British jailors. The real trouble at Dartmoor started after the peace treaty was signed in Ghent in December 1814. Reuben Beasley, the agent charged by the Americans with caring for the prisoners, only showed up once and only brought some extra clothing. Beasley made no arrangement for sending the men home, so they remained in jail until April. On April 4, 1815, the commandant reduced rations, and when the men protested by going outside their perimeter, the guards fired on them, killing 7 and wounding 31. Although the British exonerated the guards given the prisoners’ persistent obnoxiousness, the British government apologized to the Americans and paid restitution to the families of those killed or injured (see War of 1812 Veterans).
Civil War Neither side expected the Civil War to last a long time, and thus both were unprepared to deal with the thousands of prisoners of war. Prisoners were confined in seven sorts of jails: preexisting facilities (the Tombs Prison in New York, for
example); coastal fortifications such as Fort McHenry in Baltimore or Castle Pinckney in Charleston; old buildings, especially warehouses, mostly in the South; newly constructed barracks with high fences, especially in the North; tents surrounded by fences; stockades with no shelter, of which Andersonville, Georgia, is the most notorious; and tracts of land on which men were temporarily confined after major battles. In the early days of the war, as there were very few prisons equipped on either side to handle the large number of prisoners, most men captured were released on parole (sent home promising on their honor not to fight until formally exchanged), but by 1862 new prisons were being rapidly constructed. Beginning in June 1862, the North and South negotiated for the exchange of prisoners, with General John Dix of the Union and D. H. Hill of the Confederacy negotiating the Dix-Hill Cartel. It set up the equivalents of ranks (so many privates equal a corporal, or general, etc.) and also confirmed that captured privateers would be treated as prisoners of war, that is, kept in jail until exchanged, rather than tried for the crime of piracy punishable by death. The Dix-Hill Cartel also allowed that civilian prisoners be included and eligible for exchange, and details of paroles and the formalities under which exchanges would be conducted were worked out. The cartel broke down as increasing numbers of men were captured. The North refused to exchange prisoners, as black prisoners of war were either returned to slavery or put to work by the Confederate government; many Confederates, however, killed black soldiers without quarter. Only in February 1865, when the Confederacy tried to recruit and emancipated slaves as a
Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) | 337 last resort, did it recognize Union black soldiers as prisoners. The fact that Confederate resistance and parole violations threatened to require the North kill nearly the entire male population of the South in order to win was another factor. In 1863, German immigrant and Columbia College Professor Francis Lieber wrote the first general code of international law for any government that set down rules for the humane treatment of prisoners. But in practice the camps were death traps. Andersonville, where 13,000 of approximately 22,500 Union prisoners of war died, was the most notorious of the camps. Its commander, Henry Wirz, was the only person executed for war crimes in the war’s aftermath. The prisoners were starving but received the same rations as the guards during 1864 and 1865 when the deaths occurred; the filthy conditions and crowding of so many men into a small, exposed space was the real cause of death. In fact, one in eight of Southern prisoners as opposed to one in twelve of Union prisoners died, in part because of poor diet (rations short on fruits and vegetables) and because of the cold locations such as Camp Douglas (near Chicago, Illinois) and Elmira, New York. At first, the Union hoped to try Confederates who interfered with U.S. shipping for piracy. In 1861, the CSA Jefferson Davis captured the merchant ship Enchantress and placed a prize crew of six men aboard it; Enchantress was in turn captured by the USS Albatross. The crew was taken to Philadelphia and tried for piracy, found guilty, and sentenced to death. This prompted Confederate President Jefferson Davis to threaten to execute one captured Union colonel for each man executed. Similarly, when
Dr. William Rucker of Greenbriar, Virginia was arrested as a spy, the Union took three prominent Virginians as hostages for his safety, which led to his ultimate exchange. Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee took 70 Confederate sympathizers in his state hostage in 1862 when he learned an equal number of Unionists from Tennessee had been seized in Alabama. Both Union and Confederate generals placed prisoners of war in the line of fire to prevent bombardments by the other side, and General Sherman had Confederate prisoners march at the head of the Union army so they would be the victims of any mines planted on the roads. Clearly, Lieber’s hopes of humane treatment broke down under military necessity and wartime passion (see Civil War Veterans; Grand Army of the Republic; Confederate Veterans Associations).
World War I During World War I, which had been going on for three years when the United States entered, procedures for dealing with prisoners of war were already established. The Red Cross, operating from Switzerland, did much of the work. Food and visits for prisoners were provided, and each side arranged for those taken prisoner to send postcards home to establish rosters. Americans in German camps received varied treatment: some were well fed and housed, others were not. The Germans attempted to extract information, and sometimes used coercion to obtain it. Camps generally had athletic and recreational facilities and some had education classes, libraries, and newspapers. A total of 4,127 Americans were taken prisoner in World War I of whom 147 died in captivity. The United States executed two men who deserted to the Germans while
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in captivity. The Americans in turn captured nearly 50,000 Germans. Despite the rumors of German atrocities used in America to obtain entry and support for the war, no such complaints followed the war concerning treatment of prisoners (see World War I Veterans).
World War II Unlike Russian prisoners of war and Jews and others sent to extermination camps, the Germans treated American prisoners of war reasonably well during the Second World War, in part because they learned German POWs were also being well treated by the British and Americans. The stalags usually had libraries, and trades and foreign languages were taught. Jewish soldiers were in theory supposed to be segregated and targeted for extermination, but this did not happen; in some camps they were allowed to hold religious services with the approval of the commandant. Placing men in a solitary cooler was the usual punishment for misbehavior in the camps and was also used to enhance interrogation. The worst treatment was usually reserved for captured aircraft crews who were bombing cities. One exception to the general observance of the rules of war was the Malmedy Massacre of December 17, 1944, when Colonel Joachim Peiper slaughtered 81 Americans who surrendered to the Germans. Peiper was convicted in 1946 and sentenced to 13 years in prison, while the other troops involved were freed on probation. Things were very different in the Pacific. Only 1,121 out of 93,000 Americans captured in Europe died, whereas over 10,000 of 25,000 captured in the Philippines and 457 of 1,885 captured elsewhere in the Pacific died. The Japanese believed it a great disgrace for
someone to permit himself to be captured rather than fighting to the death or committing suicide. The ‘‘Bataan Death March’’ was the most notorious of the Japanese atrocities, but at least as many men died on prison ships and in work camps, where officers and chaplains alike labored alongside enlisted men despite the rules of war (see American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor; World War II Veterans).
Korean War The North Koreans and Communist Chinese treated American prisoners of war harshly in the hopes they would convert to Communism and also to punish the Americans and South Koreans for failing to return those prisoners on the other side (at least two-thirds of the 300,000 prisoners did not want to live under Communism). The men remained in camps from 1951 (after the last major battles) until after negotiations for the armistice concluded in July 1953. By this time, 2,701 out of 7,140 men captured had died in captivity. The men were indoctrinated with Communist doctrines and encouraged to convert by being subjected to starvation, sleep deprivation, and indoctrination sessions in an effort to show that they too did not wish to return. Thirtysix air force officers were forced to sign confessions that they had used germ warfare. Only 21 Americans stayed with their captors. Over 8,100 U.S. and other UN troops were listed as missing in action, but only rumors of their continued survival have occasionally surfaced. A defector from North Korea claimed he had seen them in 1986, and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia revealed in 1992 that the Soviet Union might have
Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) | 339 concealed the capture of a dozen Americans who had flown over that country during the war. The Department of Defense could find no proof behind this suggestion (see Korean War Veterans).
Vietnam War The United States pressured North Vietnam to guarantee the rights of prisoners throughout the war, but it refused to do so because it considered pilots shot down over the North criminals who could be convicted under the Nuremberg war crimes precedents. Hanoi called for war crimes trials for captured airmen, which led President Johnson to threaten massive retaliation if this occurred. American prisoners were treated badly. They were held at different camps including several in Laos and Cambodia, which were off limits to American forces although secret missions occurred. In Hanoi, prisoners nicknamed the four camps the Plantation, the Zoo, the Hilton, and Alcatraz. Prisoners detained here were tortured and sometimes forced to sign confessions they had committed war crimes. Future Senator John McCain was offered early release as his father was a U.S. admiral, but he refused to leave ahead of other captives and remained in jail for over five years from 1967 until the cease fire of 1973. Despite some atrocities by the South Vietnamese (the famous ‘‘tiger cages’’ in which some political prisoners were held in painful crouching positions), the Red Cross inspected and certified the humanity of South Vietnamese prison camps where more than 33,000 men were held. They were allowed to receive mail and packages from home, unlike Americans held
in the North. A total of 725 Americans, of whom 64 died in captivity, were prisoners of the North Vietnamese. The question of surviving military personnel in Vietnam who were missing in action has remained controversial. Relations between Vietnam and the United States were normalized in July 1985, and since then the Vietnamese government has been increasingly cooperative, including in 1996 in trying to locate the 2,231 men still listed as missing. Films such as Rambo and books such as Kiss the Boys Good-Bye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWS in Vietnam by Monica Jensen Stevenson and William Stevenson (1990) fueled public beliefs, large numbers of Americans remained imprisoned in Vietnam. Right-wingers, and people in the U.S. government itself, for a time created the myth of secret prison camps. Since the 1990s, research teams of Americans have worked with the Vietnamese to try to locate records and bodies that might put the controversy to rest. A careful book by Malcolm McConnell, Inside Hanoi’s Secret Archives (1995), and Susan Katz Keating’s Prisoners of Hope (1994), the latter written with the cooperation of John McCain and other surviving prisoners of war, reveals those missing almost certainly died and their bodies cannot be recovered. (See also Vietnam War Veterans.)
Gulf War ’Twenty-one Americans were captured and returned during the Gulf War. Another 26 men flew air missions, did not return, and were later officially listed as missing in action (see Gulf War Veterans).
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Iraq War Nine Americans were officially taken prisoner in the war on March 23, 2003, when a convoy of vehicles from the 507th Maintenance Company got lost. Unprepared for combat, they were seized by Iraqi troops. Sergeant Daniel Walters, also captured with the group, was shot in the back of the head. The prisoners were forced to appear on television, where they appeared bloody and beaten, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Sergeant Jessica Lynch, one of two women taken prisoner, may have been sexually assaulted. They were rescued in a dramatic operation on April 13. Two other prisoners were taken the following day when their Apache helicopter was shot down. On March 28, Marine Sergeant Fernando Padilla-Ramirez was killed either before or after being taken prisoner; his body was dragged through the town of Ash-Shatrah and hung in the town square. Only one American has been officially listed as a prisoner of war or missing since 2003, Ahmed K. Altaie, who has been missing since he went to visit his family in Bagdad in December 2006. In addition to military personnel, civilian contractor Nick Berg was captured and beheaded in Baghdad by a group linked with al Qaeda on May 11, 2004.
Conclusion From the beginning of American history, the plight of prisoners of war and those missing in action has been used both for patriotic purposes—to remind people of the suffering involved in obtaining and preserving the nation—and for political ends. After the Civil War, Northerners
pointed to the horrors of southern prisons to maintain hatred of Confederacy while ignoring the fact that Confederate prisoners died at a higher rate in northern camps. Politicians seeking scapegoats for the failure to win a decisive victory in Korea blamed the weakness of American soldiers and falsely claimed that numerous prisoners had succumbed to Chinese propaganda. Following Vietnam, critics of a government that lost the war also blamed it for failing to obtain the release of prisoners who they claimed were being held by the Vietnamese decades after the war. Finally, mistreatment of American prisoners of war in Iraq was used by the Bush administration to enhance support for the war. The nation honors America’s POW/ MIA service personnel each year on September 19, which has been National POW/MIA Recognition Day since 1982. Along with Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day, it is one of six days when the National League of Families’ POW/MIA flag flies over the military installations, national cemeteries, all post offices, Veterabs Administration medical facilities, the World War II Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the official offices of the secretaries of state, defense, and veterans affairs, the office of the director of the selective service system, and the White House. It is the only flag besides the national flag ever displayed over the White House. The idea for the POW/MIA flag was conceived by Mrs. Michael Hoff, whose husband was listed as missing in action in Vietnam. It was designed by Newt Heisley, a World War II veteran who died on May 24, 2009 (AP 2009), and manufactured and
Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) | 341 publicized by Annin and Company, an advertising agency that provides UN nations with flags. On August 10, 1990, Congress passed U.S. Public Law 101355 that recognized the league’s POW/ MIA flag and designated it ‘‘as the symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, thus ending the uncertainty for their families and the Nation.’’ William Pencak
Further Reading Associated Press. ‘‘Designer of POW/MIA Flag Dead at 88.’’ Colorado Springs, CO: Associated Press, May 17, 2009. http:// cbs4denver.com/local/Designer.POW .MIA.2.1011772.html. Biderman, Albert. March to Calumny. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Bowman, Larry G. Captive Americans: Prisoners During the American Revolution. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1976. Dawws, Gavin. Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. New York: Morrow, 1994. Dennett, Carl P. Prisoners of the Great War. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1919. Department of Defense. POW-MIA Fact Book. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1992.
Durand, Arthur A. Stalag Luft III. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Hicks, Dan Alan. ‘‘True Born Columbians: The Promises and Perils of National Identity for American Seafarers of the Early Republican Period.’’ Ph.D. thesis, Penn State University, 2007. www.etda .libraries.psu.edu/theses/approved/ PSUonlyIndex/ETD-1889/index.html. Keating, Susan Katz. Prisoners of Hope. New York: Random House, 1994. Knox, Donald. Death March. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Lambert, Frank. The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. Mavel, William. Andersonville: The Last Depot. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. McConnell, Malcolm. Inside Hanoi’s Secret Archives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Riconda, Harry P. Prisoners of War in American Conflicts. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003. Speer, Lonnie R. Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1997. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. ‘‘American Former Prisoners of War.’’ www .vba.va.gov/bln/21/benefits/pow/.
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Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America
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Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America
Q–Z VOLUME 2
William Pencak, Editor
Copyright 2009 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the veteran in America / edited by William Pencak. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34008–6 (set : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34009–3 (vol. 1 : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34010–9 (vol. 2 : hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–08759–2 (set : ebook) — ISBN 978–0–313–08760–8 (vol. 1 : ebook) — ISBN 978–0– 313–08761–5 (vol. 2 : ebook) 1. Veterans—United States—Encyclopedias. I. Pencak, William, 1951– UB357.E53 2009 305.9´0697097303—dc22 2009020928 13 12 11 10 9
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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America
From one perspective, I am dedicating this book to all the veterans throughout American history, from those who fought with George Washington to my godson Peter Schlegel, who just returned from a year in Iraq. They have made it possible for me to sit in my study, rummage through books, journals, and Web sites, and meet if only in cyberspace the host of fine scholars who have assisted me in bringing this encyclopedia to completion. But more narrowly, I would like to dedicate it to my personal ‘‘Greatest Generation’’—my parents, aunts, and uncles. Harriett Pencak, Max and Andrew Borgwardt, June Pappalardo, Fred Abraham, and in memory of Charles Pencak, Leonard, Virginia, and Trudy Borgwardt, George and Peaches Schlegel, and John Pappalardo. These men and women either served overseas or supported efforts on the home front during the Second World War so that we can enjoy the world we do today. We complain a lot, and we should, to keep the people running things reasonably honest. But imagine if the other side had won. I would also like to dedicate the book to the memory of the great opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861–1936) whose sons fought on both sides in World War I, who is mentioned on page 151 of the encyclopedia, and who did everything she could to help veterans.
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About the Editor and Contributors
THE EDITOR William Pencak, Professor of History at Penn State University, is the author of For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941 (1989) and War, Politics, and Revolution in Provincial Massachusetts (1981). His latest book, Jews and Gentiles in Early America: 1654–1800 (2005), was runner-up for the National Book Award in American Jewish History.
THE CONTRIBUTORS James S. Bailey received his B.S. from West Point and his M.A. from Penn State, both in History. He served for ten years in the U.S. Army before he retired on a disability. He has worked as an Interpretive Ranger for the National Park Service at Antietam National Battlefield and currently works for the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of ‘‘Two Winters of Discontent: Valley Forge and Morristown,’’ in Pennsylvania’s Revolution, edited by William Pencak (2009). Benjamin R. Beede, an army veteran, is now a Librarian Emeritus, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He holds an M.A. in political science and an M.L.S. from Rutgers. He co-authored The Legal Sources of Public Policy (1977), edited or compiled several reference books, including The War of 1898 and U.S. interventions 1898–1934: An Encyclopedia (1994) and has had articles in The Historian, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Policy Studies Journal, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, among other journals. Daniel Blackie is a doctoral candidate at the Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland, and a member of the Finnish Graduate School for North and Latin American Studies. He is writing his Ph.D. thesis on the experience of disabled veterans of the American Revolution.
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About the Editor and Contributors
Arthur W. Blaser received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Ohio State University in 1979 and his J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law in 1990. He is Professor of Political Science at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has contributed to the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Human Rights Quarterly, Disability Studies Quarterly, and New Political Science. He was in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Al Carroll is a Fulbright Senior Scholar (Indonesia) who has taught history at Arizona State University, St. Phillip’s College, and Hasanuddin University. He specializes in cross cultural comparative studies of indigenous veterans of modern militaries. His first book, Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War, was published in 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press. Justin Corfield was born in London, England, and gained his doctorate in history at Monash University, Australia, with his thesis on the political history of the Cambodian government from 1970 until 1975. Since 1993 he has been teaching history and international relations at Geelong Grammar School, Australia. He has written and edited several books on Australian, Cambodian, and Singapore history. Kerry Dexter has a B.A. from Rollins College and has done graduate work at Florida State University. She is a contributing writer to The MTVi Group’s award-winning music news site, SonicNet, a correspondent for VH1.com, folk music editor at Barnes & Noble online, and has written, interviewed, and photographed extensively for publications in the field of music. Darius V. Echeverrı´a, Ph.D., Temple University, has since 2006 taught at Rutgers University-New Brunswick with an initial appointment in the Department of History. A year later, he joined the faculty of the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies. His published scholarship focuses on inequality and social policy, cycles of community agency, and electoral participation and incorporation into the American political system, particularly as they relate to Latino/a Studies and Mexican American history. Michael D. Gambone is Professor of History at Kutztown University and the author of The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veteran in American Society (2005), Capturing the Revoution: The United States, Central America, and Nicaragua, 1961–1972 (2001), and Eisenhower, Somoza, and the Cold War in Nicaragua, 1953–1961 (1997). Dr. Gambone was a former U.S. Army paratrooper who served in the 82nd Airborne Division. He deployed to Iraq in 2006 and served a tour of duty in the city of Mosul. Amy S. Greenberg is Professor of History at Penn State and the author of Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (2005) and Cause for Alarm: The Volunteer Fire Compay in the Nineteenth Century City (1998). Holly M. Kent is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Lehigh University where she is writing on women’s antislavery literature in the nineteenth-century United States. She is the chief co-editor of Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist History and Culture.
About the Editor and Contributors C. Douglas Kroll is Associate Professor of History at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. Mark F. Leep, M.A., J.D., is an attorney and independent historian in Richmond, Virginia, and a former Marine Corps officer. His essays and reviews on the history of veterans’ benefits legislation and social history of the American military have appeared in several reference works and journals. Mr. Leep is currently researching the legislative and legal history of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps relations during the frigate navy era. William C. Lowe is Professor of History and Dean of the College of Arts and Science at Ashford University in Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from Emory University and has published numerous articles on British and American history. He is currently researching Civil War commemoration in Iowa. He retired from the Army Reserves with the rank of major. John E. Maass has a Ph.D. in early American history from Ohio State University and is currently a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Cesar Campiani Maximiano is co-author with Jose Goncalves of Brothers In Arms: A Platoon of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II, published by CODEX in Portuguese in 2005, and other works on the history of World War II. He teaches contemporary and military history and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Sa˜o Paulo. Lincoln Austin Mullen received his M.A. in History from Bob Jones University in 2008. He is currently Reference Coordinator at the Mack Library at Bob Jones University. Stephen R. Ortiz has a Ph.D. from the University of Florida and is Assistant Professor of History at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (2009) and several journal articles. His article ‘‘The ‘New Deal’ for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent,’’ was awarded the 2007 Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History for best article in the 2006 Journal of Military History. Jonathan Newell received a Master of Divinity from Bob Jones University and is currently on the pastoral staff of a Baptist church in New Hampshire. He is also an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve chaplain candidate program and published ‘‘Billy Sunday’s 1923 Evangelistic Campaign in Columbia, S.C.,’’ in the Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association in 2008. Joseph Rosenblum received his Ph.D. in English from Duke University in 1980. He is a librarian at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, the author of Shakespeare: An Annotated Bibliography (1992) and A Reader’s Guide to Shakespeare (1998), and is a performer of Falstaff at Stratford-on-Avon in England.
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About the Editor and Contributors
Jeremy K. Saucier is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Rochester. The subject of his dissertation is ‘‘Army Advertising and the Politics of Memory and Culture in Post-Vietnam America.’’ Daniel Sauerwein is a Ph.D. student in History at the University of North Dakota. He holds an M.A. in History from the University of North Dakota and a B.A. in History from Illinois College. He has reviewed books for The Journal of Military History, HNet, and On Point: The Journal of Army History, and has written several articles for the History News Network. John Southard is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas Tech University specializing in the Vietnam War. He has previously published in the Dictionary of American History. Darlene Spitzer-Antezana is Associate Professor of History at Prince George’s Community College and is a Ph.D. candidate in African American History at Morgan State University, both in Maryland. John Stoll teaches world history at L.C. Bird High School in Chesterfield, Virginia. He has an M.A. in history and a Master’s of Teaching from Virginia Commonwealth University. David P. Straub is a graduate student in the Central Eurasian Studies department at Indiana University. He spent a decade in the National Guard and is a specialist on Central Asia and China. William P. Toth has a Ph.D. in Literature and teaches at Heidelberg College. He has written extensively on literary, historical, and popular culture topics. Ryan Wadle is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University. He is currently working on his dissertation, ‘‘ ‘The Fourth Dimension of Naval Tactics’: The U.S. Navy and Public Relations, 1919–1941.’’ Andrew Jackson Waskey is Professor of Social Science at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia. He has been a frequent contributor on military subjects to encyclopedias, as well as on politics, history, religion and other subjects. William Whyte III has a Master of Arts in History from East Stroudsburg University and is Adjunct Professor of History at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania.
Contents
List of Entries
xiii
List of Primary Documents
xvii
Guide to Related Topics
xxi
Preface
xxv
Acknowledgments
xxix
Introduction
xxxi
Timeline
xliii
The Encyclopedia
1
Primary Documents
477
Appendix I: Monuments, Memorials, and Museums: A State by State Guide
587
Appendix II: Veterans’ Organizations
705
Bibliography
711
Index
725
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List of Entries
Afghan War Veterans African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 African American Veterans, Civil War African American Veterans, Korean War African American Veterans, SpanishAmerican War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War African American Veterans, World War I African American Veterans, World War II Agent Orange American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Gold Star Mothers American Indian Veterans American Indian Veterans, Individuals American Legion American Veterans Committee American War Mothers AMVETS Anti-War Veterans Associations Arlington National Cemetery
Blinded Veterans of America Blue Star Mothers Bonus March Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Bunker Hill Monument Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Cambodia War Veterans Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Coast Guard Veterans Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations Confederate Veterans Associations Confederate Veterans in Brazil Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Daughters of the American Revolution Depleted Uranium Disabled Veterans Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916)
Battlefield Preservation Benefits
Early, Jubal (1816–1894)
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List of Entries
Filipino-American Veterans Film and Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans Gettysburg National Cemetery Grand Army of the Republic Gulf War Syndrome Gulf War Veterans Hispanic American Veterans Housing Iraq War Veterans Iwo Jima Memorial Japanese American Veterans Jewish Veterans Korean War Veterans Lifton, Robert Jay (1926–) Literature and Veterans Logan, John (1826–1886) MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964) McCain, John (1936–) Memorial Day Merchant Marine Veterans Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) Mexican Expeditions, 1914–1917 Mexican War Veterans Military Chaplains Association Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Music and Veterans Naval Order of the United States Newburgh Conspiracy Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Oldest Surviving Veterans
Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Peekskill Riot Pensions, Civil War Philippine War Veterans Polish Legion of American Veterans Politics, Veterans in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Preferences in Government Employment Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) Reunions Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Shell Shock Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution Spanish-American War Veterans Stone, Oliver (1946–) Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Tripolitan War Veterans Tuberculosis, World War I Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Veterans Administration Veterans Affairs, Department of Veterans Day Veterans’ Homes Veterans’ Hospitals Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home for Children
List of Entries Vietnam Memorial Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam War Veterans Walter Reed Hospital Scandal War Dogs War of 1812 Veterans Washington Monument
Winter Soldier Investigation Women Veterans to 1900 Women Veterans, World War I to the Present Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association World War I Veterans World War II Veterans
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List of Primary Documents
Document 1: David Ramsay, The Life of George Washington: The Situation of Revolutionary War Veterans at the End of the War
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a) Washington’s Letter to the Secretary of War Concerning the Treatment of Veterans
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b) Anonymous Letter to Officers Proposing a Military Coup if Their Demands Were Not Met
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c) Washington’s Speech That Foiled the Proposed Coup
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d) Washington’s Letter to Congress on the Veterans’ Needs e) Washington’s Outrage over Mutiny of Pennsylvania Soldiers
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f) Washington’s Farewell to His Officers and to Congress
484
Document 2: The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati Document 3: Aedanus Burke, Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati Document 4: ‘‘An Old Soldier: An Affecting Narrative’’ Document 5: Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument Document 6: Nathanael Hawthorne, The Life of Franklin Pierce Document 7: Edward D. Mansfield, The Life and Services of Winfield Scott Document 8: Stephen Foster, ‘‘I’m Nothing But a Plain Old Soldier’’ Document 9: Edward Everett, The ‘‘Other’’ Gettysburg Address Document 10: Herman Melville, Civil War Poetry: ‘‘On the Slain Collegians’’ and ‘‘A Meditation’’
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485 488 490 491 495 497 499 500 506
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List of Primary Documents
Document 11: Walt Whitman, Civil War Poetry: ‘‘Dirge for Two Veterans’’ and ‘‘Lo, Victress on the Peaks’’ Document 12: Confederate Widows and Memorials: War Days in Fayetteville, North Carolina Document 13: John A. Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel: A Confederate Veteran Defends the Ku Klux Klan Document 14: Dabney Herndon Maury, Recollections of a Virginian . . .: Confederate Veterans Create the Southern Historical Society and Honor Their ‘‘Lost Cause’’ Document 15: John S. Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives Document 16: Checking Civil War Pension Excesses: Henry Jones Ford, The Cleveland Era Document 17: An Escaped Slave Woman’s Civil War Service Document 18: Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Memorial Day Address (1884) Document 19: Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘‘The Soldier’s Faith’’ (1895) Document 20: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders Document 21: Edward A. Johnson, History of Negro Soldiers in the SpanishAmerican War Document 22: Addie W. Hunton and Kathryn M. Johnson, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces Document 23: Emmet J. Scott, The Official History of the American Negro in the World War Document 24: Joyce Kilmer, ‘‘In Memory of Rupert Brooke’’ Document 25: Kirke E. Simpson, Dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Document 26: Wright Patman Argues for Immediate Payment of Adjusted Compensation (‘‘The Bonus’’) for World War I Veterans Document 27: The Leader of the Bonus March Comments on Its Motives and Fate Document 28: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement on Signing the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), June 22, 1944 Document 29: Dixon Wecter, Why Do Veterans Organize? Document 30: John Kerry Testifies before Congress on Behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1971 Document 31: President Reagan Dedicates the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue in Washington, DC, 1984 Document 32: President Bill Clinton Speaks to Veterans of the Normandy Invasion on Its 50th Anniversary Document 33: Denise Nichols Testifies on the Persistence of ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome’’
510 511 514 517
521 523 525 526 529 531 534 536 542 544 545 549 553 554 556 559 563 565 567
List of Primary Documents Document 34: Opening Remarks of Herschal Gober at the 2000 National Summit on Women Veterans Issues Document 35: Deputy Secretary for Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield Testifies on the Problems of American Indian Veterans Document 36: Vietnam Veterans of America Testify on the Persistent Effects of Agent Orange Document 37: Carolyn Baum, President of the American Occupational Therapy Association, Addresses Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Iraq and Afghan War Veterans Document 38: National Coalition for Homeless Veterans Testimony, 2008 Document 39: Suicide Among Iraq and Afghan Veterans
570 572 575 578
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Guide to Related Topics
Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Confederate Veterans Associations Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916) Early, Jubal (1816–1894) Gettysburg National Cemetery Grand Army of the Republic Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Pensions, Civil War Reunions Veterans’ Homes Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association Women Veterans to 1900
Activities/Events Bonus March Lost Cause. See Early, Jubal (1816– 1894); Confederate Veterans Associations Newburgh Conspiracy Peekskill Riot Politics, Veterans in Reunions Winter Soldier Investigation American Revolution African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 Bunker Hill Monument Daughters of the American Revolution Newburgh Conspiracy Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution Washington Monument
Culture Film and Veterans Literature and Veterans Music and Veterans
Civil War African American Veterans, Civil War Arlington National Cemetery Benefits
Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars Afghan War Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans xxi
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Guide to Related Topics
Gulf War Syndrome Gulf War Veterans Iraq War Veterans Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Veterans Affairs, Department of Walter Reed Hospital Scandal Ethnic/Gender/Other Groups African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812 African American Veterans, Civil War African American Veterans, Korean War African American Veterans, SpanishAmerican War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War African American Veterans, World War I African American Veterans, World War II American Indian Veterans American Indian Veterans, Individuals Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Buffalo Soldiers. See African American Veterans, Civil War Chaplains. See Military Chaplains Association Cambodia War Veterans Coast Guard Veterans Disabled Veterans Dogs. See War Dogs Filipino-American Veterans Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans Hispanic American Veterans Native American Veterans. See American Indian Veterans Japanese American Veterans Jewish Veterans Merchant Marine Veterans Navajo Code Talkers. See American Indian Veterans, Individuals Oldest Surviving Veterans Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)
Tuskegee Airmen. See African American Veterans, World War II War Dogs Women Veterans to 1900 Women Veterans, World War I to the Present Health and Benefits Issues Adjusted Compensation. See Bonus March Agent Orange Benefits Bonus, Bonus Bill, Bonus Expeditionary Force. See Bonus March Bonus March Disabled Veterans Employment. See Preferences in Government Employment G.I. Bill of Rights. See Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Gulf War Syndrome Homes. See Veterans’ Homes Hospitals. See Veterans’ Hospitals Housing Mental Illness. See Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; Shell Shock Pensions, Civil War Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Preferences in Government Employment Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Soldiers Homes. See Veterans’ Homes Shell Shock Tuberculosis, World War I Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans’ Homes Veterans’ Hospitals Walter Reed Hospital Scandal Individuals Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831–1916) Early, Jubal (1816–1894) Lifton, Robert Jay (1926–) Logan, John (1826–1886) MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964)
Guide to Related Topics McCain, John (1936–) Merry, John Festus (1844–1917) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Stone, Oliver (1946–) Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Memorials and Holidays See Appendix II for a list of monuments, memorials, and museums by state/ territory Arlington National Cemetery Armistice Day. See Veterans Day Decoration Day. See Memorial Day Battlefield Preservation Bunker Hill Monument Gettysburg National Cemetery Iwo Jima Memorial Memorial Day Tomb of the Unknown Soldier/Tomb of the Unknown. See Arlington National Cemetery Veterans Day Vietnam Memorial Washington Monument Organizations See Appendix I for a list of veterans’ associations American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Gold Star Mothers American Legion American Veterans Committee American War Mothers AMVETS Anti-War Veterans Associations Blinded Veterans of America Blue Star Mothers Bonus March Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America
Community Service of Veterans’ Organizations Confederate Veterans Associations Daughters of the American Revolution Department of Veterans Affairs. See Veterans Affairs, Department of Disabled American Veterans. See Disabled Veterans Gold Star Mothers. See American Gold Star Mothers Grand Army of the Republic Jewish War Veterans of America. See Jewish Veterans Military Chaplains Association Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) Naval Order of the United States Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA) Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Polish Legion of American Veterans Society of the Cincinnati Sons of the American Revolution United Confederate Veterans. See Confederate Veterans Associations Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans Administration Veterans Bureau. See Veterans Administration Veterans Affairs, Department of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association Vietnam War African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War Agent Orange Cambodia War Veterans McCain, John (1936–) O’Brien, Tim (1946–) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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Guide to Related Topics
Stone, Oliver (1946–) Vietnam Memorial Vietnam Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Investigation Wars Entry Afghan War Veterans Civil War Veterans Civil War Veterans Overseas Confederate Veterans in Brazil Confederate Veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil) Gulf War Veterans Iraq War Veterans Korean War Veterans Mexican Expeditions, 1914–1917 Philippine War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Spanish-American War Veterans Tripolitan War Veterans Vietnam War Veterans War of 1812 Veterans World War I Veterans World War II Veterans World War I African American Veterans, World War I American Gold Star Mothers American Legion American War Mothers Arlington National Cemetery Benefits Blue Star Mothers Bonus March
Butler, Smedley (1881–1940) Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America Preferences in Government Employment Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans Shell Shock Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. See Arlington National Cemetery Tuberculosis, World War I Van Zandt, James (1898–1986) Veterans Day Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans’ Hospitals World War I Veterans World War II African American Veterans, World War II American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor American Veterans Committee AMVETS Blinded Veterans of America Brazilian Expeditionary Force Veterans Filipino-American Veterans Japanese American Veterans MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964) Merchant Marine Veterans Navajo Code Talkers. See American Indian Veterans, Individuals Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Peekskill Riot Russell, Harold (1914–2002) Servicemen’s Readjustment Act United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association
R however, had special significance as the United States looked to displays of friendly feelings between the former enemies as a sign that the nation’s wounds were healing and that patriotism for the Union had become a southern as well as a northern phenomenon For instance, in October 1881, southern survivors of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg hosted New Jersey veterans at Yorktown, Virginia, and traveled the following April to Trenton, New Jersey, as guests of the Grand Army of the Republic. In May 1884, at the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of the Wilderness, veterans from both sides met at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness, although men who had fought at these battles did not come in large numbers. The first important Gettysburg reunion occurred on July 2, 1884, the twentyfourth anniversary of the Second Day of the battle, when about 500 Union and 200 Confederate veterans of the actual battle met at that town. The Southerners marched behind the Union flag as the veterans met and shook hands in the town square.
REUNIONS Pre-Civil War Veterans’ reunions were rare in the United States until the Civil War. Meetings of the Society of the Cincinnati were the most frequent occasions where veterans gathered, and they were frequently guests of honor at Washington’s birthday or Fourth of July celebrations. As time went on and Revolutionary War veterans became fewer, they gathered and were praised at events such as the Marquis de Lafayette’s nationwide tour during 1824 and 1825. For instance, over 150 veterans of the War for Independence, in three large wagons, received cheers and a place of honor near the front of the parade in Philadelphia. They would also be lustily cheered at ceremonies such as when the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument was laid in 1825.
Civil War Reunions Civil War reunions where northern and southern veterans of a battle met, 343
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Reunions
Union and Confederate veterans greet each other at the reunion commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-19953]
Northerners praised Southern valor and vice-versa. Virginian Colonel William R. Aylett stated, ‘‘We come as survivors of a great battle, which illustrated the greatness and glory of the American people . . . we have come forth from the baptism of blood and fire in which we were consumed, as representatives of a New South.’’ With perhaps more fervor than accuracy, he added ,‘‘we have long years ago ceased to bear in our hearts any residuum of the feelings born of the conflict,’’ and that ‘‘over the tomb of secession and African slavery we have created a new empire, and have built a temple of American liberty’’ (Reardon 2007, 403). General Pickett’s widow Sallie thanked the Union veterans for their hospitality, and the Union men offered three thunderous cheers for Pickett’s gallant men.
The most famous of all Civil War reunions occurred at the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg in July 1913. As early as 1909 the state of Pennsylvania had created a commission to plan the celebration. It hoped to finance the whole event itself, but as expenses rose help was asked (and obtained) from other states and the federal government. States spent about $1,750,000 for free transportation to the battlefield for all veterans, and the United States put up $450,000 for the ‘‘Great Camp’’ that would ultimately house an official count of 53,407 veterans, while at least an equal number of spectators and family members showed up. The average age of the veterans was 74; nine of them died during the three-day encampment. Numerous souvenir and ‘‘relic’’ salesmen plied their wares to the veterans and
Reunions bystanders. Forty-seven miles of ‘‘avenues’’ were created on the battlefield with 300 electric lights, 32 automatic water fountains, 2,170 cooks, laborers, and bakers, and 90 latrines for both men and women. The country was in the grip of ‘‘Taylorism’’ at the time, or scientific management, and newspapers covering the event praised the fact, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, that ‘‘more painstaking care, more scientific preparation, and a better discipline than has ever before been known on such an occasion’’ occurred (Blight 2007, 409). Governors of all the states that participated in the war appeared, and Woodrow Wilson, the first southern president elected since 1848, praised the ‘‘wholesome and healing . . . peace’’ between men who have ‘‘found one another again as brothers and comrades, in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor, the manly devotion of the men then arrayed against one another, now grasping hands and smiling into each other’s eyes (Blight 2007, 411). Although many of the veterans refused to greet those on the other side, the national press played up scenes and instances where they shook hands or (in the case of one-armed veterans) exchanged gloves. African Americans veterans were observed to have attended, but they are not discussed in the reports or reminiscences of the event. Aware that President Wilson had just segregated all federal government facilities, the Washington Bee commented that this would be a reunion ‘‘of those who fought to destroy the Union and perpetuate slavery, and who are now employing every artifice and argument . . . to propagate a national
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sentiment in favor of their nefarious contention that emancipation, reconstruction and enfranchisement are a dismal failure’’ (Blight 2007, 417). In 1938, 1,800 veterans revisited the battlefield on the battle’s seventy-fifth anniversary. This reunion occurred thanks to the efforts of Paul Roy, a native of the town. (See also Gettysburg National Cemetery.)
Modern Wars Veterans after the Civil War have frequently held reunions, usually members of a particular unit or ship, frequently in conjunction with the annual conventions of the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars. In the years following World War I, American Legion conventions were especially noteworthy sites of raucous reunions where veterans were able to drink with impunity despite the Prohibition laws then in effect. In 1927, the Legion held its convention in Paris, terming it a ‘‘pilgrimage.’’ African American veterans were not accommodated on the steamship lines the Legion contracted, however, and few made the way overseas at their own expense. Apart from the larger veterans’ organizations, hundreds of units and regiments hold annual reunions. For many Vietnam, World War II, and Korean War veterans, these are highly emotional occasions, being the only opportunity formerly close friends now scattered across the country have a chance to meet. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor are two groups associated with particularly traumatic historical events. The oldest Vietnam veterans’ reunion in the nation occurs annually in Kokomo, Indiana, Up to 50,000 veterans gather for three days each September:
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officers from the major veterans’ organizations speak at ceremonies, military regalia and mementos are displayed, religious services are held, and service personnel currently serving in conflict zones are honored. Other Vietnam reunions feature pilgrimages to the ‘‘wall’’ in Washington, DC, or display a mobile memorial wall. Occasions such as the dedication of the Vietnam and World War II national memorials in Washington DC, and special anniversaries, such as the fiftieth anniversaries of the attack on Pearl Harbor (1991) and the invasion of Normandy Beach (1994), led thousands of veterans to make well-publicized pilgrimages to the sites where they made history. William Pencak See also Civil War Veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations
Further Reading Ames, Lynne. ‘‘Reunion with Somber Memories.’’ New York Times, July 30, 1989. Apple, R. W., Jr. ‘‘Looking Back: D-Day’s Heroes Tell Their Tales.’’ New York Times, June 7, 1994. Blight, David. ‘‘Quarrel Forgotten or a Revolution Remembered?’’ In The Civil War Veteran, edited by Larry M. Logue and Michael Barton. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Elliot, Deronda. ‘‘Normandy 1994.’’ American Heritage 46 (May/June 1995). www.americanheritage.com/articles/ magazine/ah/1995/3/1995_3_94.shtml. Encylopedia of Associations. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Reference Library, 1956–. Published annually, formerly by Scribners. Howard County (Indiana) Vietnam Veterans and Veterans Organizations website: http://www.hcvvo.org/events.htm
National Park Service. ‘‘The Great Reunion of 1913.’’ Gettysburg National Military Park. www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/ sidebar/reunion13.htm. Reardon, Carol. ‘‘Binding the Wounds of War.’’ In The Civil War Veteran, edited by Larry M. Logue and Michael Barton. New York: New York University Press, 2007.
REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS Revolutionary War soldiers in George Washington’s Continental Army faced up to two years in camp following the defeat of General Cornwallis’s British army in 1781. They lived in various locations in new Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the New York Highlands, keeping an eye on the British army in New York City as the peace negotiations and then the final removal of the British troops dragged on until November 1783. Soldiers who had not been paid and were short on rations and blankets mutinied: in May 1783 the army’s second-in-command Nathanael Greene faced down some mutineers by pointing a loaded cannon at them. In June, the Pennsylvania line (some of whose members were among the first soldiers mustered into the Continental Army in the summer of 1775), mutinied for the second time, the first being in January 1781. The second time, they wanted to be paid and they marched from Lancaster to Philadelphia, the national capital, where they could besiege both Congress and the state government simultaneously. Congress left for Princeton, New Jersey. Two men were court-martialed and ordered shot, but were pardoned. More soldiers simply left. There were no immediate veterans’ benefits for Continental veterans except promises of money and land both from
Revolutionary War Veterans state and national governments. Congress promised half pay to disabled soldiers for as long as their disabilities lasted, and half pay for life for the permanently disabled, such as those who lost limbs. But there was no money. Most veterans signed away their land certificates to speculators for pennies on the dollar, unsure of when and if the land would be available. This was especially so on the frontier, where the Indians, unlike the British, had not been defeated. Officers were promised half pay for life, later commuted by Congress to five years’ full pay: again, few held onto the certificates until 1790 when the federal government began to pay interest on the debt (see Newburgh Conspiracy). Most Continental Army veterans had been farmers or laborers, and enlistment records showed few had possessed their own land: it was common for younger sons and laborers to enlist as one brother and/or a father ran the farm during the war. Nearly all men between the ages of 16 and 60 in colonial and revolutionary America served in the militia. Only the disabled, government officials, and the ministry were exempt. But merely a small percentage of those eligible entered the Continental Army. During the war, the militia kept order in the communities and would turn out for short periods to fight the British or loyalists in the immediate area. They were the ‘‘Minute Men,’’ and while their turnout was absolutely essential for defeating the British at crucial points—the Battles of Concord and Bunker Hill, the Saratoga and southern campaigns—most of them lived their lives on the farms or at their artisan tasks during the war. For skilled artisans and sailors, there was great demand after the war. Shoes had been scarce during the war, and with the
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onset of peace demands for clothes rose: local merchants’ accounts show many payments to local weavers. In some states, veterans had trouble paying their taxes. This was especially true in Massachusetts, where the government attempted to pay off its war debt quickly by insisting on collecting it in hard money. Farmers in the central and western part of the state found their farms auctioned off at low prices to pay their taxes, which led to protests beginning with Ely’s Rebellion in 1782 and culminating in Shays’s Rebellion in 1786–1787. Neither was a real rebellion, as there was no attempt to overthrow the government only to prevent the sales of farms. These protests earned the name ‘‘rebellion’’ from Federalists who wanted to prove the new government needed to become stronger and more national to quell popular unrest. While many of the protestors were veterans, however, few had served in the Continental Army: the need for Captain Daniel Shays to drill his troops suggests that unlike the Continental soldiers who had been superbly trained by General Von Steuben at Valley Forge they were really militia. The well-trained Massachusetts’ soldiers who defeated them were the real Continentals. After the war, the westward movement that had begun after the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, continued. Congress passed the Land Law in May 1785, and then the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided that oneseventh the total acreage of the vast new Northwest Territories be offered to Continental veterans who could redeem their certificates at full value there. The lands, however, were transferable, which meant that most soldiers sold theirs to speculators or land companies. These
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companies bought a good deal of the land in the Northwest Territories and western parts of the states for small amounts of money and then accepted the certificates which they could then afford to hold in the (correct) hope the federal government would reimburse them. Among these were the Ohio Company, organized by Boston Reverend and former Continental Army Chaplain Manasseh Cutler, that settled lands in the vicinity of Marietta; New Jersey’s John Cleves Symmes’ Miami Purchase near what soon became Cincinnati; and Nathaniel Massie’s venture of Virginians into Kentucky. Only in March 1800, by which time most men were settled somewhere, was the loophole closed in that veterans could not sell their land certificates.
Theodore Crackel’s studies of revolutionary veterans revealed that over half of 13,500 veterans moved out of state within a few years of the war, exceeding the usual rate of about a third per decade for most of American history. Those who remained in their communities, the studies of John Resch have found, showed most Continental veterans remained near the poorer end of economic spectrum and did not become involved in politics. In short, the enlistment of lower-class recruits did not improve their mobility unless they left for either the frontier or the sea. When federal pensions became available to veterans in 1818, over 80 percent eligible applied and offered proof that they were indeed impoverished.
Black veterans parade to honor soldiers of the Revolutionary War, while the wife and children of an Iraq soldier show their support for the troops. Chicago Memorial Day Parade, 2004. [AP Photo/M. Spencer Green]
Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled The place of Continental veterans in society was a matter of some public controversy in the early republic. When troops mutinied or demanded back pay, or officers took part in the Newburgh Conspiracy or organized the Society of the Cincinnati between 1780 and 1783, civilians who had been educated on the Roman classics feared new versions of the Praetorian guard were about to subvert the republic. When these fears did not come to pass, aside from some Fourth of July or Washington’s birthday orations, the nation did not pay much attention to the revolutionary veterans until after the War of 1812. As they aged and became fewer, however, memoirs were published and celebrations held to honor an increasingly diminished number of survivors. The yearlong visit of General the Marquis de Lafayette to the nation in 1824–1825 was a major catalyst in honoring veterans, as his former comrades clamored to see him as he was honored in cities throughout the land. William Pencak See also Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas; Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled; Benefits; Bunker Hill Monument
Further Reading Crackel, Theodore J. ‘‘Revoutionary War Pension Records and Patterns of American Mobility, 1780–1830.’’ Prologue 16 (1984): 155–67. Resch, John. Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Wecter, Dixon. When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1944.
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REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS, DISABLED The fragmentary nature of Revolutionary War (1775–1783) records means it is impossible to know the exact number of American soldiers injured during America’s fight for independence. Estimates of nonfatal American casualties made by historians range from 8,500 to 25,000 service personnel. Whatever the true figure, it is clear that many of the soldiers who were hurt or wounded during the Revolution survived the war to become disabled veterans in the postwar period. Early American accounts relating to Independence Day celebrations, the welfare system, and military pensions (see Benefits) all testify to the relative ubiquity and longevity of disabled Revolutionary War veterans in the early United States.
Invalid Pensions Compared to disabled veterans of later American wars, Revolutionary War veterans received very few benefits from the federal government. No soldiers’ homes or veterans’ hospitals were created for Revolutionary War veterans, either at a national or local level. Neither was any kind of preferential hiring scheme or rehabilitation service established to help ease their reentry into civilian life. The only special benefits available to disabled Revolutionary War veterans were invalid pensions. These were promised by Congress while the war was still being fought in an effort to encourage men to enlist in the army. The Congressional resolution which created the invalid pension program of the United States was passed on August 26, 1776. According to the resolution, any
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American soldier, sailor, or marine who lost a limb or was so badly injured in the War for Independence as to be incapable of earning a living afterwards was entitled to a half-pay pension for life or as long as his disability continued. Thus, ‘‘disability’’ was defined as essentially an inability to labor because of physical impairment. Injured servicemen who were not ‘‘totally’’ disabled by their injuries but could still perform some kind of labor for their support were to be pensioned at a rate proportionate to their level of disability. The pension program established in 1776 was not an innovation. Colonial administrations had used the promise of disability pensions as a recruitment incentive during wartime since the seventeenth century. The significance of the pension resolution of 1776 lies in the fact that it represents the first real effort by Americans to establish a national invalid pension system. Subsequent disability pension measures built on the 1776 scheme and retained its central features, particularly the definition of disability as an inability to labor and the idea of proportionate rates. A number of important modifications were introduced to the pension program after the war, however. These modifications related primarily to the administration of the program, the pension application process, and the rates paid to pensioners. During the war and the confederation period following it, Congress did not have the power to enforce its decisions. Consequently, ultimate responsibility for the implementation of its pension plan rested with the individual states, which were generally inattentive to the claims of injured American servicemen. By the late 1780s, pension payments to disabled veterans were massively in arrears and many pension applications remained
unprocessed. In an effort to streamline the pension system and overcome these problems, in 1790 the newly created federal government agreed to take over full responsibility for the payment and processing of invalid pensions. Some states maintained their own invalid pension schemes, but these ran parallel to the federal program, not in competition to it. As time went on, the federal authorities took greater responsibility for the payment of Revolutionary pensions, so that by the early-nineteenth century most disabled veterans turned to the nation before their states for pensions. In addition to the formulation of disability as an inability to labor and the concept of proportionality found in the resolution of 1776, federal pension legislation, from 1793 onwards, introduced formal medical examinations by doctors of applicants as an essential requirement in the pension application process. Invalid pension laws prior to 1793, in contrast, had not given doctors an explicitly medical role in the assessment of disability. The invalid pension acts passed by Congress after 1793 can be seen, then, to mark the growing influence of doctors as ‘‘gatekeepers’’ to federal disability benefits. Another key characteristic of postwar federal pension legislation was the law’s tendency to favor cause over effect. Under the wartime scheme, work-related incapacity of any sort, providing it was caused while in the service of the United States, was pensionable. Under the laws of the Federalist period, however, greater weight was given to physical impairments caused by battle wounds as opposed to those caused by disease. Consequently, most invalid pensioners in the early United States received their pensions for wounds rather than the incapacitating effects of disease.
Revolutionary War Veterans, Disabled Federal pensions were not particularly generous. Under postwar legislation the monthly rate for disabled privates and NCOs was set at five dollars. This was raised to eight dollars a month in 1816. Considering these rates were supposed to compensate a veteran for a complete inability to labor, they were hardly sufficient. Even agricultural laborers, who were some of the lowest-paid workers in the early United States, could expect to earn more than the full pension rates offered by the government. Wage statistics for the Philadelphia region for the period 1802–1830, for instance, indicate an average monthly wage of between $9 and $11 for farm work. Pension officials, keen to keep a track of expenditures and reduce the likelihood of fraud, regularly compiled up-to-date lists of invalid pensioners which were submitted to Congress for inspection. The pension lists produced between 1792 and 1816 indicate that the total number of disabled Revolutionary War veterans in receipt of a U.S. invalid pension at any one time was around 1,500. Thus, only a very small proportion of injured veterans appear to have received a federal pension in the postwar period. William H. Glasson, the author of a definitive guide to U.S. military pension legislation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has estimated that no more than 2,000–3,000 Revolutionary War veterans received pensions for wartime injury during the entire history of the invalid pension program.
Daily Life The everyday lives of disabled Revolutionary War veterans were often marked by poverty. The fact that nondisabled veterans were also generally poor, however,
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suggests that the poverty of disabled veterans probably had more to do with the fact that they were veterans than that they were disabled. Whatever the reasons, this poverty, along with the frequently painful and restrictive consequences of their wartime injuries, meant that many disabled veterans stood in need of some kind of welfare assistance. Due to the absence of specially created, publicly funded services and facilities for ex-servicemen, veterans who needed help had to rely on the same support networks and mechanisms as nonveterans. In many ways the linchpin of the early American welfare system was the family. Americans were expected to turn to their relatives first if they needed any kind of economic or medical assistance. When a family was incapable of providing this, local overseers of the poor normally stepped in and granted aid from the public purse. This aid could take a variety of forms from the hire of nurses to the provision of essential supplies such as fuel or medicines. In such instances, however, most recipients of poor relief were still assisted within their own homes and families. Almshouses and other institutions for the poor did exist in the early United States, but these were few in number and generally confined to urban areas. In the main, most poor, sick, or incapacitated Americans, including veterans, were provided for within the community at large in noninstitutional settings. Even those without families or homes were not institutionalized but were ‘‘boarded out’’ in the homes of neighbors or other designated persons. Most disabled veterans, however, did have families and homes, so they did not need to resort to boarding out for assistance. Indeed, disabled veterans appear to have had fairly ordinary family lives
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comparable to those of other Americans. The vast majority married, had children, and formed viable households. Rarely did disabled veterans live entirely alone. Consequently, most disabled veterans had relatives living with them whom they could turn to for assistance. In cases where family support was insufficient, the family and home still usually provided the framework through which public or other outside aid was administered. Disabled veterans, then, were seldom provided for within the walls of institutions. While it is true that disabled Revolutionary War veterans did sometimes require care and assistance, their lives were rarely characterized by helplessness and passivity. In many cases, disabled veterans were not totally dependent members of the families in which they lived, but were often important caregivers in their own right, contributing much to the vitality of their households. Furthermore, although many veterans were indeed poor, some appear to have achieved positions of relative wealth, respect, and authority in their local communities. To a large extent, the invalid pension program was based on the assumption that the wartime injuries of veterans affected their capacity to work for a living. This assumption was, in some ways, well founded, as many disabled veterans did have problems carrying out some work-related tasks because of their injuries. It is clear, however, that physical impairment rarely precluded veterans from performing productive labor altogether. On the whole, disabled veterans worked in similar numbers to their nondisabled peers and at the same kinds of jobs. Injured veterans worked, for instance, as coopers, shoemakers, preachers, shipwrights, teachers, agricultural laborers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and
millers. As for early Americans more generally, though, by far the most common occupation for disabled veterans was farming. Overall, disabled Revolutionary War veterans seem to have led fairly ordinary lives after the war. This ordinariness is largely explained by the fact that, due to the hard physical nature of work and the state of medicine at the time, ill health and injury were commonplace in the early United States. At a somatic level, then, disabled veterans did not particularly stand out from much of the general population. Moreover, the ubiquity of physical impairment, coupled with the lack of institutional provisions for disabled Americans, meant that early American society was accustomed to accommodating people with physical impairments within the rhythms and normal activities of everyday life. This accommodation was facilitated in large part by the flexible nature and structure of the preindustrial economy.
Old Heroes of the Revolution In the years immediately following the Revolutionary War, veterans of the conflict, including disabled veterans, were generally treated with indifference. Apart from invalid pensions, ordinary veterans were not afforded any special treatment. Neither were they particularly revered. This situation began to change, however, around the time of the War of 1812. According to historian John Resch, the upsurge in American nationalism accompanying this second war with Britain saw Revolutionary War veterans celebrated as national heroes. This late recognition brought the many disabled veterans who were still alive in the 1810s and 1820s more
Revolutionary War Veterans Overseas | 353 favorable attention. Yet it did not lead to any great change in their material conditions. While some old veterans were able to take advantage of new benefits offered after the expansion of the military pension scheme in 1818, most disabled veterans continued to live like other elderly Americans of their generation—in their own homes (or those of their relatives), working to the best of their abilities, with family, friends, and neighbors close at hand to lend support should they need it. Daniel Blackie
Further Reading Bickford, Charlene Bangs, Kenneth R. Bowling, William Charles diGiacomantonio, and Helen E. Veit, eds. Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, March 4, 1789–March 3, 1791, Vol. 7—Petition Histories: Revolutionary War-Related Claims. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Clark, Murtie June, comp. The Pension Lists of 1792–1795 with Other Revolutionary War Pension Records. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1991. Glasson, William H. Federal Military Pensions in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1918. Resch, John, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS OVERSEAS After the American War of Independence, most veterans remained in the newly created United States, with large numbers taking an active role in the
political life of the country (see Politics, Veterans in). Although many of the initial diplomats in Europe were politicians during the American Revolutionary War, such as Thomas Jefferson, the minister to France, and John Adams, minister to Britain, it was not long before members of a younger generation were to be appointed. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, minister to France from 1796 to 1797 (and minister to Spain from 1801 to 1804) had served at the battles of Germantown and Brandywine, commanding his South Carolina Regiment at the Siege of Savannah. Thomas Sumter, later secretary of the legation in Paris, and then minister to Portugal and then to Brazil, was the son of General Thomas Sumter and had also served with the militia from South Carolina leading irregulars in the war and seeing action in the Camden campaign. John Armstrong, minister to France from 1804 to 1810, during the ‘‘high point’’ of the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor, served at the Battle of Saratoga. William Eustis, minister to the Netherlands from 1814 until 1818 had been a medical doctor with the Continental Army who had also served in the expedition to put down Shays’s rebellion, as had David Humphreys, former aide de camp to George Washington and later minister to Portugal from 1791 to 1797 and to Spain from 1797 to 1801. For some of the veterans of the war, the end of the fighting left them with few prospects of preferment. John Paul Jones, the Scottish-born naval captain who managed to attack and defeat British warships off the coast of England in September 1779, had been unable to collect his prize money. He went to Russia where he took the name Pavel Dzhones and worked for the Russian Navy. He was a success
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fighting the Turks but fell afoul of Empress Catherine the Great’s favorite Grigory Potemkin and ended up moving to France where he died. Another famous veteran of the American Revolutionary War was John Trumbull, dubbed ‘‘The Painter of the Revolution.’’ He went to Europe in 1780, spending time in Paris and then London before returning to the United States. Aaron Burr, a former lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and vice president from 1801 until 1805, fled the United States after fatally wounding Alexander Hamilton in a duel. He went to London and Paris before returning to the United States in old age. Also, Thomas Barclay, with whom George Washington stayed before he crossed the Delaware River, was subsequently appointed as consul to Tangier, Morocco, but when in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, he was said to have been killed in a duel with a Spaniard who demeaned American women. He was buried in the English Cemetery in Lisbon, and a plaque commemorating Barclay was erected there and is now on the wall inside the church’s cemetery, although historians have later proven that the information on it was not correct. Obviously Benedict Arnold, the American general who then sided with the British, also left America—he settled in London where he died in 1801. Finally, Maria, the daughter of Paul Revere, married Joseph Balestier and the two moved to Singapore where they owned a large sugar plantation. After his midnight ride, Revere served as a colonel in the Massachusetts’ line and received much of the blame for his state’s failed expedition to capture Penobscot in Maine in 1779. The Balestiers sent out with them a bell to symbolize that which rang
in Lexington Town in 1775; it is now held at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. Justin Corfield See also Revolutionary War Veterans
Further Reading Morison, Samuel Eliot. John Paul Jones. New York: Time, 1964. Roberts, Priscilla H., and James N. Tull. ‘‘Adam, Hoops, Thomas Barclay and the House in Morrisville Known as Summerseat 1764–1791.’’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 90, no. 5 (2000): i–106. Willson, Beckles. America’s Ambassadors to France 1777–1927. London: John Murray, 1928.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858–1919) Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth president of the United States and a Spanish-American War veteran. He was born in 1858 to a wealthy New York family. As a youth he was sickly, but he built up his strength and courage through exercise and travel—what he termed the ‘‘strenuous life.’’ After graduating from Harvard College, in 1881 he entered New York politics as a Republican. When his wife and mother died on the same day, however, he moved to the Dakota Territory and became a rancher and sheriff. Roosevelt returned to politics when he was appointed president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners. As a lifelong reformer, he purged the police of corruption and instituted new training standards. In 1897, President William McKinley appointed Roosevelt to be assistant secretary of the navy, but Roosevelt practically ran the navy.
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) | 355 When the United States declared war against Spain in 1898, Roosevelt resigned to raise a regiment of cowboys. Known officially as the First U.S. Volunteer Calvary Regiment, the Rough Riders earned fame for themselves and their colonel with charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in Cuba. After the war, Roosevelt parlayed his fame to be elected governor of New York. In 1900, President McKinley again tapped Roosevelt, this time to run for vice president, and the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won. But McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and Roosevelt became president. He served out McKinley’s term and was then elected in his own right in 1904. As president, Roosevelt was known for his progressivism. His ‘‘trustbusting’’ and his regulation of commerce and the food industry earned him a reputation as a reformer. An avid outdoorsman, Roosevelt also supported conservation efforts, and he designated many thousands of acres of land as national forests to preserve them. In his foreign policy, Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine stated that the United States could intervene in the affairs of Latin American governments to prevent possible European intervention. Roosevelt also initiated construction of the Panama Canal. In 1907, Roosevelt sent four battleship squadrons —nicknamed the ‘‘Great White Fleet’’—on a circumnavigation of the globe to demonstrate American naval might. As a veteran, Roosevelt was involved in veterans’ groups throughout his life. In 1899 he narrowly lost a vote to be commander in chief of an organization of Spanish-American War veterans, eventually called the United Spanish War Veterans. He did become
commander of an USVW affiliate called the Naval and Military Order of the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt’s political career spanned the lives of veterans of the Mexican, Civil, and Spanish-American Wars. Roosevelt, like many Republicans, depended on those veterans for votes. For example, during whistlestop speeches (so-called because candidates would speak from the back of trains that announced their arrival by blowing their whistles) on the campaign trail, Roosevelt relied on veterans to be supportive listeners. He was not above planting a member of the Grand Army of the Republic in the crowd so that he could interrupt his speech, make a show of shaking the veteran’s hand, and then go back to speaking. Roosevelt’s reliance on veterans did not come without a price, however. Veterans often besieged Roosevelt, wanting to talk to him, to shake his hand, and to tell him their stories. He received innumerable requests from veterans for patronage, but he supported only those whom he thought were worthy. As police commissioner of New York, for example, his refusal to hire incompetent veterans earned him an indictment because of the GAR’s influence. (He was acquitted.) Roosevelt had a low enough view of veterans to term some of his Rough Riders ‘‘homicidal’’ and ‘‘lawless.’’ Though then GAR supported him as it did all Republican presidents, in 1903 Roosevelt angered the GAR by refusing publicly to praise Commanding General of the U.S. Army Nelson Miles upon his retirement. Miles and Roosevelt had mutually hated each other since the war in Cuba, but the GAR loved Miles because he was a Civil War veteran. As commander in chief, Roosevelt had to
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carefully avoid passing over Civil War veterans for high army positions. At the same time, he had to avoid looking too dependent on the GAR, lest he offend other interest groups. For example, after consulting with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Roosevelt chose not to speak to a 1904 GAR encampment in Boston so that he would not then be obligated to speak to laborers. On another occasion, Roosevelt had to balance the demands of Spanish-American War veterans, who wanted him to dedicate a monument on Memorial Day, with those of the GAR, who wanted Memorial Day observances reserved for Civil War veterans. Thus Roosevelt was careful to avoid angering the GAR, but he was also confident of their support without constant courting. In 1907 Roosevelt signed the McCumber Act, a GAR-sponsored bill. That act gave veterans pensions, for which they did not have to be disabled (except by old age), provided that they had served 90 days in either the Mexican or the Civil War. Veterans over 62 received $12 a month; veterans over 65 received $15 per month; veterans over 75 received $70 per month. Roosevelt had favored the idea of a pension bill, and so signed the act, but he also opposed the GAR’s relentless desire for increased pensions (see Pensions, Civil War; Civil War Veterans). Roosevelt was also influential in organizing the first association in the United States known as the American Legion. In the disturbing days before World War I, this Legion was organized by concerned citizens as a reserve of men, comprised of veterans and interested civilians, who would be able to fight with little training. Roosevelt participated in the organization because he doubted that President Woodrow Wilson was making adequate preparations for
war. But Roosevelt accepted only an honorary position, lest his leadership make the organization seem to be politically motivated against Wilson, though in his less prudent moments Roosevelt wanted to command a regiment of American cavalry. Another Roosevelt was more important to the Legion’s leadership—Theodore Roosevelt Jr. In 1916, the elder Roosevelt joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars. After his time as president, Roosevelt remained active. He traveled widely, sponsored civic causes such as the Boy Scouts, wrote numerous books, and ran for president again in 1912 on the Progressive ticket, surviving an assassination attempt. He died in 1919 at his home in Oyster Bay, New York. Lincoln Austin Mullen
Further Reading Burton, David Henry. Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Twayne, 1972. Donald, Aida. Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Basic Books, 2007. Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Coward, McCann and Georghegan, 1979. ———. Theodore Rex. New York: Random House, 2001. Morison, Elting E., and John M. Blum, eds. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951.
RUSSELL, HAROLD (1914– 2002) A Canadian-American disabled veteran from World War II, Russell was one of only two nonprofessional actors ever to
Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans | 357 win an Academy Award for acting, and the only person to have received two Oscars for the same role. Harold Russell was born on January 14, 1914, at North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, and moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1933. After hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he was so moved by the news that he enlisted in the army on the following day. He then worked as an instructor with the 13th Airborne Division. However, in 1944 a defective fuse in a grenade that he was handling caused an explosion and Russell lost both his hands. Doctors provided him with two steel claws to help him—these were operated by a shoulder harness. He then attended Boston University as a fulltime student. While there, he became the subject of a film called Diary of a Sergeant, which was an army production about the rehabilitation of an injured war veteran. The film director William Wyler saw Diary of a Sergeant (1945) and asked Russell whether he would like to star in The Best Years of Our Lives, playing the role of Homer Parrish, a sailor who lost both his hands in the war. The film was produced by Samuel Goldwyn who was impressed by Russell’s acceptance of his injuries (see Film and Veterans). In 1946 Russell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film and also a Special Oscar ‘‘for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance . . . .’’ It was the only time two Oscars have been awarded for the same role. In 1947 he won a Golden Globe Award as the best nonprofessional actor in the previous year. Russell then returned to studying at Boston University. Graduating with a business degree, he worked in business and was president of the Disabled American Veterans. Active in AMVETS, a more liberal organization
that emerged after World War II as a rival to the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (it actively favored integration of the armed forces and supported the United Nations, for instance). He was national commander of AMVETS for three terms. In 1951 he wrote an open letter to President Harry S Truman supporting the president’s dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur, saying that it was important that the military authority should serve the civil power. In 1964 Russell was appointed chairman of the President’s Council on Hiring the Handicapped. Russell appeared in two more films— Inside Moves (1980) and Dogtown (1997), as well as in the television series China Beach (1989). In 1992 he sold his Oscar to a private collector for $60,500 to raise money to pay for his wife’s medical bills. It was one of the few Oscars sold because in 1950 all recipients had to sign an agreement preventing them from selling the award. Harold Russell died on January 29, 2002, in Needham, Massachusetts. Justin Corfield See also World War II Veterans; Disabled Veterans
Further Reading Berg, A. Scott. Goldwyn: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Davenport, Robert. The Encyclopedia of War Movies: The Authoritative Guide to Movies about Wars of the 20th Century. New York: Checkmark Books, 2004.
RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN OF WORLD WAR I VETERANS Veterans and some historians have called the Russian intervention the Forgotten War, the Midnight War, the Secret War,
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the Winter War, and the Frozen War. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson stated that he ‘‘sweat blood’’ over the issue of American intervention in Russia. Wilson adamantly refused to send troops to Russia despite hardpressed pleas from France and Britain and some members of his government. Yet with the triumph of Bolshevism imminent Wilson relented. Two separate forces were sent to Russia in the fall of 1918. The American Expeditionary Force North Russia (AEFNR) went to Archangel on the Arctic Ocean. The American Expeditionary Force Siberia (AEFS) arrived in Vladivostok, located in the Russian Far East. Both were missions fraught with confusion, secrecy, controversy, and, on the part of the soldiers, resentment and anger. Russia’s withdrawal from World War I after the Bolshevik takeover created a dilemma for France and Britain. Both nations believed that Bolshevism presented a clear danger to democracy. Japan’s territorial expansion designs on Siberia was yet another problem as the United States did not want the Japanese in Russia. On June 1, 1918, Wilson decided on intervention. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and Generals Peyton C. Marsh and John J. Pershing deemed Russian intervention a recipe for disaster. Secretary of State Robert Lansing advocated a neutrality policy while the U.S. ambassador to Russia David R. Francis called for immediate intervention. Wilson wrote a carefully thought-out Aide Memoire, which stated that American troops were only to protect American interests, support the Czech Legion (fighting against the Communists), and not to engage in any offensive actions, only defensive responses. Wilson chose newly promoted Major
General William Graves to lead the troops assigned to the Siberian campaign. Graves’s new command was the U.S. Army’s 8th Division, training at Camp Fremont, California, for duty in France. He received a coded message on August 2, 1918, to report to a meeting in Kansas City. Baker met Graves to inform him of his new assignment, which was command of the 8,000 troops Wilson approved for Siberia. The United States had provided nearly $1 billion worth of guns, military equipment, and supplies to Russia, spread along the TransSiberian Railway between Vladivostok and Nikolsk. Baker gave Graves an unsigned copy of the Aide Memoire as the guideline for American policies. Newton told Baker to ‘‘watch [your] step; you will be walking on eggs loaded with dynamite.’’ The War Department ordered Graves to keep the TransSiberian and Chinese Eastern Railways open for all commercial and passenger fares. Even though Admiral Knight of the flagship Brooklyn was instructed to keep Vladivostok as a base for the Czech Legion’s safety and utilize the force at his disposal, both Graves and Knight were to avoid any political involvement. It was an exercise in futility. With only 8,000 troops and little guidance as to how he was to proceed, Graves faced the combined forces of Japanese troops and Cossack marauders led by Gregori Semenoff, as well as Bolshevik guerillas. The AEFNR in Archangel fared no better. American troops were placed under the command of the British by the Allied Supreme War Council. American troops were immediately sent into offensive actions aimed at dislodging the Bolsheviks from the area. The first to see action were 50 Marines from the
Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans | 359 U.S. cruiser Olympia. Colonel George E. Stewart, the ranking American officer, saw his troops sent off in four or five different expeditions. President Wilson’s directive to only secure the military equipment was totally disregarded by the British. Moreover, American troops had to change clothing, use unfamiliar weapons, and were told to fight an enemy they did not know for reasons that were not explained. To add more insult, the American flag was not allowed in Russia. American soldiers described Archangel as infested with fleas, cockroaches, bedbugs, and ticks. Death threatened not only from mines, booby traps, and rifle and artillery fire, but also from flu and other illnesses. Waist-deep snow, the nearly always dark Russian winter, and temperatures of 45 degrees below zero took their toll on morale and health, and caused more lives to be lost. U.S. troops knew the war was over and felt deserted by their government. Many of the 5,500 AEFNR troops were from Michigan and the local press and their families used political pressure to bring home Michigan’s ‘‘Polar Bears.’’ The Veterans of Foreign Wars were instrumental in sponsoring an expedition that led to 86 of their bodies being recovered and returned in 1929. President Wilson informed the troops in February 1919 that they would come home when the weather allowed transport. In June, American troops left after suffering more than 2,000 casualties from all causes. British commander Major General Edmund Ironside described a convoy of Russian carts arriving at Archangel’s docks in August 1919. Each cart held the coffin of an American soldier. They were disinterred from Archangel’s cemetery to be sent back to the United States. The men who died at Bolshevik hands in the village of
Nigni Gora in January 1919 were returned in 1930. A few American soldiers still lie in unmarked graves. The AEFS did not leave Siberia until March 1920; General Graves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his Siberian service, then held several other commands before retiring in 1928. America’s Russian intervention is little known. Russian history text books contain the story while American texts rarely include it. America appears to have collective amnesia concerning the Russian campaign. While its participants were eligible to join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, they have been largely forgotten. When President Nixon visited Russia in 1972, he spoke to the Russian people saying that the United States and Russia never fought against each other in war. In a weekly radio address, President Reagan stated that no American ever stood against a Russian in war. Even the well-regarded historian, George F. Kennan, said that American soldiers in North Russia did not engage in any actions except defensive ones. Moreover, the Russian campaign transpired after the armistice ending World War I was signed. Historian Roger Crownover posited that the Russian campaign sowed the seeds for what would become the Cold War. It can be argued that the Russian campaign was an error that benefited the United States nothing. Darlene Spitzer-Antezana See also World War I Veterans
Further Reading Crownover, Roger. The United States Intervention in North Russia—1918,1919: The Polar Bears. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
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Fic, Victor M. The Collapse of American Policy in Russia and Siberia, 1918: Wilson’s Decision Not to Intervene (March–October, 1918). New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Rhodes, Benjamin D. The Anglo-American Winter War with Russia, 1918–1919:
A Diplomatic and Military Tragicomedy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988. Willett, Robert L. Russian Sideshow: America’s Undeclared War 1918–1920. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003.
S Selective Service Act of 1940. It guaranteed reemployment at the same job or a comparable one if the veteran successfully completed three months of military service. For those who were disabled, President Roosevelt signed Public Law 16 on March 24, 1943. It guaranteed up to four years’ retraining for any honorably discharged veteran who was at least ten percent disabled and needed help to overcome the disability. Liberal Congressmen fought hard for a law that would train all disabled Americans, but conservatives and veterans groups refused to budge on their belief that this was a special privilege only veterans had earned. On July 28, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a radio speech that was enthusiastically received throughout the nation charging Congress to come up with legislation that would prevent postwar inflation and unemployment, and take care of the education, medical, and transitional needs of the homecoming veterans. On October 27, he called for legislation financially supporting veterans’ education,
SERVICEMEN’S READJUSTMENT ACT The unprecedentedly generous Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of June 22, 1944, owed its origin to several causes. World War I had established the precedent that American veterans were entitled to health care, disability pensions, and aid to their wives, children, widows, and orphans if necessary. Many World War II veterans had served beginning in September 1940, when the peacetime draft was instituted, far more than the maximum of two years’ service by any World War I veteran. The New Deal marked the assumption of responsibility by the federal government for the economic welfare of the nation through providing jobs, welfare legislation, and directing economic policy. Many expected that with millions of veterans being demobilized and thrust on the labor market when the war ended that a new depression would result. The first benefit World War II veterans received was with Section 8 of the 361
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stating that ‘‘the time to be prepared for peace is at the height of war’’ (Ross 1969, 92) and on November 23 for mustering out pay and credit towards social security for time in service. On February 3, 1944, after rejecting efforts by some congressmen to pass another Bonus bill (see Bonus March) the president signed a law granting between $100 and $300 to all discharged service personnel based on their length of service and whether they went overseas. Meanwhile, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, backed by the Hearst newspapers, complained loudly that the veterans’ hospitals were unable to care for ‘‘the lost battalion’’ of Americans wounded who were returning home to fight yet another battle for good medical care. Everyone agreed the veterans deserved a great deal, but how much and who would administer it were big questions. For instance, liberal Congressmen wanted to provide tuition and educational benefits to exceptionally qualified individuals whether veterans or not; others wanted to limit the benefits to a year. Whether the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Office of Education, or Federal Security Agency would administer the program was also a problem. So was which congressional committees had the authority to hold hearings and revise the legislation. The American Legion seized leadership of the enterprise on January 8, 1944, when it presented what it termed ‘‘a bill of rights for G. I. Joe and G. I. Jane’’ to the nation, shortened within a few days to the ‘‘GI Bill of Rights.’’ The bill did not win instant approval, in part because the Legion seized the sponsorship and did not consult with other groups. The Veterans of Foreign Wars ultimately fell into line, but the Disabled
American Veterans and Military Order of the Purple Heart favored a flat bonus of $5,000 per veteran with free medical care and hospitalization limited to disabled veterans. Although specifics were changed as the Legion’s bill passed through Congress, its essentials remained in tact. The Veterans Administration would be second only to the army and navy in priority in requisitioning construction materials and supplies, which would ensure the building of veterans’ hospitals. No veteran would be discharged without an explanation of his or her rights and back pay. Tuition plus living expenses would be paid for up to three years of college or technical school. Home and farm loans would be guaranteed with federal mortgages. All veterans also received up to a year’s pay at $20 per week or until they found work. The final bill passed the House and the Senate on June 12 and 13, 1944, and the president signed it on the 22nd. By 1955, about 7.8 million veterans, half of those in civilian life, had received educational or vocational training thanks to the GI Bill, including 315,000 disabled veterans. A million were enrolled in colleges by 1974. Over 5 million participated in the 52-week readjustment allowance, although 70 percent obtained employment almost instantly on returning home. Over 3.75 million loans for homes and farms were also approved. The GI Bill helped suburbanize America and also led to a vast increase in college enrollments. Benefits for Korean War veterans and Vietnam War veterans were less generous, being limited to monthly allowances of $110 and $130, respectively, to cover college tuition and benefits, At best, this provided supplemental coverage.
Shell Shock However, the GI Bill of 2008 finally restored full college tuition benefits (plus living allowances) for Afghan War veterans and Iraq War veterans since September 11, 2001, with amounts prorated downward for lesser time in service. William Pencak See also World War II Veterans; Benefits
Further Reading Bennett, Michael J. When Dreams Came True: The G.I. Bill and the Making of Modern America. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1996. Humes, Edward. Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream. Orlando: Harcourt, 2005. Mettler, Suzanne. Soldiers to Civilians: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Olson, Keith W. The G.I. Bill, the Veterans, and the Colleges. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1974. Ross, Davis R. B. Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
SHELL SHOCK Especially in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, veterans, policymakers, and analysts called attention to longlasting psychological effects of military service. Questions of pensions, psychiatry, and other support services involved consideration of competing diagnoses. Shell shock, combat fatigue, war neuroses, and later, post-traumatic stress disorder were among the terms used in depicting military service’s psychological effects. The principal symptoms were
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reliving the battle or overreaction to shots, loud noises, or other stimuli that caused a veteran to recall a particularly traumatic wartime experience. Other effects from World War I shell shock included amnesia, blindness, paralysis, impaired speech and hearing, nightmares, insomnia, and dizziness. Only a minority of shell shock cases involved concussion; in some of these cases, wounded soldiers had shell fragments in their heads. In most cases, however, shell shock involved psychological consequences sometimes not directly sustained in battle. The stigma of associating shell shock (and similar, related conditions) with malingering meant that many cases were unreported. However, psychologists, policymakers, journalists, and others commonly applied the label ‘‘shell shock’’ to many soldiers’ and veterans’ mental conditions. ‘‘Shell shock’’ was particularly applied to soldiers in World War I, although it was used again in World War II and Korea. Conditions similar to shell shock first received significant medical attention in the nineteenth century. During the Crimean and U.S. Civil War, medical professionals intensified efforts to diagnose soldiers’ and veterans’ psychological trauma. In World War I, an emerging profession of military psychiatry began seeking legitimacy in diagnosis and treatment. Pre-twentieth-century accounts of mental illness resulting from battle referred to ‘‘nostalgia,’’ ‘‘cerebro-spinal shock,’’ and ‘‘soldier’s heart’’ or ‘‘irritable heart.’’ Broader terms such as ‘‘fatigue’’ and ‘‘combat neuroses’’ raised the question of whether reactions later labeled by such terms as ‘‘shell shock’’ were aptly described as ‘‘diseases,’’ or were ‘‘normal’’ reactions to abnormal conflict circumstances.
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During the World War I, what is now post-traumatic stress disorder was more commonly known as ‘‘shell shock’’ and formally as neuropsychological disease. ‘‘Shell shock’’ first entered the medical literature in a 1915 report by a Cambridge University psychologist with the United Kingdom Royal Army Medical Corps, Charles S. Myers. Modern artillery could induce concussions in battle. Increasingly, analysts focused attention not just on the physiological wound, the concussion, but also on psychological effects that appeared after the conflict. The term originated because doctors believed physical lesions of the brain occurred because of carbon monoxide or changes in atmospheric pressure from the skull and brain being rattled by artillery shells. In fact, the constant sudden noises such as gunfire, artillery fire, and bombs going off among men forced to live in trenches (frequently muddy or flooded) for long periods caused large numbers of soldiers to experience anxiety, depression, the inability to think coherently, insomnia, loss of memory, paralysis, or hysterical fits. At first, men who became disoriented were considered malingerers or deserters. They were generally executed until large numbers began to experience similar conditions. Rest cures and electric shock therapy—either mild or harsh— were the first cures attempted. As early as 1916, the British Army estimated 40 percent of its casualties were suffering from shell shock. The British discharged over 200,000 men for this condition and needed 20 army hospitals in addition to private facilities to care for them. A 1922 Commission of Enquiry in the United Kingdom examined uses of the ‘‘shell shock’’ label. That the term shell shock should be removed from official
nomenclature was among its recommendations. Instead of using a broad term, the commission urged that physicians refer to specific disorders subsumed under ‘‘shell shock.’’ Previously, ‘‘shell shock’’ had been the basis of tens of thousands of discharges and pensions, and was estimated to have affected over a tenth of the UK soldiers in World War I combat. The commission called attention to ‘‘commotional’’ and ‘‘emotional’’ elements of shock, which sometimes occurred together but often did not. Realizing men who were removed to the rear and safe conditions would never want to return to the front, the American army in World War I at first treated shell shock victims near the lines with rest, encouragement, and good food, all the while attempting to persuade and shame them to return to their comrades. When that failed they were given unpleasant duties such as digging latrines. Ninety percent of those who suffered ‘‘battle fatigue’’ were ‘‘cured’’ in this manner. The large number of shell shock cases, however, led to a change in the perception of mental illness. Before the war, doctors had blamed it on hereditary factors, in keeping with the racial theories of the day that certain races and blood lines were healthier and superior to others. The collapse of so many men during the war, however, led to an increased sophistication in the treatment of the insane and the expansion of mental health to include use of psychologists and nurses outside of institutionalization. The psychological profession became more attuned to theories that the mental, as opposed to the biological, processes of a troubled individual were the primary cause. In general, physicians used terms such as the ‘‘traumatic neuroses of war’’ to describe their patients’ conditions.
Shell Shock Delayed appearance of psychological problems was frequent following World War I. There were 7,500 veterans receiving neuropsychiatric care in 1921, over 11,000 by 1931, and by 1944 almost half of the 67,000 beds in American veterans’ hospitals were filled by psychologically disturbed World War I veterans. Aware of the World War I experience, in World War II American physicians examining recruits attempted to screen those with psychological problems. About 1.6 million of 20 million draftees were thus declared unfit for service, over seven times the rejection rate of World War I. When a further 438,000 men who escaped this scrutiny developed mental problems, they were simply discharged until manpower shortages in 1943 brought home the fact that too many men were being lost for psychological causes. Manpower shortages led to the reimplementation of treatment near combat areas in the hope of restoring soldiers to the front. About half of the men treated near the front returned to battle, as opposed to only 15 percent of those who were sent to the rear. World War II taught psychologists that the longer men were exposed to fire the more likely they were to break down. They concluded about a hundred days of intermittent exposure to fire would decrease effectiveness and 200 days would almost certainly result in collapse. Young men (aged 18–19) had the lowest rate of breakdowns at 6 per thousand whereas men at the upper limit of draft age, 36–37, collapsed at a rate of 45 per thousand. World War II also led to the preponderance of militarily trained psychologists, some 2,400, who dealt with the problems of veterans. A contrasting perspective is that each conflict is unique, and that battle injuries
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and lasting consequences also differ. For example, some analysts insist the shell shock of World War I needs to be distinguished from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that has emerged to describe veterans’ mental problems from the Vietnam War to the present. In contrast, veterans’ organizations emphasize continuities between psychological conditions and common pension and employment issues. For instance, in addressing former members of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (during the George W. Bush administration), a Disabled American Veterans official suggested that ‘‘shell shock’’ was one descriptor of a condition present throughout the ‘‘history of warfare.’’ Governments have always reacted slowly, and with mixed motives, in addressing war’s psychological effects. The diagnostic label ‘‘shell shock’’ still enjoys wide public usage, but it had only brief official usage, especially in the United Kingdom. In Russia, the experience of shell shock was unaccompanied by the label. Inattention to individual mental trauma was often overshadowed by attention to collective social objectives such as achieving solidarity with one’s comrades and not succumbing to weakness. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, attempts to psychologically screen soldiers were at best partially successful. Although predisposition (such factors as previous health conditions) predicted some cases where veterans developed psychological diseases, in other cases, it did not. Internationally, social and economic dimensions of veterans’ psychological conditions have seldom been explored, but monitoring and medical guidelines
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recently received some consideration. The World Health Organization (WHO) monitors such conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, considering it as one source of YLD (years living with a disability). WHO includes PTSD in its latest position paper, ICD-10; the European Medicines Agency of the European Union disseminated a concept paper on community guidelines for medicinal projects directed toward PTSD. Classifications such as ‘‘shell shock’’ have always had social and policy implications. They have illuminated inadequacies in health care, benefits, and community-based social services. They continue to incite academic, political, and social controversy. Increasingly, veterans have been not only subjects of, but also participants in that controversy. Arthur W. Blaser See also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; World War I Veterans; World War II Veterans
Further Reading Bailey, Pearce. ‘‘War and Mental Diseases.’’ American Journal of Public Health 8, no. 1 (January 1918): 1–7. Great Britain. Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into ‘‘Shell-Shock.’’ London: Imperial War Museum, 2004 [1922, also commonly referred to as the Southborough Report, as Lord Southborough chaired the committee]. Jones, Edgar, and Simon Wessely. Shell Shock to PTSD: Military Psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War. New York: Psychology Press, 2005. Merridale, Catherine. ‘‘The Collective Mind: Trauma and Shell-Shock in Twentieth Century Russia.’’ Journal of Contemporary History 35 (2000): 39–55. Military Veterans PTSD Reference Manual. www.ptsdmanual.com.
Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming. New York: Scribner’s, 2002. Shephard, Ben. A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI The Society of the Cincinnati was formed at the close of the American Revolution by officers of the Continental line as a fraternal organization, with the purpose of preserving the bonds of shared wartime service, comradeship, and sacrifice, as well as to perpetuate the memory of the struggle for independence. Although the Society was associated with the revered General George Washington, who was elected the first president general of the Society from the time of its founding and served until his death in 1799, the organization met with strong opposition from those who feared it would become a dangerous aristocratic power in the new United States. The Society was founded on May 13, 1783, at Fishkill, New York, across the Hudson River from the Continental Army’s Newburgh encampment; the meeting was presided over by Major General Baron von Steuben (see Newburgh Conspiracy). It was named in honor of the ancient Roman military hero Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, a fifthcentury B.C. citizen-soldier who twice led his country in war and, after each occasion, refused powerful political positions in favor of returning to his humble farm. The brainchild of Major General Henry Knox, chief of artillery for the Continental Army, the group’s purpose
Society of the Cincinnati according to its founding document was to commemorate the victorious struggle for American independence, in ‘‘remembrance of this vast event, as the mutual friendships which have been formed, under the pressure of common danger, and in many instances cemented by the blood of the parties.’’ The General Society was made up of state organizations, which were to regulate all of the Cincinnati’s local affairs in conformity with the Society’s general rules as well as judge the qualifications of prospective members. In order to establish the financial soundness of these state societies, each officer was required to donate one month’s pay, the interest of which would be used for the beneficent relief of ‘‘unfortunate’’ members or their families during the trying postwar years. Members of the Society were to be officers of the U.S. Amy and Navy who served until the end of the war, those who had been declared supernumeraries by Congress, and officers who had served honorably for three years during the struggle. The Institution (that is, constitution) of the Society also called for the extension of membership to the higher-ranking officers of the French army and navy in recognition of the significant military role played by France in securing American independence, including such notables as d’Estaing, de Grasse, and Rochambeau. Finally, the Society allowed admission of honorary members, men known for their great ‘‘abilities and patriotism.’’ To distinguish its members, the organizers established a gold eagle medal, to be worn and suspended by a blue and white ribbon, ‘‘descriptive of the union of France and America.’’ Although the desire among the officers to perpetuate the memory of their
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sacrifices and to cement the bonds of friendship was part of the foundation of the Society, an equally compelling impetus for the organization’s origin was the desperate financial predicament many of the army’s officers suffered by the end of the war. Years of active service with little or no compensation, having to pay out of their pockets for their own necessities and those of their troops, and the prospect of receiving little from Congress in the form of back pay, pensions, or rewards created within the officer corps a pronounced feeling of resentment against the Confederation government. The Society advocated financial relief and postwar pensions for Continental officers in light of the substantial sacrifices they had made while leading the army to victory. Many of the new members also favored commutation, a process by which the officers would be paid a lump sum by Congress or the states, rather than smaller payments over a longer period of time. A growing animosity toward the seemingly unsympathetic Congress among many army officers still in uniform worried congressmen and other civilian officials, who came to regard the newly created society of disgruntled army leaders as a dangerous political—and perhaps military—threat to the nascent American government hard-pressed for money. The prospect of military officers aligning themselves to pressure the strapped civilian government for financial benefits during trying economic times was not the only troubling aspect of the Society of the Cincinnati in the eyes of its alarmed detractors. In the organization’s ‘‘Institution,’’ a clause allowed for inclusion in the Society of the eldest male children of officers who had died in service during the
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Revolutionary War. Membership would pass to the ‘‘eldest male posterity’’ or to another ‘‘worthy’’ branch of an officer’s family, except for that granted on an honorary basis. According to these regulations, only one descendant of each charter member could belong at any one time, and that would typically be the oldest male—a privilege of primogeniture. This hereditary provision and the Society’s limitation of membership only to officers of the army disturbingly appeared to many Americans as a conspiratorial threat to the newly established state and Continental representative governments and to republican principals for which the eight-year struggle for independence had been waged. One of the first and most powerful criticisms of the Society came in the autumn of 1783 from the pen of Aedanus Burke, a South Carolina judge and former militia officer. In a pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Order or Society of Cincinnati, Burke (writing under the classical pseudonym ‘‘Cassius’’) feared that the new group would become an elite, permanently hereditary order, and perhaps a peerage. To Burke, the Society would become tyrannical and destroy virtuous republicanism in America in its ‘‘fiery, hot ambition, and thirst for power.’’ He was not alone in his fervent opposition. Some observers, including Virginia’s James Madison, worried that it would influence elections, while Samuel Adams of Massachusetts described the group as ‘‘rapid a Strike towards an hereditary Military Nobility as was ever made in so short a time.’’ Major General Nathanael Greene of the Continental Army, who was also president of the Rhode Island state society, noted that according to popular
belief, the Cincinnati members were ‘‘thought to contain dangerous designs, pregnant with mischief, and [were] . . . ruinous to the people.’’ Receiving news of the Society’s creation while ambassador to Britain’s Court of St. James, John Adams concluded that this development was ‘‘the deepest piece of cunning yet attempted. It is sowing the seeds of all that European courts wish to grow up among us, viz. of vanity, ambition, corruption, discord, and sedition.’’ Within months of its inception, then, the Society found itself under heavy fire for its aristocratic appearance as a new noble order. When the first general meeting of the Society convened in Philadelphia in May 1784, even Washington (who was not behind the organization’s foundation and never sought its presidency) recognized the group’s divisive effects. Having previously heard objections from both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette to the institution’s hereditary clauses, he initially looked to modify these controversial aspects of the society. At the meeting, however, he settled for imploring the members to revise their constitution by striking out ‘‘every word, sentence, and clause which has a political tendency.’’ In the end, he was able to have the offending phrases revised, as well as much of the Society’s political overtones, particularly through the correspondence with the various state societies. Although publicized widely, the revisions were not formally ratified by the state societies, a fact largely overlooked by the public. Over the next few years, however, criticism of the Society had abated, and many members actively participated in postwar politics, including the creation of the U.S. Constitution, for the most part as Federalists. By 1790, when the first
Society of the Cincinnati governor of the Northwest Territory, Society member General Arthur St. Clair, named a town on the Ohio River in honor of the Cincinnati, few objections were heard. By the early part of the nineteenth century, many of the state societies had become dormant, and those which remained devoted much energy to providing assistance to members or their families. Although the General Society was partially responsible for the U.S. Congress’ enactment in 1826 of financial relief to all living veterans of the Revolutionary conflict, membership declined, in part because creation of new state societies within the expanding nation were not allowed, a situation which served to prevent many eligible descendents from pursuing membership. Moreover, the French Cincinnati society was dissolved during the French Revolution, a time in which any pretensions to nobility were often deadly. A number of French members suffered death at the guillotine, including the Society’s president, Comte d’Estaing. Although the General Society continued to meet regularly for the most part with few exceptions, even during the Civil War, a major revival of interest in the Cincinnati occurred only in the 1870s. This was in part due to a renewed interest among Americans in their heritage, and a reaction to the influx of immigrants from Europe. The Society’s aristocratic origins and hereditary membership rules facilitated native-born Americans’ attempts to establish themselves with a degree of blue-blooded authenticity, as did other groups at the time, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, and
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the Society of Mayflower Descendants. By 1925, even the French society was restored, and it has subsequently hosted the General Society’s triennial meetings in 1959, 1974, and 2001. At the same time the Society served to establish a number of Americans’ pedigrees during this age, it also worked to historically commemorate the American Revolution. It participated in the Yorktown centennial celebrations in 1881, sent a delegation to the dedication of the Washington Monument in the District of Columbia in 1885, celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Federal Constitution two years later, and helped to mark the occasion of numerous statue and memorial unveilings into the twentieth century. Likewise, the state organizations in Georgia, Rhode Island, and South Carolina joined to locate and remove the grave of Nathanael Greene to the site of the general’s monument in Savannah. Today the General Society’s headquarters is housed in Washington, DC, at Anderson House, a 1905 mansion on Washington’s Embassy Row. Membership in the Society of the Cincinnati has been growing slowly but steadily for the last few decades. The Society now has about 3,750 members. Although it still functions according to the principles of its 1783 Institution, it also works as a nonprofit corporation dedicated to preserving and promoting the memory of the American Revolution and particularly the lives and accomplishments of its American and French military leaders. The Society operates a scholarly library on the American Revolution, with a large collection of rare materials focused on the art of war in the eighteenth century, and maintains a museum dedicated to the American Revolution and the history
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of the Society. The Society also conducts a range of educational outreach activities on the American Revolution, including research fellowships and a triennial book prize. John E. Maass See also Revolutionary War Veterans
Further Reading Hoey, Edwin A. ‘‘A ‘New and Strange Order of Men’.’’ American Heritage 19, no. 5 (August 1968): 44–49; 72–75. Hu¨nemo¨rder, Markus. The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Myers, Minor, Jr. Liberty Without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati, 2nd ed. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2004.
SOLDIERS’ HOMES See Veterans’ Homes
SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION This organization was established in New York on April 30, 1889, the onehundredth anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States, the impetus coming from the commemorations and celebrations around the United States in 1876 when the country celebrated its centenary. That had led to the establishment in San Francisco of the Sons of Revolutionary Sires, which led to the founding in New York of the General Society Sons of the Revolution. The Sons of the American Revolution, known as the S.A.R., included large numbers of
men who were descended from people who fought in or supported the American War of Independence. As a national society, it was chartered by an act of the U.S. Congress on June 9, 1906, and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, a member of the organization. The charter under which the society operates states that members have to be men aged 18 or older who can prove a lineal descent from an ancestor who supported the American Revolution. This can include anybody who served in the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, state militias or navy, people who signed the Declaration of Independence or served in the Continental Congress, or civilians who supported the Revolution by signing an oath of allegiance to the patriotic cause. It has also been possible for descendants of soldiers and sailors from France, Spain, the Netherlands, or any other country which supported the American Revolution to become members. Currently the S.A.R. has a membership of 26,000, organized into about 470 chapters, with its headquarters at Louisville, Kentucky. The first member of the S.A.R. was New Jersey financier William Osborne McDowell, who had tried to join the Union army in 1864 but was rejected for service when he was found out to have been only 16. Of the many prominent members of the organization, some 17 United States’ presidents or former presidents from 1889 have joined: Ulysses S. Grant (strictly speaking only a member of the Sons of Revolutionary Sires), Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon
Spanish-American War Veterans | 371 B. Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy E. Carter, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential election is also a member, as were World War II generals Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton, Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, and King Juan Carlos I of Spain. The role of the society has been to encourage historical work about the American Revolution, involving preservation of sites, relics, and documents, as well as raising money for prizes at schools and other community groups. The society has also been active in marking graves of veterans of the American War of Independence and providing reenactment groups for civic events. As only men were allowed to join the S.A.R., the Daughters of the American Revolution was established in 1890. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Sons of the American Revolution. www.sar.org. St. Paul, John, Jr., and Stuart O. Landry. The History of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Louisville, KY: NSSAR, 1982.
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR VETERANS ‘‘The Splendid Little War,’’ as it was called, lasted only from April 25 until August 13, 1898, and ended in total victory. Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States, and Cuban won its independence, temporarily to be exercised under American
protection. But for the all-volunteer army that fought, the war had less happy results. Many of them remained in service to occupy and then fight in the Philippines. Furthermore, of the 306,000 men who had been mobilized for the war, 1,637 had been wounded, 362 were killed in combat, but 2,121 died from disease. Others were emaciated and had their health ruined from malaria, typhoid fever, and dysentery. The army built Camp Wikoff (named after Colonel Charles Wikoff who was killed at San Juan Hill) at Montauk Point, Long Island, New York, as a healthy, cool spot for the victims of disease to recover. A total of 20,000 veterans were mustered out of service at the camp in August and September, but accommodations for the sick who remained were dismal. Food and supplies were lacking, and men had to sleep on the ground and endure the racket as the hospital was under construction. Efforts to furlough sufferers to hospitals proved equally futile, as many died almost instantly; 257 men perished at Camp Wikoff before it was closed later in the year. As communities welcomed home the victorious troops with parades and ceremonies, they could not help but observe the poor health of many veterans as well. James C. Putnam of Columbus, Ohio, came up with the idea of a veterans’ organization to obtain health care and pensions for the war’s disabled. Putnam was a descendant of Major General Israel Putnam (who ordered his men not to fire ‘‘until you see the whites of their eyes’’ when he commanded at the Battle of Bunker Hill) and a veteran of the 6th Cavalry who had fought against the Utes, Zunis, and Sioux between 1889 and 1891. Although he had received a leg wound and medical discharge in 1892,
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he reenlisted as a medic with the 17th Infantry and received a bullet wound in his neck in Cuba. On his return to Columbus, he became a fireman, and then joined pharmacist and fellow veteran James Romanis, who was also appalled that the government had not provided medical care or financial pensions for the wounded ex-servicemen he treated. Their advertisement in the Columbus Dispatch persuaded eleven other veterans including Medal of Honor winner Oscar Brookins—who while under fire had dragged wounded men to safety at the Battle of El Caney—to meet and form the American Veterans of the Foreign Service on September 29, 1899. They met at the tailor shop of Francis Dubiel, a Polish immigrant who himself was dying of the malaria he had contracted in Cuba. Putnam envisioned a perpetual organization, one that would be open to any veteran who served in a combat zone outside the United States. The AVFS constitution dedicated it ‘‘to promote in
all ways fraternal the general welfare of the men who have bore the brunt of battle, to foster true patriotism as defenders of American principles, cooperating in celebrations of patriotic anniversaries and maintaining a status for the veterans, placing him in the front rank of American citizenship.’’ These criteria for membership and purposes of the AVFS would become those of its successor organization, the present Veterans of Foreign Wars. So would its symbol, the cross of the Order of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, more famously known as the Knights of Malta, who during the crusades cared for the sick and wounded in addition to wielding the sword themselves. The cross’s eight points stand for the eight beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, and placed within the cross is the great seal of the United States, around which the sun’s rays spread out to emphasize the strength and warmth of the society’s dedication and brotherhood. The state of Ohio chartered the AVFS on October 1, 1899, as a nonprofit
The wreck of the battleship Maine as it appeared in Havana, Cuba’s harbor, in 1902. The sinking of the Maine provoked the Spanish-American War; parts of the ship were distributed as memorials throughout the United States. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-92666]
Spanish-American War Veterans | 373 corporation. Columbus became Headquarters Camp No. 1 of an organization that soon acquired camps elsewhere in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Sparta, Illinois. The AVFS’ first good deed was to rescue Myron B. Hall, a veteran of San Juan Hill, suffering from lung disease, from a poorhouse and transfer him to the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Sandusky, Ohio. In 1905, the Ohio-based AVFS merged with groups of the same name in Pennsylvania formed by Philippine War veterans. Like the other Philippine War Veterans’ Association with which it merged in 1914, the AVFS never mustered more than about 1,000 members. Most of the veterans of both conflicts joined the United Spanish War Veterans (USWV), which was the most numerous of the various organizations to emerge out of the Spanish-American War. It was founded in 1904 and combined a variety of small groups including the National Army and Navy Spanish-American War Veterans, the National Association of Spanish-American War Veterans, and the Service Men of the Spanish War. It also incorporated those who had fought in the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Philippines, the latter represented the Society of the Veteran Army of the Philippines. It allowed others who assisted the troops—such as medical personnel and Filipinos who aided the army as scouts or soldiers—to join if honorably discharged or still in service (see Philippine War Veterans). In keeping with the spirit of unity achieved during war in which both Northern and Southern soldiers had fought, and to avoid charges of partisanship such as those leveled against the Grand Army of the Republic for its support of the Republican Party, the USWV
refused to accept aid from office seekers or political parties and admitted members of any religion at a time when antiRoman Catholic sentiment was high both among Protestant, native-born Americans and among Republicans. Its constitution proclaimed the main objectives of the USWV were ‘‘To unite fraternally members of the U.S. Military who served in the Spanish-American War. To honor the memory of the fallen comrades. To assist former comrades and their families (widows, orphans, etc.). To perpetuate the memory of the Spanish American War.’’ The USVW did follow the GAR in calling local groups camps, with state departments and a national headquarters in Washington, DC. Also like the GAR, the USWV held a national convention or ‘‘encampment’’ each year. Although technically a democracy in which local camps elected delegates to state conventions which then chose national delegates and officers, in practice a small number of interested members who assumed the burden of administration ran the organization. A national council of administration included the commander in chief, the senior and junior vice commanders in chief, and the various department commanders. On the state level, a department encampment was also held annually; it consisted of delegates from each camp in the state as well as the department officers and past department officers. National USWV membership peaked at over 126,000 and over 1,500 camps (local chapters) in 1933. Of the members, 42 percent reenlisted in World War I even though they were too old to be drafted. The USWV continued to support patriotic efforts and veterans’ benefits. The last member, Nathan Cook, died at
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the age of 107 in 1992 (see Oldest Surviving Veterans). William Pencak
Further Reading Trask, David., The War with Spain in 1898. New York: Macmillian, 1981. Wecter, Dixon. When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944.
STONE, OLIVER (1946–) Oliver Stone is a Vietnam War veteran, film producer, writer, and director known for directing such films as Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), JFK (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994), Nixon (1995), and World Trade Center (2006). During the war in Vietnam, Stone served in the 2nd Platoon of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Infantry, of the U.S. Army. He was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He is also an Academy Award-winning filmmaker who earned a best screenplay Oscar for Midnight Express (1978) and two Oscars for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Born September 15, 1946, in New York City, Stone was the grandson of a French veteran of World War I and the son of a World War II veteran. Stone’s father was also a wealthy Wall Street stockbroker who raised him in a relatively privileged environment. He attended prep school, and in 1965 entered Yale University. Yet Stone soon dropped out of college to teach school in Vietnam and sail around the Pacific Ocean with the Merchant Marine. When Stone’s hopes to sell a novel based on these experiences failed, he impulsively
enlisted in the army and requested to be assigned to the infantry. He served as a combat soldier in Vietnam in 1967–1968. After his tour in Vietnam, Stone enrolled in film school at New York University, where he studied film technique, history, and theory. He was particularly influenced by the work of Orson Welles, ‘‘New Wave’’ directors Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, and Luis Bunuel, and NYU professor and filmmaker Martin Scorsese. At NYU, Stone crafted his first film on the Vietnam War. His Last Year in Vietnam (1971) was an eightminute short film that followed a wandering veteran on the streets of New York. While Stone began his feature career by directing two horror films—Seizure (1973) and The Hand (1981)—his early success came as the screenwriter of Midnight Express and Scarface (1983) and co-writer of Conan the Barbarian (1982), Year of the Dragon (1985), and 8 Million Ways to Die (1985). In 1986, Stone took up the director’s chair, again creating two films that channeled his obsessions with politics and Vietnam. Stone’s Salvador was an account of the 1980–1981 civil war in El Salvador and a bitter critique of the Reagan administration’s policies in South America. His Platoon was a Vietnam War combat film and the first Vietnam film written and directed by a veteran of the war. Stone soon returned to the subject of the Vietnam War with Born on the Fourth of July (1989), a film adaptation of paralyzed U.S. Marine veteran Ron Kovic’s memoir, and Heaven & Earth (1993), which portrayed the life of a Vietnamese woman during and after the war. By the 1990s, Stone was a well-known mainstream Hollywood filmmaker, yet his focus on politics and the American past often embroiled him in controversy.
Swofford, Anthony (1970–) Stone’s JFK, an interpretation of the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and Nixon, a deeply psychological biopic of President Richard M. Nixon, brought forth critics and defenders of his work as filmmaker/ historian. While some criticized him for distorting historical facts, others applauded him for challenging Americans to rethink their past. Considered by many to be one of the most notable filmmakers of the postVietnam era, Stone continues to play the role of filmmaker/historian in the twentyfirst century. In 2008, he began working on Pinkville, a film rendering of the My Lai massacre, and W, his interpretation of the George W. Bush presidency. Jeremy K. Saucier See also Film and Veterans; Vietnam War Veterans; Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Further Reading Riordan, James, Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker. New York: Hyperion, 1995. Toplin, Robert Brent, ed. Oliver Stone’s USA: Film, History, and Controversy. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
SWOFFORD, ANTHONY (1970–) Anthony Swofford is a Gulf War veteran and author of the best-selling memoir Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (2003). Swofford was born into a military family on August 12, 1970, in Fairfield, California. He joined the U.S. Marines in 1990 and served in a surveillance and target acquisition/scout-sniper platoon during the 1991 Gulf War.
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Swofford studied at American River College, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Davis, and later attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has taught at several colleges and has contributed essays to a number of publications, including theNew York Times, Newsweek, Harper’s, Mother Jones, and the Iowa Review. He has also reviewed some of the first memoirs produced by Iraq war veterans and correspondents. In 2005, film director Sam Mendes adapted Jarhead into a major motion picture starring Jake Gyllenhaal. In 2007, Swofford published his first novel, Exit A, the story of Severin Boxx a 17-year-old ‘‘military brat’’ living on the Yokota air base outside of Tokyo, Japan, in 1989. Swofford is best known as the author of Jarhead, a memoir of his experience as a marine, and a kind of psychoanalysis of marine training, combat, and killing. For Swofford, masculinity is at the heart of the war experience. During his youth, he was haunted by the need to feel accepted into the ‘‘warrior line’’ of his grandfather, a World War II veteran, and his father, a Vietnam War veteran. The 1984 bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon acted as a watershed moment, when, as a 14 year old, he realized that war was about ‘‘revenge’’ and ‘‘killing others who have killed or maimed you’’ (Jarhead, 128). Yet he also learned that ‘‘manhood had to do with war, and war with manhood, and to no longer be just a son, I needed to someday fight’’ (128). Jarhead’s powerful opening pages describe a scene from August 1990, when Swofford and his comrades prepare for imminent war against Iraq. Swofford taps into the male marine psyche, in which ostensibly anti-war films such as
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Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986), and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) can be also interpreted as pro-war, ‘‘war pornography.’’ The soldiers rewind filmic images of violence and rape celebrating, as Swofford tells us, ‘‘the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills’’ (7). Swofford has been widely praised by critics as one of the best writers to come out of the Gulf War. His memoir stands as both an explication of recent U.S. Marine culture and as meditation on the
changing nature of American warfare at the turn of the twenty-first-century. Jeremy K. Saucier See also Gulf War Veterans; Literature and Veterans
Further Reading Swofford, Anthony. Exit A. New York: Scribner’s, 2007. Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003.
T With many U.S. sailors held in Tripoli, in modern-day Libya, the U.S. government sent in the Navy including the frigate USS Philadelphia, which ran aground in October 1803 in Tripoli Harbor, necessitating a later military operation. This ended in a peace agreement following the U.S. Marines launching a land attack culminating in the capture of the city of Derne in October 1805. The event is best remembered in the line in the Marine hymn, ‘‘From the Halls of Montezuma, to the Shores of Tripoli,’’ whose tune comes from the operetta by Jacques Offenbach, Genevieve of Brabant (1859). At that stage, there were few veterans’ organizations in the United States, even for the American War of Independence, and none was established for veterans of the Tripolitan War. However, the camaraderie that was formed during the Tripolitan War continued. The Marine Corps gained extra prestige through its actions in Libya, and most of the U.S. servicemen involved in the Tripolitan War remained as seamen or marines. Some, such as Captain
TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER/TOMB OF THE UNKNOWNS See Arlington National Cemetery
TRIPOLITAN WAR VETERANS The Tripolitan War broke out in 1803 after the rulers of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, three of the states of North Africa, nominally parts of the Ottoman Empire, started seizing U.S. merchant vessels and enslaving their crews. Prior to the American War of Independence, American merchantmen sailing off the North African coast were protected by agreements between the British and Ottoman governments. This protection ended after 1783, and it was not long before the British saw the North African pirates as a useful tool to help destroy parts of the U.S. merchant fleet in the Mediterranean. 377
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William Bainbridge who was the commander of the Philadelphia, were subsequently decorated for their actions in the War of 1812. In 1815 Bainbridge established the first U.S. naval school in Boston. The first national monument in the United States was privately funded and built to honor veterans of the Tripolitan War. In 1806 naval officers who had participated asked the Italian sculptor John Charles Micali to execute a monument that would contain the ashes of those killed in action. It consists of several statues on a large pedestal representing Union, Victory, and History with an Eagle symbolizing the United States on top. Officers who died in the battle and names of contributors are inscribed on the base. The monument remained on the Capitol grounds until 1860 when it was moved to Annapolis and the Naval Academy where it remains today. There was, however, a realization by some in the United States of the lack of a pension for widows of officers—this concern was rarely extended to ordinary sailors or marines. One of the major figures in the Tripolitan War, Commodore Samuel Barron II, returned to the United States and was assigned to shipbuilding at Hampton, Virginia, until his death in 1810. As there were no pensions for widows of the conflict, ‘‘in recognition of the service of his father,’’ Samuel Barron III, who was only two years and five months old, was appointed a midshipman—the youngest officer in the U.S. Navy— which allowed him to be paid a small salary to help the family. The boy was later to serve in the Confederate States Navy and died in 1888. Another hero of the war, Stephen Decatur, remained with the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean. In 1820 he was shot dead during a duel
against Captain James Barron, younger brother of Samuel Barron II—because James Barron was shortsighted, it had been agreed that he would only walk eight of the usual ten paces during the duel. A few men from the Tripolitan War were given land grants, but these were because of service in the War of 1812, not specifically for their time in Libya. Six of the veterans of the Tripolitan War are buried or commemorated at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC: Commodore William Crane, Tobias Lear, Dr. Alexander McWilliams, Colonel Richard Henry O’Brien, Commodore Daniel Todd Patterson, and Commodore John Rodgers. Decatur is buried in the graveyard of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Justin Corfield See also Benefits; War of 1812 Veterans; Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)
Further Reading Whipple, A. B. C. To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Zacks, Richard. The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, The First Marines and the Secret Mission of 1805. New York: Hyperion, 2005.
TUBERCULOSIS, WORLD WAR I Tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, ravaged both military and civilian populations in the Great War years of 1914–1918. While millions died from TB in the war, thousands of veterans required treatment long after the Armistice.
Tuberculosis, World War I In the time between the FrancoPrussian War (1870) and the Great War, Europeans made significant advances in understanding TB. The bacterium, which breeds in cavities of the infected lungs and spreads through microscopic sneeze and cough droplets, was little understood until 1882 when Robert Koch isolated the tubercle bacillus. In 1895, Wilhelm Konrad von Rontgen discovered the x-ray which became a valuable tool in diagnosing TB. Advances were also made in artificial pneumothorax and thoracic surgery. Yet no complete cure existed, and the world war caught Western nations unprepared for the outbreak of TB brought on by the international crisis. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, worldwide incidences of TB had steadily declined; however, a sharp rise of the disease occurred after the war’s outbreak. In Germany, the mortality rate rose from 140 to 225 per 100,000 persons per year, in Austria, from 260 to over 400. The wartime hardships of blockades, food shortages, and destruction of proper shelter all increased the effects of TB on the civilian populations of the continental countries and the United Kingdom. France reported 290,000 civilian deaths from 1915 to 1918. In Germany, over 800,000 civilians died and over 1,000,000 died in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since the United States escaped the ravages of war, the country experienced only a slight increase to 150 per 100,000 in 1917. In 1914, the civilian populations from which the combatant nations drew manpower were still infected with latent TB. Rushed mobilizations preempted adequate medical screenings, allowing many infected men into the ranks. In 1914 alone, France dismissed 86,000
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soldiers because of TB. The conditions of trench warfare provided aggravating circumstances for the disease. Crowded living conditions combined with inadequate sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition-weakened immune systems, allowed the disease to spread among soldiers on all sides. Exposure to poison gas weakened lung tissues and increased men’s susceptibility to contracting TB. By June 1916, Germany reported over 750,000 soldiers diagnosed with pulmonary TB. The disease became rampant among the French prisoners, resulting in the return of over 50,000 infected prisoners to France from Germany. Since no TB chemotherapy was available, Allied medical officials sought to control TB’s spread through advocating proper sanitary practices and providing adequate nutrition among the ranks. When the United States entered the war, the induction physical examinations in the rushed mobilization failed to adequately screen men for TB, resulting in the acceptance of many infected recruits. From April 1917 to December 1919, the U.S. Army documented 30,607 cases of TB; 2,766 died and 22,812 received disability discharges. At the war’s conclusion, the combatant nations faced the challenge of providing adequate care for the tuberculous veterans. The most publicized international efforts for veterans’ treatment occurred in France. The French army had removed tuberculous soldiers from the ranks and isolated them in special sanatoria. The American Red Cross and the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Board (IHB) and the Tuberculosis Commission sponsored much of this effort to curb TB among veterans and civilians, but the programs achieved only mixed results.
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In the United States, the army quickly mustered out soldiers without conducting adequate medical examinations, thus making future diagnosis of service-connected conditions impossible. Wartime hardships also rendered men susceptible to contracting TB upon their return to the United States. Many veterans who had been exposed to poisonous gas, such as major league pitcher Christy Mathewson and Arkansas war hero Herman Davis, developed TB and died before adequate veterans’ care had been established. Veterans received little aid upon their return because the government’s efforts were spread among three agencies—the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the Federal Board for Vocational Education, and the Public Health Service (PHS). Treatment for the returning tuberculous veterans required special sanatoria facilities that could isolate patients while providing proper rest and diet, but the complicated bureaucracy and changing public and political attitudes frustrated efforts to provide the needed facilities. The PHS, along with the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, lacked the facilities necessary to provide adequate treatment. For the expected 12,400 returning tuberculous veterans, only 2,400 beds were available in 1919. In order to meet the need, the PHS purchased or leased new locations, eventually holding 35 such properties. In 1921 Congress attempted to meet the veterans’ needs by passing the Sweet Bill which established the Veterans’ Bureau and consolidated the functions of the three veterans’ benefits agencies. President Warren Harding’s appointee, Colonel Charles R. Forbes, began construction of hospitals but engaged in multimillion dollar corruption, resulting in a widespread scandal and the hampering of veterans’
treatment. Frank Hines replaced Forbes and refocused the agency on meeting veterans’ needs. During this time of bureaucratic inefficiency, the American Legion lobbied for increased benefits for tuberculous veterans. One of their top priorities was a $50 per month pension to any veteran with TB. Since the diagnosis of service-related illness was complicated, Congress established the Statutory Tuberculosis Award in 1926. This granted $50 per month to any veteran who showed evidence of TB, stating that any diagnosis of arrested TB before January 1, 1925, would be considered service related. The number of veterans granted this sum grew from 12,019 in 1926 to 63,371 in 1933. Veterans’ treatment was further consolidated in 1930 by the creation of the Veterans Administration. A tuberculosis division was maintained to oversee the agency’s facilities for tuberculous veterans. At these facilities throughout the United States, veterans lived under a regimen of proper rest and nutrition. By 1935, each facility had a medical board of physicians, surgeons, and radiologists who determined whether the veteran should maintain the sanatorium regimen or receive collapse therapy. In this treatment, the infected lung was deflated, allowing for a better chance at arresting the infection. This treatment method grew in usage, and several facilities provided the chest surgery. Treatment at these facilities paralleled that of civilian facilities; however, many veterans, disenchanted with the regulated sanatorium regime, discharged themselves before their condition improved. Success rates were also frustrated by the fact that many veterans also waited until their condition was far advanced before seeking treatment.
Tuskegee Airmen By 1940, it was estimated that the treatment of TB in veterans of the war had cost the government an estimated $960 million for compensation and hospitalization. In 1941, the Veterans Administration maintained 12 veterans’ hospitals for tuberculosis veterans. With the outbreak of World War II, the VA prepared for another increase of patients. However, effective chemotherapy treatments for TB appeared after the war, and the number of cases declined. As a result, the agency closed many of the tuberculosis sanatoria and sold the properties. Jonathan Newell See also World War I Veterans; Benefits
Further Reading Dillingham, Walter P. Federal Aid to Veterans, 1917–1941. Tallahassee, FL: University of Florida Press, 1952.
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Drolet, Gordias J. ‘‘World War I and Tuberculosis: A Statistical Summary and Review.’’ American Journal of Public Health 35 (July 1945): 689–97. Weber, Gustavus A., and Laurence F. Schmeckebier, The Veterans’ Administration: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1934. Wolford, Roy A. ‘‘The Tuberculosis Problem in the Veterans Administration.’’ Chest 9 (1943): 274–80.
TUSKEGEE AIRMEN See African American Veterans, World War II
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U The association’s stated goals were to continue the ties of wartime fraternalism, honor prisoners who had died, and provide aid to those in need among former prisoners and their families. Under the slogan ‘‘justice to the living and honor to the dead,’’ the organization sought to keep the sufferings of federal prisoners before the public and conducted a lobbying campaign for augmented pensions based on the number of days spent in captivity. The efforts of the state-level affiliates did much to secure the building of monuments by northern states at Andersonville in the early-twentieth century, making the national cemetery and prison camp site a major commemorative location. The national association’s membership peaked at about 2,000 in the 1890s. Though it was unsuccessful in obtaining enhanced pensions, its efforts and those of its affiliates were successful in maintaining an awareness of the sufferings of Union prisoners of war and making this an issue that complicated the process of reconciliation. Andersonville and Libby prison
UNION EX-PRISONERS OF WAR ASSOCIATION In the aftermath of the Civil War, some of the Union veterans who had been prisoners of war created their own organizations. The most successful of several attempts to organize former prisoners, the Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association was the outgrowth of an association of survivors of the Andersonville (Georgia) prison camp, who organized at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1874. The organization expanded to take in survivors of other prisons in the later 1870s, and in 1883 it changed its name to the National Association of Ex-Union Prisoners of War. The name was changed again in 1887 to the form noted above, though the ‘‘Ex-Union Prisoners of War’’ style remained in use by a number of state and local level organizations loosely affiliated with the national association. By the dawn of the twentieth century, 16 states had such organizations. 383
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(Richmond, Virginia), in particular, remained potent symbols in the northern mind of Confederate mistreatment. William C. Lowe See also Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA); Civil War Veterans
Further Reading Carnahan, J. Worth. Manual of the Civil War and Key to the Grand Army of the Republic and Kindred Societies. Washington, DC: U.S. Army and Navy Historical Association, 1899. Mavel, William. Andersonville: The Last Depot. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. Speer, Lonnie R. Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1997.
UNITED CONFEDERATE VETERANS See Confederate Veterans Associations
UNITED STATES SUBMARINE VETERANS OF WORLD WAR II World War II submariners suffered high mortality rates with one out of five killed during the war. This relatively new and specialized branch of the U.S. Navy saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, a majority of which was in the Pacific. Submarine sailors were given extensive training and sailed on patrols that lasted from 45 to 60 days. Duty in this unique and stressful service earned the sailors two weeks rest and relaxation after each patrol. A total of 52 submarines were lost during World War II
claiming the lives of 374 officers and 3,131 enlisted personnel. The United States Submarine Veterans of World War II was originated in September 1955, and its federal charter was granted in November 1981. Submarine veterans consider their lost comrades on ‘‘Eternal Patrol’’ since they gave their lives at sea. The surviving veterans’ dedication to the memory of these lost comrades is reflected in the organization’s creed, ‘‘To perpetuate the memory of those shipmates who gave their lives in submarine warfare; to further promote and keep alive the spirit and unity that existed among United States Navy Submarine crewmen during World War II; to promote sociability, general welfare, and good fellowship among it’s members; and pledge loyalty and patriotism to the United States government.’’ As of 2008 the organization had just short of 13,000 members. Any sailor who served with U.S. submarines between December 7, 1941, and December 31, 1946, is eligible for full membership. A scholarship fund was established for the children of World War II submarine veterans and a national publication, Polaris, was published. At the sixth annual meeting in San Diego, California, the ‘‘digger hat’’ was voted as the official uniform. The hat is a navy blue cowboy cover with the submarine insignia pinned atop a gold sash and a large plumed feather protruding above the left side. The members’ main objective is to remember their lost comrades. In the early years of the organization, each state chapter was designated a lost submarine to commemorate. On September 28, 1974, the World War II National Submarine Memorial–East was established in Groton, Connecticut. On January 13, 1977, ground was broken
United States Submarine Veterans of World War II for the World War II National Submarine Memorial–West, which stands today at Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach, California. In January 2000, a portion of Pacific Coast Highway One in California was dedicated as the United States Submarine Veterans of World War II Memorial Highway. In 1965, a faction of the World War II submarine veterans believed that membership should be open to all sailors who had served on submarines. The United States Submarine Veterans,
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Incorporated was formed later that same year and continues today in the tradition of its predecessor. William Whyte III See also World War II Veterans
Further Reading Lowder, Hughston. The Silent Service: U.S. Submarines in World War II. Baltimore: Silent Service Books, 1987. United States Submarine Veterans of World War II. www.ussvi.org/home.asp.
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V among the leaders in this effort, which succeeded in 1936 when Congress approved the measure over Roosevelt’s veto. He was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of the VFW. Elected to the U.S. Congress in 1938, Van Zandt was a Republican in the House of Representatives for Pennsylvania from 1939 to 1943, although for nearly half this time he was serving in the navy, which he had rejoined in September 1941. He was with the Pacific Fleet and then on convoy duty in the North Atlantic Ocean until January 1942. In 1943 he resigned from Congress, was appointed a lieutenant commander, and remained in the Pacific until 1946, by which time he held the rank of captain. When he retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1959, he held the rank of rear admiral. From 1947 until 1961 Van Zandt was back in Washington, DC, as a member of Congress, being in the House of Representatives when two Puerto Rican men and a woman fired from the gallery into the chamber on March 1, 1954. Five congressmen were injured in
VAN ZANDT, JAMES (1898–1986) The national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars from 1934 until 1936, James Van Zandt had served in the U.S. Navy and then in the U.S. Naval Reserve for many years, as well as in politics. Born on December 18, 1898, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, James Edward Van Zandt enlisted as apprentice seaman in the U.S. Navy in 1917, spending two years in active service in World War I. He was then a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1919 until 1943, becoming the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars from 1934 until 1936. At that time, veterans’ groups including the VFW were pushing Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to approve immediate payment of the Bonus (see Bonus March) promised them for their service in World War I as a means of helping worthy citizens during the Great Depression. Van Zandt was 387
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A three-year-old girl from Michigan presents President Roosevelt with the first ‘‘Buddy Poppy’’ of the year award on behalf of the Home for Widows and Orphans, maintained by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. James Van Zandt, commander in chief of the VFW, who accompanied her to Washington, is shown standing beside the president’s desk. [AP Photo]
the shooting. Van Zandt dropped to the ground, made his way into a nearby cloakroom, and then ran up the steps to the gallery where he grabbed one of the shooters. All three were arrested, as were some of their accomplices. James Van Zandt gave up his seat in 1962 to run for the U.S. Senate instead. He was not elected and served Governor William W. Scranton as the volunteer secretary of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation, a position that was unpaid. Remaining a special representative of the governor of Pennsylvania until 1971, he died on January 6, 1986, in a hospice in Arlington, Virginia, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Esther, and a son, James. The James E.
Van Zandt Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Altoona, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor in 1983. Justin Corfield See also World War I Veterans
Further Reading ‘‘James E. Van Zandt Is Dead: Former Congressman Was 87.’’ New York Times, January 7, 1986.
VETERANS ADMINISTRATION Soon after its inception, the United States wanted to safeguard the rights of the
Veterans Administration soldiers who had fought for independence. However this did not immediately lead to a government department, although the first U.S. Congress passed a law in 1789 to provide pensions for disabled veterans and their dependents. The provision of individual medical care was left as a state responsibility until 1811 when the first medical facility for veterans was authorized by the U.S. government. The responsibility for looking after war veterans was assumed by the secretary of war in 1818 but in 1833 moved to the Bureau of Pensions, which maintained this until 1849 when the War Department, and later the Department of the Interior, took charge. Following the American Civil War, in 1866 the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was founded to help with medical care for disabled veterans, and many states also established their own system of looking after veterans, primarily injured ones (see Benefits; Civil War Veterans; Veterans Homes). The U.S. involvement in World War I changed the federal government’s attitude toward veterans’ issues. With 4,175,367 U.S. soldiers having served in the war, 112,855 having died, and 224,089 wounded, it was felt that there should be a coordinated system for looking after the nation’s war veterans. This led to the Dawes Committee which recommended to the U.S. government that there should be a Veterans Bureau. Charles Gates Dawes (1865–1951) was a banker and a Republican politician who had served as a major of engineers and later brigadier general in World War I. President Warren Harding had appointed him as director of the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 with the task— which he achieved—of cutting federal
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expenditure by a third. He was to go on and serve as vice president under Calvin Coolidge (see World War I Veterans). The Veterans Bureau was brought into being by the Sweet Bill which passed the House on June 10, 1921, and with minor amendments the Senate. It was signed into law by the president on August 9, 1921. It established the Veterans Bureau as an independent agency, headed by a director who was responsible to the president. It subsumed the responsibilities and functions of the Veterans Rehabilitation Division of the Federal Board for Vocational Rehabilitation, the Pensions Bureau (established 1833), the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, those functions of the Public Health Service which affected veterans, and the National Home for Volunteer Soldiers (established in 1866). To run this new organization, Colonel Charles R. Forbes (1877–1952) was appointed as director. In June he had taken over as director of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance (having been appointed on March 27), and President Harding felt that he would be an ideal political appointment to run the Veterans Bureau. Born in Scotland, Forbes had come to the United States as a small boy and attended Phillips-Exeter Academy. At the age of 16 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served during the SpanishAmerican War as a sergeant in the Signal Corps from 1900 to 1907. He attended the Cooper Institute in New York, then Columbia University, but did not graduate, and finally the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Next he moved to Honolulu as a construction engineer at the naval station being built at Pearl Harbor. Appointed as a territorial sergeant of public works, he enlisted in the
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U.S. Army when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, and after only three days back in the forces he was commissioned as a major. He then served in France being awarded a Croix de Guerre for his actions, and after the war he moved to Seattle, Washington. He was also a close friend and the personal physician of President Harding. When he was appointed director (legally a transfer from the Bureau of War Risk Insurance), Forbes stated his desire to ‘‘bring all activities of the Veterans Bureau closer to the men they serve,’’ and added, ‘‘It is my intention that the employees of the Veterans Bureau shall take a sympathetic attitude towards each claimant and that the burden of proof shall not be entirely upon the claimant.’’ Forbes appointed Arthur Davis Dean (1872–1949) from Columbia University as the assistant director on August 20, in charge of the Rehabilitation Division. From Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dean had previously been chair of Vocational Education at Columbia University. For eight years before that he had been the state director of Vocational Education for the State of New York—having served as a major in World War I working in army hospitals that he helped reorganize in the last part of the war. Certainly the Veterans Bureau was established with high expectations. There was a genuine desire throughout the United States to repay the veterans for their efforts not just in World War I, but also veterans of former conflicts, and to do the best for them in a nation that had emerged from World War I as one of the world’s preeminent industrial powers, with one of the largest markets and merchant navy in the world. Harding was
keen that the veterans should be looked after better than was happening in European countries. Dr. J. R. A. Crosland, an African American from St. Joseph, Missouri, was appointed to look after the interests of African American veterans. Initially the high hopes were justified, but it was not long before problems started to be revealed. It soon became apparent that there had been a maximum level set for training allowances paid to veterans, and auditors had noticed that the maximum was being paid on nearly every occasion. This should not have been the case had the allowance taken into account the outside income that some of the trainees had. Investigators suspected that the Bureau was being, at best, overly generous, and at worst, corruption might be involved. Attorney General Harry M. Daughtery was later to claim that medical supplies had been sold by Forbes to private contractors. Harding called in Forbes and chided him. On February 16, 1923, Forbes resigned and left for Europe, ahead of the probe into the Veterans Bureau. On March 2, 1923, a committee of three senators, David I. Walsh (Democrat) of Massachusetts, David A. Reed (Republican) of Pennsylvania, and Tasker L. Oddie (Republican) of Nevada, began to investigate the way in which the training allowances paid to veterans was being administered. The committee met and, after taking advice and depositions from many people, discovered that there were not enough highly qualified staff to run all the programs established by the Veterans Bureau and that the training was, on many occasions, substandard. Schools to teach veterans were being run by individuals chosen for their ability to give kickbacks to those who appointed them. This was especially true of
Veterans Administration veterans who were to be trained as farmers. The emphasis of the Bureau was on completing the training rather than the quality of that training. This was going to lead to major problems with the Dustbowl and the Great Depression that was to hurt so many of these farmers. It was soon revealed that Forbes had been involved in corrupt practices and had sold government property (including many supplies for hospitals) at a fraction of its true value, and had also been involved in taking bribes from contractors and for the operation of hospitals. In 1924 a Senate investigation unearthed details that Forbes’s brief administration of less than two years had cost the Bureau as much as $200 million. This was not just money stolen by Forbes— in fact that was only a small amount of the money lost. It was through the sale of medicines and other supplies, but most of it was made up of alleged overpaying of allowances, a practice which Forbes seems to have allowed as a way of ‘‘thanking’’ soldiers from a grateful nation (see Veterans’ Hospitals). The corruption probe was devastating for the reputation of the Bureau, as was the suicide of Charles F. Crammer, an attorney and general counsel for the bureau who was also implicated in the graft. In the press, Forbes and the other perpetrators of corrupt practices in the Veterans Bureau were linked to other people connected with frauds in government departments who became known as the ‘‘Ohio Gang’’ on account of Harding being from Ohio—Forbes himself had very little connection with the state. Brigadier General Frank Thomas Hines was appointed to succeed Forbes on March 1, 1923, with Omer W. Clark as the assistant administrator in charge
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of rehabilitation. The authorities pursued Forbes who was brought back from Europe for his trial. Forbes denied any misdemeanors and stated that the Senate committee had refused to consider documents which would exonerate him. Indicted by a gederal grand jury in Chicago to face charges of conspiracy in connection with hospital contracts, the trial lasted for two months, after which Forbes was found guilty, fined $10,000, and was sent to Leavenworth to serve a two-year sentence. The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal and Forbes spent the period from March 20, 1926, until November 26, 1927, in jail. On his release he and his wife moved to Pasadena, California, then to Washington, and he spent part of his time in Florida until his death on April 10, 1952. Hines, who took over from Forbes, was very different than his predecessor. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of a mine superintendent, he had served in the Utah Light Artillery in the Spanish-American War and had taken part in the capture of Manila in the Philippines. He then fought against the Filipino insurgents and became a second lieutenant in the Regular Army, helping the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Greece in 1914. He then served with distinction in World War I, being promoted to brigadier general in January 1920. However, in August of the same year he had resigned to become director of the Baltic Steamship Corporation. In 1923 Harding was desperate for somebody to get the Veterans Bureau together after the scandal of Forbes and Hines was chosen, remaining its director until July 21, 1930, when it became the Veterans Administration, with Hines appointed the administrator. By this time the Veterans Administration was administering 54 hospitals,
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Hines did not believe that there should be automatic payments, training, or hospitalization for all veterans. He wanted to reduce the cost of the Veterans Bureau and felt that to do this benefits should be given to veterans directly to correlate with their hardships. Hines managed to achieve most of his objectives quickly. He worked well with the politicians and maintained a good working relationship with the presidents and Congress. He was also popular with the American Legion and did much to earn the plaudits of many veterans’ organizations around the United States. He was nonpartisan in his approach, and support from both major parties meant that, in 1930, he was the obvious choice to head the new Veterans Administration. It consolidated the Veterans Bureau with the Bureau of Pensions and the National Homes of Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, the latter two having been run separately. In 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt confirmed Hines in office and he was to spend longer looking after veterans under Democrats than he had under Republicans (see Disabled Veterans). In February 1944 Hines took on the added responsibility of becoming the director of the Retraining and Reemployment Bureau which had just been established. As a result Hines was involved in looking after different aspects of the lives of veterans. By that time World War II had transformed the United States again, and the government knew that at the end of the war there would be large numbers of veterans returning to the United States, as there had been in 1918–1919. Some felt that Hines would not have the energy for carrying out that role. He had worked through the period of the Great Depression and had ensured that the Veterans Administration operated as
efficiently as it could. This meant that costs were cut in many areas, and some politicians and veterans’ groups felt that there was inadequate hospital treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals largely because Hines was too stringent with the expenditures. In 1944 the U.S. Congress had given the Veterans Administration the responsibility for dealing with 16 million veterans eligible for education on their return after service, owing to the GI Bill (see Servicemen’s Readjustment Act; World War II Veterans). President Harry S Truman tended to agree with the criticisms of Hines—he only makes a passing reference to him in his memoirs Year of Decisions: 1945 (1955)—and felt that the time for budgetary constraint in this sector should end. He replaced Hines as both administrator of Veterans Administration, and also as director of the Retraining and Reemployment Bureau, and appointed him ambassador to Panama, a post he held for the next three years. To replace Hines, Truman named General Omar N. Bradley. Bradley was born in Missouri (as was Truman), graduated from West Point, and then served in World War I, as well as commanding many operations in World War II, earning plaudits from General Eisenhower over the ‘‘break-out’’ after D-Day. In the three years that Bradley was administrator, he oversaw an unprecedented program of hospital construction. This provided veterans with a much better level of medical care than they had ever received. A Department of Medicine was established within the agency and the Veterans Administration hospitals were formally affiliated with major medical schools around the United States. It was a very successful program,
Veterans Administration which, combined with the GI Bill, made many people in the United States proud that the country was doing whatever it could for the veterans, and that the great wealth that had been generated by the industrial capacity during the war was being used to look after the people who had helped make this possible. In 1948 Bradley was appointed to succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower as chief of staff and he was replaced by Carl Raymond Gray Jr. (1889–1955). Carl R. Gray was born in Kansas. His father, Carl Raymond Gray Sr. was a railroad executive, himself born in Arkansas. He had worked for many years in various railroad companies, as well as having served in both World War I and World War II, rising to the rank of brigadier general in the latter conflict. Active in many historical and service organizations, Gray Jr. was a member of the Mayflower Descendants, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans—his grandfather Oliver Gray had been a colonel in the Confederate Army. Under Gray the Veterans Administration continued to expand. Gray remained in his position until 1953 when Dwight D. Eisenhower, now U.S. president, sought to streamline the administration after a report had been produced by a private consultant suggesting that large savings could be made. Harry V. Higley (1892–1986) took over from Gray in July 1953. He reduced the budget and the scope of the Veterans Administration and created three large departments within the agency: benefits, insurance; and medicine and surgery. This structure administered the reduced benefits given to Korean War veterans (and later Vietnam War veterans) when compared to their counterparts from World War II. In December 1957, Higley was replaced by Sumner G. Whittier
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(1911–). Whittier also remained in office for four years, and in 2008, at the age of 97, was himself one of the oldest veterans still covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Whittier was succeeded by John S. Gleason who remained administrator of the Veterans Administration until 1964 when he was replaced by William J. Driver (1918–1985). By this time there were many Vietnam War veterans critical of the way that the Veterans Administration treated them. As the agency came to deal with more and more elderly veterans of World War I and World War II, Vietnam War veterans saw the Veterans Administration as unsympathetic and incapable of dealing with the new problems created by war such as psychological problems and the exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides. It was under Driver that the first major move was made to transfer the responsibility for running military cemeteries (through the Battle Monuments Commission) from the Department for the Army to the Veterans Administration. When this was made public in April 1968, Eisenhower, by that time very ill (and to suffer his third major heart attack soon afterwards) wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson and urged this should not take place. Johnson acceded. In 1969 President Richard M. Nixon appointed Donald E. Johnson (1924– 1999) as administrator of the Veterans Administration. A lawyer from Iowa, he had served in the army in Europe and in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II, being awarded the Purple Heart. It was under his direction in 1973 that the Veterans Administration finally took over the National Cemetery System (except for Arlington National Cemetery) and took over the military cemeteries
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previously run from the Department for the Army. It also had the task of marking the graves of all people in national and state cemeteries, and, upon request, those of all veterans in private cemeteries. This was a major change in the role of the administration which found itself dealing with many children (and grandchildren) of veterans of World War I and World War II. Johnson was then promoted to deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for Domestic and International Business in 1974 and was replaced by Richard Lowell Roudebush (1918–1995). A native of Indiana, Roudebush joined the army just before the attack on Pearl Harbor and served for three years. On his return he had long been active in veterans affairs, being elected to the House of Representatives from 1960 until President Gerald Ford appointed him as administrator of the Veterans Administration. After his election, President Jimmy Carter appointed Joseph Maxwell ‘‘Max’’ Cleland (1942–) as his administrator of the Veterans Administration, the first appointee who had not served in World War II. Cleland, born in Atlanta, Georgia, was a double amputee from the Vietnam War and had served in the Georgia Senate before, in 1975, being appointed as consultant to the Commission on Veterans Affairs to the U.S. Senate. His ability to succeed in politics after his horrific injuries suffered in Vietnam served to persuade many of the Vietnam veterans to appeal directly to the Veterans Administration for help. Cleland later served as a U.S. senator from Georgia (see Politics, Veterans in). Ronald Reagan, after he became president in 1981, appointed Robert P. Nimmo (1922–) as administrator of the Veterans Administration. Nimmo, a
Republican, had previously been the secretary of state for California. However, he was replaced in 1982 by Harry N. Walters (1936–), and Thomas K. Tumage (1923–2000) took over from 1986 until 1989. The last administrator of the Veterans Administration was Edward J. Derwinski (1926–) who was administrator from March 1–15, 1989, after which the agency became the Department of Veterans Affairs and Derwinski its first secretary. Justin Corfield
Further Reading Dillingham, William Pyrle. Federal Aid to Veterans 1917–1941. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1952. Lisio, Donald J. The President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur and the Bonus Riot. New York: Fordham University Press, 1994. Obermann, Carl Esco. A History of Vocational Rehabilitation in America. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Ross, Davis R. B. Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans during World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Severo, Richard, and Lewis Milford. The Wages of War: When America’s Soldiers Come Home—From Valley Forge to Vietnam. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
VETERANS AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF On October 25, 1988, at Fort McNair on the Potomac River, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to create the Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration. It would become effective on March 15, 1989. In the speech announcing the new cabinet department, Reagan mentioned
Veterans Affairs, Department of that in his view, ‘‘Our leaders seemed to shy away from freedom’s battle . . . In Grenada, after more than a decade on the sidelines, America at last stepped back into freedom’s battles.’’ He wanted to make sure that veterans in the new war for freedom would be adequately cared for. Initially Reagan was believed to have wanted to appoint the first secretary of Veterans Affairs himself, but only a week before the U.S. presidential election, Congress decided to leave the move to his successor. The move was immediately hailed by many politicians who had done much to urge the move, especially Gerald B. H. Solomon, the New York Republican who was credited by the press as persuading Reagan to move his support behind the legislation a year earlier. Solomon, born in Florida, but raised in New York, had served with the U.S. Marine Corps in the Korean War, prior to entering politics. Cooper T. Holt, the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars was cited in the New York Times as adding, ‘‘What we’re going to do with it [the new department] God only knows.’’ The legislation had been passed by the Senate in a unanimous vote on October 18, and when Reagan signed it into law, it established the 14th Cabinet department of the federal government, a year after it had passed the House of Representatives, in spite of a report by the National Academy of Public Administration which opposed the move. However, the decision had the support of veterans’ groups who felt they would now have a major voice at the highest level of government. G. V. ‘‘Sonny’’ Montgomery, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and a leading proponent of the change said, ‘‘Veterans will no longer have to go through the
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back door of the White House’’ to obtain the attention of the president. The move was the fifth addition to the Cabinet since 1953 and was initially unexpected as Reagan had been elected pledging to abolish the Departments of Energy and Education. Some politicians had opposed this move as they felt that it might increase overall government costs. The move from an administration to a department alone was expected to cost $33 million over five years, much of this from changing the office stationery and the signs on the Veterans Administration buildings and offices. Although Reagan approved the legislation to create the Department of Veterans Affairs, it was up to his successor to appoint the first secretary. The election of George H. W. Bush on November 8 ensured that the policies introduced by Reagan would be continued, and on March 1, Bush appointed Edward J. Derwinski as the last administrator of the Veterans Administration. The department, at that time, employed 250,000 people and administered 172 hospitals as well as hundreds of clinics and nursing homes, with a $28 billion budget, second only to the Department of Defence. Edward Joseph Derwinski was born on September 15, 1926, in Chicago, the son of Casimir Ignatius Derwinski and his wife Sophia—Casimir (or Charles) having been born in Illinois of Polish parents and working as a bank clerk in Chicago. Edward Derwinski graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Loyola University in Chicago and then worked in the savings and loans industry ending up as an executive. During World War II he served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army in the Southwest Pacific area, becoming a member of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
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the Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America, and the onetime state commander of the Polish Legion of American Veterans. Derwinski then ran in the elections for the Illinois State House of Representatives where he was elected in a surprise result, serving in 1957 and 1958, and then ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as an anti-Communist, calling officials at the State Department a ‘‘gang of fuzzyheaded idiots.’’ He was the Illinois state chairman of the Republican presidential election bid of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and remained in federal service until his appointment as secretary of Veterans Affairs. This included six years at the State Department as an adviser to George P. Shultz. In 1987 he was appointed undersecretary of state for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. In that position he had been keen to prevent sales of advanced military technology to any country viewed as supportive of the Soviet Union or its allies. He enforced ‘‘Operation Staunch,’’ the program to prevent the sales of U.S. and other weapons to Iran. In his confirmation hearings, Senator Alan Cranston, a Democrat from California and the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, raised queries about Derwinski’s actions in 1977 when he was a member of a House Committee which was responsible for investigating allegations that South Korea had bribed members of Congress. Derwinski allegedly tipped off the South Korean government that one of their agents was preparing to defect. However in spite of this, the Senate Committee voted 10 to 0 to recommend confirmation by the full Senate and on March 2, 1989, the U.S. Senate voted 94 to 0 to confirm Derwinski’s appointment.
One of Derwinski’s early tasks of was to work on implementing the recommendations made by the four-year study that had been commissioned by his predecessor into Vietnam War veterans. With 3.1 million Vietnam War-era veterans in the United States, the study found that one in six of the veterans were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some form of combat stress, but only 70,000 of the 480,000 affected had undergone some therapy. Senator Alan Cranston, called for more action, especially with many published accounts of Vietnam War veterans who had become violent, suicidal, or were affected by drugs or were homeless. When the report was published in January 1989, it was announced that U.S. Vietnam War veterans would, for the first time, return to Vietnam. There was some opposition to this, and initially it was thought best that veterans not revisit sites where they had been involved in combat as it might have a detrimental effect on their health. Indeed so worried were the veterans about their return that they took two therapists with them, one being Dr. Raymond Scurfield, a therapist with the Veterans Affairs Department. There was also the Gulf War. Although Gulf War veterans had very few battle casualties, the war did not have the same effect on U.S. society as the Vietnam War. Indeed in October 1991, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the chief of the Soviet General Staff, General Mikhail Moiseyev, around the United States, taking him to the Vietnam War Memorial and then to the Department of Veterans Affairs where the Soviet general commented on the lamentable treatment of Soviet veterans of the Afghan
Veterans Affairs, Department of War in his talks with VA officials (see Gulf War Veterans). Derwinski remained as secretary for Veterans Affairs until September 26, 1992, when he retired from the cabinet. With his resignation, Anthony J. Principi was appointed as acting secretary. Principi was born in 1944 in New York City, son of Antonio Joseph Principi and his wife Theresa Princiotto. Graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and rose through the ranks until he was appointed commander in 1984. He was counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Armed Service from 1980 until 1983 and staff director of the Committee on Veterans Affairs from 1984 until 1988. Following the election of Bill Clinton in November 1992, Jesse Brown was appointed as the new secretary for Veterans Affairs, taking up that position on January 20, 1993. He was the first African American to hold that post. Born in 1944 in Detroit, Brown graduated from Chicago City College and then studied at Roosevelt University and the Catholic University of America. He had served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and was wounded at Danang in 1965. Indeed that wound had resulted in partial paralysis of his right arm with which he took his oath of office. After returning injured from Vietnam, Brown worked for the Disabled American Veterans and was the executive director of their Washington office when he was appointed to head the Veterans Affairs Department. There were initial partisan complaints about the pension that he would be receiving from the Disabled American Veterans, but given his 27 years with the organization, many people saw the pension as modest (see Disabled Veterans). He had
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also been vice president of the Mayor’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped in Chicago and showed his solidarity with other veterans by belonging to the Polish Legion of American Veterans and the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America. During his time in office, the U.S. government achieved closer relations with Vietnam, culminating with Bill Clinton visiting Vietnam on November 16–19, 2000, the two countries having agreed to establish diplomatic relations five years earlier. Although there was some initial opposition to visits, more and more Vietnam War veterans visited Vietnam, and also some Vietnamese Americans returned to Vietnam. However, the major issue of Jesse Brown’s time as secretary of Veterans Affairs was over the health problems that had been traced back to Operation Miami Moon in 1957 when soldiers had been exposed to radiation in British nuclear tests in the Pacific. This led to a case brought by Edmund Burke, who, when he was 22, as a member of the U.S. Air Force, had been assigned to Operation Miami Moon and in 1994 was no longer able to work. The Department of Veterans Affairs had denied the disability claim in 1990, but Burke sought a review and during this it was revealed in a study by the National Association of Atomic Veterans that 75 percent of the 204 veterans who were exposed to radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the occupation of Japan died of cancer at an average age of 55, whereas only 17.2 percent of all the deaths in the United States in 1994 were caused by cancer. Burke’s actions soon led to much focus in the media into the atomic tests and radiation from them, including those that took place in Nevada.
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Jesse Brown stepped down as secretary of Veterans Affairs on July 1, 1997, and he died five years later. He was succeeded by Hershel W. Gober, who became acting secretary, a post he held until January 2, 1998. Gober was born in 1935 at Monticello, Arkansas, and served with the U.S. Marine Corps from 1956 until 1959, and then with the U.S. Army from 1961 until 1978 when he retired with the rank of major. He was director of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs when he was appointed to the Cabinet. During Gober’s time as secretary, there was growing recognition of veterans in various U.S. states, with Connecticut Veterans Affairs Commissioner Eugene Migliaro announcing in December 1997 that it would allow all veterans in the state to have a special license plate for their car providing they had received an honorable discharge. Surviving spouses could also apply providing they were able to furnish proof that their husbands or wives had served in the military. It was a move that led to much more focus on veterans throughout the United States, with many communities hosting ceremonies, and schoolchildren organizing help for veterans in their communities. One of the major moves made by Gober was his heading of a VA delegation to Vietnam to urge greater cooperation in tracing those still listed as missing in action (see also Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)). On January 2, 1998, Togo Dennis West Jr., who had been U.S. secretary of the Army, was appointed as the new secretary of Veterans Affairs; he previously had been acting secretary and took office on May 5, 1998. The second African American in the post, Togo West was born in 1942 at Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
and studied law at Howard University. As a captain, he served in the office of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1973. He also served on the U.S. Court on Military Appeals. During West’s time as secretary, there were major problems arising over the money spent in hospitals financed by Veterans Affairs. By this time many of the veterans’ hospitals were in desperate need of repair, with 40 percent of the buildings being over 50 years old, and many of those being listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There were also some buildings being maintained although they had long since ceased to provide health care. An audit report by the General Accounting Office of the U.S. Congress, published on July 31, 1999, highlighted that up to $1 million a day was being spent on the maintenance of unused buildings. It also showed that half of the beds in VA hospitals had been eliminated in the previous five years, and that more and more veterans were being treated as outpatients. The report suggested that rather than continue to spend a quarter of its $17 billion budget on building maintenance, the department should sell some of the places and use the money to finance more outpatient care, and also subcontract some of the care to smaller private hospitals and clinics. However, there was much opposition to the closure of some of the medical centers for historical and political reasons. Indeed the first VA hospital to close in many decades was in Martinez, California, which had to be shut down because of damage in an earthquake. By this time there were increasing suggestions that the VA health care system could be replaced by giving all
Veterans Affairs, Department of U.S. veterans private health insurance. The problem, however, was that much of the health care needed for veterans was connected with prosthetic surgery and rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, stressrelated mental health conditions, and also general geriatric procedures in which veterans’ hospitals specialized. On July 25, 2000, Togo West stepped down, and Hershel W. Gober had his second stint as acting secretary of Veterans Affairs. With the start of the presidency of George W. Bush, Anthony J. Principi was reappointed as secretary of Veterans Affairs, a position he held until February 1, 2005, when he was replaced by Robert James ‘‘Jim’’ Nicholson. This term in office coincided with many commemorations, such as the dedication of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2004, and the DDay anniversary events held in Normandy in June 2004. At the same time there were major problems over the nature of and government response to the ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome’’ controversy with the Veterans Affairs Department commissioning a $15 million study to analyze the effects of toxins from the Gulf War of 1991. Jim Nicholson, son of Don Nicholson, was born in 1938 at Struble, Iowa, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, served with the U.S. Army from 1961 until 1969, and then in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1969 until 1991. In Vietnam he was awarded many medals for gallantry. Nicholson then gained a law degree from the University of Denver. He was inducted as a Knight in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1991 and was U.S. Ambassador to The Holy See from 2001 until 2004. He never held elected office. As secretary for Veterans Affairs, Nicholson was involved in attempts to improve the
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increasingly overburdened VA health system. By this time outpatients were angry at the rising costs of prescriptions, and there were more pressures to overhaul the entire VA system given the low use of many hospitals. The number of veterans in the United States had declined every year since 1980. In December 2005, there was a plan drawn up to build homes suitable for the disabled veterans returning from Iraq. In 2006, during President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address, Jim Nicholson was a ‘‘designated survivor,’’ meaning he was placed at a secure and undisclosed location during the speech to ensure continuity of government in case of a surprise nuclear or other attack (see also Iraq War Veterans). On December 20, 2007, James Benjamin Peake was appointed as the fifth secretary of Veterans Affairs. Born in 1944 at St. Louis, Missouri, he graduated from West Point and received many decorations for his military career in Vietnam. He worked in the army and retired in 2004 with the rank of lieutenant general, having served as the fortieth surgeon general of the U.S. Army since 2000. He saw his main role as secretary of Veterans Affairs as trying to resolve the problems over the spiraling costs of running the VA hospitals. As the first physician to serve as secretary, his first task was to try to implement the recommendations of a bipartisan committee which had been established to work out ways of improving health care for veterans. At his appointment, Peake said that the disability system for veterans in 2007 had been designed in 1945 and needed serious revision to meet the needs of Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan War veterans. Justin Corfield See also Veterans’ Hospitals
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Further Reading Baker, Rodney R. Psychology and the Department of Veteran Affairs: A Historical Analysis of Training, Research, Practice, and Advocacy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2005. Bernstein, Fred A. ‘‘Building Homes for Disabled Soldiers.’’ New York Times, December 4, 2005. Fletcher, Michael A., and William Branigin, ‘‘Ex-Army Doctor, Vietnam Vet Nominated as VA Secretary.’’ Washington Post, October 31, 2007. Franklin, Ben A. ‘‘Congress approves making VA a Cabinet Department.’’ New York Times, October 19, 1998. Janofsky, Michael. ‘‘Veterans Gather to Dedicate World War II Memorial.’’ New York Times, May 30, 2004. Miller, Julie. ‘‘Veterans Under an Atomic Cloud.’’ New York Times, May 1, 1994. Pear, Robert. ‘‘Audit of VA Health Care Finds Millions Are Wasted.’’ New York Times, August 1, 1999. Pear, Robert. ‘‘Edward Joseph Derwinski.’’ New York Times, December 23, 1998. Powell, Colin, with Joseph E. Persico. A Soldier’s Way: An Autobiography. London: Hutchinson, 1995. Roberts, Sam. ‘‘Percentage of Veterans in Population Dwindles in City and Nation.’’ New York Times, May 30, 2005. Roberts, Steven V. ‘‘Veterans’ Agency Rises to Departmental Rank.’’ New York Times, October 26, 1998. Sanger, David E. ‘‘Vatican Envoy to Head Veterans Affairs’’ New York Times, December 10, 2004. Shane, Scott. ‘‘VA to Study Toxins’ Effects from 1991 Gulf War.’’ New York Times, November 13, 2004. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. www.va.gov.
VETERANS BUREAU See Veterans Administration
VETERANS DAY World War I ended with an Armistice on November 11, 1918; hence the original designation of this day. President Woodrow Wilson, in his proclamation of 1919, commented that the victory in World War I ‘‘gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and juster set of international relations.’’ He pointed out that America entered the war not to achieve glory or territorial gains, but ‘‘with splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output and assembled a great army’’ in the ‘‘war to end all wars.’’ Wilson therefore proposed that the day on which the war ended be commemorated to honor both the ‘‘heroism of those who died in the country’s service,’’ but also ‘‘because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.’’ President Wilson here linked observance of Armistice Day and honoring veterans to his political agenda: establishment of the League of Nations and interpretation of the war. It was not fought, he claimed as many alleged both during and after the conflict, to profit American bankers and munitionsmakers who depended on orders from Britain and France, but as a selfless intervention to bring about a peaceful world of democratic nations. While Wilson’s hope of American participation in the
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President Harding laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Armistice Day, 1923. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62140]
League vanished, celebration of the Armistice continued. The first Armistice Day was observed with numerous parades in which veterans’ groups, especially the American Legion, a new organization trying to recruit members, and churches participated. The nation, however, almost universally honored veterans with two minutes of silence at 11 A.M., the hour at which the Armistice was declared in 1918. This has been the traditional commemoration of the day even where people are not given a day off from work. The Unknown Soldier of World War I was first interred at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921, although this was not the first unknown soldier; there had previously been one from the Civil War. Armistice Day celebrations continued to be held at the tomb. In 1927, Congress resolved that President Calvin Coolidge issue the following
proclamation: ‘‘calling upon the officials to display the Flag of the United States on all government buildings on November 11, and inviting the people of the Untied States to observe the day in schools and churches and other suitable places with appropriate ceremonies expressive of our gratitude for peace and our desire for the continuation of friendly relations with all other peoples.’’ The U.S. president continues to appear at what is now known as the Tomb of the Unknowns on November 11: soldiers from World War II and the Korean War were added in 1958; the Vietnam vault has been empty since 1998 as the identity of the soldier interred there in 1984 was later discovered. Armistice Day became a legal holiday in Washington, DC, in 1938. Following World War II, beginning in 1953, the city of Emporia, Kansas, was the first to use the day to honor all the veterans who died in American wars. The congressional
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representative of that district, Edward J. Rees, proposed to Congress the following year that Armistice Day be retitled Veterans Day, which occurred in 1954. The National Council of Churches in the United States celebrates the Sunday closest to Veterans Day as World Peace Sunday where Bible passages, music, and prayers are devoted to peace as are sermons and discussions. William Pencak
Further Reading Henderson, Helene. Patriotic Holidays of the United States : An Introduction to the History, Symbols, and Traditions Behind the Major Holidays and Days of Observance. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2006. Myers, Robert J. Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.
VETERANS’ HOMES Veterans’ homes are facilities offering a place to live and usually some level of medical care to veterans. Since the Civil War the federal government and the states have sought to provide care to particular groups of veterans through such homes, especially to those suffering from service-connected disabilities and diseases.
Federal Homes The federal government first became involved in providing residential care to veterans with the opening of the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia (1834) and the U.S. Soldiers Home in Washington (1851). These facilities were intended
for career servicemen and were funded through small deductions from pay. The Civil War, with its mass citizen armed forces, presented a challenge which these homes were not designed to meet. As growing numbers of Union soldiers and sailors were disabled by the conflict, the federal government’s primary response was through pensions (see also Civil War Veterans). These, however, proved to be inadequate solutions in many cases. In many communities, locally formed groups provided further assistance to disabled veterans, and the privately funded U.S. Sanitary Commission turned its attention to the problem. After investigating European institutions, such as the Hotel des Invalides in France, the Commission decided that a large central facility would be both inefficient and contrary to the nation’s republican values. While advocating primary reliance on more adequate pensions that would allow disabled veterans to be cared for at home, the Commission recognized the need for institutional facilities to assist homeless veterans and those whose injuries could not be effectively dealt with in a domestic setting. Responding to this and other efforts, in 1865 Congress created the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, with a managing board of 100 members. This proved unworkable, however, and the following year a much smaller board was created and the institution actually established its original three homes: the Eastern Branch (Togus, Maine), Central Branch (Dayton, Ohio), and Northwestern Branch (Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Based on the experience of the Washington Soldiers Home, it was expected that the system would remain small and that eventually all of its
Veterans’ Homes residents would be consolidated in Dayton. The system grew rapidly, however, and a fourth (Southern Branch) was established at Hampton, Virginia, in 1870. The system’s name was changed to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS) in 1873, reflecting both the primacy of the Victorian value of domesticity and the view that the care provided was more an obligation of the government to citizen soldiers and sailors disabled in its service than it was a form of charity, the usual implication of ‘‘asylum’’ at the time. (The name of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum underwent a similar change in 1880.) The NHDVS grew to 13 homes by the 1930. The homes themselves embodied an at times uneasy attempt to combine the creation of a homelike atmosphere with military discipline. Residents wore blue uniforms, slept in barracks-like dormitories, awoke to reveille, and could be fined or even dismissed for breaches of discipline. An effort was made, however, to make life in the homes comfortable. Though those who were able were expected to undertake light work, residents were well fed and considerable effort was made to provide them with recreation and entertainment of various sorts. African American veterans were admitted on the same basis as white ones, though sleeping and eating arrangements were generally segregated. Residents could discharge themselves or take ‘‘furloughs’’ that allowed them to undertake visits to family and friends, making for a fair degree of mobility among residents. National cemeteries were established at each home, and their grounds were extensively landscaped, making them prime tourist attractions. While the homes housed veterans from all walks
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of life, single men (including widowers and those divorced) were disproportionately represented, as were immigrants. Many residents objected to the militarystyle discipline, and some became disciplinary problems. The homes were purposely located just outside of (rather than in) urban areas, but roads leading into towns were dotted with saloons, gambling dens, and brothels that drew some of the residents. Alcohol abuse, in particular, was a major problem. The homes experimented with operating their own beer canteens, but Congress stopped the practice in 1910. In 1884, Congress liberalized the admissions requirements so that those disabled from non-war related causes or simply by age could be admitted and War of 1812 and Mexican War veterans also became eligible. Applications to the NHDVS doubled and its population began to change from one characterized by war-related disabilities to an aging population whose needs were due more to advancing years than to the wounds of war. By 1900, over 102,000 veterans had been served by the homes. After 1898, Spanish-American War veterans became eligible, followed by World War I veterans (including women veterans from 1928). By 1929, only about 700 Civil War veterans were left in the system. In the following year, the NHDVS was subsumed in the reorganization of veterans programs that created the Veterans Administration. The homes now became VA hospitals, with increasing emphasis on medical services, and today most of them are VA medical centers. (See Veterans’ Hospitals for their subsequent history.) The major exceptions were the Naval Home in Philadelphia and the Soldiers Home in Washington, which continued to be
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operated by their respective services. These continued to provide domiciliary care for retired regulars. The Naval Home was relocated to Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1976 to accommodate its expansion, while the Soldiers Home became the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home after 1947. The two homes were administratively merged in 1991 to create the Armed Forces Retirement Home, though maintaining their separate campuses.
Confederate Soldiers Homes Confederate veterans, of course, had no access to the NHVDS or to federal pensions. Indeed Confederate service negated eligibility for federal benefits that might have been earned by service in earlier conflicts. It fell to private organizations and eventually to southern state governments to provide for the needs of Confederate veterans. Louisiana established the first home for Confederate veterans in 1866, though it proved shortlived. In time efforts to establish soldiers’ homes resumed and by the 1880s, more durable homes were established in several southern states, largely through the efforts of women. Typically, these homes proved expensive to operate and were eventually taken over by state governments. In time, all of the former Confederate states came to operate soldiers’ homes, as did Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Oklahoma, while the United Daughters of the Confederacy operated a home in California. In general, the Confederate homes were less well financed than the NHDVS, though similar in their efforts to combine domesticity and military discipline. Southern veterans also wore uniforms, did light work if able, and at times bristled at taking orders. If anything, Confederate
veterans proved more resistant to military discipline than their Union counterparts. Admission to most southern homes was means-tested, which created something of a social gap between those running the homes and the residents. The Confederate homes differed from the NHDVS in admitting the wives and widows of Confederate veterans. (Virginia even established a Confederate Ladies Home that operated into the 1980s.) Some also admitted small numbers of African Americans who could prove that they had been servants or laborers for the Confederate armed forces. The Confederate homes were often seen as monuments to the Confederate soldier and remained dedicated solely to the needs of Confederate veterans. Unlike the NHDVS and northern state soldiers’ homes, they did not open their doors to veterans of the Spanish-American War or later conflicts. Their resident numbers peaked in the decade after 1910, reaching about 2,400. In general, Confederate veterans seem to have less likely than their Union counterparts to seek domiciliary care. As the number of Confederate veterans then declined, so did the needs for the homes. During the 1930s and 1940s, they were gradually wound down, in some cases with the last residents rehoused in other state facilities. In most cases, the homes were leveled and their sites redeveloped for other public uses and few physical traces of them remain. The chapel of the home in Richmond, Virginia, still stands, though, and the Maryland home eventually became the headquarters of the state police (see Confederate Veterans Associations).
State Veterans’ Homes Many northern and western states also established homes for Union veterans
Veterans’ Homes during and after the Civil War. While Connecticut’s was the first (in 1864), this was largely a phenomenon of the 1880s and 1890s. As in the South, many homes began as efforts by private associations or by veterans and related groups, especially the Grand Army of the Republic and the Women’s Relief Corps. Such homes were often preferred by veterans because they were closer to friends or family than the original branches of the NHDVS. Congress also, in 1888, began to appropriate aid on a per capita basis to state homes as a means of lessening demand for places on the NHDVS. Life for veterans in the state homes was in many respects similar to life in federal homes, with a characteristic mixture of domesticity and military discipline. The numbers were smaller in the state homes, though, and the scale more intimate. While policies differed in detail from state to state, one major difference from federal practice that appeared in a number of states was the admission of wives and/or widows. As in the NHDVS, over time the population changed from one dominated by war-related disabilities to one more characterized by the problems of aging. Peak enrollment of Union veterans in state homes came around 1910 with about 12,000 veterans (about 60 percent of the number then domiciled in the NHVDS). By 1922, there were 32 state homes operating in 27 states, not including the Confederate soldiers homes. (Missouri and Oklahoma operated separate homes for Union and Confederate veterans.) While in some respects the state soldiers’ homes in northern and western states were similar to the Confederate homes, they differed in others. In addition to the federal subsidies they received, they accepted SpanishAmerican War veterans. Thus as the
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number of Civil War veterans began a drastic decline in the twentieth century, they were increasingly replaced by veterans from other wars, especially World War I. This made the northern and western homes, in effect, the basis of a supplementary system of veterans care in the states in which they operated. The state-operated homes (which began generally to refer to themselves as ‘‘veterans’ homes’’ in the 1930s) would proliferate after World War II. Growth was especially rapid in the last quarter of the twentieth and the early years of the twenty-first century. A number of factors contributed to this development: the aging of the World War II generation coupled with the general increase in longevity, federal grants for building and subsidies for operating veterans’ facilities, growing awareness of the problems of homeless veterans, perceived shortcomings of the Veterans Administration/Department of Veterans Affairs, and political advocacy by veterans’ groups. Also noteworthy was the realization that wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq guaranteed that the number of veterans needing assistance would continue far into the future. Requirements for admissions to state homes differed in detail from state to state, though all had some sort of state residency requirement. Some were partially fee-based. Some states responded by modernizing and expanding their centralized post-Civil War homes, while others created new multi-campus systems, often with increased emphasis on longterm care. New construction was particularly noticeable in the southern states, which had generally not operated veterans’ homes after closing their Confederate homes. By 2007, when Delaware opened a veterans’ home for the first time in its
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history, all of the states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico operated at least one home. Overall, there were 134 stateoperated homes with over 30,000 beds. William C. Lowe
Further Reading Kelly, Patrick J. Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans’ Welfare State, 1869–1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Logue, Larry M. To Appomattox and Beyond: The Civil War Soldier in War and Peace. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1996. National Association of State Veterans Homes. www.nasvh.org. Rosenburg, R. B. Living Monument: Confederate Soldiers’ Homes in the New South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
VETERANS’ HOSPITALS America first began to provide government-funded hospital care for World War I veterans. The War Risk Act of 1917 promised complete medical care for all service-connected injuries, but nothing was done to implement the promise until March 1919, when the Public Health Service was authorized to use the 20 Marine hospitals the government owned and to use other available buildings to care for the war wounded. Contracts were also made to place veterans in private hospitals. In 1921, the creation of the Veterans Bureau was accompanied by the Langley Act, which authorized $18.6 million to construct new hospitals. The Bureau, however, got off to a rocky start, as the first director, Dr. Charles Forbes, allowed corruption to run rampant. Contractors were paid far too much to construct and supply hospitals, with Forbes and other
bureaucrats receiving kickbacks. Construction started on many hospitals while none were completed. After Forbes’s removal in 1923, with much of the investigation performed by the American Legion, the Bureau was placed under the competent administration of General Frank Hines and became the Veterans Administration in 1930. Further appropriations amounting to a total of $100 million followed in 1922, 1924, 1925, 1928, 1929, and 1931 and reached over $250 million by 1941. There were 41 facilities in 1921, 94 facilities by 1925, 113 by 1931, and 149 by 1941. Every state except Delaware, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island had at least one veterans’ hospital by that date. As the nature of care changed, all but 12 of the 41 facilities used in 1921 had been terminated. In keeping with the long-term diseases veterans contracted during the war, the number of hospitals treating tuberculosis were 18 in 1925, 14 in 1931, and 11 in 1941, as patients either died or moved to arid regions, and those treating neuropsychiatric diseases (including ‘‘shell shock’’—see also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) rose from 16 in 1925 to 23 in 1931 to 31 in 1941 as mental problems frequently took a long time to become serious enough for institutional care. The number of beds available rose from 10,655 in 1925 to 61,848 in 1941. More beds were added (just over 20,000) from 1930 to 1934 at the moment when pensions for disabled veterans were being cut and most seriously scrutinized, indicating commitment to the seriously disabled continued. Beginning in 1924, hospitalization and medical care was granted to any veteran of the Spanish-American War or a later conflict with a condition such as heart disease or tuberculosis for which service connection
Veterans’ Hospitals | 407 was granted (‘‘presumptive service connection’’). During the Great Depression, beginning in 1933, veterans with any ailment could be admitted if a bed was available. By 1941, only a fifth of all patients had service-connected disabilities. The veterans’ hospitals had a huge task. During one year, 1927, there were about 140,000 admissions and discharges, with an average daily load of nearly 50,000 patients. Over a million physical exams and 900,00 instances of care were administered outside the hospitals. The VA employed 1,500 full-time physicians, 3,000 nurses, and 26,000 other employees at an annual cost of $47.5 million. The veterans’ hospitals also supplied hearing aids, artificial arms, legs, and wheelchairs, at first only for serviceconnected disabilities, but then for all poor veterans. It operated its own shops
to construct these items. Beginning in 1921, dental care was available to veterans, which was paid for by the Bureau from private dentists. A sign of Colonel Forbes’s corruption and incompetence was that this cost over $3 million dollars in 1922 and under $700,000 by 1931. Who could use a veterans’ hospital was originally determined by the central office in Washington, but this proved too cumbersome and took too long: regional offices and personal contact with personnel was established with the creation of the Veterans Bureau. In 1924, the Bureau contracted a Medical Council comprised of some of the finest doctors in the nation to advise it on the best and most modern means of treatment and ways to manage a hospital. Its recommendations resulted in the Bureau creating a section on medical research,
Veterans in the reconstruction section of the Walter Reed Army Hospital after World War I. This hospital was and still is administered by the U.S. Army, not the Veterans Administration. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-106310]
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establishing diagnostic centers for difficult cases, and cooperating with the American College of Surgeons to check on the efficiency of the hospitals. In the late 1920s the Bureau established two postgraduate schools for physicians for special training in neuropsychiatry as these cases increased. In the 1930s, the Bureau added a clinic and postgraduate school at Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, to study allergic diseases such as asthma and hay fever. It also opened one of the world’s largest cancer facilities at Hines, Illinois. In general, the American Legion Rehabilitation Committee, while always quick to criticize if something was amiss, judged that ‘‘in general the medical service afforded veterans is excellent and comparable to that afforded in community and private hospitals’’ (Dillingham 1952, 111). The veterans’ hospitals were useful during World War II. They established medical standards to be followed by doctors working for draft boards and monitored the mental health of both draftees and soldiers. Over a quarter (some 7,000) of its employees left to join the war effort, and hospitals on the Pacific Coast were relocated inland after Pearl Harbor. In 1943, Congress granted World War II veterans the same right as their World War I counterparts—free medical care even for nonservice connected disabilities if beds were available. This provision threatened to overwhelm the system as four times as many veterans served in World War II than World War I. The media began to attack VA healthcare: ‘‘Veterans Hospitals Called Backwaters of Medicine’’ was one headline, ‘‘Third Rate Medicine for First Rate Men’’ was another (Department of Veterans Affairs). Women served in large numbers, and little had been
prepared for them. But Congress responded in January 1946 when Public Law 293 was signed, creating the VA’s healthcare administration. In 1946, the average daily patient load was 86,272. All told, 54 new hospitals were added between 1942 and 1950, for a total of 151, and 15 more by 1953. As waiting lists grew, the Army Corps of Engineers was hired to build additional hospitals. Quality as well as quantity improved. In 1946, the VA acquired the Department of Medicine and Surgery. Its first affiliation with a medical school was established between Northwestern and the University of Illinois Hospitals and the VA’s Hines VA Hospital. This continues to the present day, as new veterans’ hospitals are built near medical schools and urban centers where more and better doctors can be obtained: previously, they had been built largely in rural areas. In 1951, Korean War veterans also received the right to obtain free health care in veterans’ hospitals even if their medical conditions were not service connected. In 1953, a survey of the VA hospitals showed that 47 of 166 hospitals, mostly in the South, were still segregated: as the armed forces had been integrated five years earlier, the VA did likewise. Funding for hospitals decreased in the 1950s even though more patients were eligible for treatment. Some hospitals laid off employees and others closed old or failed to open new wards. The VA approved a ceiling of 125,000 hospital beds and ended designation of hospitals for a particular type of treatment, especially tuberculosis. As older and seriously disabled veterans were staying for much of their lives in hospitals, interest in geriatric care developed. In 1963 2,000 and in 1964 4,000 nursing care beds were authorized. That year, the VA
Veterans’ Hospitals | 409 offered its first hemodialysis (kidney failure life support) programs. In 1970 it instituted its first hospital-based home care program, which was soon extended to 31 hospitals. Ambulatory care grew astronomically: from an average of 4 million patients in 1962, it rose to 10 million in 1974 and 26 million in 1995. The veterans’ hospitals were the target of considerable criticism during the Vietnam War. Veterans suffering from drug and alcohol problems or psychological issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (which at first was not recognized) found themselves in hospitals where World War II veterans and the medical staff did not always appreciate their sufferings or their negative attitudes toward the war. Many hospitals were in bad repair and understaffed, such as the one that treated Ron Kovic in the book and movie Born on the Fourth of July. Still, the VA was responding resourcefully given budget cutbacks. In 1979 it began operating Vietnam Veteran Outreach Centers—Vet Centers—to provide readjustment counseling services to Vietnam War veterans—who were reluctant to come to hospitals devoted primarily to long-term medical care for aging veterans. Over 201 such centers exist today, and more than a million veterans have used them for counseling. Veterans’ hospitals now provide post-traumatic stress counseling, including a program for women veterans in Palo Alto, California. In addition to hospital care for veterans, the Veterans Administration has been the principal auxiliary for the Department of Defense in case of emergency. Veterans’ hospitals have assisted victims and emergency officials during the federal building bombing in Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center bombings, and Hurricane Katrina.
By the mid-1990s, the Veterans Administration was being used as an example of the inability of socialized medicine to work, and with numerous empty beds, some were considering dismantling the system. But by 2003, a survey comparing veterans and nonveterans hospitals by the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and National Committee for Quality Assurance found patient facilities and treatment for diabetes and heart and other diseases were in general better at veterans’ than other hospitals. By 2005, the critical American Legion was applauding VA care as ‘‘outstanding’’ and noted that 81 percent of patients (as opposed to 77 percent of Medicare and Medicaid patients) were satisfied with their health care (Longman 2005). Why the change? In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a bill that planned, as he put it, to ‘‘furnish comprehensive medical services to all veterans,’’ regardless of their income or whether they had service-related disabilities. He also appointed of Kenneth W. Kizer as the Department of Veterans Affairs Undersecretary for Health. Kizer decentralized management, implemented a pay-forperformance system with executives, and obtained the right to fire poor doctors. Hospitals beds were reduced and outpatient care increased as rules requiring hospitalization for certain ailments were relaxed. Kizer also invested heavily in computerized systems to keep both patient records and track the latest changes in medical care and new administrative developments. This eliminates problems that many other hospitals have—failure to communicate among doctors, lack of knowledge of the latest techniques, and providing patients with current
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information about how to take care of their diseases. Doctors know at once when patients need testing, and tests are performed to diagnose diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure at no cost. As the VA is the primary physician of veterans for their entire lives, nothing is lost in the shuffle. Doctors are paid a fixed salary, and thus have no incentive for either adopting or not adopting technological innovations or particular medications. The principal grievances against the Veterans Administration today is that there are not enough hospital beds. Veterans cannot be admitted because of nonservice-connected disabilities or if they fail to meet a means test. Budget constraints during the Iraq War was the reason given by the Bush administration for this problem. Complaints also exist about excessive bureaucracy, nonmedical oversight or interference, failure to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder, and sometimes uncaring personnel. It frequently takes a veteran a month to obtain an appointment. Women veterans, who now number 15 percent of the armed services, also complain of inadequate provisions for their special needs. But these complaints are found at private or public hospitals as well. Today, the veterans’ hospital system is the largest integrated health system in the country, with more than 1,400 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. It has 14,800 doctors and 61,000 nurses. The VA consistently scores higher (83 percent out of 100) than private institutions (71 percent) in customer satisfaction surveys taken by the University of Michigan. Men 65 years of age or older in veterans’ hospitals have a 40 percent lower chance of death than those in Medicare Advantage or HMOs. Yearly, the veterans’ hospital
system treats over a million patients and has over 200,000 employees. William Pencak
Further Reading Department of Veterans Affairs. ‘‘History of Veterans Healthcare.’’ www.va.gov/ facmgt/historic/Medical_Care.asp. Dillingham, William P. Federal Aid to Veterans, 1917–1941. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1952. Longman, Philip. ‘‘The Best Care Anywhere.’’ Washington Monthly, January/ February, 2005. www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/ 2005/0501.longman.html Waller, Douglas. ‘‘How Veterans’ Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care.’’ Time Magazine, August 27, 2006. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,1376238,00.html.
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS Founded after the Spanish-American War, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) serves as a fraternal association dedicated to the welfare of American veterans and their families. To that end, the VFW provides several significant services for veterans: as advocate for the veterans’ legislative agenda at the federal and state levels, as an intermediary between individual veterans and the veterans’ bureaucracy, and in perpetuating the bonds of camaraderie associated with military service. Since its inception, the VFW also has voiced veterans’ perspectives on U.S. national security and military issues. Indeed, during much of the twentieth century, the VFW joined with other patriotic organizations to champion unswerving dedication to the political
Veterans of Foreign Wars | 411 institutions of the United States through strong anti-radicalism initiatives known collectively as the Americanism program. Moreover, the organization helped develop and maintain the nationalist spirit of the United States, including the building of war memorials and commemorations of the nation’s military heroes. Since the VFW reaches into thousands of communities across the country through local units called posts, at both the national and local levels, the organization effectively mediates overseas veterans’ relationship with the rest of American society. As of 2009, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) with its auxiliaries, includes 2.4 million members in approximately 9,000 posts worldwide. With the American Legion, with which it frequently cooperates in patriotic activities and obtaining veterans’ aid— although they have something of a rivalry for membership—it has been the most influential veterans group of the twentieth century. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and both Presidents Bush have belonged, along with nearly all eligible Congressmen. Unlike the Legion, which allows Americans who served stateside during periods of overseas military operations to join, the VFW restricts membership to those who served overseas in combat zones. While this means it will probably always have fewer members than the Legion, the VFW can therefore claim to represent better the interests of servicemen who directly saw action. The VFW is organized into local posts by state, each of which has a commander and adjutant. It has had three national headquarters. Pittsburgh was the first from 1914 to 1918, when member Walter
Joyce offered 32 Union Square in New York City to the VFW rent free. The conservative, patriotic organization was thus located near the center of American radicalism—Greenwich Village and the square where American communists, socialists, and labor unions frequently held rallies. In 1924, the VFW moved to Kansas City, Kansas, but when that city demanded rent for quarters it had promised for free, the VFW moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where it has remained ever since. The VFW was formed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in September 1914 from several Spanish-American War and Philippine War veterans’ associations that joined together. The organization adopted as its insignia that of the American Veterans of Foreign Service’s, the Cross of Malta, signaling parallels between the organization and the Knights Hospitallers of the Middle Ages who were honored as crusaders for justice. After 1914, the VFW opened its membership to all honorably discharged veterans who served on foreign shores or in hostile waters in any war, campaign, or expedition recognized by Congress with a campaign badge or service clasp. This allowed military veterans from the Boxer Rebellion and various expeditions in Latin America entry into the organization. Nevertheless, the organization remained quite small until American participation in the Great War, as World War I was then called, with only 5,000 members as late as August 1916. Pennsylvania’s Thomas Crago was the VFW’s first commander in chief. Crago was the main lobbyist for the VFW’s first major achievement: obtaining pensions for the widows of SpanishAmerican War veterans. The bill took four years to pass Congress (1912–1916) because of arguments in the Senate over appropriating funds.
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As of 1915, the veterans who belonged threw themselves into urging the nation to prepare for war with either Mexico, Germany, or both following Pancho Villa’s border raids and the sinking of British vessels carrying Americans by German submarines. Adopting a resolution at the 1915 convention that ‘‘peace at any price is the swan song of the decadent and virtueless . . . . We dare not indulge ourselves in the enjoyment of the blessings of peace while turning deaf ears to cries of distress or to the summons of a righteous cause.’’ Once the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the VFW contributed to the cause in various ways. First, manpower: an astonishing 42 percent of Spanish-American War veterans joined the American Expeditionary Force to Europe although they were too old to be drafted. At home, the VFW encouraged enlistments, provided ambulances, gave legal aid, and lobbied for War Risk Insurance for soldiers, the forerunner of pensions for disabled veterans, widows, and orphans. The VFW remained free of wartime hysteria, refusing to join the numerous vigilante groups that rooted out supposed traitors. It only went as far as asking that German language newspapers be prevented from publishing during the war. One Minnesota post held the first VFW ‘‘court-martial’’ that expelled a member, Congressman Ernest Lundeen —one of a handful of Congressmen who voted against the war. During the war, the VFW increased its ranks to 20,000 men. It did so by distributing its magazine, Foreign Service, to doughboys in France and offering them free membership while they remained in uniform. General John J. Pershing and former President Theodore Roosevelt— who longed to fight again but was
prevented by President Woodrow Wilson —joined, which enabled the VFW to borrow their prestige. Unlike the American Legion, newly formed in 1919 which rapidly recruited some 800,000 members, the VFW was hampered by the fact that only soldiers who had served in combat zones were eligible. Half of the AEF’s four million men never arrived in Europe, and the Legion had much larger financial resources obtained from some of the nation’s wealthiest citizens and banks. The VFW’s total assets in 1919 were about $3,000. America from 1919 to 1920 was in the grip of a wave of strikes by coal miners, steel workers, and even the Boston police force because wages had failed to keep up with wartime inflation. Since the nation’s Communists and Socialists (whose presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs won 6 percent of the vote in 1920 even though he was in jail for his opposition to the war) encouraged the strikes, their opponents had no trouble blaming them for the unrest. The VFW was not immune from this reasoning: as did the American Legion, it called for the outlawing of the Communist Party and urged members to put themselves at the disposal of the lawful authorities to quell unrest. Like many of their fellow citizens, however, VFW members took action on their own against radicals. During the 1920s, the VFW expanded its activities even though the American Legion eclipsed the organization in membership and political clout by a large margin. In 1921, as a way to concentrate their lobbying strength, the VFW established a National Service Bureau in Washington, DC, to promote veterans’ interests. In the year 1921, the VFW really got off the ground, tripling its numbers to
Veterans of Foreign Wars | 413 60,000 and growing to 77,000 by 1929. Its national membership drive was bolstered by several activities. Women veterans of the World War were admitted that year; in 1944, the VFW voted to deny membership to female World War II veterans, largely because they did not serve in combat, but reopened the ranks to women in 1978. The most notable woman member was Theresa Erickson of Minnesota, an army nurse who served in the Philippine War, the Mexican Border Expedition of 1916, and World War I, and later recruited for the VFW. Most practically, the VFW provided services for veterans seeking benefits. In 1919, the VFW beat the American Legion to setting up a National Service Bureau (now the National Veterans Service) in Washington, DC, that handled complaints of veterans who claimed they deserved War Risk Insurance payments or vocational training. Local posts were instructed to forward complaints to the national office. While those who used these services did not have to be members, the free aid offered encouraged recipients to join. The VFW lobbied with the American Legion for the creation of the Veterans Bureau in 1921, protested delays in the construction of veterans’ hospitals and the failure of men to receive medical care after the bureau was established, and worked to investigate corruption that led to the conviction of Bureau Head Charles Forbes, President Harding’s personal physician (see Veterans Administration). The two organizations worked in tandem during the decade to provide veteran benefits including adequate medical care and pensions for physically and psychologically disabled veterans, vocational
rehabilitation, and sufficient provisions for the widows and orphans of the war dead. In 1922, the VFW gained national visibility by selling poppies on Memorial Day, adopting the idea from Frenchwoman Anna Guerin who had sold them in France to benefit veterans there. (The American Legion at first preferred to sell daisies as they were ‘‘more American’’ before switching to poppies.) Over a billion VFW poppies manufactured by disabled veterans supported the VFW’s causes. Between 1940 and 1961, prominent young, female movie stars headed the campaign as ‘‘Buddy Poppy Girls’’: they included Jane Wyman, the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Doris, Day, and Natalie Wood. Since then, orphan girls from the VFW National Home, set up in 1925 on a farm near Eaton Rapids, Michigan, have publicized the sales. Funding for the home got off the ground in 1922, when the Giants and Yankees donated the proceeds of a World Series baseball game. The VFWs most famous, and controversial, activity of the early 20s, however, was its leading role in supporting an average bonus of $500 for world war service personnel (see Bonus March). More than 100 posts demonstrated for the Bonus in an October 16, 1920, parade in New York City with 75,000 veterans, including 2000 disabled men displaying their injuries. The VFW organized a nationwide letter-writing campaign to put pressure on congressmen to support the bonus; it finally passed in 1924, after the vetoes of Presidents Harding and Coolidge, but only provided that veterans would collect $1,000 in 1945 after their certificates had matured at 4 percent interest for 21 years.
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In the late twenties, the VFW’s major lobbying effort went into replacing the discredited Veterans Bureau with the Veterans Administration, established in 1930. Its other two achievements were symbolic and again kept the VFW in the news. In 1929, the VFW organized an expedition to return the remains of the ‘‘polar bears’’—Americans who had served in northern Russia near Archangel. Although the United States did not recognize the Soviet Union and in fact the troops were sent to defeat the Communists, the Soviets cooperated in a grueling search that led to the recovery of 86 bodies. As most of the men had come from the Detroit area, 56 were buried at Troy, Michigan, in a monument crowned by a giant polar bear dedicated on Memorial Day, 1930 (see Russian Campaign of World War I Veterans). The following year, President Herbert Hoover signed a law Congress passed making the ‘‘Star Spangled Banner’’ the National Anthem after Walter Joyce, the VFW’s director of Americanism, led a drive to gather five million signatures. The VFW’s response to the Great Depression that began in 1929 caused its membership to grow to 165,000 by 1933 and 240,000 by the eve of World War II. It still numbered only about a quarter of the strength of the American Legion, but it grew at a much greater rate during the troubled thirties. Once again, the VFW took the lead in urging that the bonus due in 1945 be paid at once, not only because many veterans needed the money right away, but to stimulate the economy. In 1931, President Hoover signed a law permitting veterans to borrow up to half the value of their bonus, but for many it was not enough. Where the Legion hesitated until 1932 before endorsing immediate payment, the VFW
continued to push for this measure. Neither the Legion nor the VFW national bodies officially endorsed the Bonus March on Washington in 1932 to urge immediate payment, but local and state departments throughout the nation assisted and encouraged the marchers. Washington, DC, Chief of Police Pelham Glassford, who belonged to both the Legion and the VFW, treated the men kindly before Douglas MacArthur and federal troops dispersed them. The following year, 1933, Witnessed both the election of Franklin Roosevelt and of James Van Zandt of Altoona, Pennsylvania, as the VFW’s national commander. Like Hoover, Roosevelt was committed to cutting veterans’ benefits and not paying the bonus: heeding public outcry that veterans enjoyed special and undeserved benefits (see Benefits) that approached a quarter of the federal budget, both presidents favored public works and relief projects that aided the population in general. Van Zandt organized a nationwide campaign of publications, radio broadcasts, speeches, and public gatherings in tandem with Texas Congressman Wright Patman and General Smedley Butler. Congress finally passed the measure over President Roosevelt’s veto in 1936. World War II brought a new mission and a new infusion of members into the VFW. During the 1930s, the VFW joined with those in favor of American isolationism and promoted strict neutrality in world affairs. After 1940, when the fall of France alerted many to the seriousness of the Nazi threat, the VFW supported the slow drift towards war, including the massive military mobilization and the peacetime draft. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the organization vigorously joined the war effort.
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Senator Hiram Johnson of California, in 1922, addressing members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who from the start supported the bonus payment for World War I veterans. [National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-51960]
VFW members served as civil defense personnel and training camp instructors. Many others renewed their military service at advanced ages. In 1942, the VFW instituted a pilot training program that prepared desperately needed new recruits for flying duty in the armed services. Moreover, in 1944, the VFW became involved in the legislative battle over the proper manner in which to compensate returning veterans and ease their readjustment into civilian life. The VFW initially opposed the expansive benefits that were outlined in the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, more popularly known as the GI Bill of Rights, out of fears that such an expansive system was sure to be gutted in another ‘‘Economy Act’’ in the postwar period once gratitude toward veterans had
declined. Ultimately, the VFW joined with the bill’s sponsor, the American Legion, in helping secure the legislative victory of the GI Bill. With its passage, the United States passed one of the most expansive pieces of social welfare legislation in the country’s history and profoundly shaped postwar society by providing education, housing, and job training to millions of veterans. VFW local and state officials proved instrumental in implementing the bill as the organization aided veterans in navigating the federal bureaucracy to secure their benefits. By the end of World War II, the VFW stood with the American Legion as the twin pillars of the formidable veterans’ lobby. After World War II, the VFW stood at its greatest political and numerical
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strength yet, with some 1.5 million members, approximately half the Legion’s. During the Cold War, the VFW continued the organization’s record of staunch anticommunism begun in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution. In the waging of the Cold War, from U.S. involvement in Korea to Vietnam, the VFW supported an aggressive and militant foreign policy for the United States in battling communism. Even when public support for the Vietnam War waned, the VFW never wavered in its opinion of the war’s merits, nor of American soldiers’ honorable service. From World War II through the Vietnam conflict, the VFW attempted to account for, and repatriate, prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action (POW-MIA’s). After the Vietnam War, the search for living POW-MIA’s and the attempts to identify the remains of the unidentified dead became an even larger VFW project as it worked with the U.S. government, private citizens, and the governments of Korea and Vietnam. Beginning in 1979, the VFW formed a Political Action Committee and provided for the open endorsement of Congressional candidates who voted the way the VFW recommended at least 70 percent of the time. Previously, as the American Legion still does, the VFW did not openly approve candidates but could commend them and publicize their stands on issues the organization cared about. Nearly all candidates who have been supported by the VFW, especially those who achieved the ‘‘Honored’’ status of voting 80 or 90 percent of the time with the VFW, are elected. After the Vietnam War, however, the VFW became an outspoken critic of the Veterans Administration’s handling of veterans’ post-traumatic stress disorder
and of the physical ailments tied to the exposure of the chemical defoliant, Agent Orange. In these battles, the VFW struggled with the uncooperative VA and military bureaucracies before finally securing treatment and compensation, respectively. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the VFW sought to find answers to why American veterans were succumbing to a debilitating but mysterious illness. The VFW supported research into what came to be called Gulf War Syndrome and challenged the U.S. military to provide information on vaccinations given to the troops and possible reasons behind the illness. The postVietnam era also found the VFW very active in supporting public memorials for the veterans of the Vietnam and Korean Wars and World War II. Three new memorials for these veterans on the Washington Mall were dedicated in 1982, 1995, and 2004, respectively. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the VFW championed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite the support for these campaigns that created hundreds of thousands of new potential members, the VFW demanded that the U.S. government provide more material support, especially improved safety features, for the nation’s military; blasted the Pentagon for inadequate hospitals and medical care for returning wounded veterans; and sponsored legislation that would create a new expansive GI Bill for veterans of these conflicts. President George W. Bush signed the new GI Bill for war veterans on June 30, 2008, appropriately, in Kansas City, Missouri, where the national headquarters of the VFW is located. Throughout the history of the organization, the VFW national organization has been an outspoken champion of
Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home for Children federal veterans’ benefits, health care, and pensions. At the state and local level, VFW leaders also provide guidance to veterans of their communities who seek to navigate the veterans’ and military bureaucracies. In this capacity, the VFW has served as a vital intermediary between individual veterans and the federal government. The VFW brings together veterans in thousands of communities across the country. By sponsoring Memorial Day Buddy Poppy drives, and parades and tributes on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, it also acts as a constant reminder of the long-term impact of war on the American people. Stephen R. Ortiz
Further Reading Daniels, Roger. The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971. Goldsmith, Mary Katherine. ‘‘The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States: The History of a Veterans’ Organization, Its Function in Assisting Veterans, Influencing National Legislation, and Interpreting and Promoting Americanism, 1899–1948.’’ M.A. Thesis. University of Kansas City, 1963. Keene, Jennifer D. Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2001. Mason, Herbert Molloy, Jr. VFW: Our First Century, 1899–1999. Lenexa, KS: Addax, 1999. Ortiz, Stephen R. Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era. New York: New York University Press, 2009. ———. ‘‘Rethinking the Bonus March: Federal Bonus Policy, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of a Protest Movement.’’ Journal of Policy History 18.3 (2006): 275–303.
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———. ‘‘The ‘New Deal’ for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent.’’ Journal of Military History 70.2 (2006): 415–38. Ross, Davis R. B. Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans during World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Trial, George T. ‘‘The American Veterans of Foreign Service and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.’’ The Ohio State Archeological and Historical Quarterly 57.1 (1948): 79–93.
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS NATIONAL HOME FOR CHILDREN At the convention of the Military Order of the Cootie in Norfolk, Virginia, in August 1923, the Supreme Pup Tent decided to create a home for the orphans of veterans of foreign wars. (Named after the bugs that infested soldiers’ hair in the First World War, this was an elite society within the Veterans of Foreign Wars.) The Supreme Commander received authority to find a site for the home and begin work on its construction. Learning of the decision, the city of Norfolk, through the Widgeon Realty Company, offered a free site to the Cooties. At the January 19–20, 1924, meeting in Kansas City, the Supreme Council of Administration discussed the project. Frank P. Strickland chaired the committee for the home and evaluated several proposed sites. A survey taken to see how many orphans qualified for residence also showed that there were not enough funds available to begin the project. The home project was tabled, but Pup Tents nationwide were called upon to start fund-raising campaigns for the project.
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The true beginning of the home had occurred two years earlier in 1922. In February 1922, Amy Ross, 22 years old, entered the office of the VFW Department of Michigan Commander Dr. Clarence L. Chandler. Ross suggested the VFW help employ thousands of veterans on construction projects, including the home. Millionaire cattleman, Corey Spencer from Jackson, Michigan, learned of Ross’s efforts and of the Yanks Convalescent Camp. Jackson offered to donate 472 acres near Eaton Rapids, Michigan, to the VFW. Spencer’s offer was put before the 1924 convention. In December 1924 the home received approval to be built on Spencer’s land gift. Unfortunately, Amy Ross died in November before the final approval. She received a military funeral from the VFW in honor of her work. Her efforts employed 9,000 veterans and created a 300-grave plot for veterans at Roseland Cemetery. National fund-raising provided the funds for the construction of the National Home. On March 9, 1925, the first residents of the home arrived. The widow and six children of Sargeant Edward Pollett were settled in an old farmhouse on the site. Pollett was buried in Roseland Cemetery. Today the National Home is a campus of 70 buildings comprised of 36 family homes, 2 duplexes, a community center, guest lodge, chapel, water treatment facility, and administrative buildings. Since 1960, it has been a licensed childcare facility and has two programs—a Residential Program and a Single Parent Family Program. Residential children remain until high school graduation and beyond. It advertises itself as one of America’s best-kept secrets. Every Veterans of Foreign Wars post halts its meeting at 9 p.m. to recite the
National Home prayer. More than 2,000 children and families have found shelter at the home over 80 years of service. The primary source of funding comes from the VFW and its Ladies Auxiliary, the Military Order of the Cootie and its Ladies Auxiliary, individual members, and grants from organizations. The National Home has attempted for over 80 years to fulfill Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s statement that the home provides veterans’ orphans with the chance for happiness that is enjoyed by the average American child. Darlene Spitzer-Antezana
Further Reading The Patriot Observer. National Home publication. www.vfwnationalhome.org/newsroom/patriot.shtml. Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home. www.vfwnationalhome.org.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL Jan Scruggs, a 29-year-old former rifleman in Vietnam, conceived the idea of building a memorial to Vietnam War veterans with the names of all those killed on it in March 1979. He had just seen Michael Cimino’s film The Deer Hunter about soldiers who fought and were captured in Vietnam, and he had a flashback to his own experience. Scruggs discussed his plans with Vietnam War veterans and on May 28 held a conference with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. He appealed for money but almost nothing came in. Bob Doubek, a veteran and a lawyer, and Jack Wheeler, a West Point graduate who had also attended Yale Law School and Harvard Business School and was
Vietnam Memorial responsible for the erection of the Southeast Asia Memorial at West Point, picked up on Scruggs’s idea. Wheeler called numerous veterans who met in August and formed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) as a nonprofit corporation. The veterans who formed the core of the lobbying and fund-raising set a deadline of 1982 for completion of the memorial. They also never discussed their attitudes on the war with each other, realizing these probably differed. Visiting congressional lawmakers, Scruggs found a powerful ally in Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, who had opposed the war but appreciated the sacrifice made by the people who fought it. Mathias selected the current site near the base of the Lincoln Memorial as the best location and lined up 26 senators to sponsor a bill to establish the memorial there. They included two unsuccessful presidential candidates: Barry Goldwater, who had supported the war, and George McGovern, who had opposed it. Veterans groups were the next to rally around the memorial. The American Gold Star Mothers, half of whom had lost sons in Vietnam, wrote letters to their Congressmen. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Marine Corps League, Retired Officers Association, and National Guard Association all endorsed and publicized it. Virginia Senator John Warner and his then-wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor, held a lunch that raised $40,000. Parade magazine, which reaches 20 million readers as a magazine supplement in many newspapers, also publicized the memorial. A National Sponsoring Committee including First Lady Rosalynn Carter, former President Gerald Ford, and ex-Vietnam commander William Westmoreland formed and provided endorsements. The
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first test mailing of 200,000 letters yielded over $36,000 in contributions from over 2,000 people. Fundraising ultimately reached $8 million as letters from actor Bob Hope and other respected figures were sent on repeated mailings throughout the nation. Garage sales, walk-a-thons, bake sales, students collecting at stoplights, and other grass roots efforts raised much of the money from over 650,000 people. The American Legion contributed a million dollars, the Veterans of Foreign Wars $180,000. American corporations, their fundraising drive headed by John McElwee, president of John Hancock Life Insurance, raised a million and a half. Letters responded to the requests. Some people opposed the idea: ‘‘Let’s not perpetuate the memory of such dishonorable events’’; ‘‘A stupid thing when so many of the surviving veterans are so sick and suffering with no place to turn to.’’ But most were positive: ‘‘Anyone who died in that fiasco is a hero in my eyes’’; and ‘‘From the grandmother, 87years-old, of a Marne who lost both legs in Vietnam, ‘It will give us great comfort to know that this sacrifice was not in vain’ ’’ (Scruggs and Swerdlow 1985, 25–28). Some donors offered substantial gifts if 1972 peace candidate George McGovern’s name was removed from the sponsors, but the VVMF insisted it remain nonpartisan and refused to offer judgment on the war. On Memorial Day, 1980, President Jimmy Carter invited 200 veterans to meet him to honor the first national Vietnam Veterans Week. In June, he signed the final legislation authorizing the memorial. To select a design, the VVMF decided to have an open competition in which the chosen memorial would be selected by
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A Vietnam veteran holds a red rose as he touches the name of a fallen comrade at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Father’s Day 2007, as part of the annual Father’s Day Rose Remembrance. [AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari]
some of the world’s leading sculptors and landscape architects rather than veterans, their relatives, or government officials. But they first vetted the jury to make sure it was sympathetic to the concerns of Vietnam veterans. In November 1980, Maya Lin, then a Yale University undergraduate assigned to design a memorial as a class project, visited Washington to examine the site. Maya Lin was 21 years old and had grown up in Athens, Ohio. Her parents were Chinese. One principal influence on her work was the arch at Thiepval, France, where a giant arch with two axes lists the names of 73,000 men killed in the Somme offensive of World War I. She envisioned the memorial as first cutting open the earth, then having it rise from the grounds like two hands to symbolize healing. After discussion with her class, she eliminated a row of falling
dominoes in the front of the wall of names she proposed (‘‘the domino effect’’ was what politicians predicted would happen once one country fell to the Communists—then others would fall). But she kept the idea of black rather than white stone and took her professor’s idea to include a meaningful angle (at the moment when the death toll was highest) and list the names in order of death. Over 57,000 names appear on the 492-footlong wall listing those Americans who are known to have died or are still missing in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, Billionaire Ross Perot, a supporter of the idea from the beginning, put up the $160,000 to enable the judges to consider 1,421 design entries: the winner would received $20,000 in addition to the honor involved. The jury unanimously chose Maya Lin’s design, offering comments
Vietnam Memorial such as ‘‘No other place in the world like that’’; ‘‘Presents both solitude and a challenge’’; ‘‘People come and experience it, not merely look at it’’; ‘‘Shows the evolution of the war.’’ In announcing its choice, the jury concluded: ‘‘This memorial with its wall of names becomes a place of quiet reflection and a tribute to those who served their nation in difficult times . . . . All who come here can find it a place of healing’’ (Scruggs and Swerdlow 1985, 63–65). It was conceived not as a war memorial, but a way to honor veterans. Many congressmen and bureaucrats appreciated the design, but Ross Perot did not. He felt that it only honored the dead, not the surviving veterans. Former Vietnam veteran and early fund-raiser Tom Carhart, who also submitted a design, called it a ‘‘black gash of shame,’’ a phrase picked up in the media. The VVMF responded to the criticisms: they insisted no shame was involved; that other memorials, including the one honoring the Iwo Jima Seabees, used black granite; the names commemorated individual heroism; most war memorials did not have flags: and that there was no point in repeating the visual images of Vietnam available in books and film. In December 1981, Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois headed a group of 28 legislators who approached Secretary of the Interior James Watt to withhold approval for construction of the memorial. Watt did so. But as the memorial received overwhelming support from such conservative groups as the American Legion and Gold Star Mothers, the opponents of the memorial were only able to alter, not prevent its construction, by the addition of a statue of three soldiers sculpted by Frederick Hart. Hart’s design for the entire memorial had won third place. The sculpture he designed
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featured three life-size veterans in the field of battle, one white, one Hispanic, and one black, capturing a sense of comradeship, weariness, and perseverance. Ground for the Memorial was broken in March 1982, the first panel installed in July, and the dedication occurred on Veterans Day. The sculpture was dedicated on Veterans Day, 1984. Over 150,000 people attended the original dedication. A parade honoring Vietnam veterans ended at the wall as the crowd tore down the fence built to control it, not in anger, but to pay their respects to loved ones. Maya Lin did not attend the dedication, believing the proposed added sculpture compromised the message her design conveyed. On July 7, 1982, she told The Washington Post that Hart’s three-man addition was like drawing a moustache on a portrait, and that a small group of men had subverted the democratic process by which her work had been selected. Her dissent aired on the television show 60 Minutes and led to a fierce debate in both the art world and among the public as to the appropriateness of the sculpture. Today, the Vietnam Memorial is probably the most moving site in the United States at which veterans are remembered. People place flags, gifts, writings, and cards near the names of loved ones. These are periodically removed, and the nearby National Museum of American History collects and displays some of them. William Pencak
Further Reading Ezell, Edward Clinton. Reflections on the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1987.
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Hass, Kristin Ann. Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. Lopes, Sal. The Wall: Images and Offerings from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Collins, 1987. Meyer, Peter. The Wall: A Day in the Life of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Palmer, Laura. Shrapnel in the Heart: Letters and Remembrances from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Random House, 1987. Scruggs, Jan. The Wall That Heals. Washington, DC: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 1992. Scruggs, Jan, and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.
VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR In April 1967, six Vietnam War veterans walked in a peace march in New York City, gathering around a sign one of them carried reading Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It was an impromptu banner, and a chance meeting. There was, at the time, no such organization. In fact, though the United States had had a presence in Vietnam for nearly a decade, there was no organization specifically representing the concerns of Vietnam War veterans. In the summer of 1967, several of the men who had walked under that banner, and others who soon joined them, decided to start such a group, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was begun. Though its membership has never been large, with the maximum estimated at about 20,000, it quickly became one of the most distinct organizations in the swirl of
political groups active in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 40 years after its founding, VVAW remains active in representing the concerns of those who served in the war in Southeast Asia, and has been a source of information for those in the military who have opposed subsequent wars. Public opposition to the conflict in Vietnam was common in 1967; outspoken opposition to it by those who had actually served was. Vietnam was the first conflict in which the United States was widely seen as failing in its military role, and this cast patriotism, military service, and the situation of returning veterans of the war in different lights than had been the case during earlier wars, when veterans had uniformly been considered heroes. Veterans for Peace, a group made up of veterans of earlier wars, had become a part of the peace movement, but former service people who ran most veterans’ groups in the 1960s and 1970s were in the main staunchly supportive of government policies and statements, regarding that as a way to honor their military discipline and history. They didn’t welcome the politically and socially disaffected vets coming back from Vietnam. Neither did the proponents of the peace movement: Vietnam vets were soldiers, they’d actually fought the war the peace groups were trying to stop. All this took place in the context of the profound and ever changing society of the 1960s, too, when gender, race, work, and just about everything else was up for redefinition. In the early days of the VVAW, Jan Crumb (later known as Jan Barry), Mark Donnelly, David Braum, and those who joined them in response to advertisements in places such as the New York Times and the magazine Ramparts,
Vietnam Veterans Against the War focused on calling for withdrawal from Vietnam, for bringing the troops home. The very presence of veterans who had fought in the conflict they were trying to end added credibility to the peace movement. For that reason, Vietnam veterans in the peace movement, and the VVAW itself, soon became a lighting rod for criticism from government sources. Many individual veterans were dealing with situations those in earlier wars had not faced, or had faced to a lesser extent. They had fought in a war halfway across the world, in a country few knew anything about, in a war that rarely had defined battle lines or beginnings or endings to fighting. They also faced circumstances where the next child who waved from the roadside or the next grandmother making her way into her dwelling might—or might not—be the next person to throw a bomb at American soldiers. As many returning vets would testify in later years, they learned to think of all Vietnamese as less than human. In the theater of war killing anyone could become commonplace; back in ‘‘the world’’ outside the war zone, the weight of such actions, along with the weight of believing that they were for the good of the country, began to take its toll. In 1969, the revelations of the actions of Lieutenant William Calley and his soldiers at My Lai, where many civilians including small children were killed, became a flash point for anti-war sentiment. It also demonstrated that a war where who the enemy was could not be determined drove American soldiers to kill indiscriminately. In the fall of 1970, VVAW organized a graphic demonstration of this with Operation RAW, which stood for Rapid American Withdrawal. About 100 people, many of them veterans, walked from Morristown, New
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Jersey, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the two most famous winter encampments of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Most were dressed in fatigues and carried weapons, and along the way they staged several guerrilla theater events, such as mock torture of captives and search and destroy actions through town streets, to bring home the realties of what the war was like. Though they met with some opposition, there was a crowd waiting to welcome them at Valley Forge, where actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland were among the speakers. Public sentiment in the United States was already turning against involvement in Vietnam. While RAW may not have changed many minds at the time, it did cause concern on the part of the government, which began to keep a close eye on the actions of the VVAW, especially as the war in Southeast Asia escalated into Cambodia. More veterans who had returned home as well as people still serving in the military joined the organization. The next major initiative spearheaded by the VVAW may prove to be its most lasting legacy, and its effects came on both an individual and a political level. My Lai and Operation RAW had brought up questions about what Vietnam was doing to the men and women who served there. Post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor guilt, and other issues haunted the lives and families of Vietnam veterans, but these were conditions which were poorly understood and little talked about at the time, and it would be more than 10 years before much was known or studied about these conditions or their effects in relation to those who served in the military. In 1970, representatives from the VVAW’s New York chapter talked with psychiatrists Robert Jay Lifton and
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Chaim Shatan about the stresses Vietnam veterans were experiencing. Late in 1970, the first of a series of what were called rap groups for veterans began. Rap groups were gatherings where Vietnam veterans could talk about the emotions they felt—anger, fear, confusion, guilt, and isolation were common —and also talk about the circumstances they’d faced in the war and since. It was, basically, taking the familiar psychological idea of talk therapy to the stresses of this war. At the time this was unheard of, but the idea quickly spread across the country, and eventually became, and remains, a part of the services now regularly offered to returning military by the Veterans Administration. Individually and as a group, Vietnam veterans felt their stories needed to be told, and needed to be heard. In 1971 VVAW put together two of the most visible and most remembered ways for them to do that: the Winter Soldier Investigation and a demonstration known as Dewey Canyon III. Winter Soldier took its name, indirectly, from what Thomas Paine wrote during the American Revolution: ‘‘The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country,’’ Paine said at the time of the Revolutionary War, ‘‘but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.’’ The purpose of the Winter Soldier Investigation was to bring to light and to public knowledge war crimes committed by the U.S. military in Southeast Asia. More than 100 veterans came to Detroit, Michigan, over three days from January 31 through February 2, 1971, to tell their stories. Each was required to bring documented proof of his military service and was advised to speak only about acts
he had done himself or seen first hand. Men from all different walks of life came, and their testimony was powerful. The event was, however, covered mainly by Detroit media; there was little national reporting on it other than by Pacifica Radio. A collective of filmmakers volunteered to make a documentary about the proceedings, which although it was screened at Cannes and other film festivals soon after, did not receive wide distribution. The film has recently been re-released on DVD under the title Winter Soldier and can be purchased through the VVAW Web site. Winter Soldier did prompt action by the Nixon administration, who sought to discredit the testimony and prove that many of those who testified were not veterans. It was discovered that Al Hubbard, a VVAW organizer who did not testify at Winter Soldier, had lied about certain aspects of his military service. The details of the men who testified, however, were corroborated, rather than discredited. In April of 1971, VVAW members and others put together a series of actions in Washington, DC, they called Dewey Canyon III, a reference to military operations in Laos. A number of veterans, along with American Gold Star Mothers who had lost sons, and other supporters came to Washington to meet with congressional representatives. Some camped in Potomac Park, where members of Congress, including Ted Kennedy, visited them. Some went to lay wreaths on soldiers’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery where they were at first turned away by cemetery officials; some staged guerrilla theater on the steps of government buildings. Some listened to congressional hearings and lobbied their congress people about ending the war and about veterans’ issues.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran and VVAW member, spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More than 700 veterans tried to return their medals to Congress in a gesture of their rejection of the war. The Nixon administration, though, put up a wooden barrier around the Capitol Building to protect Congress from the veterans. Frustrated and angry, many veterans threw their medals and decorations over the barrier. Smaller public actions continued across the country, but internal divisions within VVAW escalated, with disagreements between those committed to peaceful demonstration and those looking for, or at least willing to consider, more violent actions. For example, Scott Camil, one of those who had spoken at Winter Soldier, suggested at a meeting in Kansas City in 1971 that a plan be made to assassinate prowar congressmen. It was quickly voted down, but shocked many both within and without the organization. VVAW continued to advocate for veterans’ rights, treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, and for an end to the war itself. In 1972 it extended its reach by showing another side of Vietnam veterans in publishing the collection of poetry, Hearts and Minds. This was edited by VVAW members Jan Barry, Larry Rottman, and Basil Pacquet, and is one of the first known collections of poetry entirely written by veterans. As American participation in the war in Southeast Asia wound down and public protest became less common and less visible, many thought the organization itself had dissolved. Though a dissident faction, VVAW-Anti Imperialist, spun off into radical politics, the main organization brought its advocacy to bear on
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the psychological and physical damage the war had done to those who served there. It focused on getting post-Vietnam Stress Syndrome (see Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) recognized as a valid disorder by psychologists (it was, in 1980) and on the unfolding story of the toxic effects of Agent Orange and other herbicides to which soldiers had been exposed. The organization also continued to work for the return of prisoners of war. Many members and former members of the VVAW went on to contribute in other areas of public life. Ron Kovic wrote his autobiography, Born on the Fourth of July (1976), which was made into an award-winning movie. Robert O. Mueller founded Vietnam Veterans of America and organized a campaign against land mines which won a Nobel Peace Prize. W. D. Ehrhart’s Passing Time: A Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War (1995) is one of many memoirs and other works by members of the VVAW. John Kerry became a senator from Massachusetts and ran for president in 2004. He lost to George W. Bush. (See Film and Veterans; Literature and Veterans). Vietnam Veterans of America continues to work for the rights of veterans and to advocate for the health concerns of those who served in Vietnam. The group holds regular reunions, publishes a newsletter, and maintains a Web site, as well as working with other groups who share its aims. In 2008, it helped with the organization of Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan, and opposes American involvement in both wars. Kerry Dexter See also African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War; Anti-War Veterans Associations
Medals and other articles litter the pavement in front of a statue of John Marshall near the Capitol, 1971, thrown there by demonstrators, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War, protesting the continuation of the Vietnam War. Marshall was an early chief justice of the United States. [AP Photo/John Duricka]
Vietnam War Veterans
Further Reading Aronow, Fred, et al. (The Winterfilm Collective). Winter Soldier. Harrington Park, NJ: Milliarium Zero: DVD with bonus footage, 2006; film was first released in 1972. Dougan, Clark, and Samuel Lipsman. The Vietnam Experience: A Nation Divided. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1984. McPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam & the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement. New York: Crown, 2001. Vietnam Veterans Against the War. www.vvaw.org. Young, Marilyn, and John Fitzgerald. The Vietnam War: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
VIETNAM WAR VETERANS In March 1965, the first contingent of American combat troops from the U.S. Marine Corps landed at DaNang in South Vietnam. During the summer, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered 44 more battalions to Southeast Asia in hopes of thwarting communism from taking control of the U.S.-backed Republic of Vietnam (RVN), or South Vietnam. Over the next decade, millions of American men and women would serve in Southeast Asia, and more than 58,000 would lose their lives. The height of U.S. involvement came in 1969 when more than 540,000 American troops occupied the region in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War represents perhaps the most unique conflict the United States has ever fought. The average age of combat soldiers in Vietnam was 19, significantly
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younger than the figure of 26 from World War II. Rather than battling an enemy that utilized a conventional-style strategy, U.S. troops battled Vietnamese guerrilla fighters that used hit and run tactics, disguised themselves as civilians, and used the triple canopy jungle to their advantage, setting booby traps and conducting ambushes against an American force unprepared for unconventional warfare. The Vietnam War constitutes the first war the United States officially lost, as the communists ultimately took control of South Vietnam in 1975, two years after American combat troops departed the country. Also for the first time in U.S. history, Americans watched real time images of a war from their living rooms. Television crews transferred terrifying images of battles, injured and dead American troops, and deceased Vietnamese civilians to a horrified U.S. population. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines returned to a country that had steadily increased its animosity towards the war, as American troops continued to come home in body bags. After returning home from the war, Vietnam veterans had numerous adjustments to make in the civilian world. Upon arriving in the United States, the troops did not experience parades or welcoming parties like those returning from World War II and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, Vietnam War veterans encountered Americans with unwelcoming attitudes towards them. Veterans were shocked at the animosity from anti-war protestors throwing food and garbage at their fellow Americans, calling them baby killers, and in some cases spitting on the troops. When uncomfortable confrontations between
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veterans and protestors continued, many soldiers began changing from their military uniforms into civilian clothing in hopes of avoiding dissent. Others discarded their military uniforms, ashamed of their service. Many veterans despised the protestors, and to this day refuse to forgive them for their actions. These veterans simply do not understand what would bring someone to hate men and women who served their country, lost best friends, and in some cases suffered lifechanging physical and mental injuries. Performing the duty asked of them by the American government, Vietnam veterans wondered why protestors felt the need to ridicule them for simply doing their job for the United States. Actress Jane Fonda, who posed with North Vietnamese antiaircraft artillery in the 1970s and spoke negatively of Americans in Vietnam, constitutes perhaps the most hated anti-war protestor amongst veterans. Today, many veterans still believe the U.S. government should convict Fonda of treason. Despite the large number of veterans who disliked protestors, many chose to join the anti-war movement. In 1967, Jan Barry Crumb, a Vietnam veteran, marched with a crowd of 50,000 antiwar protestors in New York City carrying a banner that read ‘‘Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).’’ Although Barry had not planned on starting an organization, his banner prompted several protestors to encourage the Vietnam veteran to start an anti-war group with the name on his banner. Thus, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a nonprofit organization, was born. Although the organization initially faced difficulty finding members, the height of its membership rose to about 20,000.
The Winter Soldier Investigation and Operation Dewey Canyon III represent perhaps the most popular activities the VVAW conducted in the early 1970s, while the war still raged in Vietnam. In January 1971, the VVAW began the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit, Michigan, in which the organization corralled veterans to testify about war crimes committed by Americans in Vietnam, attempting to prove that U.S. atrocities directly resulted from faulty American policy. Several months after the Winter Soldier Investigation, the VVAW sponsored Operation Dewey Canyon III, a protest in Washington, DC, named after recent American military operations into Laos. The climax of the protest occurred when more than 800 Vietnam veterans hurled medals and other war memorabilia on the steps of the Capitol.
Adjusting to Life after the War Problems for demobilized Vietnam veterans centered on adapting to an everyday life void of bullets, artillery, ambushes, and booby traps. Preparation to react in certain ways to violence and battle made adjusting to a civilian life in a relatively quiet and safe environment difficult for Vietnam veterans. After getting comfortable with an M-16 rifle at their sides at all times, Vietnam veterans now lived without the weapon that rarely left their sides during the war. In hopes of making a smooth transition to civilian life, many veterans sought to use their war experiences from Vietnam in American society, giving themselves various missions to complete. Some Vietnam veterans verified friendships through rescue missions. For the rescuer, the veteran metaphorically returns to Vietnam,
Vietnam War Veterans saving his friends from mortally fatal wounds. Many veterans of the Vietnam era initially questioned the connection between their service and the government’s goals and commitment to the war. Unlike World War II, Vietnam veterans had to deal with serving in a war the United States ultimately lost. When returning home, images of victory did not prevail in the United States. Many Americans grew ashamed of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and the veterans provided the most readily available reminder of the lost war. In April 1975, the Communists from North Vietnam solidified their victory over South Vietnam, a moment Vietnam veterans vividly remember. Veterans felt let down, even betrayed by the U.S. government after the official defeat of South Vietnam. Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization policy, enacted in 1969, started the process of bringing Americans home, giving South Vietnam the sole responsibility of fighting the remainder of the war. Some veterans blamed the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), or the South Vietnamese Army, for losing the war. Although numerous veterans speak positively about their experiences with the ARVN, others remember a reluctant and hesitant fighting force. One veteran recalls that the ARVN fought valiantly only when U.S. forces accompanied the South Vietnamese on their mission. In addition to dealing with the United States losing in Vietnam, veterans also had to endure returning to a nation they did not recognize. After finding new work or returning to previous jobs, distinct sights and sounds often brought back vivid memories of Vietnam. Veterans had problems with flashbacks and
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nightmares about their time in Vietnam, which often resulted in depression and anxiety. Other veterans abused alcohol in an attempt to relieve their sorrows. Compounding the sorrow from war, thousands of paralyzed veterans returned to the United States in wheelchairs, missing one or more limbs. Ron Kovic’s memoir, Born on the Fourth of July (1976), reveals the life of a paralyzed Vietnam veteran who joined the antiwar movement after returning home. Kovic, a marine who received the Bronze Star with ‘‘V’ for valor and the Purple Heart, participated in a 17-day hunger strike with other paralyzed veterans in protest of the poor treatment the government offered returning veterans. Kovic continues to protest war today, most recently after the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. Kovic’s memoir inspired director Oliver Stone to make the Academy Award winning Born on the Fourth of July (1989), a film based on the former marine’s life during and after Vietnam (see Film and Veterans). Lewis Puller Jr., the son of the most decorated marine in Marine Corps history, lost both legs in Vietnam. Puller Jr., who earned the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, drank heavily and suffered from severe depression after returning home. Puller Jr.’s autobiography Fortunate Son (1991), named after the popular Creedence Clearwater Revival song of the same title, won the Pulitzer Prize. Puller’s autobiography chronicles his life during and after Vietnam, ending with the veteran coming to terms with his physical disabilities and his volatile emotions resulting from his time in Vietnam. Three years after the
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publication of his memoir, Puller committed suicide, dying from a selfinflicted gunshot. The memoirs of Kovic and Puller, although personal accounts, represent the feelings of many Vietnam veterans, showing the misery and hardships endured after returning from the war.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder In 1970, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, who interviewed and examined numerous Vietnam veterans, offered his analysis of what he called post-Vietnam syndrome to a Congressional Conference on War and National Responsibility. PostVietnam syndrome, a term coined by Veterans Administration psychiatrists, referred to psychological symptoms of returning veterans that Lifton deemed unique to the Vietnam War experience. Lifton recognized from his interviews that Vietnam veterans needed a way to deal with their emotions from war. Lifton, with the help of the VVAW, sought a way to heal the veterans’ suffering from psychological problems. Lifton suggested to Jan Barry Crumb and therapist Chaim Shatan that they form ‘‘rap groups,’’ in which Vietnam veterans and several therapists gathered once a week for two hours to discuss and come to terms with their experiences and emotions from the war. The first group met at the VVAW headquarters in 1970, and the idea proved a tremendous success for the participating veterans. From these rap groups, Lifton encountered veterans who spoke of recurring nightmares and uncontrollable crying at random times of the day. In 1972, Shatan published ‘‘The Grief of Soldiers’’ in the New York Times. Shatan’s article, which revealed six
psychological characteristics that Vietnam veterans shared, proved that postVietnam syndrome was an authentic problem for those who returned from the war. The VVAW’s push for the government’s recognition of this acute psychological disorder came to a halt when the Pentagon and the VA denied the existence of any unique problems of Vietnam veterans. The VA claimed the Vietnam War had actually produced fewer psychological casualties than any previous war, citing the smaller number of veterans who had entered psychiatric institutions as evidence. Yet the VA claim did not take into consideration the large numbers of veterans who did not turn themselves in for psychiatric help, nor did they account for those returning from the war who did not experience problems until years after their demobilization. The Pentagon’s and VA’s persistence on denying the seriousness of the issue hindered veterans’ abilities to receive proper treatment. Often, military doctors and psychiatrists simply provided veterans with pills without considering long-term psychological problems. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, Second Edition (DSM II), published in 1968, proved one of the contributing factors in the failure of veterans receiving adequate psychological treatment. DSM II, a handbook for psychologists, listed the categories and symptoms of mental disorders. Since the manual excluded post-Vietnam syndrome, the disorder did not exist for the U.S. government. The only description close to a post-Vietnam syndrome described an ‘‘adjustment reaction,’’ of which the criteria included panicked soldiers who dropped their weapons and experienced extreme anxiety in battle.
Vietnam War Veterans In 1973, the First National Conference on Emotional Problems of Vietnam Veterans in St. Louis, Missouri, featured workshops on rap groups, including many veterans such as Ron Kovic, Marine Corpsman Jack McCloskey, and Harold ‘‘Light Bulb’’ Bryant. The St. Louis conference created committees that promoted better health care for Vietnam veterans. During the conference, an article in the Chicago Tribune revealed that Lifton and Shatan believed 20 percent of Vietnam veterans suffered from delayed stress, but the VA representatives contested the number, arguing that only 5 percent experienced the psychological disorder. Finally, the 1980 publication of DSM III recognized post-Vietnam syndrome as post-traumatic stress disorder. Under DSM III, PTSD had three subcategories: acute PTSD, that inflicted the veteran immediately after the stressful event; chronic PTSD, including men and women experiencing symptoms for more than six months; and delayed PTSD for the more serious cases in veterans who suffered for a more extended period. PTSD, defined in simple terms, is as a psychological disorder in response to catastrophic events, especially occurring in people participating in war. Common symptoms of PTSD include anxiety and panic, as the effected veteran has recurring vivid images from war. Veterans with PTSD often feel as though the event they experienced is actually happening in the present. Nightmares from the traumatic event not only disturb sleep but also can lead to depression. PTSD causes individuals to withdraw from everyday activity, attempting to avoid any situation that might trigger memories of the traumatic event. In severe cases, veterans have resorted to drug abuse, alcoholism, and even suicide due to PTSD.
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After DSM III, many more Vietnam veterans, who constitute one of the largest groups in America that experience PTSD, sought help through family therapy, support groups similar to the VVAW-sponsored rap groups, and medication. Many veterans find that support from family and friends coupled with discussing their condition with other veterans comprise the best way to help cure PTSD. For others, gratitude from civilians for their service in Vietnam helps to ease the pain caused by the war. (See also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.)
Education and the GI Bill Although many Vietnam veterans suffered from PTSD, the vast majority used funding from the U.S. government to attend institutions of higher learning, allowing them to further and improve their civilian careers. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, most commonly known as the GI Bill, originally provided World War II veterans with funding for college and one year of unemployment compensation. The GI Bill also offered low interest and zero down payment on home loans sought by veterans. The Veterans’ Adjustment Act of 1952 provided some of the same services for Korean War veterans, but they had to place themselves on a waiting list to receive unemployment compensation. Moreover, the 1952 act granted tuition money directly to veterans at a fixed monthly rate of $110, instead of the previous method of the government paying the educational institution. The Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966, another alteration to the GI Bill, extended benefits to veterans who served at times of war and peace. As a result, Vietnam veterans returning after
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the first few years of the war received only $100 per month, used for tuition and any additional expenses. They deemed the amount insufficient and unfair, as it was less than World War II and Korean War veterans received one and two decades prior. Beginning in 1967, single Vietnam veterans received $130 per month. Subsequent monthly allotments gradually increased over the next decade. After another increase in 1970, the Readjustment Assistance Act of 1972 raised the monthly allowance to $220 and by 1977 the amount had escalated to more than $300, and from most accounts the veterans received the money on time every month. The number of Vietnam veterans utilizing the GI Bill increased as the monthly allotments continued to improve. Coincidentally, 1976 saw the highest number of Vietnam veterans enrolled in institutions of higher learning. Ultimately, nearly 7 million out of the 10 million eligible Vietnamera veterans took advantage of the opportunities afforded by the GI Bill. Vietnam veterans utilized the GI Bill at a much higher rate than veterans of the two previous conflicts. The U.S. government ultimately spent more than $38 billion on educational endeavors for veterans during the Vietnam era. Though millions of veterans attended school courtesy of the GI Bill, many experienced a hostile academic environment. B. G. Burkett’s and Glenna Whitley’s Stolen Valor (1998) shows that a professor at the University of Tennessee made anti-war and anti-military remarks to his students, including one Vietnam veteran who grew angry over the comments. Although millions of veterans utilized the GI Bill, those who chose not to reveal their veteran status
to schools, out of shame or ignorance, never received the financial benefits.
The Vietnam Memorial Four years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, a nonprofit organization, began a campaign to construct a memorial for Americans who died and those still missing in action in Vietnam. In 1980, Congress authorized the erection of the memorial in Washington, DC, near the Lincoln Memorial. A team of architects, sculptors, and designers narrowed more than 2,500 designs down to 1,421, ultimately selecting Maya Lin’s design for the memorial. Lin’s design is composed of two black granite walls more than 200 feet long and 10 feet high at its peak in the center. After some alteration to the wall in 2007, the memorial features 58,256 names of the American men and women who lost their lives in Vietnam, listed in the order of their deaths. The etching of the names on the wall allows visitors to copy the names on paper with a writing utensil. Moreover, when perusing the memorial, the black granite acts as a mirror, permitting visitors to see themselves among the more than 58,000 names on the wall. The memorial initially encountered some criticism, but today it stands as an emotional and fitting tribute for both Vietnam veterans and non-veteran visitors. Initially, many Vietnam veterans called the memorial a meaningless hole in the ground, dwarfed by the nearby Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. Some veterans believed the V-shape represented the peace sign, or a reference to the Viet Cong. Moreover, the black stone proved more mournful
Vietnam War Veterans than heroic, or a sign of defeat. In response to those veterans that disliked the design, a bronze sculpture was added to the memorial in 1984, featuring three soldiers facing the wall. The addition of the three soldiers did not yet complete the entire memorial. Ten years later, Diane Carlson Evans headed the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, which features four figures, an injured male soldier held by a white nurse, an African American nurse looking upward, and a third woman kneeling. In November 1982, thousands of Vietnam veterans attended the dedication of the memorial and have since flocked to the wall in large numbers to remember and reflect on the war. Visitors, including veterans, leave offerings at the base of the wall to pay homage to the names on the black granite. The offerings include flowers, flags, wedding rings, human remains, cans of beer, Bibles, and bullets, to name a few. Many surviving veterans leave their own dog tags at the base of the wall, establishing an emotional link between themselves and their dead comrades. Some veterans even leave their medals won in Vietnam at the wall, showing that recognition of their valor pales in comparison to the ultimate sacrifice of death in war. One veteran placed a letter at the wall accompanied by a bottle of Colt .45, fulfilling a promise to buy his now deceased comrade a beer. Veterans often venture to the wall to look for their friends’ names and walk away feeling like the experience was a reunion with old comrades. Some veterans break down crying when arriving, while others feel no emotion whatsoever. Surviving veterans cannot help but imagine their own names on the wall as they see their reflections on the black granite. First-time veteran
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visitors often feel overwhelmed with emotion when seeing the wall and use the experience as a healing process. Seeing the memorial allows veterans to accept what happened to them and their country in Vietnam. Since 1989, on every Friday of Memorial Day weekend, Vietnam veteran motorcycle riders have taken part in the Run to the Wall, a journey from Southern California to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. During the trek, veterans join the riders at various locations along the route. The riders stop at numerous locations, including VFW halls and community centers, arriving to cheering crowds waving American flags in most of the cities before arriving in Washington, DC, where the Run joins Rolling Thunder, the largest motorcycle parade in the country. The ride, more than the wall, constitutes the true meaning of the journey, making the trek a pilgrimage for the Vietnam veterans. The Run is a religious-like journey that has a lasting emotional effect for many. As the Run increases in popularity each year, riders use the trek with their fellow veterans as a means of healing their emotional wounds. (See also Vietnam Memorial.)
African American Veterans Black veterans returning home faced a unique experience. As James Westheider argues, blacks fought a two-front war in Vietnam—fighting the enemy and the military’s racism. Many African Americans remained in the armed forces for job security and hopes of a higher social status compared to black civilians in the United States. Moreover, many black veterans who stayed in the service believed the military’s issues regarding
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racism had improved since their arrival in Vietnam. Although many black career military men observed improved racial relations, some instances prove otherwise. In 1976, Ku Klux Klan activity reportedly increased on the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, California. Four years later, five army military policemen admitted to joining the Klan while on duty at Fort Monroe, Virginia. By the early 1980s, the number of blacks in higher-ranking positions rose dramatically. In 1976, Samuel Gravely assumed command of the Third Fleet as vice admiral, the first African American to control an American naval fleet. The numbers of African Americans in the enlisted ranks also increased. By 1989, African Americans represented 6 percent of the officer corps, three times the amount during the Vietnam era. Some that distanced themselves from military careers received Ph.D.’s. One major difference between blacks and whites upon returning centered on the jobless rate, that for African Americans was several times higher than the national average. By 1973, white veterans had an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, whereas the jobless rate for blacks hovered around 33 percent. African Americans having difficulty finding jobs in small towns often moved to larger cities to find only part-time work. In 1967, the government enacted the ‘‘Project Transition’’ project, offering job counseling and training for minorities and economically disadvantaged veterans. That same year, the Urban League established the Veterans’ Affairs Program (VAP) that helped black veterans find jobs. The Urban League claimed an 80 percent success rate at finding career jobs for African American veterans.
From veterans’ organizations to the federal government, blacks received little help in adjusting to civilian life. Many veterans’ organizations, dominated by white World War II vets, did not welcome black Vietnam veterans. In the 1960s, some groups even had official rules against the integration of blacks. Many black veterans did not even know that federal programs, such as Project Transition, even existed. Moreover, African American veterans disliked the inability of the federal government to help blacks recover from drug addictions contracted during the war. The civil rights movement in the United States also played a critical factor in how African American veterans led their lives after Vietnam. The Black Panthers proved a popular choice for African American veterans. Reginald Edwards joined the Black Panthers because of their selfdetermination and commitment to fighting the government. Edwards only saw a qualitative difference between dying in Vietnam and being killed by the police as a Black Panther in the United States. Many black veterans echoed Edwards’s sentiments, contending that if African American veterans would not get respect for fighting in Vietnam, they would wage a domestic war for their own cause. (See also African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War.)
Women Veterans Of the millions of Americans who went to Vietnam, many often forget or even ignore the women who served, most of them as nurses and low-ranking officers and others who worked in communications, intelligence, air-traffic control, and as language specialists. The figures vary, but around 10,000 women served
Vietnam War Veterans in Vietnam, and like the men, the females also experienced the trauma of readjusting to life in the United States. Women veterans first dealt with society’s constant attachment of warfare to only men. Many American civilians did not even know women served in Vietnam, and if someone did recognize a female’s service, they often deemed her role insignificant to the overall war effort. As many male veterans would argue, women played a vital role in Vietnam, and their experiences at home mirror those of the men. Upon returning home, nurses felt guilty for leaving their patients behind in Vietnam. Women veterans continue to have nightmares about their Vietnam experience and resort to drinking in an attempt to ease the pain. Women veterans also battled depression and contemplated suicide. Many nurses from Vietnam found jobs in the same field in the United States, yet others had a difficult time finding someone to hire them, forcing them to attend graduate school under the GI Bill. Many female veterans who did receive jobs as nurses found that nothing in the civilian world matched the intensity and attentiveness of hospital life in Vietnam. Some veteran nurses assigned to emergency rooms in the United States found the job boring, relegated to bandaging cuts and bruises. Thus, these nurses found jobs elsewhere in hopes of utilizing their training and experience in Vietnam to its fullest potential. Many women missed the intensity that came when hearing choppers bringing the wounded to their hospitals in Vietnam. Some nurses working stateside hated the bureaucratic constraints on civilian hospitals. Moreover, nurses found difficulty in adjusting to the male-dominated world of civilian hospitals.
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Many women veterans remained in the military, which offered a solid career and a sense of camaraderie that many veterans missed when leaving the service. Still, others joined the anti-war movement, distressed over the increasing death toll in Vietnam. These anti-war women veterans participated in rallies on college campuses calling for troop withdrawal. Indeed, women also felt the brunt of anti-war protestors. Some women, like many men, removed their uniforms quickly in hopes of dodging protestors. In U.S. airports, many nurses despised the anti-war protestors wearing army fatigue jackets, as they remembered removing those same pieces of clothing from wounded men in battle. When the United States invaded Lebanon and Grenada in the 1980s, veteran nurses felt helpless, unable to assist the wounded troops. Today, women veterans continue to reunite with males and females from their unit, providing a comforting environment. Moreover, male veterans today often embrace women veterans and give appreciation for their service. (See also Women Veterans, World War I to the Present.)
Music Popular music of the 1960s and 1970s reverberated throughout South Vietnam during the war. During the conflict, American troops and their respective units listened to their favorite songs from Motown hits to rock and country music. The availability of music varied from one unit to another, but certain songs had and will continue to have an emotional impact on Vietnam veterans. Many of the popular songs among Vietnam veterans did not originally have any
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connection with the war, yet the lyrics ultimately elicited a strong response. Songs such as The Rolling Stones’ ‘‘Time Is on My Side’’ and The Animals’ ‘‘We Got to Get Out of This Place,’’ although not written about the Vietnam War, proved popular for Vietnam veterans both during and after the war. In 1966, ‘‘We Got to Get Out of This Place’’ first began blaring from radios in South Vietnam. By the next year, The Animals’ hit was the most requested song from military personnel. Originally written about a couple’s desire to escape the poverty and slums of city life, the lyrics of the chorus, ‘‘We got to get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do,’’ provided the anthem for many American troops during the war. After returning home, Vietnam veterans continued to hear the song, and the lyrics still bring back memories, both good and bad. Other popular songs for Vietnam veterans include Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘‘Who’ll Stop the Rain’’ and ‘‘Fortunate Son’’ and Glen Campbell’s ‘‘Galveston.’’ (See also Music and Veterans.)
Film Depictions of Veterans In the late 1960s, the evolution of the depiction of Vietnam soldiers in film began with The Green Berets (1968), a patriotic film starring John Wayne. In the movie, Wayne and fellow special forces soldiers defend their base from the enemy in Vietnam, ultimately depicting the conflict and its veterans in a positive light. When American military personnel had departed Vietnam by 1973, Hollywood soon began producing a plethora of movies on the lost war and its American veterans. In Taxi Driver (1976), Robert DeNiro stars as a
psychopathic Vietnam veteran who lacks social skills and ultimately comes to despise the streets of New York City as a taxi driver. DeNiro’s character molds his hair into a Mohawk, sports his field jacket, and utilizes multiple weapons to terrorize New York City. Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978), winner of best picture, follows the lives of three Americans from Pennsylvania. While prisoners in Vietnam, Vietnamese guards force them to play Russian roulette, betting on which American would kill himself. After returning home, Mike, played by Robert DeNiro, reunites with Steven (John Savage), who reveals that their friend Nick, who they believed died in the war, was actually alive, making money from playing Russian roulette in Vietnam. Mike travels back to South Vietnam and finds Nick in a club. Nick, who has no recollection of his friends or his hometown, subsequently shoots himself in the head. Oliver Stone, a Vietnam veteran, directed the Oscar-winning Platoon in 1986, which follows Charlie Sheen’s character, Chris Taylor, during his tour in Vietnam. Taylor volunteers for Vietnam, like his father and grandfather did in the world wars. Taylor’s unit is plagued with internal dissent throughout the movie, highlighted by the fights between two sergeants, Elias and Barnes. The internal dissent between the two sergeants climaxes when the unit enters a South Vietnamese village. While Elias follows the rules of war, Barnes favors killing suspected communist villagers. The good and evil characteristics of Elias and Barnes fight for Taylor’s support, turning the movie into a personal moral crisis. Taylor ultimately concludes that his unit fought themselves in Vietnam, rather than the enemy.
Vietnam War Veterans The 1980s also saw a surge in movies depicting Vietnam veterans as heroes. Rambo: First Blood (1982), now with three sequels, constitutes perhaps the most popular of the superhero veteran genre. Sylvester Stallone stars as John Rambo, a Vietnam veteran and Green Beret who escapes from jail in Washington, retreating to the jungle-like atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, followed by the state police. Rambo, who has occasional flashbacks to his time as a prisoner in Vietnam, sets booby traps and ambushes for the deputies pursuing the Green Beret. Ultimately, when Rambo ventures back into the town, Colonel Trautman, his special forces commander in Vietnam, convinces him to surrender. Rambo is perceived as a Vietnam veteran disgruntled by authorities, or the government, who refuse to let him win the war they sent him to fight. The arrest and pursuit of Rambo stands as a metaphor for a society that rejected the Vietnam veteran upon returning home. Perhaps the most popular movie of the 1990s, Forrest Gump (1994) took moviegoers on a trip through the 1960s from the perspective of a mentally challenged Alabama man, played by Tom Hanks. When Forrest Gump reaches the Vietnam War, he meets Lieutenant Dan, a career army officer who had a relative die in each major war the United States had ever fought before Vietnam. After rescuing Lieutenant Dan in battle, Gump ends up in the bed next to him at the hospital. Lieutenant Dan, now missing both legs, initially despises Gump for not leaving him on the battlefield to die like his forefathers. As the movie progresses, Dan grows a beard and long hair, begins drinking heavily, showing signs of the stereotypical disgruntled Vietnam
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veteran. After a brief leave of absence in the movie, Dan arrives at Gump’s wedding clean-shaven, with short hair, new steel titanium legs, and a wife. His life now turned around for the better, Dan finally thanks Gump for saving him from death in Vietnam. Portrayals of heroics on the battlefield in Vietnam continue into the first decade of the 2000s with We Were Soldiers (2002), based on Colonel Hal Moore’s and Joseph Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young (1992), which details the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Similar to the book, the movie praises heroics on both sides and has proven popular among Vietnam veterans. After Saving Private Ryan (1998) praised the heroics of the soldiers at D-Day in World War II, Americans felt proud of the job done by the United States in that battle and conflict. Vietnam veterans wondered if a movie would ever emerge that could make moviegoers proud of troops’ service in Southeast Asia. For many veterans, We Were Soldiers filled that void. After the movie, Americans dug deeper into the Ia Drang Valley campaign, in addition to the war in general, gaining more respect for the service of Vietnam veterans. Watching movies about the Vietnam War elicits mixed emotions from veterans. Many still refuse to watch any movie on Vietnam, not wanting to relive any experience or trigger an unwanted memory, despite the inaccuracy of some films. Others view Vietnam movies as an addiction that increases their adrenaline and makes them proud of their service. Veterans also attend movies to mourn. Movies offer some Vietnam veterans a way to release emotions they otherwise keep to themselves. (See also Film and Veterans.)
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Returning to Vietnam Since the end of the war, many veterans have ventured back to Vietnam. Some return to Southeast Asia as a form of reconciliation with the Vietnamese. Other veterans go back simply to revisit the sites of their former base camps, or the areas where they spent the majority of their time. In 1981, the Vietnamese government invited members of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) to visit the country. The VVA delegation of four members first landed in Hanoi, visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which caused reason for concern among the visiting veterans. All four feared that the Vietnamese government would use the U.S. delegation’s visit to Ho Chi Minh’s resting place as propaganda. Ultimately, the four veterans gave their guide money to purchase a wreath to place at the tomb, a customary practice for many visitors. Moreover, the veterans demanded that the Vietnamese not take pictures of them at the mausoleum. When the VVA delegation departed Vietnam for the second time in their lives, all four had completely different thoughts about the country and its people compared to their departure during the war. The number of veterans who return to Vietnam has increased since former President Bill Clinton’s 2000 visit. Clinton was the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the war officially ended in 1975. After Clinton’s initial attempt to normalize relations with Vietnam, many veterans, and Americans in general, felt safer and proved more eager to vacation in the Southeast Asian country. However, the emotional pain that still lingers with many veterans will prevent them from ever returning to Vietnam.
These veterans simply are not yet emotionally ready to revisit a place that continues to cause so much heartache. Today, the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University sponsors a study-abroad program that sends graduate students of the Vietnam War to Southeast Asia. These students, many of them friends and family of Vietnam veterans, relish in the opportunity to travel across Southeast Asia, learning much about the region’s culture. The Texas Tech delegation travels to various areas in Southeast Asia, giving scholarships to underprivileged students. Moreover, the students enjoy funding from the Lee Roy Herron Scholarship, named after a marine who died in battle in the A Shau Valley. Two Vietnam veterans, Ron Milam, professor of history at Texas Tech, and James Reckner, the founder of the Vietnam Center, often accompany the students and share their wartime experiences. In 1989, James Reckner established the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech. The Vietnam Center encourages research and further education on America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam Center also houses the Vietnam Archive, which features millions of pages of documents from the conflict to include interviews with more than 500 veterans. The current waiting list of Vietnam veterans to interview will take years to complete. Moreover, the Vietnam Center hosts annual conferences on the war, with subjects ranging from culture in Vietnam to intelligence in the war, bringing hundreds of guests, including both American and Vietnamese veterans, from around the world. Each conference, including the triennial symposium, has panels that feature both academics and veterans—in some cases, both—who read papers on various topics. Vietnam veterans
Vietnam War Veterans frequently voice their opinions during the questionnaire portion of each presentation. Most veterans who attend these conferences embrace the opportunity to tell others about their experiences in Vietnam. During Operations Desert Shield/ Storm in the early 1990s, Vietnam veterans Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, ensured that politics would not hinder their ability to demolish Iraqi forces that had invaded Kuwait. Unlike the Vietnam War, U.S. forces could commence air strikes without fear of intervention from strong, advanced militaries, such as China and the Soviet Union during the Vietnam War. After American forces rescued the citizens of Kuwait from Iraqi forces, many Vietnam veterans felt a sense of redemption. Moreover, Vietnam veterans were relieved to see many Americans tying yellow ribbons to trees, showing full support for the troops, an act seldom seen during the Vietnam era. Although Vietnam veterans did not experience this support, they did not want American troops in the Middle East to endure the same hardships they experienced when returning in the 1960s and 1970s.
Organizations and Legacy Today, more than 30 years since the fall of Saigon in 1975, the traumatic experience from serving in Vietnam still persists among Vietnam veterans. Some have healed, or come close to healing, the emotions that cause PTSD. Attending war movies still proves a daunting task, as the sights and sounds of warfare force many Vietnam veterans to walk out of theaters, turn off the television station, or press
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pause for fear of reliving a bad wartime experience. Many Vietnam veterans have had much success in their family lives and careers since returning from Vietnam. Fred Smith, a Vietnam veteran, went on to form Federal Express. John Kerry, an avid supporter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, currently serves as a senator from Massachusetts, and fell just short in his bid for presidency in the election of 2004. John McCain, a POW at the ‘‘Hanoi Hilton,’’ a senator from Arizona, was the Republican candidate for president in the 2008 election (see Politics, Veterans in). Vietnam veterans have held numerous positions, including professors, congressmen, and judges to name a few. Today, one can see many Vietnam veterans filling airport terminals across the nation, welcoming home Iraq and Afghan War veterans. Although America has yet to recover from the blunders of the Vietnam War, the country has begun to appreciate those who served the United States in Southeast Asia more than it did three decades prior. The Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) is the principal veterans’ organization composed exclusively of Vietnam veterans and working primarily for their interests. It is a mainstream, patriotic but apolitical organization devoted primarily to achieving justice for the neglected veterans of this war. It was founded in 1978 because the more established veterans’ organizations and the Veterans Administration did not seem to be meeting their needs. In 1983 VVA founded the Vietnam Veterans of America Legal Services to represent clients facing bureaucracy and the judicial system. Another principal goal has always been to correct the public image of Vietnam veterans and depict them as dedicated service personnel who fought their best for the nation. The VVA continues to help
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veterans obtain compensation for sufferings from Agent Orange and posttraumatic stress disorder as well as assisting homeless veterans. They currently have 50,000 members. John Southard
Further Reading Burkett, B. G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas: Verity Press, 1998. Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: Pocket Books, 1976. Nicosia, Gerald. Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement. New York: Crown, 2001.
Puller, Lewis B. Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr. New York: Grove Press, 1991. Terry, Wallace. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984. Turner, Fred. Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Vietnam Veterans of America. www.vva.org. Walker, Keith. A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of 26 American Women Who Served in Vietnam. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985. Westheider, James E. Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
W to avoid embarrassing the army and supposedly give it time to fix the problems. Although medical patients received the excellent care traditionally provided by the most famous military hospital in the nation, they constituted only one out of seventeen patients. Most of the 700 veterans staying at the facility—and at apartments and hotels the military had rented nearby—were recovering from combat wounds or post-traumatic stress disorder from the war in Iraq. Their average stay was ten months, although some had been there for up to two years in quarters, especially an off-base hotel known as Building 18 the military used, where mouse droppings, cockroaches, stained carpets, and cheap mattresses could be found. The hospital’s commander, Major General George Weightman, who had only been in charge for six months, attributed the problems to the military’s desire to retain as many soldiers as possible as recruiting decreased during the Iraq and Afghan Wars; also, cuts in spending made retaining qualified
WALTER REED HOSPITAL SCANDAL Founded in 1909, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center consists of over 100 buildings in northern Washington, DC, in addition to other sites in the vicinity. Walter Reed (1851–1902) was an army surgeon who discovered yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes that could be destroyed, thus enabling the building of the Panama Canal (1905–1914) in formerly fever-ridden territory. The medical center is known for being one of the most prominent and respected military hospitals in the United States. It has always been administered by the U.S. Army and not the Veterans Administration. Yet, on February 18, 2007, after a fourmonth investigation during which they visited patients’ quarters without official permission, Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull revealed horrific conditions at Walter Reed. Actually, the conditions had been revealed as early as 2004 to two congressmen, but they had remained silent 441
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caregivers difficult. But perhaps more important was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s policy of outsourcing military projects, including patient care, to profit-making corporations. Soldiers not needing immediate medical care were sent provisionally to Walter Reed so the military could sort out who would be granted disability pensions (and how much), and who would be returned to duty. Some soldiers waited for weeks without knowing why they were at the hospital: they typically had to fill out 22 forms for eight agencies before they could be classified. Those with mental problems could not do this, and cuts in spending reduced supervisory personnel to as low as one per 120 patients. As a result, the hospital lost track of soldiers, some of whom left the base and could not be found when their relatives appeared; relatives waited in Washington, DC, for weeks without knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones; one woman slept on the floor because she did not know funds were available for nearby housing. Adequate clothing and blankets were not always issued; some personnel committed suicide or became addicted to illegal drugs that were sold near the buildings. In an effort to keep track of patients, the hospital had an outdoor roll-call at 7 A.M. each day which some patients could barely attend. Post Commander Weightman and Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey were respectively fired on March 1 and March 2 in response to the Post’s findings. On March 30, President George W. Bush visited veterans at the hospital after the infamous Building 18, an off-base hotel with the worst conditions, was closed. He pledged to fix the problems. Bush appointed former Republican
Senator Bob Dole and Democratic former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to head the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Veterans. Its principal recommendations, released on July 26, were to develop professional care teams to assess and treat disabled veterans, simplify paperwork, and better staff Walter Reed until its planned closing in 2011. Today, the hospital operates a ‘‘Soldier Family Assistance Center’’ for ‘‘Warriors in Transition’’ and its Web page contains extensive information on how these veterans and their families can obtain information and care. William Pencak See also Iraq War Veterans; Gulf War Veterans; Benefits
Further Reading ‘‘Final Report,’’ The President’s Commission on Care for Returning Wounded Veterans, July 26, 2007, http://media.npr.org/ documents/2007/jul/wounded_warriors _final.pdf ‘‘Editorial,’’ ‘‘Frustratingly Slow,’’ Washington Post, October 21, 2007, p. B06. Priest, Dana and Anne Hull, ‘‘Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army’s Top Medical Facility,’’ Washington Post, February 18, 2007, p. A01. ‘‘Warriors in Transition’’ assistance, Walter Reed Army Medical Center. http://www .wramc.amedd.army.mil/WarriorsInTransition/Pages/default.aspx
WAR DOGS The Germans were the first to use dogs in the military during World War I, and the United States used a few but informally as mascots or sentries. The Germans employed far more dogs than any other
War Dogs nation in World War II, training an estimated 200,000. The U.S. Marines first became interested in sentry dogs when they encountered them used by the enemy in Haiti and Central America. The Marines selected the Doberman Pinscher as their preferred dog and asked the Doberman Pinscher Club of America to volunteer their dogs during the war. They formed the Marine Corps War Dog Training Center at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The owners provided their dogs without pay, and almost always allowed them to remain with their handlers after the war as they had become very attached to them. About 90 percent of the Dobermans used in the war were recruited through the club; other dogs, mostly German Shepherds, were also recruited from their owners. The Marine kept a record of each enlisted dog and tattooed them with a unique number inside the right ear. They also noted whether the dogs were trained for scouting, messenger, or other work. They were also ranked: beginning as privates, they became a private first class after three months, a corporal after one year, and a sergeant after two. Each dog worked with one or two handlers to whom he was specifically taught to respond. In their specialized training, dogs learned to carry messages or medical supplies under simulated battle conditions with rifle and machine gun fire and explosions occurring. They were also trained not to bark: sentry dogs were taught to alert their handlers of the presence of enemy troops quietly. The Marines did not teach dogs to attack the enemy, considering them too valuable to lose in that way. The first dogs entered combat on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in 1943. The Marines came to love them as they
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could detect Japanese soldiers moving quietly on the beaches toward their lines during the island campaign. No unit protected by a dog was ever ambushed. Seven war dog platoons were trained in all at Camp Lejeune and all served in the Pacific theater including the battles at Guadalcanal, Guam, and Okinawa. Besides sentry duty, the dogs led infantry points, explored caves, and scouted fortifications. They and their handlers officially led 350 patrols to find remaining enemies during mop-up phrases of battles. Only one handler was killed, but 24 dogs died in the Pacific campaign. They were buried at a special cemetery on Guam. All in all, the Marines used about 800 dogs. The U.S. Army also had a war dog program. The American Kennel Club formed a group called ‘‘Dogs for Defense’’ that donated dogs to the Quartermaster Corps. The Corps used about 10,000 of the 19,000 dogs donated in what popularly became known as the ‘‘K-9 Corps.’’ The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard soon followed and procured dogs as well. Dogs went through 8 to 12 weeks of training that accustomed them to muzzles, gas masks, riding in military vehicles, and gunfire. They were trained as sentries, messengers, and to detect mines, the last of which failed as the dogs could not handle the stress under fire. Most of the dogs were trained for sentry duty, the largest group, over 3,000, being entrusted to the Coast Guard for beach patrols. The War Department recognized the service of war dogs with decorations. Chips, the most famous dog, was donated by Edward Wren of Pleasantville, New York. He broke away from his handler and attacked an enemy machine gun crew during the invasion of Sicily in
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1943, capturing the entire crew. He received the Silver Star and Purple Heart, although both were later revoked when the Department of the Army determined these decorations were reserved for human beings. He was also assigned as a sentry when Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca and was the subject of a Disney movie Chips the War Dog. Another dog, Dick, serving with the Marines in the Pacific, discovered a camouflaged Japanese camp and enabled it to be destroyed without a single American casualty. Dogs received ‘‘honorable discharges’’ after the war, and efforts were made to find homes for those who neither their handlers nor former owners wanted. After World War II, the army continued to use dogs as sentries. The Quartermaster Corps opened a center for training dogs, at Lenggries in Germany, that moved several times before its final location in Fort Carson, Colorado. About 1,500 were used in the Korean War for sentry duty, and about 4,000 in Vietnam, of whom 281 were officially killed in action. About 10,000 handlers served with them, and it is estimated they saved 10,000 lives. They conducted over 84,000 missions and were directly responsible for over 4,000 enemy deaths and 1,000 captures. Only about 200 of the Vietnam dogs returned home: the rest were turned over to the South Vietnamese or considered ‘‘surplus property’’ and put to sleep. The Department of Defense believed they would be temperamentally unsuitable for civilian life or might carry contagious diseases. In short, Vietnam War dogs, like Vietnam War veterans, received less honor and care than those of World War II. Dogs continue to be used in Iraq and Afghan Wars. Memorials for war dogs are at the Hartsdale, New York, Cemetery for dogs
used in World War I, in Lincoln, Nebraska, for those used in Guam, and at March Air Force Base, California, and Fort Benning, Georgia, for those who served in World War II, The latter two, designed by Jeffrey Bennett, consist of large bronzes of dogs with their uniformed handler. The United States War Dog Handlers have their own veterans’ association that perpetuates the memories of the dogs they served with. William Pencak
Further Reading Lemish, Michael G. War Dogs: A History of Loyalty and Heroism. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1996. O’Donnell, John. None Came Home: The War Dogs of Vietnam. Kearney, NJ: First Books, 2001. U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum. http:// qmfound.com/War_Dogs.htm. War Dogs Handlers’ Association. www.uswardogs.org. War Dogs. www.war-dogs.com.
WAR OF 1812 VETERANS The War of 1812 was fought between the United States of America and the British Empire and lasted officially from June 18, 1812, until December 24, 1814, when ended by the Treaty of Ghent. Its greatest success for the Americans was on January 8, 1815, with the victory of Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans before news of peace had arrived. The causes of the war lay in the opposition of Americans to the policies that the British had imposed upon the trading nations of the world following the success of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Having defeated the Russians, Prussians, and
War of 1812 Veterans Austrians he now dominated continental Europe. Instituting the Continental System he forbade the importation of British goods into to French controlled Europe. In retaliation the British forbade trade with France, its allies, or with countries it controlled, even by neutral countries like the United States. In November 1807, Britain ordered all vessels of neutral countries bound for Europe to stop at a British port first. The British measures were deemed the worst, especially when British ships began to stop American ships just outside their ports. The U.S. Congress during both the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison tried unsuccessfully to stop the abuses through the Embargo Act of 1807, the Non-Intercourse Act of 1810, and Macon’s Bill Number Two of 1810. Besides the issue of the British denial of freedom of trade by neutrals, the British practice of impressment of seamen into the British navy aroused great hostility. Because the British navy was maintaining ships blockading off France, its need of sailors was high, but recruitment was low because of the harsh discipline and low pay. Impressing American
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seamen of allegedly British birth, even if naturalized Americans, from American merchant ships and even directly from the frigate, the USS Chesapeake by HMS Leonard in 1807 aroused enormous public wrath. While most Americans, especially those in New England, opposed war with England, the British disdain for American rights and the desire of some Americans to expand into Canada promoted the declaration of war for which the country was poorly prepared. The land war was fought in four theaters. Because of the size of the United States and poor communications, these theaters were not well-coordinated operations. Most of the Native American Indians sided with the British who had had trading agents among them for some years. In the Northwest, the Indians under Tecumseh attacked in 1811, before the war began, and were defeated by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. His victory here and at the Battle of the Thames in Canada two years later was responsible for his election as president in 1840 (see Politics, Veterans in). The British promised their Indian
Cover of a piece of music written for rallies supporting the candidacy of War of 1812 hero William Henry Harrison for president in 1840. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LCUSZ62-55794]
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allies an Indian state if they won, but they were to be defeated in all theaters during the war. Most were removed to west of the Mississippi River in the years after the war. The Northwest Theater included the state of Ohio and the territories north and west of the Ohio River (the future Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan) as well as the area around the Great Lakes including Upper Canada (Ontario). The Central Theater included battles around Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Niagara region, along the St. Lawrence River, and on Lake Champlain. The Atlantic region centered on the Chesapeake Bay; Washington, DC, was burned and Baltimore and several Virginia cities were attacked by the British. In the Southern Theater Major General Andrew Jackson attacked Pensacola, Florida, and annexed western Florida in order to deny it to the British who were receiving aid from the neutral Spanish. He also defeated the British at the famous Battle of New Orleans. His victory there catapulted him to the Senate and presidency. The naval war’s American victories were under Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie, on Lake Champlain, and in several frigate engagements. Other battles were fought in Chesapeake Bay. The British were eventually agreeable to a peace treaty because they lost over 1,000 ships, mostly captured by privateers, and because with the defeat of Napoleon there was no point in interrupting America’s trade with the now friendly French. Participants on the American side have been estimated to number 20,000 sailors and marines in the navy. Land forces numbered 528,000 including 458,000 members of militias, 57,000 regulars, 3,000 rangers, and 10,000 assorted
volunteers. Causalities on the American side were officially listed as 2,260 killed and 4,505 wounded. Disease killed an estimated 17,000 more while in service. A few hundred others were killed by Indians, or were executed for desertion or crimes or died in British prisons from poor conditions. The veterans of the War of 1812 did not create any significant veterans’ associations after the war. They began to mobilize as a political force between 1853 and the 1890s which was stimulated by the more generous benefits granted to Mexican War veterans who fought from 1846 to 1848. Under the Ten Regiments Act of 1847, Mexican War volunteers who served a year received a warrant for 160 acres of land, whereas War of 1812 veterans had to serve five years (or have died in service for their widow to receive one), which ruled out almost every veteran of a war that only lasted three years. Upset that many veterans simply sold off their warrants, in 1850 Congress required veterans to locate on their property or forfeit it, although it reversed that law in 1852. But the 1850 law also gave War of 1812 veterans prorated grants: 40 acres for service of up to four months, 80 acres up to nine months, and 160 acres for those with over nine months’ service. Under this law, 103,978 War of 1812 veterans received 40 acres, 57,717 obtained 80 acres, and 27,450 the full 160 acres. The fact they could sell the land attracted most claimants beginning in 1852, and in 1855, thanks to lobbying by the 1812 veterans, any veterans who had served 14 days could obtain the full 160 acres. To obtain this final law, the War of 1812 veterans petitioned Congress, held local meetings, a national convention, and finally a march on the White House.
War of 1812 Veterans Between 1849 and 1850 over 5,000 veterans signed petitions, and they also persuaded the state legislatures of Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Indiana to pass resolutions supporting them. For the 1850 law, 11 state legislatures joined 11,000 citizens who signed 112 separate petitions. Nine-tenths of the petitions came from New York and Pennsylvania. Groups such as the ‘‘Veterans Corps of the War of 1812’’ in New York City and other groups in Philadelphia; Baltimore; Frederick, Maryland; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Ohio formed to collect them. In January 1854 they met in Poughkeepsie, New York, to vote for the 160-acre grant (transferable and thus as good as cash) for all veterans and formed a Committee of Correspondence to promote their cause throughout the nation. The leader was General Leonard Maison, a wealthy attorney and land broker who had made his fortune in conjunction with the Vassar family brewers in Poughkeepsie. National conventions met in Philadelphia in January 1854 at Independence Hall and in Syracuse, New York, that June, and as the formally constituted ‘‘United Brethren of the War of 1812’’ in Washington, DC, in January 1855. The January meetings were held to commemorate and remind people of Andrew Jackson’s victory at New Orleans in January of 1815. The Philadelphia and Washington conventions were presided over by Joel Sutherland of Philadelphia, who had just graduated from the University of Pennsylvania medical school when he enlisted as a battle surgeon during the War of 1812. He had served from 1827 to 1837 in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the Democratic boss of South Philadelphia. Unlike nearly every other body in the nation at the time,
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from political parties to churches, the War of 1812 veterans did not split up into northern and southern branches but united men from both sections. The 1855 Convention culminated in a parade to the White House under the banner ‘‘Free Trade and Sailors Rights,’’ thereby linking the veterans’ cause with the then-dominant Democratic Party that always favored expansion and opposed the protective tariffs espoused by the Whigs and Republicans. A trip to Mount Vernon also occurred where praise was fulsome for George Washington, and Washington’s stepson George Washington Parke Custis greeted the veterans. Speakers promised to ‘‘go before Congress now and ask for justice, not charity, and if they refuse, we will meet them again . . . . They shall hear our voices at the polls, as loud as drums and trumpets, next election day, and in the presidential campaign of 1856’’ (Oberly 1985, 46–47). Congressmen were receptive: ten of them, including Senator and former presidential candidate Lewis Cass of Michigan (himself a veteran of the war) and Senator Sam Houston of Texas, were delegates, as were seven excongressmen and three former governors. To appeal to the public, the veterans preferred to call the conflict in which they served ‘‘The Second War of American Independence,’’ as indeed many historians have called it since. As New York’s General James Nye told the 1854 Convention, the War of 1812 ‘‘taught monarchies the salutary lesson, that though they may boast of their achievements in other lands, over a soldiery not free but hirelings, when they strike a blow against a nation that is free, against a soldiery that are Sovereigns, that in that conflict they must fall, that the banner on which is inscribed the magic word of
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Freedom will be found waving when the conflict is over’’ (Oberly 1985, 51). Congress also allocated cash pensions for War of 1812 veterans through several laws. Acts of 1871 and 1878 awarded pensions to widows and children of veterans who had served as little as 14 days. In some cases the pensions were for death or disability. Benefits for the veterans were to total $49,000,000 by 1946 when the last pensioner, a daughter of a veteran, died. The last veteran died in 1905. Andrew Jackson Waskey See also African American Veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812; Revolutionary War Veterans; War of 1812 Veterans; Benefits; Oldest Surviving Veterans
Further Reading Altoff, Gerald T. Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie. Put-in-Bay, OH: The Perry Group, 1999. Benn, Carl. The War of 1812. New York: Osprey, 2002. Gilbert, Ed. Frontier Militiaman in the War of 1812: Southwestern Frontier. New York: Osprey, 2008. Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Oberly, James W. ‘‘Gray-Haired Lobbyists: War of 1812 Veterans and the Politics of Bounty Land Grants.’’ Journal of the Early Republic 5 (1985): 35–52. Remini, Robert V. The Life of Andrew Jackson. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.
WASHINGTON MONUMENT Although the cities of Baltimore and Boston built monuments to the commander in chief of the Revolutionary
forces, only with the centenary of Washington’s death in 1832 did Congress authorize a sculpture. Horatio Greenough did not complete the commissioned statue of the general seated, naked to the waist, and wearing a toga, until 1841. It was installed in the Capitol despite protests that it was in bad taste and ought to be stored in the basement. In 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall— who idolized Washington and had written a five-volume biography of him—and former President James Madison formed the Washington Monument Society. It was to be privately funded: a Democratic Congress and President Andrew Jackson were proud that they had retired the national debt and did not wish to spend the money, but they offered land and a federal charter. The Society moved slowly: in 1836, it asked for designs for a monument that would cost at least a million dollars. Not until 1845 did it approve a design by Robert Mills that consisted of an obelisk 500 feet high to be surrounded by a colonnade on which a figure of Washington would be mounted on a chariot, within which would stand statues of 30 Revolutionary heroes. Only the obelisk was ultimately built. The cornerstone was finally laid on July 4, 1848. While some state and even foreign governments contributed stones, the public was less enthusiastic. In 1852, the managers offered to make any person who donated a hundred dollars an honorary vice president and to inscribe the names of large donors on the monument itself. In 1855 the monument fell victim to national politics. The Nativists, or Know-Nothings, who feared foreign immigrants, especially Roman Catholics, removed a stone the Pope had donated to
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The Washington Monument towers over the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic (ca. 1887). [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-77140]
the memorial, and then donated funds so they could choose, and thus replace, the board of managers. The old board refused to recognize the takeover, as the new one insisted only members of the American (Know-Nothing) party could contribute. They thereby hoped to exclude symbolically, as in reality, immigrants from the nation’s political life. The Nativists were ousted and finally returned the records in 1858—the Know-Nothings were finished as a party within two years—but further private efforts floundered. The Ladies Washington National Monument Society tried appeals to patriotism and donation boxes beside ballot boxes at elections, but these failed as the Civil War approached. It took the centennial of independence in 1876 for Congress to take charge of the
project. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L. Casey’s new design was a simple obelisk, which contained the 192 specially donated stones, but was to be 555 feet high, at the time the tallest structure in the world. The monument was dedicated in 1885 and opened in 1888. It was dwarfed by the Eiffel Tower at 984 feet the following year. Between 1996 and 2000, an extensive restoration was undertaken. William Pencak
Further Reading Freeman, Robert Belmont, Jr. ‘‘Design Proposals for the Washington National Monument.’’ Records of the Columbia Historical Society (1973–1974), 151–86.
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Washington Monument. www.nps.gov/nr/ travel/wash/dc72.htm. Wills, Gary. ‘‘Washington’s Citizen Virtue: Greenough and Houdon.’’ Critical Inquiry 10 (March 1984): 420–41.
WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION For three days in the winter of 1971, more than 100 Vietnam War veterans gathered in Detroit, Michigan, to raise awareness about American military practices in Vietnam. They told stories of what they had seen and done in Southeast Asia, actions that even by the conventions of war amounted to war crimes, actions which by the standards of society beyond the battlefield were atrocities. This event was known as the Winter Soldier Investigation. Organizers from Vietnam Veterans Against the War wanted to make clear that telling these stories publicly was not an act of disrespect but an act of patriotism, an effort to call to the attention of the nation what was wrong and to do better. For that reason they chose the name ‘‘winter soldier’’ to refer to the writings of a patriot of the Revolutionary War era, Thomas Paine. In 1776 in a paper called American Crisis, Paine wrote, ‘‘These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.’’ The men who testified at Winter Soldier from January 31 through February 2 did not receive much love and thanks, though their words would have farreaching results. There had been war crimes tribunals in Europe concerning
the Vietnam War, but they had been in Europe, and few veterans were present. That had also been the case with Congressional hearings on the war in the United States. There had been regional meetings conducted by a group called the Concerned Citizens Inquiry (CCI), and their work helped paved the way for Winter Soldier. What paved the way for Winter Soldier more than anything else, though, was My Lai. In 1969, Army Lieutenant William Calley led his men in an action in a Vietnamese village during which several hundred people, including women and small children, were killed, and from which there was no clear military gain. The confused leadership and killing of unarmed civilians came to light, and in the months before the start of Winter Soldier, the courts-marital of Lieutenant Calley and others involved were in the headlines. This had two effects on public opinion: many civilians, including some who supported the war, were horrified; many veterans and those still in the military were angry. They felt Calley and his men were being made scapegoats both for their individual commanding officers and for a mindset and a sort of situation that was no isolated act, but all too common in Vietnam. The veterans, and those still serving in Southeast Asia, knew the army faced trouble from within as the 1970s dawned. Both officers and enlisted men rotated in and out on one-year tours of duty in Vietnam, which often resulted in the inexperienced leading the inexperienced. These were for the most part not seasoned soldiers, either: a large expansion of force in those years saw new recruits with only the most basic of training and new officers with little more sent into the field. While there were many
Winter Soldier Investigation dedicated soldiers, there was also—as the army found for itself through internal investigations led by veteran Vietnam commander Lieutentant General William Peer in the wake of My Lai—a view of the army as a business career, not a public service, among many officers, and a view of a tour in combat in Vietnam as just another ticket to be punched on the way up the ladder. Such officers tended to lead from a distance, further eroding the morale of troops whose inexperience often led to lack of direction. A study by the Army War College, commissioned by Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland in 1970, found that across all levels, officers thought that values of military professionalism were being preached rather than practiced and that the army was doing nothing to address this. That was part of the background to Winter Soldier: those who organized the event, and those who spoke there, were not intending to focus so much on individuals who had committed the crimes as on the mindset, military culture, and failure of leadership that made such actions seem acceptable. During the summer of 1970, members of the VVAW, the CCI, the Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), actress Jane Fonda, author Mark Lane, and others began to plan for a public event with testimony from veterans about war crimes. There were various disagreements about, how, when, and where this should happen, but eventually Fonda’s suggestion of Detroit was chosen, because it offered a centrally located place for travel, it was part of the American heartland, and had a reputation as a working class city. Credibility of those who would testify was a major concern of the organizers. Had they been where they said they
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were? Had they seen what they said they’d seen? As members of the VVAW and CCI met with veterans around the country over the summer, they required veterans to show their official discharge papers from the military along with personal identification and to bring these items with them to Detroit. Each man was cautioned to speak only about what he himself had done, or had seen firsthand; there was to be no hearsay testimony. In addition, the testimony over the three days was organized by unit, so in many cases the same incidents, and the unfolding of a series of incidents, were corroborated by the testimony of others. That testimony included speaking of the random killing of children, throwing prisoners out of helicopters in flight, torturing prisoners, being taught to regard all Vietnamese as less than human, and being trained to kill for the good of the country without regard to the conventions of war or the military and national traditions of duty and honor. The testimony also pointed to a lack of leadership both on the ground and from command ranks. Some men spoke matter of factly, some read from notes, some broke down, and a few were so overcome they could barely speak. Though Winter Soldier was framed by the organizers as a chance to make a political statement about war crimes, it also became the beginning of a connecting and healing process for many of the veterans who had in silence been carrying their doubt, anger, fear, and guilt about what they had done. One result of Winter Soldier was increased concern in veterans’ and other groups about what the war was doing to the soldiers who fought it. One of the panels held in between the veterans’ testimony at Winter Soldier was the first
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place where the toxic effects of the herbicide Agent Orange, commonly used in Vietnam, were brought to light, and a panel of psychiatrists with combat experience talked about the issue of posttraumatic stress disorder, then littleknown and poorly understood. In the course of the veterans’ comments. another unexpected fact was revealed: U.S. troops had operated in Laos. This was especially startling as the administration had only a short time before denied that any U.S. troops had operated in that country. Newspapers across the country picked up this story, found many ex-soldiers other than those at Winter Soldier who corroborated the clandestine U.S. military maneuvers in Laos, and reported on the story. Very little of the rest of Winter Soldier was widely reported, however. Left-leaning Pacifica Radio offered a number of hours of coverage, there were reports in the Detroit media, and one article in the New York Times, but little else. A loose consortium of film professionals volunteered their time, skills, and equipment to document the proceedings, producing first a 17-minute film that was mainly used by veterans’ groups, and later a 95-minute documentary that was shown at several places in the United States and overseas at several film festivals. It, too, did not get much publicity at the time though it remains the most accurate representation of what occurred at Winter Soldier. In 2006, it was re released on DVD with additional material including comments from the filmmakers; the DVD can be purchased through the VVAW Web site. Members of Congress and of the Nixon administration took interest in the proceedings at Winter Soldier
despite the lack of coverage in the media. The administration investigated all veterans involved with a view to casting doubt on what they said. Although one VVAW organizer, Al Hubbard, was found to have lied about his service, none of the men who testified were found to have done so. Nor have subsequent investigations by media outlets or government officials found any rumors of false credentials or false testimony to be substantiated through the time of this writing, more than three decades after the event. In particular, charges by the ‘‘Swift Boat’’ veterans —wealthy Republican campaign contributors to presidential candidate George W. Bush—that Bush’s Democratic opponent John Kerry had not earned his decorations and had lied about his military record proved false (see Politics, Veterans in). Several members of Congress, including Democrats George McGovern of South Dakota and Shirley Chisholm of New York and Republican Mark Hatfield of Oregon, felt that the veterans should bring their war crimes testimony before Congress. Senator Hatfield, in fact, read portions of the veterans’ testimony at Winter Soldier into the Congressional Record in early April 1971, and on April 22, John Forbes Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who would become a member of Congress himself, graphically described some of the testimony on torture at Winter Soldier when speaking before the Senate Foreign Committee. A short time later, thousands of veterans and their supporters descended on Washington, DC, to lobby Congress and to call for an end to the war in Vietnam. This protest was named Dewey Canyon III, in reference to the code name for the
Women Veterans to 1900 | 453 secret operation in Laos which had come to light during Winter Soldier. In May 2008, members of the Vietnam Veteran Against the War helped younger veterans organize a hearing called Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 50 veterans spoke at four days of hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, DC. They told of killing civilians for minor infractions, of shooting into buildings and at people to relive anger and stress, and of cases of mistakes in identifying targets that resulted in the killing of civilians. Though the terrain was different, these soldiers faced, as did those in Vietnam, unclear battle lines and circumstances in which they did not know friend from foe at every turn, and they also testified in the wake of a highly publicized series of courtmartials concerning atrocities, those of guards at the military prison at Abhu Ghraib. Other Winter Soldier panels have been organized and more are planned. Conflicting reports of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan surfaced in the press: one constant was reference to the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation as a little-known gathering in Detroit, demonstrating the fragility of historical memory from one generation to the next. Kerry Dexter See also Anti-War Veterans Associations; African American Veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War
Further Reading Aronow, Fred, et al. (The Winterfilm Collective). Winter Soldier. Harrington Park, NJ: Milliarium Zero. DVD with bonus footage, 2006; film was first released in 1972.
Fulghum, David, et al. The Vietnam Experience: South Vietnam on Trial. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hunt, Andrew. The Turning. New York: New York University Press, 1999. McPherson, Myra. Long Time Passing: Vietnam & the Haunted Generation. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Morreton, Darrin. ‘‘Veterans Rally against Iraq War.’’ Time, May 14, 2008. www .time.com/time/nation/article/ 0,8599,1722659,00.html. Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan. http:// ivaw.org/wintersoldier.
WOMEN VETERANS TO 1900 Modern society accepts a woman in uniform proudly serving her country. This was not true in the eras of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Despite a lack of acceptance, women did serve in both wars; however, they enlisted and fought as men. Deborah Sampson enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment in the spring of 1782 as Robert Shurtliff and served in the Light Infantry Company. During a skirmish near Tarrytown, New York, Sampson/Shurtliff suffered a saber cut on her forehead and a musket ball in her thigh. Afraid of detection, she tended her wounds, removing the bullet herself. Spring 1783 found her regiment in Philadelphia where Sampson contracted a virulent fever. The attending doctor, Barnabas Birney, discovered her gender. Birney sent Sampson with a letter explaining his discovery to her commanding officer, Colonel Jackson. The disclosure resulted in an honorable discharge. In 1792, Sampson received soldier’s wages of 34 pounds. She married, bore
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children, and, in uniform, often spoke to groups for a fee of her military experiences. Rumors of other women serving in the Revolutionary War circulated without documentation; some, like the famous ‘‘Molly Pitcher’’ (whose identity is still not firmly established) while not officially soldiers, had accompanied their husbands and participated in the fighting, as Pitcher did by firing a cannon, on occasion. However, the Civil War had numerous documented cases of women who enlisted as men. It is estimated that between 500 and 1,000 women served in the Civil War for both the North and the South. Evidence of their participation exists not only in official records, but also in photographs of some in uniform as men and as women. Several women published their memoirs, but controversy surrounds some of their accounts. Two women who wrote memoirs are Sarah Emma Edmonds and Loreta Velazquez. Canadian-born Sarah Edmonds enlisted in Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry Volunteers on May 17, 1861, as Franklin Thompson. She served as a male nurse, regiment postmaster, and mail carrier, coming under fire at First Bull Run and other Virginia battles. Ill with a fever in 1863, Edmonds deserted to escape detection. As a woman, she became a nurse in Ohio and married. Edmonds received a veteran’s pension and was buried with full military honors in 1898. Cuban-born Loreta Velazquez joined the Confederate Army as Harry T. Buford, assuming a lieutenant’s rank. With a false mustache and a specially tailored uniform hiding her sex, Velazquez served briefly in the 21st Louisiana Infantry, then participated in numerous battles. General Jubal Early disparaged
Velazquez’s accounts as fanciful, yet General James Longstreet lauded her exploits. She moved to Brazil in 1878 and all traces of her vanished. What caused women to enlist as men? Numerous women said they followed a lover, fiance´ e, or husband. Others claimed patriotism, their belief in the rightness of the cause, whether it be North or South. The glory and excitement of war drew some women. Some were pragmatic; a soldier’s pay gave them both work and income that were unattainable for women. They fought, died, some were buried in unmarked graves or under their assumed male alias. Women also served as nurses beginning with the Revolution: in the twentieth century they would have officially been members of the armed forces, but were contracted civilians prior to the Spanish-American War. George Washington recommended one female nurse for every ten patients in the Continental Army, with one matron to supervise every ten nurses. Nurses received $2 a month and matrons $15 as opposed to $50 for surgeons’ mates. At the end of the war, however, there were only 30 nurses and 7 matrons treating 4,000 men. The importance of female nursing as an important part of wartime medical care first came to general attention during the Crimean War (1853–1856), when Florence Nightingale and a company of nurses greatly reduced the number of deaths. An African American nurse, Mary Grant Seacole, accompanied her and received a medal from the British government. Despite the reluctance of men to have women examine their persons, the emergency need for medical personnel during the Civil War led both sides to hire female nurses as contracted civilians. About 6,000 Union and 1,000
Women Veterans to 1900 | 455 Confederate women in the Civil War served as nurses. As early as April 12, 1861, Secretary of War Simon Cameron appointed Dorothea Dix as superintendent of nurses for the Union army. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in the United States, organized the Women’s Central Relief Association to train nurses to serve in combat. Dix recruited nurses, assigned them to hospitals, and distributed supplies. Nurses were given an administrative rank equal to a surgeon but were not officially military personnel. Author Louisa May Alcott served briefly as a nurse before she fell ill; her letters describing her experience were reprinted in northern newspapers. Former slave and Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman served on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and received a military pension, though for her spying and scouting rather than nursing. Clara Barton was the most famous Civil War nurse, although she started her own private organization to work with the sick and distribute supplies. After the war she led the effort to identify and mark 12,000 graves, and in 1881 she founded the American Red Cross. The Union pioneered by establishing 32 hospital ships: four Catholic nuns and five black women served on the first of these, Red Rover, which removed men quickly from water-accessible battlefields and took them to hospitals. Ten percent of Union nurses became ill, and 20 died. All were discharged at the end of the war, and only 30 years later did Congress vote for pensions for them. Of the thousand Confederate women who served as nurses, one, Sally Louisa Tompkins, actually attained the rank of captain in the Confederate army.
President Jefferson Davis awarded her that rank so she could requisition supplies for Robertson Hospital, a private facility she opened with her own money, and the only private hospital in Richmond allowed to remain open. Only 73 of over 1,000 patients treated there died, an astonishing record for the time. Tompkins was known as ‘‘Captain Sally’’ for the rest of her life; she was buried with military honors in 1916. Dr. Mary Evans Walker, who graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855, volunteered as a Union nurse although she had previously practiced as a doctor with her husband. At the battles of Fredericksburg and Chattanooga, she functioned as a field surgeon and was commissioned a ‘‘contract assisting surgeon’’ for the army of the Cumberland in September 1863—the first female doctor ever in the U.S. military. Walker moved easily back and forth between the lines for a time before the Confederates arrested her as a spy. She was exchanged in August 1864 and continued as a surgeon at the Battle of Atlanta. After the war, she crusaded for women’s rights, better health care, temperance, and more comfortable dress for women. She dressed as a man, for which she was arrested several times, and wore the Congressional Medal of Honor she received for her services at the recommendation of Generals William T. Sherman and George Thomas until she died in 1919. Two years before her death, she was stripped of the medal, as were 900 other past recipients, for not having participated in combat with the enemy. She refused to return it, however, and it was posthumously restored by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. A World War II Liberty ship, a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Walker, Michigan, and the
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medical buildings at the State University of New York at Oswego, her home town, are named for her. While no women nurses were employed when the Spanish-American War was declared in 1898, a sudden typhoid epidemic among the troops made their service essential. Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee, vice president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, became head of the newly created Civilian Nurse Corps that employed over 1,500 women during the war. A dozen died from disease as they served not only in Cuba and Puerto Rico, but in Samoa, the Philippines, Hawaii, China, Japan, and on troops ships over the next few years. In recognition of their achievements, and realizing the need for women nurses, the Army Nurse Corps came into being in 1901 followed by the Navy Nurse Corps in 1908. Darlene Spitzer-Antezana
Further Reading Blanton, Deanne, and Lauren M. Cook. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. Hall, Richard. Patriots In Disguise: Women Warriors of the Civil War. New York: Marlowe & Company, 1994. Leonard, Elizabeth D. All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Reeves, Connie L. ‘‘Invisible Soldiers: Military Nurses.’’ In Gender Camouflage: Women and the U.S. Military, Francine D’Amico and Laurie Weinstein, eds. New York: New York University Press, 1999. United States National Library of Medicine. ‘‘Dr. Mary Evans Walker.’’ Changing the
Face of Medicine. National Institutes of Health. www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_325. html. Wilentz, June A. Women Veterans: America’s Forgotten Heroines. New York: Continuum, 1993.
WOMEN VETERANS, WORLD WAR I TO THE PRESENT World War I On the eve of World War I, there were only 400 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps and 170 in the Reserve Corps. Members of the Army and Navy Nurse Corps were the only women serving in the U.S. armed forces. Red Cross nurses, who were not officially in the U.S. military, left for Europe beginning in 1914. When the United States declared war in 1917, the number of nurses increased to about 22,000 army nurses; 9,000, a percentage nearly equal to the male servicemen mustered, went overseas during the 18 months the nation was at war. None were killed in action but 200 died during the influenza epidemic following the war and 60 from other causes. They endured shelling, poisoned gas, and disease alongside the male troops. Three obtained the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor, and 23 the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award given to noncombatants. American nurses were also decorated by the Allies: 2 earned the British Military Medal, 69 the British Royal Red Cross, and 23 the French Croix de Guerre. Yet, despite their sacrifices, nurses who were captured by the enemy were denied pay for the time they
Women Veterans, World War I to the Present were imprisoned, because they did not yet have official military status. The U.S. Navy increased its Nurse Corps from 460 to 1,550, of whom 327 served in Britain and France and many of the rest on transport ships. Four won the Navy Cross, that service’s highest decoration. Eighteen African American nurses were finally assigned to the Army Nurse Corps only after the war was over during the influenza epidemic, but they were discharged when the emergency ended. The nurses’ service, praised and supported especially by Commander John J. Pershing and the surgeons with whom they worked, led to their obtaining ‘‘relative rank’’ in 1920. They now could wear military insignia. Only in 1926 could they obtain retirement pay, and they were not eligible for disability benefits until 1930. Because of a shortage of nurses they finally received better pay, but only in 1947 did nurses obtain permanent commissioned officer status. The navy also enlisted women who were not nurses for the first time during World War I. Taking advantage of a law permitting ‘‘persons’’ to be enlisted for the service, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels called for women to join up. Twelve thousand did and became Naval Reserve Yeomen, popular known as ‘‘Yeomanettes.’’ They also worked in overseas hospitals and did administrative work such as draftsmen, recruiters, camouflage designers, and translators. The Coast Guard hired several hundred women as well. As the Marine Corps was under the jurisdiction of the navy, it also enlisted them as members of the Marine Reserve, popularly known as ‘‘Marinettes.’’ So many women enlisted that the U.S. Navy and Marines could
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turn many away. The commandant praised their work as ‘‘uniformly excellent . . . exactly what the intelligence and goodness of our countrywomen would lead one to believe’’ (Wilentz 1983, 16). Female service personnel, such as recruiters, typists, and drivers, unlike the nurses, were entitled to full benefits: government insurance, the bonus when it passed and became due, medical and hospital treatment, and burial in national cemeteries with military honors. The U.S. Army, unlike the Navy and Marines, did not enlist women during the war, in part because of the attitude of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. But a shortage of French-speaking telephone operators led General Pershing to hire 200 French-speaking American women for the Signal Corps, which is responsible for military communications, including radio, television, and digital media. Although some worked under combat conditions, they were considered civilians until an act of Congress passed in 1977. Despite the requests of the Quartermaster Corps, Ordinance, and the Surgeon General, officials of the U.S. Army officially refused to recruit some 5,000 women volunteers who were doing the same work as the British Auxiliary Corps, which also lent its members to the Americans whose women did not hold military rank for performing the same tasks.
World War II Although the nation was on quasi-war footing once it began to aid the Allies and introduced a peacetime draft in 1940, the army still refused to enlist women. Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill to establish the Women’s Army
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Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on May 28, 1941, but it was not passed until May 14, 1942. Even so, it was classified as an auxiliary with the army: its members were not members of the army. Oveta Culp Hobby, wife of a former governor of Texas, headed the corps. She received the rank of colonel, the first Distinguished Service Cross awarded to a woman, and became secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Eisenhower administration. Hobby oversaw the first woman’s officers’ candidate school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, where 360 women, mostly college educated, career women, were trained. Yet despite the fact that the pregnancy rate of these women was one-fifth of those in civilian life and venereal disease almost nonexistent, newspapers criticized the corps as useless. Supplies and uniforms were very difficult to obtain for the women candidates. Eleanor Roosevelt was a key lobbyist for changing this situation. To begin afresh as women were desperately needed for the signal and medical corps and administrative work, the WAAC was reconstituted as the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and officially incorporated into the army on July 1, 1943. Nearly all members of the WAAC joined up, but those who did not were at first denied veterans’ benefits. Regulations allowed the WACs to occupy ‘‘any suitable noncombatant positions,’’ which some performed in combat zones. The first important and successful use of the WACs was to serve alongside men as members of antiaircraft and searchlight units in the Washington, DC, area. Among the tasks they performed were driving and repairing motor vehicles (the role assigned to Britian’s future Queen Elizabeth during the war) and
dealing with supplies and food, communications, and radio equipment. Over half served in administrative and clerical functions, but under 20 percent utilized technical or professional skills. Fourteen percent were personal assistants to commanders, a role Washington discouraged because it feared intimacy would develop. About 17,000 WACs served in all overseas theaters during the war out of about 100,000 women who enlisted. The most prestigious position women could have in the war were as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). Yet these 1,100 women were not officially considered part of the armed services, despite the fact that they were frequently entrusted with testing the newest and most dangerous planes. Experienced pilots Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran requested the army air force to use women pilots, which it consented to do as an experiment, setting up a training program at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Some later became instructors themselves. Two were killed while towing targets that student fighter pilots used for practice. By 1944, WASPs were ferrying half of the planes from factories to air bases and three-quarters of all domestic plane deliveries. Yet as the air war wound down, the WASPS were disbanded on December 20, 1944, as male pilots in the air force proper fought to keep all the positions in the postwar air force for themselves. The air force itself strongly criticized the WASPS. Despite the arguments of General ‘‘Hap’’ Arnold, Congress refused to honor the Army’s request for an appropriation for the WASPs because the army had kept the program semi-secret and it never had an official appropriation.
Women Veterans, World War I to the Present After the war, the WASPS were denied veterans’ benefits or reemployment in the air force. In 1948, the air force offered qualified former WASPs officer status only in nonflying roles. A bill was introduced in 1972 to give them benefits, but it did not pass until 1977. The Veterans Administration originally opposed the benefits on the grounds civilians had also ferried planes and done similar work. The Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (or WAVES) in the navy formed in August 1942. Mildred H. McAfee became their leader and was given the official rank of a Naval Reserve lieutenant commander. From the beginning, unlike the WAAC, they were officially members of the navy. Some 27,000 served in the war, 13,000 in the hospital corps. Most did clerical work but others operated control towers or radios, entered the Judge Advocate Corps to deal with legal issues, and performed naval intelligence. A few taught aircraft gunnery, celestial navigation, aerial photography, routed ships in harbors, and tested and evaluated airplanes. A few served on hospital ships as they were not permitted on combat ships. By the end of the war there were over 86,000 WAVES serving at over 900 stations. WAVES were usually middle or upper-class white Protestant women and officers received their training at colleges, including Smith and Mount Holyoke. African Americans were only accepted in 1944 at the ratio of 1 for 36 whites. The U.S. Marines and the Coast Guard had the best record for admitting women on equal terms during the war. The Marine Corps Women’s Reserve enlisted over 20,000 women after it formed on November 7, 1942. A regular
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part of the Marine Corps, women could do 225 jobs including serve as aviation gunners, mechanics, military police, gunnery instructors, automotive mechanics, and post-exchange manager. They took their training at regular marine facilities and 9,000 attended the corps’ specialist schools. A thousand of them were chosen, from many more volunteers, to go to Alaska and Hawaii to relieve men from combat duty. About 10,000 members of the Women’s Reserve Division of the U.S. Coast Guard, or SPARs (semper paratus— always ready), directed by Dorothy Stratton, were trained at naval facilities and then at regular Coast Guard facilities: the 1,000 officers were the only female officers during wartime trained at the same officers’ school as the men, at New London, Connecticut. In 1947, Congress disbanded the Women Reserves but reinstated them in 1949. Military nurses also served in record numbers during World War II: 57,000 army and 12,000 navy nurses had enlisted by the war’s end. They provided care in 600 hospitals overseas and 80 in the United States. Married women were permitted to join in 1942. Over a hundred were in the Philippines when Japanese forces invaded in 1942: 55 were taken prisoner and not liberated until 1945, when each received a Bronze Star. During the war, nurses were stationed on hospital ships only a few miles offshore of the Pacific Islands where battles occurred. Two of the seven hospital ships were attacked during the Okinawa landing. More than 500 nurses served on flights during the war that evacuated over a million patients to hospitals in Hawaii or the United States: only 46 of their patients died. Seventeen flight nurses were killed.
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In the European theater, 60 army nurses landed in North Africa with the troops in November 1942, sharing their rations and donating their own blood for their patients. Occasionally they found themselves behind enemy lines. Two hundred nurses landed at Anzio Beach in 1944: four received the Silver Star for evacuating patients during the German bombardment of February 1944. Six died. Nurses also landed at Normandy Beach. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for drafting nurses into the armed forces in 1945, but so many enlisted that it proved unnecessary. Women tended to be released more slowly than men at the war’s end simply because they were needed to care for casualties both civilian and military overseas and to process the enormous quantity of paperwork. Women veterans suffered emotional wounds as well as physical. Of 1,031 women in veterans’ hospitals in 1946, 595 were World War II veterans. Over 9,000 qualified for service-connected disabilities, about half for psychological and half for physical reasons. Half of all WACs surveyed in 1947 reported either continuous or everyday stress in their lives. The Veterans Administration had no programs especially designed for female veterans until 1946. At the war’s end, women veterans were at the forefront of a major shift in American society. Having held responsible positions of their own, they did not simply want to be homemakers. A 1946 survey of 1,800 former WACs and WAVEs found over half were employed, 6 percent were attending school, and four out of five believed their military skills would be valuable in acquiring a civilian job. Perhaps the most astonishing statistic related to World War II women
veterans is that 45 percent of nurses and 27 percent of other personnel, as opposed to 5 percent of all women, never married. They reported deep friendships with other women during the war (Campbell 1990). Lesbian relations were not uncommon, although given social attitudes are impossible to quantify. Nevertheless, predominant social attitudes regarded women in the military as an aberration and emergency necessity: most were demobilized, and many reported dissatisfaction with their subsequent lives as housewives. Altogether, over 350,000 women served in the military during World War II, of whom 543 died in the line of duty. Women achieved both recognition and an increase in status for their services in World War II. One out of 40 nurses was decorated with all medals short of the Medal of Honor, for which only combatants were eligible. A total of 201 army nurses died during the war: six ships were named for them. Army and navy nurses were entitled to full veterans’ benefits and privileges of rank. The Army and Navy Nursing Corps became permanent staff departments in 1947. The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 formally integrated women into the armed forces. No longer were women members of special auxiliary corps but were thenceforth sworn in as enlisted personnel or officers in the regular armed services. However, women’s second-class status was still apparent. A ceiling of 2 percent was placed on the number of women who were not nurses and no woman could be promoted to general or admiral. These provisions were not repealed until 1967. The age and education requirements for recruits was higher than for men, and women had to retire earlier.
Women Veterans, World War I to the Present They were still not permitted to serve on combat ships, and if they became pregnant they had to leave the service.
Korean War Only 15,000 women remained in the armed forces, besides nurses, when the Korean War broke out in 1950. Despite the request of field commanders, the U.S. Army refused to assign women personnel other than nurses to Korea, allowing them to come no further than Japan. Despite a recruitment campaign, women had little enthusiasm for a war whose purpose remained unclear to the public. While many former WACs enlisted at the beginning of the war, women, including nurses in the Army Reserve, had to be called up. In response to this lack of enthusiasm, the Pentagon formed the civilian Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Services (DACOWITS) to explain the important role women played in the military, to encourage recruiting, and to study problems related to women in the military. Its current members include women in the military, business, government, law, education, and the legal and medical professions. Three subcommittees deal with Equality Management, Forces Development and Utilization, and Quality of Life. It holds numerous meetings and hearings with service women in the United States and overseas each year and makes recommendations directly to the secretary of defense. Television viewers familiar with the show MASH are well aware of the important role played by nurses during the Korean War. Captain Viola McConnell, who was in Korea when the war broke out, received the Bronze Star for
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evacuating 700 Americans to Japan. Fifty-seven nurses arrived within a month of the outbreak of fighting, and 12 immediately were sent to a mobile army surgical hospital, or MASH unit. Over 3,200 nurses were on active duty at the height of the war. Seventeen women died in the line of duty during the war, 11 in one plane crash. Major Genevieve Smith, the army’s chief nurse in Korea, was the only one who died in combat. In addition to MASH units, nurses served on evacuation flights and hospital and transport ships. Flight nurses had to arrange and care for up to 40 men on a plane. Following the war, the WAC received its own training base at Fort McClellan, Alabama, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eleanore Sullivan. Also, male nurses were allowed to enlist for the first time in 1955. Nurses could no longer be assigned housekeeping and food service jobs. In 1957, nurses’ retirement pay was made equal to that of other service personnel.
Vietnam Few non-nurses were assigned to Vietnam given the irregular nature of the war. One WAC unit of approximately 90 women was assigned to the Long Binh Air Force, 20 miles from Saigon, beginning in 1967. They remained until the evacuation of U.S. personnel in October 1972. Others served in clerical and technical positions at administrative headquarters in Saigon. Army nurses arrived in Vietnam in 1956 to train South Vietnamese nurses and care for U.S. military advisors. By 1963, 215 army nurses were present along with 17,000 troops. The highest
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Vietnam veterans place mementos on the Vietnam Women’s Memorial during the dedication ceremony of the bronze sculpture depicting three nurses and a wounded soldier, by Glenna Goodacre, in Washington, DC, November 11, 1993. Thousands of veterans attended the dedication of the memorial that honors more than 11,000 women who served in the Vietnam War. [AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander]
number of nurses present was 900 in 1969. Four women were the first army nurses ever to receive the Purple Heart decoration for combat wounds when, in 1964, a bomb exploded at their quarters in Saigon. They helped other victims before tending to their own wounds and refused to be reassigned. Nurses loaded patients and flew with them on evacuation planes: 121 nurses served in these commands. Jane Lombardi received the Bronze Star for helping men board a plane under fire. All told, about 6,000 military nurses saw service in Vietnam between 1962 and 1973. Nine nurses, seven of them women, died there, two from illness, four in plane crashes, and First Lieutenant Sharon Ann Lane by an enemy rocket attack on her hospital. Despite being exposed to fire in combat areas, nurses generally refused
to be reassigned. Many received combat decorations. Nevertheless, despite the high stress that nurses suffered in Vietnam, the Veterans Administration was slow to recognize that women as well as men suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The Readjustment Counseling Program on 1979 specifically excluded women, and it took another three years before that program established a Working Women’s Group to deal with psychological problems of female Vietnam veterans.
Post-Vietnam The establishment of an all-volunteer military in 1973 required training increasing numbers of women for the armed forces. Beginning in 1976, women
Women Veterans, World War I to the Present were graduated from the regular service academies; in 1977, they took basic weapons training. In the Gulf War (1989–1990), 41,000 women were deployed to the Gulf and 16 were killed. As of July 2008, 41,000 women have served in the Iraq War, about 10 percent of the total deployment: 97 have been killed, 58 by hostile fire. Women now drive trucks, fly planes, build roads and bases, and perform other tasks in combat zones. Sexual harassment and assault have been major complaints since large numbers of women have joined the armed forces. A survey of women admitted to veterans’ hospitals in 2003 revealed that a third had been sexually assaulted and 37 percent raped, 14 percent multiple times. The rate of male Iraq and Afghan War veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder as of 2007 was 8 percent, whereas for women it was 16 percent. The Veterans Administration has maintained a state-of-the-art National Women’s Trauma Recovery Home at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park, California, but it is only one of two out of 1,400 veterans’ hospitals and clinics in the nation that has such a program for women. Approximately 8,000 women veterans were estimated to be homeless in 2008, or 4 percent of the total. The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans supports eight facilities to assist homeless women.
Women’s Veterans Organizations After World War I, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars after 1929, admitted women members although only two attained any prominence in the
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national organization. Julia Wheelock, despite her colorful personal life—she was married five times, three of them to the boxer ‘‘Kid’’ McCoy—served on the National Americanism Commission. She lived in Italy immediately after the war and fought to have veterans who returned to Italy and changed their minds readmitted to the United States as citizens. Emma Puschner directed the Legion’s Child Welfare Division from 1927 to 1950. Former director of the St. Louis Board of Children’s Guardians, she persuaded the Legion to abandon its policy of billeting war orphans of veterans in rural institutions for an aggressive adoption policy. She convinced suspicious Legionnaires that money spent on social workers was worthwhile, and during her tenure she raised $73 million for programs that over the next quarter century aided over seven million children. Every Legion post had a Child Welfare Officer by the end of the interwar period, and Puschner single handedly made the Legion a major institution concerned with child welfare in the United States. The Veterans of Foreign Wars voted in 1944 not to admit World War II women veterans, a policy it did not reverse until 1978. The American Legion continued to do so, and women started all female posts in several large cities. Their activities focused on helping both themselves and other women. In Philadelphia, the Helen Fairchild Post sponsored nursing students, sporting and social events, and professional development for young women. But most Legion posts’ main work with women occurred through the Ladies Auxiliary, mostly composed of the female relatives of male veterans, who tended to perform charity work and hospital visitations. The more liberal American Veterans Committee, however,
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actively recruited women and elected them to leadership positions. World War II women veterans formed organizations of their own as well. The Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association was founded in Chicago in 1946. Its membership as of 2008 is 4,500 and it is open to women who have served in any American war in the army. Other branches of the women in service have followed in their footsteps (see below). Besides lobbying for fair treatment for women veterans, the members work with veterans’ hospitals and perform a variety of charity work. In 1990, a World War II, a Korean War, and two Vietnam War women veterans formed Women Veterans of America, specifically to lobby for better health care for returning women veterans from the Gulf War. Their program consisted of eight specific points: providing privacy, private bathrooms, and pajamas, mammograms, pap spears, and other tests for women, and special medications women require at Veterans Administration hospitals; teaching both government and veterans’ associations to handle women’s cases; therapy and psychological treatment for women suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and sexual harassment; and assisting the transition from military to civilian life.
San Antonio, TX 78218-1235 www.e-anca.org
List of Major Women’s Military Organizations (2008)
Navy Nurse Corps Association P.O. Box 1229 Oak Harbor, WA 98277 www.nnca.org
Coast Guard/SPAR, Inc. 5904 Mt. Eagle Drive, Apt. 1616 Alexandria, VA 22303 Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) Room 2C548A 4000 Defense Pentagon Washington, DC 20301-4000 www.defenselink.mil/dacowits Hispanic Women Veterans Coalition P.O. Box 25047 Harper Woods, MI 48225-1825 National Association of Black Military Women P.O. Box 2798 Laurel, MD 20708-2798 National Organization of World War Nurses 1509 Emilie Street Green Bay, WI 54301 National Women Veterans Conference, Inc. 2902 Irving Street Denver, CO 80211-6756
All Navy Women’s National Alliance P.O. Box 147 Goldenrod, FL 32733-0147 www.anwna.com
Pacific Northwest WAVES 19304 4th Place SW Seattle, WA 98166
Army Nurse Corps Association P.O. Box 39235
Retired Army Medical Specialist Corps Association
Women Veterans, World War I to the Present
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P.O. Box 39451 Serna Station San Antonio, TX 78268 www.ramsca.org
Women Officers Professional Association (WOPA) P.O. Box 1621 Arlington, VA 22210
Society of Retired Air Force Nurses P.O. Box 681026 San Antonio, TX 78268 www.safn.org
Women’s Overseas Service League P.O. Box 7124 Washington, DC 20044-7124 www.wosl.org Women Veterans of America P.O. Box 290283 Brooklyn, NY 10229 www.womenveteransofamerica.com
United Women Veterans 113 South Orchard Street Theinsville, WI 53092 Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation, Inc. 1735 Connecticut Avenue NW, 3rd Floor Washington, DC 20009 www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org WAC Veterans’ Association P.O. Box 5577 Fort McClellan, AL 36205-5577 www.armywomen.org WASP 1813 Clare Drive Alice, TX 78332 WAVES National 506 60th Street SE Grand Rapids, MI 49548-6812 www.womenofthewaves.com Women Marines Association 45 Timber Lane Brownsburg, IN 46112 www.womenmarines.org Women Military Aviators, Inc. c/o Lt. Col. Peggy Carnahan 442 Hickory Hill Drive Marshfield, MO 65706 www.womenmilitaryaviators.org
WWII Flight Nurses Association 2111 Spring Lake Road Fruitland, FL 32731-5154 William Pencak
Further Reading Bellafaire, Judith Lawrence, The Army Nurse Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service. Washington DC: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1994. Bellafaire, Judith Lawrence. The Women’s Army Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1993. Campbell, D’Ann. ‘‘Servicewomen of World War II.’’ Armed Forces and Society 16 (1990); 251–70. Corbett, Sara. ‘‘The Women’s War.’’ New York Times Magazine, March, 18, 2007. www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/ 18cover.html. D’Amico, Francine, and Laurie Weinstein, ed. Gender Camouflage: Women and the U. S. Military. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Litoff, Judy Barrett, and David C. Smith, eds. We’re In This War, Too: World War II Letters from American Women in Uniform. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Meyer, Leisa D. Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women’s Army Corps.
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New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Sarnecky, Mary T. A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Wilentz, June A. Women Veterans: America’s Forgotten Heroines. New York: Continuum, 1983.
WOMEN’S ARMY CORPS VETERANS ASSOCIATION World War II marked a new era for American women in the military, offering young women interested in military service an unprecedented variety of options. While women’s roles in World War I were severely circumscribed, during World War II, numerous military units were formed to facilitate women’s participation (albeit in specific, limited roles) in the American military, and the war then raging across Europe and Asia. As of 1942, women interested in military service could join the U.S. Army’s WAC, the Navy’s WAVES, or the Coast Guard’s SPARS (all founded in 1942). Many women did elect to join these branches of the military, motivated by the same mixture of motives as their male counterparts: the wish to serve their country, often blended with a strong desire for adventure. Along with this surge of women into the military came an attendant wave of anxiety about the presence of women in what had, for so long, been an emphatically masculine realm. Detractors and skeptics both within and outside of the military worried that involvement in the military would make women ‘‘masculine,’’ emasculate men, and increase the ‘‘risk’’ of women becoming involved in lesbian relationships. During World War II, a group of women assembled to form the Women’s
Army Corps Mothers Association. As the name of the organization indicated, founders of the group were mothers of women serving in Women’s Army Corps. From its very beginnings, the organization sought to serve a dual purpose. The association was, on the one hand, firmly committed to seeking to end all war, encouraging the peaceful resolution of conflicts between nations and the development of tolerance and goodwill between individuals from all political, religious, and social backgrounds. Although firm supporters of global peace, the association was also staunchly committed to doing all within its members’ power to support the American military and secure victory for America and its allies in the conflict in which they were then engaged. During World War II, association members sold and promoted war bonds, visited both female and male injured veterans in hospitals, mended clothing, and sent comfort packages to American military women serving overseas. In a climate in which female service members often faced discrimination from their male colleagues, the association sought to boost women’s morale, and assure them of the great value of their service. After World War II ended, female veterans from the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) began to contemplate forming their very own veterans’ organization. Often excluded from veterans’ benefits and gatherings designed for their male colleagues, some Women’s Army Corps members felt a strong need for a group of their own, in which they could meet with fellow female veterans and be assured a positive space which was unequivocally affirming of their sacrifice and their service. In 1946, several WAC veterans approached the Women’s Army
World War I Veterans Corps Mothers Association, asking if the association would be willing to host a meeting of WAC veterans. The association agreed, and in 1946, a group of veterans met to discuss forming a local veterans’ organization. After this meeting, on May 14, 1946, they drew up bylaws for the newly formed Chicago Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association. Very soon after their founding, association members aspired to make their group not merely local, but national. The first step towards the achievement of this goal came later in 1946; it was officially chartered as a nonprofit organization by the state of Illinois. It officially became a national organization in 1947. As its symbol, it adopted the figure of Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of war. From the time of its establishment as a national organization, the Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association has engaged in a diverse assortment of activities, all designed to support female veterans and those still in service. It holds a national convention each year, offers scholarships to assist female veterans and military service members, and has a diverse assortment of community service projects. Much of the association’s service work centers on advocating veterans’ rights and visiting both female and male veterans recovering in hospitals. In addition to these activities, the association is dedicated to educating the American public about the long and distinguished history of women in the American military and providing aid and support to all female veterans. As of 2008, the organization had approximately 4,500 members who had served in a variety of conflicts, including World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Granada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Women involved in the military have faced a unique set of challenges and
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opportunities. By entering into what has long been defined as a ‘‘male’’ profession, military women have fundamentally challenged existing social notions of what women can be and do. In the face of often fierce resistance and prejudice on the part of their male colleagues, and a system-wide tendency for their needs and concerns to go unaddressed, military women have organized in order to advocate for women’s rights within the military, to insist on the need to honor female veterans’ service, and to support veterans’ efforts to reintegrate back into civilian life, having their personal, educational, and health concerns met. Since the 1940s, the Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association has played a significant role in helping military women to understand their history and heritage, and in working for a world in which all veterans’ service is equally honored, regardless of gender. Holly M. Kent
Further Reading Wilentz, June A. Women’s Veterans: America’s Forgotten Heroines. New York; Cotinuum, 1983. Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association. www.armywomen.org.
WORLD WAR I VETERANS When World War I suddenly ended on November 11, 1918, the military was faced with the problem of demobilizing over 4.5 million men. As some had to be kept on patrol in Germany during the transition to peace, the army developed plans to keep the soldiers busy. Discovering over 121,000 illiterates in the American Expeditionary Force, it planned to
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General John Pershing being decorated with the American Legion Medal. [Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-hec-14439]
use the 47,000 teachers in the service to teach them how to read. In early 1919, over a million and a half soldiers were taking courses of various sorts, including 27,000 high school and 23,000 veterans taking college classes. The latter were taught at the AEF University of Beaune. A farm institute at Allerey enrolled 2,500 soldiers who learned about scientific as well as French methods of farming, and labor conditions. Over 6,300 men who understood French were admitted to French universities and 2,000 to British colleges. American doctors attended medical schools in Europe to catch up on the latest techniques. Many soldiers were quartered in German homes during the winter of 1918–1919.
They found the Germans’ cleanliness and good manners in striking contrast to the French, who they thought tried to charge them excessive prices. Yet most men wanted to come home at once. The military organized over 50 new companies of military police in November 1919 to deal with unruly men who resented having to continue to drill and the presence of the Young Men’s Christian Association, which tried to keep them away from the bars and women of Paris. Desertion rose both abroad and among the over two million men who had yet to leave the United States; of the latter, less than 15 percent were caught and four-fifths of those received clemency.
World War I Veterans Upon arriving in New York, many of the troops were greeted with welcoming committees from their home states. The New York Red Cross provided snacks upon disembarking. A Victory Arch was built at Fifth Avenue at Madison Square, under which six grand parades passed up to the Court of the Heroic Dead in front of the public library and up to the Tower of Jewels at Fifty-Ninth Street and Central Park. Troops from Harlem marched all the way up to their home neighborhood. Similar parades occurred in other large cities. The one in Washington, DC, on September 17, 1919, was the grandest of all: 24,000 men accompanied by bands with over 500 trucks and 60 motorcycles marched down Pennsylvania Avenue as planes and an observation balloon flew overhead. With so many men to be demobilized, the government decided the U.S. Employment Service, which had over 1,450 Community Labor Boards that allocated manpower during the war, ought to be continued. Despite a plan laid down by Felix Frankfurter, head of the War Labor Industries Board, to release the men in order (farmers first, executives and professional men second, those involved in mining, shipping, and railroads where there were labor shortages third, men who had jobs waiting fourth, men who could be placed by the Employment Service fifth, men from regions with labor shortages sixth, federal employees seventh, and men of independent means last), speed was the order of the day. By January 1, 1920, only 130,000 officers and men remained in the army. Veterans were discharged with a mere $60 bonus and found that prices had tripled during the war: unlike in World War II, there had been no rationing or price controls. Suits that formerly cost $15 to
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$25 sold for $35 to $90. There was also a glut of labor: while most of the two million women who had done active war work returned home, by March 1, 1919, 80 cities reported unemployment while only 15 had a labor shortage. The nation experienced a recession from summer 1920 until spring 1922 during which nationwide unemployment was estimated at 16 percent. Some 20,000 firms failed in 1921, and the number of workers in the industries essential for war—steel, iron, metals, and textiles —fell by a third. The automobile industry, in which thousands of veterans had been trained, proved the key to the eventual economic recovery. Thanks to installment plan buying, 700,000 new jobs were created making cars in the early twenties. The soldiers in general did not like military training and the regular army. When the Home Sector, a veterans’ magazine, polled 13,000 veterans in February 1920, they opposed having a military man for president by over three to one, but they wanted a further bonus for their service by a ratio of nine to one. Angry that the states had put over Prohibition when over four million young men were not available to vote on it, they favored its repeal eight to three. Only 547 of the men wanted tobacco outlawed. The veterans were forming organizations even before they left France. Many small groups formed within the ranks as the army was demobilizing. Comrades in Service, organized by the YMCA and founded with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson and Commander in Chief John Pershing, had over 200,000 members before its leaders decided it should merge with the American Legion, which was founded by a group of Reserve Army officers headed by Theodore Roosevelt Jr. on February 15, 1919. Radical soldiers joined the Private
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Soldiers and Sailors Legion, more simply known as the World War Veterans, under the leadership of Marvin Gates Sperry. Unlike the Legion, which called for a unity of interests between labor and capital, officers and enlisted men, the Private Soldiers and Sailors urged the government to distribute millions of acres of land and vacant city lots to veterans, give them a $500 bonus, and punish officers who had proven ‘‘incompetent and unfit’’ or subjected men to unduly rigorous training. Some came home to join the Veterans of Foreign Wars, but its membership was severely handicapped because half the soldiers had never reached foreign soil, a prerequisite of membership. At any rate, only the $500 bonus, which the American Legion (reluctantly) and VFW (enthusiastically) approved, was endorsed by the mainstream veterans’ group. The nation was in the grip of the ‘‘Red Scare’’ between 1919 and 1920 as the veterans returned home. The American Communist Party was active, and strikes plagued the mining, steel, and railroad industries. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were attempting to organize unskilled workers. Many veterans—of whom over 800,000 joined the Legion within a year—were angry that workers had been paid even higher wages in the postwar world, although they too had a legitimate grievance as wages had not kept up with prices. During World War I, informally organized ‘‘Red Squads’’ had silenced critics of the war with tacit, and frequently open, approval from the national, state, and local governments. Eugene Debs, presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party and a powerful opponent of war, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for sedition. Once the war
ended, the American Legion stepped in where the Red Squads had left. In the mid-west, the Legion broke up meetings of the Non-Partisan League, the heir to the very strong Socialist movement in what were then known as the ‘‘Red Belt’’ states from the Dakotas and Minnesota to Oklahoma. Legionnaires raided Communist Party headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, attacked Socialist halls in Cincinnati and St. Louis, and silenced Socialist speakers in Philadelphia and Springfield, Massachusetts. They prevented Socialist Congressman Victor Berger from addressing crowds in Milwaukee, the Bronx, and Providence, and broke up a meeting of the Young Socialists in Bayonne, New Jersey. They chased Communists out of town in Los Angeles and San Diego. Legionnaires were active in serving as deputy policemen when the Boston police force struck. The Legion’s best-known effort, however, was against the IWW on the West Coast. The IWW was especially interested in organizing the lumber workers who lived in primitive camps and worked for poor wages. In Centralia, Washington, IWW members fired on Legionnaires who attacked their hall and killed four of them: the Legion maintained the IWW attacked innocent paraders in cold blood. The judge refused to accept evidence of a conspiracy to attack the hall, the IWW’s attorney was disbarred, and the judge sentenced eight union organizers to 25–40 years in prison. The sentences stood, although in 1922 six of the twelve jurors admitted they only approved a second-degree murder sentence because they feared otherwise a new jury would have approved the death penalty given the hysteria of the times. In any event, the Legion soon cooperated with civic authorities as special deputies
World War II Veterans in crushing the IWW in Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, and Spokane, practically finishing it as a force in the nation. Following the Red Scare and recession of the immediate postwar era, veterans’ organizations concentrated on establishing the veterans’ hospital system, disability payments and care, and the bonus. They continued to play an active role in politics and community life, especially in the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, and welcomed World War II veterans into these organizations to perpetuate their ideal of ‘‘One Hundred Percent Americanism.’’ William Pencak See also African American Veterans, World War I; Disabled Veterans; Benefits; Bonus March
Further Reading Murray, Robert K. Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1955. Pencak, William. For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989. Wecter, Dixon. When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1944.
WORLD WAR II VETERANS When World War II ended, over 12 million personnel were currently in service and anxious to come home. The government established a point system to determine who would return first based on merit and need: combat experience, overseas service, and marital status were among the categories awarded points. Additional points were awarded for
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combat decorations. Eighty-five points were required for a relatively quick return in the fall of 1945. But GI’s were impatient as the system floundered: the military had been prepared for a long-term campaign against Japan rather than a quick demobilization. In January 1946, over 8,000 troops demonstrated in the Philippines, and other protests occurred throughout the world and at separation centers at home where it was taking 18 days to discharge service personnel. Given public pressure, the army reduced the number of points to 50 as the secretary of defense promised to reduce the army from eight million to two million within a year. Departing personnel left equipment and vehicles all over Europe. Over half the Americans polled in the last stages of the war feared a new depression: that massive unemployment and the economic hard times of the 1930s would return once the armed forces demobilized. But the main economic problem after the war was that veterans faced a severe housing shortage that took several years to fix, as almost no units had been built outside military bases or defense facilities during the war. Nearly two-thirds of married veterans had to move in with family members. Meanwhile, inflation ran rampant: troops and their families had saved about 25 percent of their wartime income due to rationing, shortages, and the inability to spend it overseas. With the end of rationing, the day after Japan surrendered, prices for foodstuffs rose over 40 percent in the last half of 1946 alone. Just as much as unemployment, some leaders feared the huge number of veterans would be a threat to American society. Conservative critic Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell thought ‘‘veterans would take command over this country
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Members of a World War II U.S. Marine veterans’ group heckle some 10,000 marchers in New York, 1965. Police barricades separated the veterans from the demonstrators who paraded down New York’s Fifth Avenue to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. [AP Photo]
which they had sacrificed themselves to save . . . for good or ill,’’ and worried that ‘‘it was veterans who had put in power every political and economic revolution in Europe between 1919 and 1939; in Russia first, then in Italy, in Germany, in Spain. These countries all went totalitarian during those post-war years because the democratic leaders were not revolutionary enough, daring enough, to satisfy the veteran type of mind.’’
J. Gordon Chamberlain predicted ‘‘a slump of morals and morale’’: ‘‘the spirits of men, once blighted by war, will pass on that blight.’’ Historian Dixon Wecter, however, was closer to the mark when he predicted the veteran would return as he left: ‘‘friendly, generous, easy-going, brave, the citizen-soldier of America’’ (Severo and Milford, 290–92). The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, famous as the GI Bill, was the main
World War II Veterans reason the postwar transition occurred smoothly. Veterans received up to 52 weeks’ unemployment insurance at $20 per week. Veterans could also obtain loans of up to $2,000 at interest rates capped at 4 percent to obtain their own homes or businesses. Over 6.6 million veterans applied for educational training under the GI Bill by 1947, including over 315,000 disabled veterans. Benefits were generous: up to 36 months free tuition, $500 per semester for books and fees, plus monthly stipends of $50 (for single veterans) and $75 (for married veterans). Universities and the government were unprepared for the deluge: by 1947 over a million veterans had enrolled in colleges, about half the total enrollment. Classes expanded and were scheduled from early morning until late at night and on weekends, and Quonset huts sprang up all over the country to house the students. Veterans were generally more serious than traditional undergraduates and wanted to learn about the present world as well as acquiring practical training for future employment. They were not particularly interested in campus social life and wanted to complete their degrees in the three years allotted rather than the traditional four. Universities generally considered them superior to prewar students. As the economy expanded between 1945 and 1950, veterans soon found jobs. Unemployment remained under 4 percent in the three years after the war. College graduates swelled the number of engineers from 297,000 to 543,000, accountants from 238,000 to 390,000. Over 245,000 jobs for auto mechanics opened as consumers were able to buy new cars for the first time in years. Thanks to the boom in the housing market, fueled by mortgages for veterans,
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93,000 new plumbers, 240,000 carpenters, and 111,000 electricians were needed. Over 2.6 million veterans found jobs in the manufacturing sector by July 1946. They joined unions, too, and obtained pensions, health care, and disability benefits—union membership reached 17 million by 1950. The feared massive unemployment with the discharge of so many veterans had in fact become a labor shortage. The Veterans Administration, directed by newly appointed head General Omar N. Bradley, responded to the challenge. Between 1945 and 1946 its personnel rose from 70,000 to 173,000, its field offices from 160 to 753, and the number of veterans serviced from 400,000 to a million and a half. Veterans eligible for medical treatment had risen from 72,000 in 1943 to over 532,000 by 1945. The Veterans Administration had 97 hospitals to deal with and they already had 71,000 patients. On January 3, 1946, it began reorganizing by hiring civilian doctors and nurses at attractive salaries. During Bradley’s two years in office, the number of VA employees increased from 65,000 to 200,000, and funding for hospitals from $18 to $243 million. Nearly 73,000 members of the Veterans Administration Volunteers Services served as hospital aides. By 1950, over 100,000 doctors saw patients in their own offices and hospitals under the VA’s auspices at government expense. Yet after a budget-conscious Congress was elected in 1946 and Bradley resigned in 1947, the Veterans Administration cut back on personnel and hospital construction. World War II veterans also joined veterans’ associations. Liberal groups like the American Veterans Committee and
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AMVETS paled before the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, which attracted some two million members each. They lobbied for public housing, and state benefits and hospitals, all the while involving veterans in their communities. Five million boys supervised by Legionnaires played American Legion baseball by 1947. The American Legion Community Development Corporation worked to solve the housing shortage, bringing business and government leaders together to build middle-income houses that veterans could use federally backed mortgages to obtain Not all World War II veterans were home permanently. Between 1945 and 1950, the U.S. armed forces shrank dramatically, leaving it unprepared for the Korean War which began on June 25, 1950. The army had under 600,000 personnel, the navy had declined from nearly 1,194 to 267 ships. By 1951, with relatively few enlistments, the government was forced to mobilize both active and inactive reserve troops and units of the National Guard, most of whom were World War II veterans. This added to the unpopularity of the Korean War. The main impact of World War II on American memory is its remembrance as ‘‘the good war’’ and those who fought it as ‘‘the greatest generation.’’ The men and women born between 1915 and 1925 had lived over half their lives through depression and war by 1945 and yet had remained loyal to their nation’s values and served it heroically. John Wayne, not a veteran himself, became the symbol of that generation, and young men from the 1950s through 1970s grew up with this ideal in mind, only to find the Vietnam War both unsuccessful and nothing like
the war in the books or movies (see Film and Veterans and Literature and Veterans). The spirit revived in the first years of the twenty-first century following the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York City on 9/11, although it has waned as the Iraq War drags on. World War II’s emphasis on cooperation and unity while fighting for an unambiguously good cause carried over into practices of the postwar era. Veterans became The Organization Man and part of The Lonely Crowd—to use the titles of sociological studies by William F. Whyte and David Riesman—of the 1950s, taught to care for their families, not complain about their problems, and dress and behave conservatively. The Soviet Communists became the new Nazis, an outlaw society bent on world domination.. The impact of the war on American society is that the GI Bill greatly increased the number of suburban dwellers, college graduates, and white collar workers. From 1944 to 1950, veterans filed over 185 million claims, an average of roughly a dozen per person, to take advantage of over $3 billion in available benefits. These benefits were not seen as a ‘‘welfare state’’ or ‘‘entitlements,’’ but rather the just reward of a grateful nation for a certain part of its population. Still, a large bureaucracy of the sort that would later form the Great Society programs of the 1960s was made a permanent part of American society. William Pencak See also Women Veterans, World War I to Present; African American Veterans, World War II; Japanese-American Veterans; Filipino-American Veterans; Film and Veterans; Literature and Veterans; Benefits; Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
The World War II Memorial, foreground, was unveiled in 2004 to honor the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the war. The Lincoln Memorial can be seen in the background. [AP Photo/Lauren Burke]
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Further Reading Gambone, Michael. The Greatest Generation Comes Home. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2005. Van Ells, Mark D. To Hear Only Thunder Again: America’s World War II Veterans
Come Home. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001. Severo, Richard, and Lewis Milford. The Wages of War: When America’s Soldiers Came Home: From Valley Forge to Vietnam. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
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DOCUMENT 1 DAVID RAMSAY, THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON: THE SITUATION OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS AT THE END OF THE WAR Several important documents concerning the situation of Revolutionary War veterans appear in David Ramsay’s The Life of George Washington, published in 1807, chapter 9. Ramsay (1749–1815) was a physician who also served as a lieutenant-colonel in the Continental Army. These documents include (a) Washington’s letter to the Secretary of War concerning the payment and situation of troops at the end of the war; (b) the anonymous call to the officers of the Continental Army to threaten Congress with a coup if they were not paid that resulted from the Newburgh Conspiracy; (c) Washington’s speech that foiled that attempt; (d) Washington’s advice to Congress concerning the treatment of Revolutionary War veterans and the need for a strong military; (e) Washington’s outrage over the mutiny of Pennsylvania soldiers waiting to be demobilized; (f) Washington’s farewell to his officers and to Congress, and their replies on his selfless service. Washington, whose sagacity anticipated events, foresaw with concern the probable consequences likely to result from the tardiness of the states to comply with the requisitions of Congress. These had been ample. Eight millions of dollars had been called for, to be paid in four equal quarterly installments, for the service of the year 1782. a) Washington’s Letter to the Secretary of War Concerning the Treatment of Veterans In a confidential letter to the Secretary of War, Washington observed—
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‘‘Honor the Brave’’ Memorial Day veterans poster, 1917. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-8122]
‘‘I cannot help fearing the result of reducing the army, where I see such a number of men, goaded by a thousand stings of reflection on the past, and of anticipation on the future, about to be turned into the world, soured by penury, and what they call the ingratitude of the public; involved in debts without one farthing of money to carry them home, after having spent the flower of their days, and many of them their patrimonies, in establishing the freedom and independence of their country, and having suffered every thing which human nature is capable of enduring on this side of death. I repeat it, when I reflect on these irritable circumstances, I cannot avoid apprehending that a train of evils will follow, of a very serious and distressing nature. ‘‘I wish not to heighten the shades of the picture so far as the real life would justify me in doing, or I would give anecdotes of patriotism and distress, which have scarcely ever been paralleled, never surpassed, in the history of mankind. But you may rely upon it; the patience and long sufferance of this army are almost exhausted, and there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at this instant. While in the field, it may be kept from breaking out into acts of outrage; but when we retire into winter quarters (unless the storm be previously dissipated), I cannot be at ease respecting the consequences. It is high time for a peace.’’ These apprehensions were well founded. To watch the discontents of his troops, the American chief continued in camp after they had retired into winter quarters, though there was no prospect of any military operation which might require his presence. Soon after their retirement, the officers presented a petition to Congress respecting
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their pay, and deputed a committee of their body to solicit their interests while under consideration . . . . While they were brooding over their gloomy prospects, and provoked at the apparent neglect with which they had been treated, an anonymous paper was circulated, proposing a meeting of the General and Field Officers on the next day. The avowed object of this meeting was to consider the late letter from their committee with Congress, and what measures should be adopted to obtain that redress of grievances which they seemed to have solicited in vain. b) Anonymous Letter to Officers Proposing a Military Coup if Their Demands Were Not Met On the same day the following address was privately circulated: ‘‘TO THE OFFICERS OF THE ARMY. ‘‘Gentlemen, ‘‘A FELLOW-SOLDIER, whose interest and affections bind him strongly to you; whose past sufferings have been as great, and whose future fortune may be as desperate as yours—would beg leave to address you. Age has its claims, and rank is not without its pretensions to advise; but though unsupported by both, he flatters himself that the plain language of sincerity and experience, will neither be unheard nor unregarded. Like many of you, he loved private life, and left it with regret. He left it, determined to retire from the field with the necessity that called him to it, and not till then; not till the enemies of his country, the slaves of power, and the hirelings of injustice, were compelled to abandon their schemes, and acknowledge America as terrible in arms as she had been humble in remonstrance. ‘‘With this object in view, he has long shared in your toils, and mingled in your dangers; he has felt the cold hand of poverty without a murmur, and has seen the insolence of wealth without a sigh. But, too much under the direction of his wishes, and sometimes weal enough to mistake desire for opinion, he has, till lately, very lately, believed in the justice of his country. He hoped, that as the clouds of adversity scattered, and as the sunshine of peace and better fortune broke in upon us, the coldness and severity of government would relax, and that, more than justice, that gratitude would blaze forth upon those hands which had upheld her in the darkest stages of her passage, from impending servitude to acknowledged independence. ‘‘But faith has its limits, as well as temper; and there are points beyond which neither can be stretched, without sinking into cowardice, or plunging into credulity. This, my friends, I conceive to be your situation. Hurried to the very verge of both, another step would ruin you forever. To be tame and unprovoked when injuries press hard upon you, is more than weakness; but to look up for kinder usage, without one manly effort of your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly you deserve those chains you broke. To guard against this evil, let us take a review of the ground
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upon which we now stand, and from thence carry our thoughts forward for a moment, into the unexplored field of expedient. ‘‘After a pursuit of seven long years, the object for which we set out is at length brought within our reach!—Yes, my friends, that suffering courage of yours, was active once—it has conducted the United States of America through a doubtful and a bloody war! It has placed her in the chair of independency, and peace again returns to bless—whom? A country willing to redress your wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services; a country courting your return to private life, with tears of gratitude, and smiles of admiration; longing to divide with you that independency which your gallantry has given, and those riches which your wounds have preserved? Is this the case? Or is it rather, a country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your distresses? Have you not, more than once, suggested your wishes, and made known your wants to Congress? Wants and wishes which gratitude and policy should have anticipated, rather than evaded. And have you not lately, in the meek language of entreating memorial, begged from their justice, what you would no longer expect from their favor? How have you been answered? Let the letter which you are called to consider tomorrow, make reply. ‘‘If this, then, be your treatment, while the swords you wear are necessary for the defense of America, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall sink, and your strength dissipate by division? ‘‘When these very swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left, but your wants, infirmities, and scars! can you then consent to be the only sufferers by this revolution, and retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honor?—If you can, go —and carry with you the jest of tories, and the scorn of whigs—the ridicule, and what is worse, the pity of the world! Go, starve, and be forgotten! ‘‘But if your spirit should revolt at this; if you have sense enough to discover, and spirit enough to oppose tyranny, under whatever garb it may assume; whether it be the plain coat of republicanism, or the splendid robe of royalty; if you have yet learned to discriminate between a people and a cause, between men and principles—awake!— attend to your situation, and redress yourselves. If the present moment be lost, every future effort is in vain; and your threats then will be as empty as your entreaties now . . . . [Anonymous] . . . The commander in chief, in general orders, noticed the anonymous summons as a disorderly proceeding, not to be countenanced; and the more effectually to divert the officers from paying any attention to it, he requested them to meet for the same nominal purpose, but on a day four days subsequent to the one proposed by the anonymous addresser.
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c) Washington’s Speech That Foiled the Proposed Coup The intervening period was improved in preparing the officers for the adoption of moderate measures. General Washington sent for one officer after another, and enlarged in private on the fatal consequences, and particularly on the loss of character, which would result from the adoption of intemperate resolutions. His whole personal influence was excited to calm the prevailing agitation. When the officers assembled, their venerable chief preparing to address them, found his eyesight to fail him, on which he observed, ‘‘My eyes have grown dim in my country’s service, but I never doubted of its justice,’’ and proceeded as follows: ‘‘Gentlemen, ‘‘By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together— how inconsistent with the rules of propriety!—how unmilitary!—and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of the army decide . . . . ‘‘That the address is drawn with great art, and is designed to answer the most insidious purposes.—That it is calculated to impress the mind, with an idea of premeditated injustice in the sovereign power of the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must unavoidably flow from such a belief . . . . ‘‘I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country—As I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you, on public duty— As I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel, and acknowledge your merits—As I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army—As my Heart has ever expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises—and my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it—it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests. ‘‘But—how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser—If war continues, remove into the unsettled country—there establish yourselves, and leave an ungrateful country to defend itself.—But who are they to defend? —Our wives, our children, our farms, and other property which we leave behind us.— Or—in this state of hostile separation, are we to take the two first (the latter cannot be removed)—to perish in a wilderness, with hunger, cold, and nakedness?—If peace takes place, never sheath your sword says he until you have obtained full and ample justice.—This dreadful alternative, of either deserting our country in the extremest hour of her distress, or turning our arms against it (which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance), has something so shocking in it, that humanity revolts at the idea. ‘‘My God! What can this writer have in view, by recommending such measures?— Can he be a friend to the army?—Can he be a friend to this country?—Rather is he not an insidious foe?—Some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent? . . . .
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‘‘Let me conjure you, in the name of our common country—as you value your own sacred honor—as you respect the rights of humanity; as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood gates of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood. ‘‘By thus determining—and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes.—You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice.—You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings.—And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, ‘‘Had this day been wanting, the world has never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.’’ The address being ended, Washington withdrew. No person was hardy enough to oppose the advice he had given. The impression made by his address was irresistible. The happy moment was seized. While the minds of the officers, softened by the eloquence of their beloved commander, were in a yielding state, a resolution was offered and adopted, in which they assured him ‘‘that they reciprocated his affectionate expressions with the greatest sincerity of which the heart was capable.’’ Before they dispersed, they unanimously adopted several other resolutions, in which they declared, ‘‘That no circumstance of distress or danger should induce a conduct that might tend to sully the reputation and glory they had acquired at the price of their blood and eight years faithful service.—That they continued to have an unshaken confidence in the justice of Congress and their country.—That they viewed with abhorrence, and rejected with disdain, the infamous proposition contained in a late anonymous address to the officers of the army.’’ . . . . d) Washington’s Letter to Congress on the Veterans’ Needs Instead of turning the discontents of an unpaid army to his own aggrandizement, he improved the late events to stimulate Congress to do them justice. His letter to their President on this occasion was as follows: ‘‘. . . . Here I humbly conceive it is altogether unnecessary (while I am pleading the cause of an army which have done and suffered more than any other army ever did in the defense of the rights and liberties of human nature), to expatiate on their claims to the most ample compensation for their meritorious services, because they are known perfectly to the whole world . . . . IF retiring from the field they are to grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt—if they are to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honor; then shall I have learned what ingratitude is; then shall I have realized a tale which will embitter every moment of my future life. ‘‘But I am under no such apprehensions: a country rescued by their arms from impending ruin, will never leave unpaid the debt of gratitude. Should any intemperate
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or improper warmth have mingled itself amongst the foregoing observations, I must entreat your Excellency and Congress, it may [be] attributed to the effusion of an honest zeal in the best of causes, and that my peculiar situation may be my apology; and I hope I need not on this momentous occasion make any new protestations of personal disinterestedness, having ever renounced for myself the idea of pecuniary reward. The consciousness of having attempted faithfully to discharge my duty, and the approbation of my country, will be a sufficient recompense for my services. ‘‘I have the honor to be, &c. &c. ‘‘Geo: WASHINGTON’’ This energetic letter, connected with recent events, induced Congress to decide on the claims of the army. These were liquidated, and the amount acknowledged to be due from the United States. Soon after these events, intelligence of a general peace was received. The reduction of the army was therefore resolved upon, but the mode of effecting it required deliberation. To avoid the inconveniences of dismissing a great number of soldiers in a body, furloughs were freely granted on the application of individuals, and after their dispersion, they were not enjoined to return. By this arrangement a critical moment was got over. A great part of an unpaid army was dispersed over the states without tumult or disorder. e) Washington’s Outrage over Mutiny of Pennsylvania Soldiers While the veterans serving under the immediate eye of their beloved commander in chief manifested the utmost good temper and conduct, a mutinous disposition broke out among some new levies stationed at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. About 80 of this description marched in a body to Philadelphia, where they were joined by some other troops, so as to amount in the whole to 300. They marched with fixed bayonets to the state house, in which Congress and the state executive council held their sessions. They placed guards at every door, and threatened the president and council of the state with letting loose an enraged soldiery upon them, unless they granted their demands in twenty minutes. As soon as this outrage was known to Washington, he detached General Howe with a competent force to suppress the mutiny. This was effected without bloodshed before his arrival. The mutineers were too inconsiderable to commit extensive mischief; but their disgraceful conduct excited the greatest indignation in the breast of the commander in chief, which was expressed in a letter to the president of Congress in the following words: ‘‘While I suffer the most poignant distress in observing that a handful of men, contemptible in numbers, and equally so in point of service (if the veteran troops of the southward have not been seduced by their example), and who are not worthy to be called soldiers, should disgrace themselves and their country as the Pennsylvania mutineers have done, by insulting the sovereign authority of the United States, and that of
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their own, I feel an inexpressible satisfaction that even this behavior cannot stain the name of the American soldiery. It cannot be imputable to, or reflect dishonor on, the army at large; but on the contrary, it will, by the striking contrast it exhibits, hold up to public view the other troops in the most advantageous point of light. ‘‘Upon taking all the circumstances into consideration, I cannot sufficiently express my surprise and indignation at the arrogance, the folly, and the wickedness, of the mutineers; nor can I sufficiently admire the fidelity, the bravery, and patriotism, which must forever signalize the unsullied character of the corps of our army. For when we consider that these Pennsylvania levies who have now mutinied are recruits and soldiers of a day, who have not borne the heat and burden of the war, and who can have in reality very few hardships to complain of; and when we at the same time recollect that those soldiers who have lately been furloughed from this army, are the veterans who have patiently endured hunger, nakedness, and cold; who have suffered and bled without a murmur, and who, with perfect good order, have retired to their homes without a settlement of their accounts or a farthing of money in their pockets; we shall be as much astonished at the virtues of the latter, as we are struck with detestation of the proceedings of the former.’’ f) Washington’s Farewell to His Officers and to Congress The second of November was fixed for discharging that part of the army which was engaged to serve during the war. On that day, General Washington issued his farewell orders to the armies of the United States in the most endearing language. After giving them his advice respecting their future conduct, and imploring the choicest of heaven’s blessings in their favor, he bade them an affectionate farewell. On the 25th of the same month, the British evacuated New York, and General Washington made his public entry into it, where he was received with every mark of respect and attention. The hour now approached in which it became necessary for the American chief to take leave of his officers who had been endeared to him by a long series of common sufferings and dangers. This was done in a solemn manner. The officers, having previously assembled for the purpose, General Washington joined them, and calling for a glass of wine, thus addressed them: ‘‘With an heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.’’ Having drank he added—‘‘I cannot come to each of you, to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you, if each of you will come and take me by the hand.’’ General Knox being next, turned to him. Incapable of utterance, Washington grasped his hand and embraced him. The officers came up successively, and he took an affectionate leave of each of them. Not a word was articulated on either side. A majestic silence prevailed. The tear of sensibility glistened in every eye. The tenderness of the scene exceeded all description. When the last of the officers had taken his leave, Washington left the room and passed through the corps of light infantry, to the place of embarkation. The officers followed in a solemn mute procession, with dejected countenances. On his entering the barge to cross the North river, he turned towards the companions of his glory, and by
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waving his hat, bid them a silent adieu. Some of them answered this last signal of respect and affection with tears; and all of them hung upon the barge which conveyed him from their sight, till they could no longer distinguish in it the person of their beloved commander in chief. Source: David Ramsay, The Life of George Washington (New York: Hopkins and Seymour, 1807). Available online: Archiving Early America, www.earlyamerica.com/ lives/gwlife, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 2 THE INSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI The first American veterans’ organization, the Society of the Cincinnati, was founded as the American Revolution came to an end. The ‘‘Institution’’ (that is, Constitution) of the Society, stressed that the Society’s purpose was to preserve the memories and comradeship of the war, and to help unfortunate veterans. It thereby set a precedent for all subsequent veterans’ organizations. THE INSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI Cantonment of the American Army, on Hudson’s River, 10th May, 1783. Proposals for establishing a Society, upon the principles therein mentioned, whose Members shall be officers of the American Army, having been communicated to the several regiments of the respective lines, they appointed an officer from each, who, in conjunction with the general officers, should take the same into consideration at their meeting this day, at which the Honorable MAJOR GENERAL BARON DE STEUBEN, the senior officer present, was pleased to preside. The proposals being read, fully considered, paragraph by paragraph, and the amendments agreed to, MAJOR GENERAL KNOX, BRIGADIER GENERAL HAND, BRIGADIER GENERAL HUNTINGTON, and CAPTAIN SHAW, were chosen to revise the same, and prepare a copy to be laid before this assembly at their next meeting, to be holden at MAJOR GENERAL BARON DE STEUBEN’S quarters, on Tuesday, the 13th instant.
Tuesday, 13th May, 1783. The representatives of the American Army being assembled agreeably to adjournment, the plan for establishing a Society, whereof the officers of the American Army are to
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be Members, is accepted, and is as follows, viz.: It having pleased the Supreme Governor of the Universe, in the disposition of human affairs, to cause the separation of the colonies of North America from the domination of Great Britain, and, after a bloody conflict of eight years, to establish them free, independent and sovereign States, connected, by alliances founded on reciprocal advantage, with some of the great princes and powers of the earth. To perpetuate, therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event, as the mutual friendships which have been formed under the pressure of common danger, and, in many instances, cemented by the blood of the parties, the officers of the American Army do hereby, in the most solemn manner, associate, constitute and combine themselves into one SOCIETY OF FRIENDS, to endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and, in failure thereof, the collateral branches who may be judged worthy of becoming its supporters and Members. The officers of the American Army having generally been taken from the citizens of America, possess high veneration for the character of that illustrious Roman, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus; and being resolved to follow his example, by returning to their citizenship, they think they may with propriety denominate themselves—
THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI The following principles shall be immutable and form the basis of the Society of the Cincinnati: AN INCESSANT ATTENTION TO PRESERVE INVIOLATE THOSE EXALTED RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF HUMAN NATURE, FOR WHICH THAT HAVE FOUGHT AND BLED, AND WITHOUT WHICH THE HIGH RANK OF A RATIONAL BEING IS A CURSE INSTEAD OF A BLESSING. AN UNALTERABLE DETERMINATION TO PROMOTE AND CHERISH, BETWEEN THE RESPECTIVE STATES, THAT UNION AND NATIONAL HONOR SO ESSENTIALLY NECESSARY TO THEIR HAPPINESS, AND THE FUTURE DIGNITY OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. TO RENDER PERMANENT THE CORDIAL AFFECTION SUBSISTING AMONG THE OFFICERS. THIS SPIRIT WILL DICTATE BROTHERLY KINDNESS IN ALL THINGS, AND PARTICULARLY, EXTEND TO THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL ACTS OF BENEFICENCE, ACCORDING TO THE ABILITY OF THE SOCIETY,
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TOWARDS THOSE OFFICERS AND THEIR FAMILIES, WHO UNFORTUNATELY MAY BE UNDER THE NECESSITY OF RECEIVING IT . . . . The Society shall have an Order, by which its members shall be known and distinguished, which shall be a medal of gold, of a proper size to receive the emblems, and suspended by a deep blue riband two inches wide, edged with white, descriptive of the union of France and America, viz.:
The principle figure, CINCINNATUS: Three Senators presenting him with a sword and other military ensigns—on a field in the background, his wife standing at the door of their Cottage—near it.
A PLOUGH AND INSTRUMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. Round the whole, OMNIA RELINQUIT SERVARE REMPUBLICAM. On the reverse, Sun rising—a city with open gates, and vessels entering the port—Fame crowing CINCINNATUS with a wreath, inscribed VIRTUTIS PRAEMIUM. Below, HANDS JOINED, SUPPORTING A HEART, With the motto, ESTO PERPETUA. round the whole, SOCIETAS CINNNATORUM INSTITUTUA. A.D. 1783. Source: Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati (Boston: Steam Press of C. C. P. Moody, 1859). Available online: American Archive, Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati, www.archive.org/details/institutionofsoc00mass, accessed February 17, 2009.
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DOCUMENT 3 AEDANUS BURKE, CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SOCIETY OR ORDER OF CINCINNATI Just as the Society of the Cincinnati set a precedent for future veterans’ organizations, the criticisms of it which appeared almost immediately foreshadowed similar criticisms that would accompany the founding of the Grand Army of the Republic after the Civil War and the American Legion after World War I: that it would be a threat to the republic by obtaining far too great an influence on public affairs. The most important of these criticisms was written by Aedanus Burke (1743–1802) himself a veteran of the American Revolution and later a Congressman from South Carolina. He wrote it under the name of ‘‘Cassius,’’ one of the men who murdered Julius Caesar and who, like Junius Brutus, was considered a hero in early America because he tried to prevent the fall of the Roman Republic by killing a tyrant. Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati: Lately Instituted by the Major-Generals, Brigadier-Generals, and Other Officers of the American Army. Proving that it Creates a Race of Hereditary Patricians, or Nobility. Interspersed with Remarks on its Consequences to the Freedom and Happiness of the Republic. . . . . My design at present is to show, first, What this Order or Society seems to be; in the next place, To demonstrate what it really is, and will turn out to be; and lastly, To prove there is an absolute necessity of extirpating it altogether. . . . . It is in reality, and will turn out to be, an hereditary peerage; a nobility to them and their male issue, and in default thereof, to the collateral branches: what the lawyers would call—A title of peerage of Cincinnati to them and their heirs male, remainder to their heirs general. The sixth article of our confederation says, ‘‘Nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, not any of them grant any title of nobility.’’ But the order of Cincinnati usurp a nobility without gift or grant, in defiance of Congress and the states, as I shall show presently. And though the order cannot, at present be sanctioned by legal authority, yet that makes nothing against the consequences which will ensue. Though the Order is self-created, and an infringement of a general law of the Union; yet if the courage of the officers does not fail them; if they but keep up with the firmness and perseverance against opposition, for this will be but trifling, so unthinking are the people; if they have but patience, subtlety, and address to cloak their design under a pious name of raising a charitable fund; so as to make it go down only for a few years; even if they are obliged from policy to lay aside the badge and blue ribbon: My life for it, they will have leisure to laugh at, and master their opponents. And the next generation will drink as deep of noble blood, and a hereditary peerage be as firmly settled in each potent family, and riveted in our government, as any order of nobility is in the
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monarchies of Europe. This order is planted in a fiery, hot ambition, and thirst for power; and its branches will end in tyranny. The Cincinnati will soon be corrupted, and the spirit of the people depressed; for in less than a century it will occasion such an inequality in the condition of our inhabitants, that the country will be composed of only two ranks of men; the patricians or nobles, and the rabble. This is the natural result of an establishment, whose departure is so sudden from our open professions of republicanism, that it must give a thinking mind most melancholy forebodings. This creating of a nobility, and breaking through our constitution, just as we were setting out in the world, is making that liberty which the Almighty has given us, a means for feeding our pride; and turning the blessings of Providence into a curse upon us . . . . Again. They will ‘‘attend incessantly to preserve inviolate the exalted rights of human nature.’’ Are there then, most illustrious Cincinnati, two sorts of rights belonging to human nature? Is there one kind, subordinate, and on a level with the humble condition of Plebeians? And others more exalted, which the citizens are incapable of preserving inviolate, without the incessant watching of a dignified order of patricians? They must mean this or nothing. The people of America, it seems, are not fit to be trusted with their own national power, or their own affairs, unless the Order takes the superintendence and direction of them. Can contradiction be more strong and glaring? In one moment they institute an order, and raise a distinction, which looks down, as from an high mountain, on all beneath them: They have laid in ruins that fine, plain, level state of civil equality over which the sight of the beholder passed with pleasure; which God laid out for our use and happiness, and which our Laws and the nature of Republican government promised us: They have violated all; yet in the same breath, by way of a mask thrown over their doings, they spread before us the fine words last quoted. But this disguise is too thin: for in the name of Heaven, can any man in his senses believe that the remaining rights of the people which are yet left untouched, will not be ended and violated, by men, who disdaining the condition of private citizens, as below them, left it, and mounted up to the elevated and exclusive dignity of hereditary title? . . . The officers can transmit to their posterity, their fortunes, their reputation, and the peerage of Cincinnati: but can they leave to them, as a legacy, that virtue which lately led them to encounter the hardships of a perilous war? Or when the present generation is off the stage, will the sons of our self-created patricians, who will not experience the adversity their fathers bore in defending their liberties; will they, finding themselves raised above their neighbors, agree to descend, and live on a footing of equality with them? Or will they not rather, relying on the rank and power of an aristocratic nobility, disdaining private men, nor standing in fear of pubic laws, engross the offices, powers and influence of the republic, which should belong to the body of the people? Or in case any ambitious leader, or a few, should threaten the liberties of the commons, or Congress on a future day, invested with a revenue, a fleet and army, attempt a point of consequence, will they not support the one or the other, as it will be most likely to support their order? . . . . To hear some thoughtless people boast of our democracy, when it does not exist, is pleasant: for our government, I have shown, is an aristocracy; and it will be in a few years as fierce and oppressive as that of Poland or Venice, if the Order of Cincinnati
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be suffered to take root and spread in it . . . . These fresh slips of nobility will spring up, overshade and prevent the growth and flourishing of our youth; and soon cover under one dark shade of vile insignificance and subserviency, the descendants of the middle and lower order of the virtuous few, and protection-men: and after perishing every fair plant throughout the state, they will shoot forth branches, wide-spreading on every side: and finally yield such bitter fruit, as will work a fatal poison to the little political happiness and health there is left us. ... CASSIUS Charleston, October 10, 1783. Source: Aedanus Burke, Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati (Hartford, CT: Basil Webster, 1783). Also see Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1620–1800 (available online from subscribing libraries).
DOCUMENT 4 “AN OLD SOLDIER: AN AFFECTING NARRATIVE“ In the early republic, the sufferings of aged veterans led Congress to approve benefits in the form of pensions for Revolutionary War veterans and their widows in 1818. This article designed for young readers from the Juvenile-Port Folio explains the feelings these sufferings excited in the public mind. ‘‘I am a poor old soldier! (said a tremulous voice, as I turned the corner of the street). Your honor cannot surely pass a poor old soldier!’’ The petition was very pressing—it was delivered somewhat in the tone of command, but there was yet something of a sweetness about it, and something so supplicating in the attitude of the man, that I stopped to look at him . . . . An old tattered military coat, and a wooden leg, always softens my heart to pity, and disposes me to acts of benevolence. This man had a claim upon me. He was about sixty years in age, in misfortune he was older; a gentle bend in his shoulder, which was produced in spite of his profession, told me it was so; and there were a few gray hairs on his forehead, still wearing a military air, that confirmed the conjecture. He held out his hat doubtingly, not imperiously; and I interpreted the language of his tongue from the motion of his hand.—As he held out his hat with one hand, he laid the other across his breast, and, with many sighs, told me such a tale of woe, as rarely falls to the lot of man. He had enlisted in the army at any early period of life, leaving behind him a wife and a brother;—had, during the course of many hard campaigns, undergone various distresses of body and mind; till, being rendered unfit for further service, he was discharged a cripple, dependent on the bounty of his country. His heart was all this while cheered with the hope of receiving a hearty welcome from his friends; but his brother was dead, and his wife, untrue to her vow, was in the arms of another.
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During the recital, he was agitated by different passion: I could see a faint but expressive glow of animation spread over his aged cheek when he recounted his battles, and his dangers; but when he came to the conclusion, he turned away, to hide a tear that glistened in spite of all his courage. I own the effect which this circumstance had upon me: and surely, it is no mean gratification, to contemplate, in these monuments of age, the changes and misfortunes of human life. I have often been pleased to see a maimed and disabled soldier, begging through our streets, when the liberal hand of charity has been opened to assist him: a smile of approbation, or something (I know not what) has flashed in my face, to see a very miser relent at his piteous tale, and with a half formed resolution, contribute his farthing. Come hither, ye who have reaped the harvest of this man’s labor, who have been rolling in ease and affluence, whilst he has been fighting your battles:—ye, who feel the blessings of peace, which this man has purchased for you—come, and see him begging for the bread which you enjoy in plenty!—Tell me if you were pained when he was wounded, if you bled when he was laid on the field of battle?—Alas! He has dearly earned the privilege to beg. Come then—it is yours, it is mine, it is the business of us all, to make the countenance of this man smile with our blessing; and chase away, if it be but for a moment, the lines of sorrow from the face of misfortune! Source: The Juvenile Port-Folio, and Literary Miscellany of October 17, 1812 (Philadelphia: Thomas Condie, 1812). Also found in Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801–1819 (available online at subscribing libraries).
DOCUMENT 5 DANIEL WEBSTER, AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT One of the most famous speeches in American history was given by Daniel Webster (1782–1852), senator from Massachusetts and secretary of state, at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1825, on its fiftieth anniversary, at the ceremony to mark the dedication of the monument. Most of the speech is a tribute to Revolutionary War veterans. This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling have made a deep impression on our hearts. If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here.
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We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground, distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth. [Webster talks of the Discovery of America and its first settlement by the English colonists as great events in history]. But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion. The Society whose organ I am was formed for the purpose of rearing some honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of American Independence. They have thought, that for this object no time could be more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful period; that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot; and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking than the anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works of men to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it. We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad than the earth itself can carry information of the events we commemorate where it has not already gone; and that no structure, which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own
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deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured benefit which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national power are still strong. We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so important that they might crowd and distinguish centuries are, in our times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it happened that history has had so much to record in the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 1775? Our own Revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected; and a general government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should have been accomplished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder that it should have been established at all. Two or three millions of people have been augmented to twelve, the great forests of the West prostrated beneath the arm of successful industry, and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the hills of New England. We have a commerce, that leaves no sea unexplored; navies, which take no law from superior force; revenues, adequate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect.
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[Webster contrasts American peace and prosperity with European wars and misery in the same era. He then addresses the veterans present at the dedication.] VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death;—all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you today with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country’s own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted you the sight of your country’s happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you! But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country’s independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like ‘‘another morn, Risen on mid-noon’’ and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But ah! Him! the first great martyr [Dr. Joseph Warren] in this great cause! Him! The premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that
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beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit! But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the survivors of the whole Revolutionary army. Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF HALF A CENTURY! when in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country’s cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feeling rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind! . . . . Source: Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, 1825). Also available online, Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817–1825, Project Gutenberg, http:// infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/7sweb10.htm, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 6 NATHANAEL HAWTHORNE, THE LIFE OF FRANKLIN PIERCE During the nineteenth century, it was customary for the supporters of candidates for the presidency of the United States to publish campaign biographies that told the public of their achievements. Biographers extolled the deeds of the many veterans who ran for public office. In 1852, the successful Democrat, former General Franklin Pierce,
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defeated his commander in chief during the Mexican War, the Whig Winfield Scott. Pierce had attended Bowdoin College in Maine with the novelist Nathanael Hawthorne. The two were close friends and Hawthorne wrote Pierce’s biography. It depicts him as a tireless leader, unlike Whig propagandists who stressed that he fainted and fell off his horse, in contrast to Scott, who in this case is taking it easy, and who also strongly praises Pierce. Hawthorne was rewarded for his loyalty by being appointed United States Consul at Liverpool in England, one of the most lucrative posts in the diplomatic service. General Santa Anna entertained the design of withdrawing his forces towards the city [Mexico City]. In order to intercept this movement, Pierce’s brigade, with other troops, was ordered to pursue a route by which the enemy could be attacked in the rear. Colonel Noah E. Smith (a patriotic American, long resident in Mexico, whose local and topographical knowledge proved eminently serviceable) had offered to point out the road, and was sent to summon General Pierce to the presence of the commander in chief. When he met Pierce, near Coyacan, at the head of his brigade, the heavy fire of the batteries had commenced. ‘‘He was exceedingly thin,’’ writes Colonel Smith, ‘‘worn down by the fatigue and pain of the day and night before, and then evidently suffering severely. Still, there was a glow in his eye, as the cannon boomed, that showed within him a spirit ready for the conflict.’’ He rode up to General Scott, who was at this time sitting on horseback beneath a tree, near the church of Coyacan, issuing orders to different individuals of his staff. Our account of this interview is chiefly taken from the narrative of Colonel Smith, corroborated by other testimony. The commander in chief had already heard of the accident that befell Pierce the day before; and as the latter approached, General Scott could not but notice the marks of pain and physical exhaustion, against which only the sturdiest constancy of will could have enabled him to bear up. ‘‘Pierce, my dear fellow,’’ said he,—and that epithet of familiar kindness and friendship, upon the battle field, was the highest of military commendation from such a man,—‘‘you are badly injured; you are not fit to be in your saddle.’’ ‘‘Yes, general, I am,’’ replied Pierce, ‘‘in a case like this.’’ ‘‘You cannot touch your foot to the stirrup,’’ said Scott. ‘‘One of them I can,’’ answered Pierce. The general looked again at Pierce’s almost disabled figure, and seemed on the point of taking his irrevocable resolution. ‘‘You are rash, General Pierce,’’ said he; ‘‘we shall lose you, and we cannot spare you. It is my duty to order you back to St. Augustine.’’ ‘‘For God’s sake, general,’’ exclaimed Pierce, ‘‘don’t say that! This is the last great battle, and I must lead my brigade!’’ The commander in chief made no further remonstrance, but gave the order for Pierce to advance with his brigade. The way lay through thick standing corn, and over marshy ground intersected with ditches, which were filled, or partially so, with water. Over some of the narrower of these Pierce leaped his horse. When the brigade had advanced about a mile, however, it found itself impeded by a ditch ten or twelve feet wide, and six or eight feet deep. It being impossible to leap it, General Pierce was lifted from his saddle, and, in some incomprehensible way, hurt as he was, contrived to wade or scramble across this obstacle, leaving his horse on the hither side. The troops were now under fire. In the
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excitement of the battle, he forgot his injury, and hurried forward, leading the brigade, a distance of two or three hundred yards. But the exhaustion of his frame, and particularly the anguish of his knee—made more intolerable by such free use of it—was greater than any strength of nerve, or any degree of mental energy, could struggle against. He fell, faint and almost insensible, within full range of the enemy’s fire. It was proposed to bear him off the field; but, as some of his soldiers approached to lift him, be became aware of their purpose, and was partially revived by his determination to resist it. ‘‘No,’’ said he, with all the strength he had left, ‘‘don’t carry me off! Let me lie here!’’ And there he lay, under the tremendous fire of Churubusco, until the enemy, in total rout, was driven from the field. Source: Nathanael Hawthorne, The Life of Franklin Pierce (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1952). Also available online, Eldritch Press, Nathanael Hawthorne, The Life of Franklin Pierce, www.eldritchpress.org/nh/lfp.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 7 EDWARD D. MANSFIELD, THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF WINFIELD SCOTT Whig presidential candidate General Winfield Scott’s supporters produced a campaign biography as well in 1852. It stressed that his public services stretched back to the War of 1812 and also that he was the architect of victory in the Mexican War. Unfortunately for Scott, his many virtues failed to overcome his reputation as pompous and authoritarian. Contemporary scholars will be astonished at the claim that the Cherokees were relocated humanely on the infamous Trail of Tears and at the omission of unpunished brutalities inflicted by troops under Scott’s command upon Mexican civilians. In reviewing this record of more than forty years’ public service, we find that Scott has been engaged in three wars, has been victorious in ten battles, has three times interfered to preserve peace, and has written several volumes on military institutes, temperance, and various topics of public interest. For this long series of memorable services he has acquired a renown limited only by the bounds of the civilized world. In his own country the National Congress, the Legislatures of States, the corporations of cities, and literary and scientific bodies have repeatedly bestowed upon him their honors and their applause. Congress voted him a medal; the State of Virginia twice voted him swords; New York voted him a sword; the Society of Cincinnati made him an honorary member; and in various forms, and on numerous occasions, have the people hastened to do honor to one whose life has been devoted to their cause. He has been nominated for the presidency repeatedly, by State and county conventions, but has never pressed himself on the consideration of political bodies. On the contrary, he has shunned all the intrigues of mere politicians, and left his character and conduct to the unbiased judgment of the people. While he thought himself, as a man and a
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citizen, entitled to hold and express his political opinions on all proper occasions, he thought his military position precluded him from entering into any active controversies of parties. His opinions have been frankly expressed on almost all topics; never concealed from any fear of consequences, nor volunteered to gain mere political support. The fame of General Scott abroad is founded on a more disinterested, and perhaps a more solid basis, than that in his own country. It is founded on a calm view and intelligent understanding of the great actions in which he has been engaged, and the particular merits of character which have contributed to his success. [Polish patriot and American Revolutionary war hero Tadeusz] Kosciusko early wrote him a complimentary letter, and the most competent judges in Europe held him in high estimation; but it is only since the Mexican war that his European reputation has been brought out in bold relief. Now it is as wide as the circles of intelligence, and durable as the records of history. In the character of Scott are mingled some elements, generally supposed to be very opposite in their qualities, and yet have been completely harmonized in him. He is ardent, and yet calculating; energetic, and yet mild; stern in discipline, yet humane; a warrior, and yet the friend of peace; authoritative, and yet obedient. In every thing we find the stern, strong, and vigorous elements of character restrained and modified by mild and amiable dispositions. It is this mixture of the natural elements which has made him so eminently successful, and taken from him all which often renders the mere soldier harsh, sanguinary, and repulsive. Ardent for distinction, emulous in the career of glory he certainly was, but without the least taste for the sufferings and cruelties of war. On the contrary, all his tastes are refined, and all his impulses generous. War under his command became an element of civilization. The campaign in Mexico is one of the finest illustrations of how far and how great have been the advances of humanity, where humanity is supposed least to exist. Let any one compare the conduct of the British armies in the American Revolution, the conduct of the French in Spain, of the Russians in Germany, or the Austrians in Hungary, with that of the American army under Scott, in the valley of Mexico. The difference is most striking. From the commencement, Scott protected, with the same care as he would have done in the United States, the persons, property, religion, houses, and business of Mexican citizens. No outrage, and no encroachment of any sort, was made on the rights of the citizens. Entering the city after the most bloody battles and the most obstinate resistance, it was according to the usages of war that a very heavy contribution should be exacted from the city; yet what he really demanded was a mere trifle. And to whom did that go? Was it divided as plunder among officers and men? Not a dollar. It was appropriated first to the comfort of the sick and wounded, and then to found an asylum for invalids! In every step of his progress, the American commander seems to have thought his office was as much that of a priest offering sacrifices on the altar of humanity, as that of a soldier winning laurels in the field. So was his energy and ardor tempered by humanity. He was ‘‘authoritative, and yet obedient.’’ This, too, is, in the measure possessed by him, an unusual mixture. It is difficult to find eminent military commanders, used to the ‘‘habit of command,’’ who have not become arbitrary; and it is difficult to find
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one who has become arbitrary, who is ready to yield a cheerful and willing obedience to others in authority. Yet has Scott manifested this quality in all cases, and under trying circumstances . . . . Indeed, through forty years of service, he never once came into collision with any of the civil authorities, or transgressed in any way the laws of his country. Of how many other military commanders can that be said? When we closed our first account of the life of General Scott, we left him in the midst of peaceful occupations. The army was on the peaceful establishment. There was little for him to do, except to read the reports of subordinates, and devise schemes for the improvement of his soldiers. It was only two years after that the war with Mexico broke out, and added a new series of events to his already remarkable career. He then wore greenly and freshly the laurels acquired at Queenstown, at Chippewa, and Niagara [in the War of 1812]. He was remembered as one who had brought peace to the Maine frontier, had quieted the border troubles with Canada [in the 1810s], had made the removal of the Cherokees seem an act of humanity [in the 1830s], who had nursed the sick in hospitals, and had now become a veteran in service. But the second conquest of Mexico comes to add other laurels to those which cluster round the brows of the hero of Niagara. If the victories of Taylor on the Rio Grande surprised and delighted this country, those from the castle of San Juan to the city of Mexico astonished the world. Europe marvels at the result, and America has scarcely waked from what seems the dream of victory and the illusions of conquest. Time is required to do justice to the actors in these events—to separate the evil from the good—the dross from the gold—the vain from the real. Then, when history assumes the office of judgment, and a calm philosophy governs the intellect, men and events will take their proper place, and a righteous spirit direct the verdict of posterity. Source: Edward D. Mansfield, The Life and Services of Winfield Scott (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1852). Also available online, American Libraries, Internet Archive, www.archive.org/details/lifeservicesofge00mans, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 8 STEPHEN FOSTER, “I’M NOTHING BUT A PLAIN OLD SOLDIER“ Songs in the early republic honored veterans and soldiers. ‘‘I’m Nothing But a Plain Old Soldier’’ was written by Stephen Foster (1826–1864) in 1863. He also wrote songs encouraging men to enlist in the Union army during the Civil War. Foster was a northerner, born in Pittsburgh and died in New York City, although his most famous songs are about the South.
I’m nothing but a plain old soldier, An old revolutionary soldier,
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Source: Benjamin Robert Tubb, creator, Public Domain Music, Songs of Stephen Collins Foster, www.pdmusic.org/foster.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 9 EDWARD EVERETT, THE “OTHER“ GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is perhaps the most famous tribute to veterans in American history. Civil War scholars remember that his short speech was overshadowed on the day Gettysburg National Cemetery was dedicated, by a two-hour-long oration by Edward Everett (1794–1865), president of Harvard College, minister to
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Britain, secretary of state, and United States congressman. Although Everett’s speech is almost unknown today, it was celebrated in its time. By placing the achievements of the United States on a part with those of the ancient Athenians, whose republic nineteenth-century Americans had studied and on which they sometimes modeled themselves, he elevated the Civil War to a great event in the history of the world, whereas Lincoln had placed it as the fulfillment of what the American Revolution had begun ‘‘four score and seven years ago.’’ STANDING beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed; grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy. It was appointed by law in Athens, that the obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle should be performed at the public expense, and in the most honorable manner. Their bones were carefully gathered up from the funeral pyre where their bodies were consumed, and brought home to the city. There, for three days before the interment, they lay in state, beneath tents of honor, to receive the votive offerings of friends and relatives, flowers, weapons, precious ornaments, painted vases (wonders of art, which after two thousand years adorn the museums of modern Europe), the last tributes of surviving affection. Ten coffins of funereal cypress received the honorable deposit, one for each of the tribes of the city, and an eleventh in memory of the unrecognized, but not therefore unhonored, dead, and of those whose remains could not be recovered. On the fourth day the mournful procession was formed: mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, led the way, and to them it was permitted by the simplicity of ancient manners to utter aloud their lamentations for the beloved and the lost; the male relatives and friends of the deceased followed; citizens and strangers closed the train. Thus marshalled, they moved to the place of interment in that famous Ceramicus, the most beautiful suburb of Athens, which had been adorned by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, with walks and fountains and columns,—whose groves were filled with altars, shrines, and temples, whose gardens were kept forever green by the streams from the neighboring hills, and shaded with the trees sacred to Minerva and coe¨val with the foundation of the city, whose circuit enclosed
‘‘the olive grove of Academe, Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird Trilled his thick-warbled note the summer long,’’
whose pathways gleamed with the monuments of the illustrious dead, the work of the most consummate masters that ever gave life to marble. There, beneath the overarching plane-trees, upon a lofty stage erected for the purpose, it was ordained that a
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funeral oration should be pronounced by some citizen of Athens, in the presence of the assembled multitude. Such were the tokens of respect required to be paid at Athens to the memory of those who had fallen in the cause of their country. For those alone who fell at Marathon a peculiar honor was reserved. As the battle fought upon that immortal field was distinguished from all others in Grecian history for its influence over the fortunes of Hellas, as it depended upon the event of that day whether Greece should live, a glory and a light to all coming time, or should expire, like the meteor of a moment; so the honors awarded to its martyr-heroes were such as were bestowed by Athens on no other occasion. They alone of all her sons were entombed upon the spot which they had forever rendered famous. Their names were inscribed upon ten pillars erected upon the monumental tumulus which covered their ashes (where, after six hundred years, they were read by the traveler Pausanias), and although the columns, beneath the hand of time and barbaric violence, have long since disappeared, the venerable mound still marks the spot where they fought and fell,
‘‘That battle-field where Persia’s victim-horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas’ sword.’’
And shall I, fellow citizens, who, after an interval of twenty-three centuries, a youthful pilgrim from the world unknown to ancient Greece, have wandered over that illustrious plain, ready to put off the shoes from off my feet, as one that stands on holy ground, who have gazed with respectful emotion on the mound which still protects the dust of those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, and rescued the land of popular liberty, of letters, and of arts, from the ruthless foe, stand unmoved over the graves of our dear brethren, who so lately, on three of those all-important days which decide a nation’s history, days on whose issue it depended whether this august republican Union, founded by some of the wisest statesmen that ever lived, cemented with the blood of some of the purest patriots that ever died, should perish or endure, rolled back the tide of an invasion, not less unprovoked, not less ruthless, than that which came to plant the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery on the free soil of Greece? Heaven forbid! And could I prove so insensible to every prompting of patriotic duty and affection, not only would you, fellow citizens, gathered many of you from distant States, who have come to take part in these pious offices of gratitude, you, respected fathers, brethren, matrons, sisters, who surround me, cry out for shame, but the forms of brave and patriotic men who fill these honored graves would heave with indignation beneath the sod. We have assembled, friends, fellow citizens, at the invitation of the Executive of the great central State of Pennsylvania, seconded by the Governors of seventeen other loyal States of the Union, to pay the last tribute of respect to the brave men who, in the hard-fought battles of the first, second, and third days of July last, laid down their lives for the country on these hillsides and the plains before us, and whose remains have been gathered into the cemetery which we consecrate this day. As my eye ranges
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over the fields whose sods were so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was said of old that it is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country. I feel, as never before, how justly, from the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the homage of their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who nobly sacrifice their lives, that their fellow men may live in safety and in honor. And if this tribute were ever due, to whom could it be more justly paid than to those whose last resting-place we this day commend to the blessing of Heaven and of men? For consider, my friends, what would have been the consequences to the country, to yourselves, and to all you hold dear, if those who sleep beneath our feet, and their gallant comrades who survive to serve their country on other fields of danger, had failed in their duty on those memorable days. Consider what, at this moment, would be the condition of the United States, if that noble Army of the Potomac, instead of gallantly and for the second time beating back the tide of invasion from Maryland and Pennsylvania, had been itself driven from these well-contested heights, thrown back in confusion on Baltimore, or trampled down, discomfited, scattered to the four winds. What, in that sad event, would not have been the fate of the Monumental City, of Harrisburg, of Philadelphia, of Washington, the Capital of the Union, each and every one of which would have lain at the mercy of the enemy, accordingly as it might have pleased him, spurred by passion, flushed with victory, and confident of continued success, to direct his course? For this we must bear in mind, it is one of the great lessons of the war, indeed of every war, that it is impossible for a people without military organization, inhabiting the cities, towns, and villages of an open country, including of course the natural proportion of non-combatants of either sex and of every age, to withstand the inroad of a veteran army. What defense can be made by the inhabitants of villages mostly built of wood, of cities unprotected by walls, nay, by a population of men, however high-toned and resolute, whose aged parents demand their care, whose wives and children are clustering about them, against the charge of the war-horse whose neck is clothed with thunder—against flying artillery and batteries of rifled cannon planted on every commanding eminence—against the onset of trained veterans led by skilful chiefs? No, my friends, army must be met by army, battery by battery, squadron by squadron; and the shock of organized thousands must be encountered by the firm breasts and valiant arms of other thousands, as well organized and as skillfully led. It is no reproach, therefore, to the unarmed population of the country to say, that we owe it to the brave men who sleep in their beds of honor before us, and to their gallant surviving associates, not merely that your fertile fields, my friends of Pennsylvania and Maryland, were redeemed from the presence of the invader, but that your beautiful capitals were not given up to threatened plunder, perhaps laid in ashes, Washington seized by the enemy, and a blow struck at the heart of the nation. Who that hears me has forgotten the thrill of joy that ran through the country on the Fourth of July,—auspicious day for the glorious tidings, and rendered still more so by the simultaneous fall of Vicksburg,—when the telegraph flashed through the land the assurance from the President of the United States that the Army of the Potomac, under General Meade, had again smitten the invader? Sure I am, that, with the ascriptions of
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praise that rose to Heaven from twenty millions of freemen, with the acknowledgments that breathed from patriotic lips throughout the length and breadth of America, to the surviving officers and men who had rendered the country this inestimable service, there beat in every loyal bosom a throb of tender and sorrowful gratitude to the martyrs who had fallen on the sternly contested field. Let a nation’s fervent thanks make some amends for the toils and sufferings of those who survive. Would that the heartfelt tribute could penetrate these honored graves! I call the war which the Confederates are waging against the Union a ‘‘rebellion,’’ because it is one, and in grave matters it is best to call things by their right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the Constitution of the United States so regards it, and puts ‘‘rebellion’’ on a par with ‘‘invasion.’’ The constitution and law, not only of England, but of every civilized country, regard them in the same light; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as far worse than the alien enemy. To levy war against the United States is the constitutional definition of treason, and that crime is by every civilized government regarded as the highest which citizen or subject can commit. Not content with the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes against the law of the land it is singled out for the denunciations of religion. The litanies in every church in Christendom whose ritual embraces that office, as far as I am aware, from the metropolitan cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary chapel in the islands of the sea, concur with the Church of England in imploring the Sovereign of the universe, by the most awful adjurations which the heart of man can conceive or his tongue utter, to deliver us from ‘‘sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion.’’ And reason good; for while a rebellion against tyranny—a rebellion designed, after prostrating arbitrary power, to establish free government on the basis of justice and truth—is an enterprise on which good men and angels may fool; with complacency, an unprovoked rebellion of ambitious men against a beneficent government, for the purpose—the avowed purpose—of establishing, extending, and perpetuating any form of injustice and wrong, is an imitation on earth of that first foul revolt of ‘‘the Infernal Serpent,’’ against which the Supreme Majesty of heaven sent forth the armed myriads of his angels, and clothed the right arm of his Son with the three-bolted thunders of omnipotence. [Then follows a long discussion of the origins of the Civil War and the events of the Battle of Gettysburg.] . . . . The people of loyal America will never ask you, sir, to take to your confidence or admit again to a share in the government the hard-hearted men whose cruel lust of power has brought this desolating war upon the land, but there is no personal bitterness felt even against them. They may live, if they can bear to live after wantonly causing the death of so many thousands of their fellow men; they may live in safe obscurity beneath the shelter of the government they have sought to overthrow, or they may fly to the protection of the governments of Europe—some of them are already there, seeking, happily in vain, to obtain the aid of foreign powers in furtherance of their own treason. There let them stay. The humblest dead soldier, that lies cold and stiff in his grave before us, is an object of envy beneath the clods that cover him, in comparison with the living man, I care not with what trumpery credentials he may be furnished,
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who is willing to grovel at the foot of a foreign throne for assistance in compassing the ruin of his country . . . . [Then follows a long section on the serious consequences of civil wars for other nations in history.] But the hour is coming and now is, when the power of the leaders of the Rebellion to delude and inflame must cease. There is no bitterness on the part of the masses. The people of the South are not going to wage an eternal war for the wretched pretexts by which this rebellion is sought to be justified. The bonds that unite us as one People—a substantial community of origin, language, belief, and law (the four great ties that hold the societies of men together); common national and political interests; a common history; a common pride in a glorious ancestry; a common interest in this great heritage of blessings; the very geographical features of the country; the mighty rivers that cross the lines of climate, and thus facilitate the interchange of natural and industrial products, while the wonder-working arm of the engineer has leveled the mountain-walls which separate the East and West, compelling your own Alleghenies, my Maryland and Pennsylvania friends, to open wide their everlasting doors to the chariot-wheels of traffic and travel—these bonds of union are of perennial force and energy, while the causes of alienation are imaginary, factitious, and transient. The heart of the People, North and South, is for the Union. Indications, too plain to be mistaken, announce the fact, both in the East and the West of the States in rebellion. In North Carolina and Arkansas the fatal charm at length is broken. At Raleigh and Little Rock the dips of honest and brave men are unsealed, and an independent press is unlimbering its artillery. When its rifled cannon shall begin to roar, the hosts of treasonable sophistry—the mad delusions of the day—will fly like the Rebel army through the passes of yonder mountain. The weary masses of the people are yearning to see the dear old flag again floating upon their capitols, and they sigh for the return of the peace, prosperity, and happiness which they enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its blessings. And now, friends, fellow citizens of Gettysburg and Pennsylvania, and you from remoter States, let me again, as we part, invoke your benediction on these honored graves. You feel, though the occasion is mournful, that it is good to be here. You feel that it was greatly auspicious for the cause of the country, that the men of the East and the men of the West, the men of nineteen sister States, stood side by side, on the perilous ridges of the battle. You now feel it a new bond of union, that they shall lie side by side, till a clarion, louder than that which marshaled them to the combat, shall awake their slumbers. God bless the Union;—it is dearer to us for the blood of brave men which has been shed in its defense. The spots on which they stood and fell; these pleasant heights; the fertile plain beneath them; the thriving village whose streets so lately rang with the strange din of war; the fields beyond the ridge, where the noble Reynolds held the advancing foe at bay, and, while he gave up his own life, assured by his forethought and self-sacrifice the triumph of the two succeeding days; the little streams which wind through the hills, on whose banks in after-times the wondering ploughman will turn up, with the rude weapons of savage warfare, the fearful missiles
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of modern artillery; Seminary Ridge, the Peach-Orchard, Cemetery, Culp, and Wolf Hill, Round Top, Little Round Top, humble names, henceforward dear and famous, —no lapse of time, no distance of space, shall cause you to be forgotten. ‘‘The whole earth,’’ said Pericles, as he stood over the remains of his fellow citizens, who had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian War—‘‘the whole earth is the sepulcher of illustrious men.’’ All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their glory. Surely I would do no injustice to the other noble achievements of the war, which have reflected such honor on both arms of the service, and have entitled the armies and the navy of the United States, their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the richest rewards which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter page than that which relates THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. Source: Edward Everett, An Oration Delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg: (November 19, 1863,) At the Consecration of the Cemetery (Boston: Little, Brown, 1864). Also available online, Google Books, http://books.google.com/books? id=M9uVW7THSjQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=edward+everett+gettysburg+address&client, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 10 HERMAN MELVILLE, CIVIL WAR POETRY: “ON THE SLAIN COLLEGIANS“ AND “A MEDITATION“ The Civil War moved some of America’s finest writers to praise the men who fought, and died, in its battles. Herman Meville’s (1819–1891) works include several poems honoring veterans. ‘‘On the Slain Collegians’’ calls attention to the large number of educated men who left school and enlisted in the armies—every student at the Universities of Virginia and South Carolina joined the Confederate forces. ‘‘A Meditation’’ points to the eventual reconciliation between the North and the South by noting the sacrifices and noble effort common to both sides.
On the Slain Collegians
Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws. If woman incite, and duty show
Primary Documents (Though made the mask of Cain), Or whether it be Truth’s sacred cause, Who can aloof remain That shares youth’s ardor, uncooled by the snow Of wisdom or sordid gain? The liberal arts and nurture sweet Which give his gentleness to man— Train him to honor, lend him grace Through bright examples meet— That culture which makes never wan With underminings deep, but holds The surface still, its fitting place, And so gives sunniness to the face And bravery to the heart; what troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred— Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed. Woe for the homes of the North, And woe for the seats of the South; All who felt life’s spring in prime, And were swept by the wind of their place and time— All lavish hearts, on whichever side, Of birth urbane or courage high, Armed them for the stirring wars— Armed them—some to die. Apollo-like in pride, Each would slay his Python—caught The maxims in his temple taught— Aflame with sympathies whose blaze Perforce enwrapped him—social laws, Friendship and kin, and by-gone days— Vows, kisses—every heart unmoors, And launches into the seas of wars. What could they else—North or South? Each went forth with blessings given By priests and mothers in the name of Heaven; And honor in both was chief. Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong? So be it; but they both were young— Each grape to his cluster clung, All their elegies are sung. The anguish of maternal hearts Must search for balm divine;
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A Meditation: Attributed to a northerner after attending the last of two funerals from the same homestead—those of a national and a confederate officer (brothers), his kinsmen, who had died from the effects of wounds received in the closing battles.
How often in the years that close, When truce had stilled the sieging gun, The soldiers, mounting on their works, With mutual curious glance have run From face to face along the fronting show, And kinsman spied, or friend—even in a foe. What thoughts conflicting then were shared. While sacred tenderness perforce Welled from the heart and wet the eye; And something of a strange remorse Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood, And Christian wars of natural brotherhood. Then stirred the god within the breast— The witness that is man’s at birth; A deep misgiving undermined Each plea and subterfuge of earth; The felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife, Horror and anguish for the civil strife. Of North or South they reck[on]ed not then, Warm passion cursed the cause of war: Can Africa pay back this blood Spilt on Potomac’s shore? Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay, And hands that fain had clasped again could slay.
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How frequent in the camp was seen The herald from the hostile one, A guest and frank companion there When the proud formal talk was done; The pipe of peace was smoked even ’mid the war, And fields in Mexico again fought o’er. In Western battle long they lay So near opposed in trench or pit, That foeman unto foeman called As men who screened in tavern sit: ‘‘You bravely fight’’ each to the other said— ‘‘Toss us a biscuit!’’ o’er the wall it sped. And pale on those same slopes, a boy— A stormer, bled in noon-day glare; No aid the Blue-coats then could bring, He cried to them who nearest were, And out there came ’mid howling shot and shell A daring foe who him befriended well. Mark the great Captains on both sides, The soldiers with the broad renown— They all were messmates on the Hudson’s marge, Beneath one roof they laid them down; And free from hate in many an after pass, Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class. A darker side there is; but doubt In Nature’s charity hovers there: If men for new agreement yearn, Then old upbraiding best forbear: ‘‘The South’s the sinner!’’ Well, so let it be; But shall the North sin worse, and stand the Pharisee? O, now that brave men yield the sword, Mine be the manful soldier-view; By how much more they boldly warred, By so much more is mercy due: When Vicksburg fell, and the moody files marched out, Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a shout.
Source: Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1866). Also available online, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org /files/12384/12384-8.txt, accessed February 17, 2009.
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DOCUMENT 11 WALT WHITMAN, CIVIL WAR POETRY: “DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS“ AND “LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS“ Walt Whitman (1819–1892) also wrote numerous poems dedicated to the veterans of the Civil War. ‘‘Dirge for Two Veterans’’ and ‘‘Lo, Victress on the Peaks’’ convey the mournful tone of these works, so different than Whitman’s typically exuberant poems. Dirge for Two Veterans
The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath, On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking, Down a new-made double grave. Lo, the moon ascending, Up from the east the silvery round moon, Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon, Immense and silent moon. I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles, All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding, As with voices and with tears. I hear the great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through. For the son is brought with the father, (In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell, Two veterans son and father dropt together, And the double grave awaits them.) Now nearer blow the bugles, And the drums strike more convulsive, And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded, And the strong dead-march enwraps me. In the eastern sky up-buoying, The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d, (’Tis some mother’s large transparent face, In heaven brighter growing.)
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O strong dead-march you please me! O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me! O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! What I have I also give you. The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.
Lo, Victress on the Peaks
Lo, Victress on the peaks, Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world, (The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all, Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, Flauntest now unharm’d in immortal soundness and bloom—lo, in these hours supreme, No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery’s rapturous verse, But a cluster containing night’s darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead.
Source: Walt Whitman, Drum-Taps (New York: by the author, 1865). Also available online, The Walt Whitman Archive, www.whitmanarchive.org, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 12 CONFEDERATE WIDOWS AND MEMORIALS: WAR DAYS IN FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA In the years after the Civil War, women throughout the South decorated graves and built memorials to their fallen husbands, brothers, and fathers. The story of how this was done in one community appears in War Days in Fayetteville, North Carolina: Reminiscences of 1861 to 1865 written and published by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, J. E. B. Stuart Chapter of that city in 1910. The Monument at Cross Creek, 1868. The Noble Efforts Which Secured Its Erection. Shortly after the close of the War, in the Fall of 1865, the ladies of Fayetteville, being anxious to honor the remains of the soldiers who were killed in battle and who
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died in or near the town, and were buried in various localities, succeeded in having them all interred in the old cemetery—historic Cross Creek. After this was accomplished, they desired to erect a monument to their memory and to that of our brave soldiers in general. They had literally no money, so many plans were discussed as to ways and means of raising the necessary funds, and finally it was decided to act on the suggestion of Miss Maria Spear, to make a Silk Quilt, which could be ‘‘raffled.’’ The first meeting for this object was held at Mrs. Jesse Kyle’s; after that, on every Friday afternoon the ladies and school girls met with Miss Spear at the residence of Mr. Charles Beatty Mallett, Miss Spear being a member of his household, the beloved and revered teacher of his children, and who, though an English woman, had given her whole heart to the Confederate Cause. The bits of silk of every hue and of every style were contributed by the ladies, and were skillfully and artistically blended by ‘‘Miss Maria’’—as she was endearingly known—who designed and drew the pattern for embroidery on every square, no two being alike. There were 3,000 squares, besides the handsome center piece and border. When the quilt was completed it was an elegant piece of work and deemed worthy to offer to our loved President. Besides many letters and solicitations for taking ‘‘shares,’’ the quilt was exhibited in Wilmington in the store of Colonel J. H. Anderson, and Miss Maggie Mallett and Miss Maggie Anderson were appointed a committee to take charge of it, and they were aided and encouraged in getting contributions by Mrs. Armand J. DeRossett and other Wilmington ladies. The shares were $1.00 each, and finally the Quilt was raffled, the sum of $300.00 being realized; quite an amount in that time of devastation and ruin. The Monument was made and erected by Mr. George Lauder, of Fayetteville, N. C. By some untoward oversight in the selection of inscriptions, no date was carved on it, but I have found through the kindness of his niece, Mrs. James Smith, in Mr. Lauder’s ledger this entry: ‘‘December 30, 1868, To one Marble Monument to Confederate Dead, also 33 foot stones—these being the stones to the graves around the Monument.’’ The Quilt was won by Mr. Lewis, of Tarboro, N. C., who afterward presented it to our beloved ex-President, Mr. Jefferson Davis, which action was most gratifying to the makers of the Quilt. When Mr. Davis learned the history of the Quilt he wrote a note of thanks and appreciation to the ladies. Some years after the death of Mr. Davis, his wife presented the Quilt to the Virginia Room of the Confederate Museum at Richmond. Some of the makers of the Quilt, on discovering this, made petition, and through the interest and efforts of Mrs. J. Allison Hodges, of Richmond, the Virginia Room allowed the Quilt to be transferred to the North Carolina Room, and since the death of Mrs. Kyle, her daughter, Mrs. H. McD. Robinson, kindly gave to Mrs. E. J. Hale the note from Mr. Davis, that it might be preserved with the Quilt in the Museum. Both may be seen there today.
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During the time of the making of the Quilt, a few ladies, the first being Miss Maria Spear, Mrs. Jesse Kyle, Miss Maggie Mallett, Miss Maggie Anderson, Miss Carrie Mallett, Miss Alice Campbell, Miss Kate McLaurin, Miss Mary Campbell, and Miss Alice Poe, would gather quietly in the early morning and decorate the graves of the soldiers, one of the ladies reading a prayer. This was the beginning of the Memorial Association, which has never failed in all the years since 1865, to perpetuate this dear and sacred custom. This Monument in Cross Creek Cemetery was the first one erected in North Carolina, and one of the very first in the South, the second or third, I think. Answer to the Conquered Banner. By Miss Sarah A. Tillinghast.
‘‘Touch it not, unfold it never Let it droop there, furled forever, For its peoples’ hopes are dead.’’ The Conquered Banner. NO, fold it not away forever. Keep it in our hearts’ depth ever, Love it, keep it for its past; Take it out some time and wave it, Think of those who died to save it, Glory in the blood we gave it, Bind it with our heart-strings fast. Take it out sometime and show it, Let your children early know it, Know its glory—not its shame. Teach them early to adore it, Scorn forever those who tore it, Tell them how it won a name, That will mock Time’s crumbling finger And in future ages linger On the brighest rolls of fame. Yes, ’tis true, ’tis worn and tattered And with brave heart blood ’tis spattered And its staff is broke and shattered, But it is a precious sight. ’Tis a witness how secession Threw the glove down to oppression Scorning at the last, concession, Giving life blood for the right. Oh, we cannot, cannot lose it, (Oh how could the world refuse it?) Can we let the foe abuse it Or its history bright? No, in our hearts deep, deep recesses Its memory lingers yet, and blesses Those who for it fought and died.
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Source: War Days in Fayetteville, North Carolina: Reminiscences of 1861 to 1865. United Daughters of the Confederacy, J. B. E. Stuart Chapter, 1910. Also available online, The Online Books page of the University of Pennsylvania, http://online books.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=&amode=words&title=fayetteville&tmode=words, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 13 JOHN A. WYETH, WITH SABRE AND SCALPEL: A CONFEDERATE VETERAN DEFENDS THE KU KLUX KLAN In the years after the Civil War, Confederate veterans were the principal members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white men’s protective organizations that sought to prevent blacks and the northerners who came to assist them (the Southerners branded them ‘‘carpetbaggers’’ who came to exploit them) from exercising political power. They openly admitted forming these organizations, which films such as Birth of a Nation (1914) and Gone with the Wind (1939) praised. One unfortunate justification appears in the memoirs of John A. Wyeth (1845–1922), With Sabre and Scalpel; the Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon.
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A distressing feature of the situation in our section was that the returning soldiers reached home too late to plant a crop; and, as the fields were uncultivated in 1864, the country was destitute of the simplest necessities of life. My father had built a small room or shed, taking advantage of the fireplace and chimney of his former office, and began to reestablish his law practice, coming to town three days of each week. As the courts had not been reopened, he had little or no law business, but he had many calls for help to which he was sorrowfully unable to respond. In the adjoining counties of Blount and De Kalb the same distressing conditions prevailed, and finally he was told that one or two persons had died of starvation. Within six hours he was on the way north to procure supplies. At Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and elsewhere he told of the distress and suffering of our section, and the generous people of those cities came nobly to the rescue. Train-loads of commissary supplies and clothing were forwarded by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad without charge for transportation. He established relief stations in each of the three counties of Marshall, Blount, and De Kalb, and there was no more starvation. The crops of 1866 came to the rescue, and the days of hunger and extreme poverty in the Valley of the Tennessee were of the past. Meanwhile, I had found employment as superintendent of a large cotton plantation in Franklin County, where at a salary of fifty dollars a month I remained for eighteen months, living happily as a member of a refined family and the trusted agent of a generous and appreciative employer. I had hoped the active, out-of-door life of a planter might enable me to rally from the effects of the long illness in prison; but a cough, which followed the complication of pneumonia with measles, still held on. Reluctantly I resigned my position and sought a healthier environment in my father’s new home on the dry, elevated plateau of Sand Mountain, a spur of the Appalachian Range. With a splendid saddle-horse and a waterproof outfit that defied the most inclement weather I lived out of doors for a year in the rare atmosphere of this salubrious region, buying and selling cattle and produce. In 1867 I began the study of medicine, matriculating in the Medical Department of the University of Louisville for the session ending March, 1868, and for the same period the following session, graduating in 1869. In the four years which had elapsed since the soldiers of the Confederacy had returned to their homes, laboring for the support of their families and the rehabilitation of their country, there was being attempted by the leaders of the radical wing of the Republican party then in power the perpetration of the most monstrous political crime in the records of history. The infamy which is associated with the partition of Poland sinks into insignificance when compared to that which justly attaches to the effort to hold in subjection to an alien negro race, but a few months before in bondage, the white people of the South, the former owners of these freedmen. Keeping alive the bitterness which a long and bloody civil war had engendered, under the adroit leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, Ben Wade, and James G. Blaine, this immortal triumvirate of ‘‘Wavers of the Bloody Shirt’’ so played upon the fears and prejudices of the electorate of the North as to maintain themselves in power for years and to secure in the national Congress legislation favorable to their schemes. To the freed slaves the franchise was given without restrictions. The only qualification was color and a certificate of slavery. The best white people of the South were
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not allowed to vote. My father was disfranchised, while Peyton, one of our former slaves, who still lived with us, performing the same service he had done before he was freed, announced himself as a candidate for the legislature! A company of negro troops garrisoned my native town where my parents and sisters were living, and another was stationed in Tuscumbia, the county-seat of Franklin, where I was working. Backed by these soldiers—for the Southern states were partitioned off in military districts—elections were held, and the state and county governments were handed over to a horde of adventurers, the ‘‘carpet-baggers,’’ who, hailing from all quarters of the earth where many of them had neither local habitation nor name, swarmed into the country; to the ‘‘scalawags,’’ the unrecognized and unprincipled ‘‘down and out’’ white natives; and last, but not least, to the negroes, their easily handled tools, stunned almost to irresponsibility by the suddenness of their advancement and pitifully drunk with power. Small wonder that for a while this combination ran riot with the South. The situation was fitly described by the negro who said, ‘‘De bottom rail’s on top now.’’ It is gratifying to record that among the number who had seen actual service in the Union army, and who in the spirit of adventure came into the South at this period, seeking political preferment, were a few who soon realized the injustice and impracticability of ‘‘Reconstruction’’ as formulated by the heartless conspiracy at Washington. Abandoning the politics which favored negro supremacy, they identified themselves with the material development of the South. Captain Elliott, who came to my native village in command of the negro garrison, made his home there and died after many years, loved and respected by all. Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. Warmoth, of General McClernand’s staff, who became Governor of Louisiana, is now one of the largest planters in that state and closely identified with its development. At first the ex-Confederates were submissive and silent. They looked on at the strange happenings with sadness and amazement, and later with indignation, as they realized that the safety of their wives and children was endangered. The awakening came when the carpet-baggers and scalawags undertook to effect the military organization of the freedmen in the various counties and states. It was then that there sprang into existence, almost in a single night, throughout the southern country that weird invisible army whose weapon was Terror. The Ku-Klux Klan in its origin was composed of the best citizens of the South, principally young men, many of whom had grown up while the war was going on, but led by the veteran soldiers of the Confederacy. The history of my own county will suffice to illustrate the method of the Klan. The negroes were meeting at night in the suburbs of Guntersville, where they were harangued and drilled by a carpet-bagger who had had himself elected to some profitable office. Within a fortnight an ex-lieutenant of my company and an ex-captain of the Army of Northern Virginia, without reproach both as soldiers and citizens, disguised with masks and gowns, late at night, at the muzzle of a pistol arrested this man, conducted him into the woods a mile from the village, stripped him to the waist, and thrashed him with hickory switches until he begged for mercy. They then told him that if he was in the county at sunset of the next day he would never get beyond its limits alive. They didn’t have to kill him, but they would have done it had he not left, never to be heard of again. The leading negroes were called to the doors of their cabins at dead of night by mounted and masked men who in sepulchral tones told them that the ghosts of the dead from the
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battle-fields were wandering back to warn them to beware of strangers and stay at home on election days. In extreme cases, in which danger of recognition involved arrest and punishment (for Congress was quick to enact rigid laws against the Klan), notice was sent to the Klan of an adjoining county, and these rode over at night to carry out the wishes of their brothers, who could establish thus readily the essential alibi. Terrifying the negro until he withdrew from politics was not the work of a month or of a year, but it went on with grim determination and ultimate success. With the progress of the movement the white interlopers read the writing on the wall, fled the country, and the native whites of the South came again into their own. This organization originated in 1866 in or near Pulaski, in Giles County, Tennessee. Thence it spread, swift as a prairie-fire, over the entire South. The head man, whose power was absolute and whose orders had to be obeyed without regard to consequences, was known as the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire. Immediately under him were his ten Genii. There was a Grand Dragon of the Realm and his eight Hydras, and other mysterious subdivisions of authority. They had printed and scattered over the country at night placards setting forth the object of the Klan: ‘‘To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; to aid the oppressed, to relieve suffering, and especially to help the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.’’ A writer in the American Encyclopedia said: ‘‘Its decrees were far more potent and its power more dreaded than that of the visible commonwealth, which it either dominated or terrorized.’’ It is estimated that its membership numbered at one period half a million. By 1869 its mission of scaring the negro away from the influence of and political association with the adventurers and carpet-baggers was accomplished, and it was then disbanded and dispersed as quietly and as mysteriously as it had come. Source: John A. Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel; the Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon (New York; London: Harper & Brothers, 1914). Also available online, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina, http://docsouth.unc.edu /fpn/wyeth/menu.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 14 DABNEY HERNDON MAURY, RECOLLECTIONS OF A VIRGINIAN . . . : CONFEDERATE VETERANS CREATE THE SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND HONOR THEIR “LOST CAUSE“ Confederate Officer Dabney Herndon Maury (1822–1900), in his Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars, explains the situation in the Confederacy immediately after the war. Confederate veterans were treated kindly by the Northerners who expedited their return home. Later, Maury was instrumental in
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founding the Southern Historical Society, which held meetings, gave speeches, and published records emphasizing the nobility of the South’s cause. . . . . The final day of our service for the Confederacy was one of the deepest gloom to us. The little army of Mobile had held steadfastly together with the dignity of men who had risked all from a high motive, and we stood by each other to the last. My own deep sadness was cheered by the sympathy of the noble men who had been my comrades. Gibson’s Louisiana brigade had been especially active and enduring in the defense of Spanish Fort; Ector’s Texans, the Alabamians, and North Carolinians, and Massenbury’s Georgians made up that steadfast little garrison. They were all around me now, and the Louisiana band, the only one left in the army, came to my encampment that evening and gave me their farewell serenade. The officers of the Louisiana regiments which had served with me longest came to my tent in a body and bade me an affectionate good bye. The Federal major who relieved my quartermaster of his public property declined to receive my headquarters ambulance and team, and graciously urged that I should keep it for myself. This I declined to do: but when I found that it would be of great value to my destitute staff-officers, I approved of their accepting it, and Flowerree, Dick Holland, and John Mason drove off in it to seek their fortunes. On the evening of May 14th, our surrender was complete. A train loaded with paroled prisoners of war from Lee’s army was going up the road that evening as far as West Point, and a crate car was added to it for me and my horse, all the property I then possessed. The conductor told me it would not go further that night than West Point, and that I would find hospitable entertainment for the night in the house of a leading gentleman of the town—Squire Collins. So just at sunset, when our destination was reached, I left Roy with the orderly who had faithfully remained with me thus far to take care of the horse and to help me, and set out to seek some shelter for the night. I readily found the house, quite a handsome one, and on the veranda were several young gentlemen and a very handsome young lady in full conversation as I approached the gate. I was ashamed to ask for shelter, and had passed on, going some eight or ten paces further, when I heard the gate latch rattle and a familiar voice call out, ‘‘General!’’ and I wheeled around to meet a fine-looking young fellow, Captain Collins of Armistead’s brigade. With hands extended, and hearty words of comfort and welcome, he claimed me as their guest for the night, introduced me to his very handsome sister (now Mrs. Dr. Curry of New York City), and made me at home at once; and never was generous hospitality more welcome. There was a sumptuous supper with all the belongings of a well-appointed table, an elegant bedroom, and a breakfast appropriate to such an establishment, and, above all, the sympathetic care of those charming people. It was the one green spot in all of that desolate time. With many warm feelings we parted next morning, and I got again into my crate with Roy, and in an hour had reached Okolona, where I found one of our servants awaiting to conduct me to Mr. Clarke’s residence, that kind friend having already sent for my family to stay with him until arrangements might be made for our future. As I mounted Roy, I raised my hat to the Confederates of Lee’s army who filled the train, and they silently returned my farewell, showing deep sympathy and respect as I turned
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away. Our stay with Mr. Clarke lasted about two weeks. He was goodness itself. He sold Roy for $200 in greenbacks, the first I had ever seen. Roy was a noble chestnut sorrel of great power; he had cost $700 in gold, and was a present to me from an old friend, General Cabell. Mr. Clarke said: ‘‘Now, General Maury, I have no money at all, but there’s near a thousand bales of cotton in my gin-house, and you just say how many you will accept to take you home and keep you till you find something to do; for you ain’t going to be kept down long, and I will give you a certificate to my Mobile correspondent that you have that many bales in my hands and he will give you the money on it.’’ Of course our objective point was our home in Virginia. My father-in-law’s home had escaped the general ruin and desolation, thanks to Burnside’s kind heart, and all of his children and grandchildren were soon together there. My parole carried us meanwhile to New Orleans, where my good friend, Major Charles L. C. Dupuy, of my staff, met us, and also my kinsman, Mr. Rutson Maury, at whose house we were entertained. He had received instructions from his uncle, Mr. Rutson Maury, of New York, to supply us with everything we might require. Commodore Maury, who was in London, had already sent me a generous check, when a noble-hearted Southern woman came to me and put into my hand ten gold eagles, but I would not take her little store, being already amply provided for by so many kind friends. Ten old friends and comrades offered me money. Some of these were personal strangers to me, but remembered some little kindness shown them in the days of my power. General Dick Taylor was one of these, and with him came Mr. Payne, the close friend of Mr. Davis. Mr. Richard Owen, of Mobile, insisted that my wife should share a little store of gold he had saved for an emergency . . . [other veterans] of Aberdeen, who were much attached to her, contributed each a bale of cotton apiece, nine bales in all, worth then eighty cents a pound, and sent it to their commission-merchant to be sold for us; but we had already sailed, well supplied, and it was not until five or six years afterwards that I heard of this generous act. Thank God, I can never arraign mankind for want of generosity, and it is with pride and gratitude that I record the hospitality and kindness which met me and mine on every hand throughout the war and at its close. It was not my personality which called it forth, but it was the spontaneous outcome of the spirit which pervaded the whole South in all that sorrowful time, and which distinguishes it even unto this day. Not even the cruel vicissitudes of that bitter conflict could chill the sympathetic hearts and close the beneficent hands of our dear Southern people. Brave men and tender women are these who in the past have nobly borne their part, and whose names will be written with the saints, for of them it may be truly said ‘‘that they loved their fellow men.’’ I learned that the steamship Constitution would sail from New Orleans in a few days, and the quartermaster ordered transportation for us as far as New York upon her. There were a number of Federal officers who were passengers on her as well, and Captain Mehaffy, of the First United States Infantry, was the commander of the guard and of all on board. He showed marked consideration and courtesy to all of us who were his prisoners; insisted that I and my family should have first choice of seats at the table and also of the staterooms, and when he overheard a Federal chaplain on board talking unpleasantly about the war to one of my staff-officers, he cautioned
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him that if he again transgressed propriety in that way he would lock him up in his stateroom. The old captain of the ship imbibed Mehaffy’s generous spirit and, finding that we were all Virginians, he took the responsibility of changing the ship’s destination to Old Point Comfort, and landed us there instead of at New York. On parting, I formally thanked him and Captain Mehaffy for their considerate kindness in behalf of myself and my officers. Several times afterwards I met the latter gentleman and introduced him to friends in New Orleans, who were desirous of showing him courtesies. Mehaffy told me he had lived in Norfolk before the war, where his father owned a large foundry, and where he had learned to like Virginians. On arriving at Richmond, I called to pay my respects to General Lee, then living in the house in Franklin Street, in which we afterwards established the Westmoreland Club. Captain William Lewis Maury, commander of the Confederate cruiser Georgia, went with me. I gave the general a written statement of my defense of Mobile, he having written to me with regard to it, and I felt it was proper to make my last report to him. At the same time I told him that a few days before leaving New Orleans, whither thousands of young Confederate soldiers had flocked, seeking employment, a Federal major on a street-car had said to me: ‘‘I understand that these young men won’t take the oath of allegiance to the United States. They can’t find employment very easily until they do, and may get into trouble. I think their generals should set them an example and encourage them at once to take the oath and go to work.’’ He had no idea that he was talking to a Confederate, for I had laid away all evidence of my recent rank and calling. When the major left the car, I continued in it until I reached General Beauregard, to whom, as also to General Taylor, I repeated the remark. They both earnestly agreed with his view, and told me they would at once set an example to their people. When I had finished, General Lee said: ‘‘I am very glad you did that. It is what we must all do, and what I have already done.’’ I said, ‘‘I will follow your example.’’ . . . . In New Orleans, in 1868, I determined to set on foot a plan for the systematic collection and preservation of the Southern archives relating to the war. General Dick Taylor cordially encouraged me, and in May of that year I called a meeting by quiet personal requests of nine or ten gentlemen in the office of Hewitt and Norton. After conversational discussion, it was agreed to meet at the same place in one week from that date. Meantime, each of us agreed to canvass among his friends and bring them in to help. Next week forty of us assembled, and the noble and able Presbyterian divine, Dr. B. M. Palmer, was elected president, and our work went on for several years, though without important result. In 1873, a convention was called at White Sulphur Springs. It was attended by many able Southern gentlemen, who evinced the most earnest interest in our work. President Davis, Admiral Semmes, Governor Letcher, and General Beauregard took leading parts. The domicile of the society was moved to Richmond. Colonel Wythe Mumford was appointed secretary and I chairman of the Executive Committee. We occupied an office in the capitol of Virginia, made acknowledgments in the newspapers for documents received, and arrangements for their publication. The Executive Committee included the Honorable R. M. T. Hunter and several other gentlemen of high character and ability, and so soon as we began to publish our records, our membership rapidly increased; so that the Secretary of War at length
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sought to procure access to and the use of our archives. We replied, ‘‘Open yours to us, and ours will be open to you.’’ This ended the negotiations. The next Secretary asked access to our papers with the same result. Then Mr. Hayes obtained the Presidency, and announced a conciliatory policy towards the South. He appointed General Marcus Wright, who had already collected by his own exertions many of our war papers, to the charge of that business, and sent him to me to accomplish a free interchange of documents between the War Records Office and the Southern Historical Society. To this I cordially assented, and opened our office with all of its great collection of papers to the free access of the office in Washington. Since then the interchange has continued, until now the War Records Office can publish the authentic facts of both contestants in the struggle. Source: Dabney Herndon Maury, Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894). Also available online, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina, http:// docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/maury/menu.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 15 JOHN S. ROBSON, HOW A ONE-LEGGED REBEL LIVES Despite persisting bitterness between the sections, as time passed each came to admire the heroism of the other. John S. Robson (b. 1844), who lost a leg in the Civil War, was able to support himself by selling books and describing his war experiences. He wrote How a One-Legged Rebel Lives: Reminiscences of the Civil War: The Story of the Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, as Told by a High Private in the ‘‘Foot Cavalry’’: From Alleghany Mountain to Chancellorsville: With the Complete Regimental Rosters of Both the Great Armies at Gettysburg. Since the war I have had many hard knocks in my effort to get a living, sometimes succeeding fairly, but often the reverse. Yet still I managed it somehow. One venture, by aid of friends, was successful beyond my most sanguine expectations, and I was in a fair way to achieve a competency—furnishing supplies and running a boarding house on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, but in the full tide of success the contractors failed, the hands were left without pay, and my last dollar was swept away, but I paid my obligations with one hundred cents to the dollar. I filled the office of constable for a considerable time, and my experience in that line was mixed with dark and bright color, but the gilding was scarce. I doubt if many country constables, in Virginia, ever achieved great wealth of sheckles. My best success has been in traveling with books, and I have found kind friends and much sympathy wherever I have gone, many, I know, only taking a book from me to help the one-legged Rebel, and many a hearty reception have I met from the old veterans of the Northern army. ‘‘The bravest are the tenderest; the loving are the daring,’’
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and it is easy to read the character of a soldier by his treatment of the maimed victims of the war. True, I have met many veterans who were on the down grade, and had little to help themselves with, but the hearty hand grasp and sympathetic greeting showed the soul within to be of the dauntless host of gallant soldiers of America, who believed that it was blessed to die for the right, and would go at blazing batteries, if necessary. I have found much kindness among the visitors to, and patrons of, the various watering places and summer resorts which I have canvassed, and always regardless of section or politics; but I must tell of a gentleman from Michigan, whom I met in Warrenton, Va., a few weeks ago. He was an old soldier from the ‘‘Wolverine’’ State, who had seen much service, but, in bad health, was wintering in Virginia, and hearing of me, made me a call, and we had many pleasant, social and friendly chats. He made himself friends all around, and although much of the conversation was in regard to the war, and that, too, in the extreme ultra-southern town of Warrenton, the capital of Mosby’s Confederacy, and called by the great General Pope the ‘‘South Carolina of Virginia.’’ Yet my Michigan friend came out ahead nearly every round. One day a number of us, he among the rest, were discussing the war and fighting our battles over again, when ‘‘Michigan’’ remarked that he had killed a Rebel in the Valley, at the given date then under discussion. This brought out a somewhat indignant remark from a young man in the party, who demanded the particulars. ‘‘Well, sir,’’ said ‘‘Michigan,’’ ‘‘I was over in the Shenandoah Valley with Sheridan, in 1864, and I did the killing in one of our battles with General Early. It was on a very hot, dry day in August, and my regiment was trying to hold a ridge in an open field, about a quarter of a mile in front of a woods. The Rebels were pressing us hotly; which, together with the weather and want of water, made our situation very distressing, and when they finally advanced upon us with fixed bayonets, we jumped up and made for the woods. A Rebel soldier, who appeared to me to be about nine feet high, with a gun and bayonet the full length of a fence rail, was about twenty yards from me when I started from the ridge, and on my rapid retreat to the woods I could hear his feet pounding the ground behind me, and apparently getting closer to me. I put on all the steam my boiler would carry, for I particularly didn’t fancy the contact with that enormous bayonet, which the Rebel evidently intended to use on me, and I fairly flew. Pretty soon I noticed that his footfalls were growing more indistinct, and with hope renewed, I glanced back at him. That glance revealed to me my opportunity, for overcome with the heat and rapid locomotion, which my speed made it necessary for him to use, he was just in the act of falling to the ground, and I then realized for the first time that I had killed a Rebel. He dropped stone-dead, and I reached the timber in safety. My comrades said the man ran himself to death, trying to catch me, but I shall always contend that I killed him with that last spurt.’’ Source: John S. Robson. How a One-Legged Rebel Lives: Reminiscences of the Civil War: The Story of the Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, as Told by a High Private in the ‘‘Foot Cavalry’’: From Alleghany Mountain to Chancellorsville: With the Complete Regimental Rosters of Both the Great Armies at Gettysburg (Durham, NC: Educator Co. Printers and Binders, 1898). Also available online, Documenting the
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American South, University of North Carolina, http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/robson/ menu.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 16 CHECKING CIVIL WAR PENSION EXCESSES: HENRY JONES FORD, THE CLEVELAND ERA The first Democrat and non-veteran elected president of the United States since the Civil War (1885–1889 and 1889–1893), Grover Cleveland vetoed more bills than any other president, mostly special pensions for Civil War veterans who fought for the Union. Henry Jones Ford, in The Cleveland Era: A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, praised Cleveland for trying to end abuses in a system that had become the mostly costly item in the federal budget. In the same month in which President Cleveland issued his memorable special message to the Senate on the Tenure of Office Act, he began another struggle against congressional practice in which he was not so fortunate. On March 10, 1886, he sent to Congress the first of his pension vetoes. Although liberal provision for granting pensions had been made by general laws, numerous special applications were made directly to Congress, and congressmen were solicited to secure favorable consideration for them. That it was the duty of a representative to support an application from a resident of his district, was a doctrine enforced by claim agents with a pertinacity from which there was no escape. To attempt to assume a judicial attitude in the matter was politically dangerous, and to yield assent was a matter of practical convenience. Senator Cullom relates that when he first became a member of the committee on pensions he was ‘‘a little uneasy’’ lest he ‘‘might be too liberal.’’ But he was guided by the advice of an old, experienced Congressman, Senator Sawyer of Wisconsin, who told him: ‘‘You need not worry, you cannot very well make a mistake allowing liberal pensions to the soldier boys. The money will get back into the Treasury very soon.’’ The feeling that anything that the old soldiers wanted should be granted was even stronger in the House, where about the only opportunity of distinction allowed by the procedure was to champion these local demands upon the public treasury. It was indeed this privilege of passing pension bills which partially reconciled members of the House to the actual control of legislative opportunity by the Speaker and the chairmen of a few dominating committees. It was a congressional perquisite to be allowed to move the passage of so many bills; enactment followed as a matter, of course. President Cleveland made a pointed reference to this process in a veto message of June 21, 1886. He observed that the pension bills had only ‘‘an apparent Congressional sanction’’ for the fact was that ‘‘a large proportion of these bills have never been submitted to a majority of either branch of Congress, but are the results of nominal sessions held for the express purpose of their consideration and attended by a small
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minority of the members of the respective houses of the legislative branch of government.’’ Obviously, the whole system of pension legislation was faulty. Mere individual effort on the part of the President to screen the output of the system was scarcely practicable, even if it were congruous with the nature of the President’s own duties; but nevertheless Cleveland attempted it, and kept at it with stout perseverance. One of his veto messages remarks that in a single day nearly 240 special pension bills were presented to him. He referred them to the Pension Bureau for examination and the labor involved was so great that they could not be returned to him until within a few hours of the limit fixed by the Constitution for the President’s assent. With the facilities of action which they now possessed, the Republican leaders had no difficulty in getting rid of the surplus in the Treasury. Indeed, in this particular they could count on Democratic aid. The main conduit which they used was an increase of pension expenditures. President Harrison encouraged a spirit of broad liberality toward veterans of the Civil War. During the campaign he said that it ‘‘was no time to be weighing the claims of old soldiers with apothecary’s scales,’’ and he put this principle of generous recognition into effect by appointing as commissioner of pensions a robust partisan known as ‘‘Corporal’’ Tanner. The report went abroad that on taking office he had gleefully declared, ‘‘God help the surplus,’’ and upon that maxim he acted with unflinching vigor. It seemed, indeed, as if any claim could count upon being allowed so long as it purported to come from an old soldier. But Tanner’s ambition was not satisfied with an indulgent consideration of applications pending during his time; he reopened old cases, rerated a large number of pensioners, and increased the amount of their allowance. In some cases, large sums were granted as arrears due on the basis of the new rate. A number of officers of the pension bureau were thus favored, for a man might receive a pension on the score of disability though still able to hold office and draw its salary and emoluments. For example, the sum of $4,300 in arrears was declared to be due to a member of the United States Senate, Charles F. Manderson of Nebraska. Finally, ‘‘Corporal’’ Tanner’s extravagant management became so intolerable to the Secretary of the Interior that he confronted President Harrison with the choice of accepting his resignation or dismissing Tanner. Tanner therefore had to go, and with him his system of reratings. A pension bill for dependents, such as Cleveland had vetoed, now went triumphantly through Congress. It granted pensions of from six to twelve dollars a month to all persons who had served for ninety days in the Civil War and had thereby been incapacitated for manual labor to such a degree as to be unable to support themselves. Pensions were also granted to widows, minor children, and dependent parents. This law brought in an enormous flood of claims in passing, upon which it was the policy of the Pension Bureau to practice great indulgence. In one instance, a pension was granted to a claimant who had enlisted but never really served in the army as he had deserted soon after entering the camp. He thereupon had been sentenced to hard labor for one year and made to forfeit all pay and allowances. After the war, he had been convicted of horse stealing and sent to the state penitentiary in Wisconsin. While serving his term, he presented a pension claim supported by forged testimony to the effect that he had been wounded in the battle of Franklin. The fraud was discovered by a
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special examiner of the pension office, and the claimant and some of his witnesses were tried for perjury, convicted, and sent to the state penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois. After serving his time there, he posed as a neglected old soldier and succeeded in obtaining letters from sympathetic Congressmen commending his case to the attention of the pension office, but without avail until the Act of 1890 was passed. He then put in a claim which was twice rejected by the pension office examiners, but each time the decision was overruled, and in the end he was put upon the pension roll. This case is only one of many made possible by lax methods of investigating pension claims. Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire eventually said of the effect of pension policy, as shaped by his own party with his own aid: ‘‘If there was any soldier on the Union side during the Civil War who was not a good soldier, who has not received a pension, I do not know who he is. He can always find men of his own type, equally poor soldiers who would swear that they knew he had been in a hospital at a certain time, whether he was or not—the records did not state it, but they knew it was so—and who would also swear that they knew he had received a shock which affected his hearing during a certain battle, or that something else had happened to him; and so all those pension claims, many of which are worthless, have been allowed by the Government, because they were ‘proved.’ ’’ Source: Henry Jones Ford, The Cleveland Era: A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919). Also available online, Project Gutenberg, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=3041, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 17 AN ESCAPED SLAVE WOMAN’S CIVIL WAR SERVICE Many Civil War pensions, of course, were well deserved. This letter tells the story of Lucy Nichols, an escaped slave who became an honorary member of the Grand Army of the Republic. New Albany, Indiana, Feb. 3rd 1915 Mr. Commissioner of Pensions Sir: I wish to inform you that the Colored Nurse Lucy Nichols Pension Certificate no. 975436 died January 29th 1815 and was buried in the Colored Cemetery along side her husband by the members of Wm. L. Sanderson Post No. 191 Department of Indiana GAR and Relief Corps No. 9 of which she was a member. She probably is the only woman in the state of Indiana that has the privilege of being an honorary member of a GAR post. She was voted this privilege for her good services during the war. She came
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to the 23rd Regiment Indiana Volunteers at Bolivar, Tennessee, August 1862 and soon gained the respects of the whole regiment from Colonel down to Private. In time of battle she was a great help to the Surgeon and to any of the men when sick at Jackson, Champion Hill, Raymond, all the way through the Vicksburg siege, and marched from Atlanta to the sea thence to Washington. Was present at the Grand Review there thence to Indianapolis where the Regiment was discharged thence to New Albany where she has lived ever since. She generally went to funerals, attended church on Memorial Sunday service, marched with the Post Decoration Day to the Cemetery. She was about the best known woman in New Albany and respected by all who knew her . . . . Edward Caye, late commander [GAR post] Source: National Archives, Washington, DC, Civil War Pension Records, Microfilm Roll No. 348.
DOCUMENT 18 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES’ MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS (1884) The first of two important speeches on the experiences of Civil War veterans was given by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935) to the John Sedgwick Post, No. 4, Keene, New Hampshire, of the Grand Army of the Republic, on Memorial Day, 1884. Holmes was a Union veteran from Massachusetts who was wounded three times during war. He also served as a Supreme Court Justice from 1902 to 1932. Not long ago I heard a young man ask why people still kept up Memorial Day, and it set me thinking of the answer. Not the answer that you and I should give to each other —not the expression of those feelings that, so long as you live, will make this day sacred to memories of love and grief and heroic youth—but an answer which should command the assent of those who do not share our memories, and in which we of the North and our brethren of the South could join in perfect accord. So far as this last is concerned, to be sure, there is no trouble. The soldiers who were doing their best to kill one another felt less of personal hostility, I am very certain, than some who were not imperilled by their mutual endeavors. I have heard more than one of those who had been gallant and distinguished officers on the Confederate side say that they had had no such feeling. I know that I and those whom I knew best had not. We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win; we believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluable; we, or many of us at least, also believed that the conflict was inevitable, and that slavery had lasted long enough. But we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred conviction that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every man with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief. The experience of battle soon taught its lesson even to those who came into the field more bitterly disposed. You could not stand up day after
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day in those indecisive contests where overwhelming victory was impossible because neither side would run as they ought when beaten, without getting at least something of the same brotherhood for the enemy that the north pole of a magnet has for the south—each working in an opposite sense to the other, but each unable to get along without the other. As it was then , it is now. The soldiers of the war need no explanations; they can join in commemorating a soldier’s death with feelings not different in kind, whether he fell toward them or by their side. But Memorial Day may and ought to have a meaning also for those who do not share our memories. When men have instinctively agreed to celebrate an anniversary, it will be found that there is some thought of feeling behind it which is too large to be dependent upon associations alone. The Fourth of July, for instance, has still its serious aspect, although we no longer should think of rejoicing like children that we have escaped from an outgrown control, although we have achieved not only our national but our moral independence and know it far too profoundly to make a talk about it, and although an Englishman can join in the celebration without a scruple. For, stripped of the temporary associations which gives rise to it, it is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return. So to the indifferent inquirer who asks why Memorial Day is still kept up we may answer, it celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate. One may fall—at the beginning of the charge or at the top of the earthworks; but in no other way can he reach the rewards of victory. When it was felt so deeply as it was on both sides that a man ought to take part in the war unless some conscientious scruple or strong practical reason made it impossible, was that feeling simply the requirement of a local majority that their neighbors should agree with them? I think not: I think the feeling was right—in the South as in the North. I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived. . . . . We can hardly share the emotions that make this day to us the most sacred day of the year, and embody them in ceremonial pomp, without in some degree imparting them to those who come after us. I believe from the bottom of my heart that our memorial halls and statues and tablets, the tattered flags of our regiments gathered in the Statehouses, are worth more to our young men by way of chastening and inspiration than the monuments of another hundred years of peaceful life could be. But even if I am wrong, even if those who come after us are to forget all that we hold dear, and the future is to teach and kindle its children in ways as yet unrevealed, it is enough for us that this day is dear and sacred.
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Accidents may call up the events of the war. You see a battery of guns go by at a trot, and for a moment you are back at White Oak Swamp, or Antietam, or on the Jerusalem Road. You hear a few shots fired in the distance, and for an instant your heart stops as you say to yourself, The skirmishers are at it, and listen for the long roll of fire from the main line. You meet an old comrade after many years of absence; he recalls the moment that you were nearly surrounded by the enemy, and again there comes up to you that swift and cunning thinking on which once hung life and freedom—Shall I stand the best chance if I try the pistol or the sabre on that man who means to stop me? Will he get his carbine free before I reach him, or can I kill him first? These and the thousand other events we have known are called up, I say, by accident, and, apart from accident, they lie forgotten. But as surely as this day comes round we are in the presence of the dead. For one hour, twice a year at least—at the regimental dinner, where the ghosts sit at table more numerous than the living, and on this day when we decorate their graves—the dead come back and live with us. I see them now, more than I can number, as once I saw them on this earth. They are the same bright figures, or their counterparts, that come also before your eyes; and when I speak of those who were my brothers, the same words describe yours . . . . Comrades, some of the associations of this day are not only triumphant, but joyful. Not all of those with whom we once stood shoulder to shoulder—not all of those whom we once loved and revered—are gone. On this day we still meet our companions in the freezing winter bivouacs and in those dreadful summer marches where every faculty of the soul seemed to depart one after another, leaving only a dumb animal power to set the teeth and to persist—a blind belief that somewhere and at last there was bread and water. On this day, at least, we still meet and rejoice in the closest tie which is possible between men—a tie which suffering has made indissoluble for better, for worse. When we meet thus, when we do honor to the dead in terms that must sometimes embrace the living, we do not deceive ourselves. We attribute no special merit to a man for having served when all were serving. We know that, if the armies of our war did anything worth remembering, the credit belongs not mainly to the individuals who did it, but to average human nature. We also know very well that we cannot live in associations with the past alone, and we admit that, if we would be worthy of the past, we must find new fields for action or thought, and make for ourselves new careers. But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.
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Such hearts—ah me, how many!—were stilled twenty years ago; and to us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year—in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life—there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. Year after year lovers wandering under the apple trees and through the clover and deep grass are surprised with sudden tears as they see black veiled figures stealing through the morning to a soldier’s grave. Year after year the comrades of the dead follow, with public honor, procession and commemorative flags and funeral march—honor and grief from us who stand almost alone, and have seen the best and noblest of our generation pass away. But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death—of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will. Source: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Speeches (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918). Also available online, Transcendentalists, www.transcendentalists.com/holmes.htm, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 19 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, “THE SOLDIER’S FAITH“ (1895) The second of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ two impactful Memorial Day speeches, ‘‘The Soldier’s Faith,’’ was delivered in 1895 to the graduating class of Harvard University. This speech was a major reason Theodore Roosevelt later appointed Holmes to the Supreme Court. When he died, his old uniforms were found in his closet with the following note: ‘‘These uniforms were worn by me in the Civil War and the stains upon them are my blood.’’ At the end of the war, Holmes was convinced that all governments and societies were founded and preserved through force. . . . . Now, at least, and perhaps as long as man dwells upon the globe, his destiny is battle, and he has to take the chances of war. If it is our business to fight, the book for the army is a war-song, not a hospital-sketch. It is not well for soldiers to think much about wounds. Sooner or later we shall fall; but meantime it is for us to fix our eyes upon the point to be stormed, and to get there if we can. Behind every scheme to make the world over, lies the question, What kind of world do you want? The ideals of the past for men have been drawn from war, as those for women have been drawn from motherhood. For all our prophecies, I doubt if we are ready to give up our inheritance. Who is there who would not like to be thought a gentleman? Yet what has that name been built on but the soldier’s choice of honor
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rather than life? To be a soldier or descended from soldiers, in time of peace to be ready to give one’s life rather than suffer disgrace, that is what the word has meant; and if we try to claim it at less cost than a splendid carelessness for life, we are trying to steal the good will without the responsibilities of the place. We will not dispute about tastes. The man of the future may want something different. But who of us could endure a world, although cut up into five-acre lots, and having no man upon it who was not well fed and well housed, without the divine folly of honor, without the senseless passion for knowledge outreaching the flaming bounds of the possible, without ideals the essence of which is that they can never be achieved? I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use . . . . War, when you are at it, is horrible and dull. It is only when time has passed that you see that its message was divine. I hope it may be long before we are called again to sit at that master’s feet. But some teacher of the kind we all need. In this snug, over-safe corner of the world we need it, that we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. We need it in this time of individualist negations, with its literature of French and American humor, revolting at discipline, loving flesh-pots, and denying that anything is worthy of reverence—in order that we may remember all that buffoons forget. We need it everywhere and at all times. For high and dangerous action teaches us to believe as right beyond dispute things for which our doubting minds are slow to find words of proof. Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. The proof comes later, and even may never come. Therefore I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see pursued. The students at Heidelberg, with their sword-slashed faces, inspire me with sincere respect. I gaze with delight upon our polo players. If once in a while in our rough riding a neck is broken, I regard it, not as a waste, but as a price well paid for the breeding of a race fit for headship and command. We do not save our traditions, in our country. The regiments whose battle-flags were not large enough to hold the names of the battles they had fought vanished with the surrender of Lee, although their memories inherited would have made heroes for a century. It is the more necessary to learn the lesson afresh from perils newly sought, and perhaps it is not vain for us to tell the new generation what we learned in our day, and what we still believe. That the joy of life is living, is to put out all one’s powers as far as they will go; that the measure of power is obstacles overcome; to ride boldly at what is in front of you, be it fence or enemy; to pray, not for comfort, but for combat; to keep the soldier’s faith against the doubts of civil life, more besetting and harder to overcome than all the misgivings of the battlefield, and to remember that duty is not to be proved in the evil day, but then to be obeyed unquestioning; to love glory more than the temptations of wallowing ease, but to know that one’s final judge and only rival is oneself: with all our failures in act and thought, these things we
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learned from noble enemies in Virginia or Georgia or on the Mississippi, thirty years ago; these things we believe to be true . . . . As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. . . . . Source: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Speeches (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918). Also available online, Transcendentalists, www.transcendentalists.com/holmes.htm, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THE ROUGH RIDERS Theodore Roosevelt’s raising a volunteer cavalry regiment to fight in the SpanishAmerican War in 1898 helped him become governor of New York in 1899 and vice president of the United States in 1901. His best-selling account, The Rough Riders, describes his men in laudatory terms and their experience upon being demobilized. . . . . The regiment was a wholly exceptional volunteer organization, and its career cannot be taken as in any way a justification for the belief that the average volunteer regiment approaches the average regular regiment in point of efficiency until it has had many months of active service. In the first place, though the regular regiments may differ markedly among themselves, yet the range of variation among them is nothing like so wide as that among volunteer regiments, where at first there is no common standard at all; the very best being, perhaps, up to the level of the regulars (as has recently been shown at Manila), while the very worst are no better than mobs, and the great bulk come in between. The average regular regiment is superior to the average volunteer regiment in the physique of the enlisted men, who have been very carefully selected, who have been trained to life in the open, and who know how to cook and take care of themselves generally. Now, in all these respects, and in others like them, the Rough Riders were the equals of the regulars. They were hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to shift for themselves in the open under very adverse circumstances. The two all-important qualifications for a cavalryman are riding and shooting—the modern cavalryman being so often used dismounted, as an infantryman. The average recruit requires a couple of years before he becomes proficient in horsemanship and marksmanship; but my men were already good shots and first-class riders when they came into the regiment. The difference as regards officers and non-commissioned officers, between regulars and volunteers, is usually very great; but in my regiment (keeping in view the material we had to handle), it was easy to develop non-commissioned officers out of men who had been round-up
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foremen, ranch foremen, mining bosses, and the like. These men were intelligent and resolute; they knew they had a great deal to learn, and they set to work to learn it; while they were already accustomed to managing considerable interests, to obeying orders, and to taking care of others as well as themselves. As for the officers, the great point in our favor was the anxiety they showed to learn from those among their number who, like Capron, had already served in the regular army; and the fact that we had chosen a regular army man as Colonel. If a volunteer organization consists of good material, and is eager to learn, it can readily do so if it has one or two first-class regular officers to teach it. Moreover, most of our captains and lieutenants were men who had seen much of wild life, who were accustomed to handling and commanding other men, and who had usually already been under fire as sheriffs, marshals, and the like. As for the second in command, myself, I had served three years as captain in the National Guard; I had been deputy sheriff in the cow country, where the position was not a sinecure; I was accustomed to big game hunting and to work on a cow ranch, so that I was thoroughly familiar with the use both of horse and rifle, and knew how to handle cowboys, hunters, and miners; finally, I had studied much in the literature of war, and especially the literature of the great modern wars, like our own Civil War, the Franco-German War, the Turco-Russian War; and I was especially familiar with the deeds, the successes and failures alike, of the frontier horse riflemen who had fought at King’s Mountain and the Thames, and on the Mexican border. Finally, and most important of all, officers and men alike were eager for fighting, and resolute to do well and behave properly, to encounter hardship and privation, and the irksome monotony of camp routine, without grumbling or complaining; they had counted the cost before they went in, and were delighted to pay the penalties inevitably attendant upon the career of a fighting regiment; and from the moment when the regiment began to gather, the higher officers kept instilling into those under them the spirit of eagerness for action and of stern determination to grasp at death rather than forfeit honor. The self-reliant spirit of the men was well shown after they left the regiment. Of course, there were a few weaklings among them; and there were others, entirely brave and normally self-sufficient, who, from wounds or fevers, were so reduced that they had to apply for aid—or at least, who deserved aid, even though they often could only be persuaded with the greatest difficulty to accept it. The widows and orphans had to be taken care of. There were a few light-hearted individuals, who were entirely ready to fight in time of war, but in time of peace felt that somebody ought to take care of them; and there were others who, never having seen any aggregation of buildings larger than an ordinary cow-town, fell a victim to the fascinations of New York. But, as a whole, they scattered out to their homes on the disbandment of the regiment; gaunter than when they had enlisted, sometimes weakened by fever or wounds, but just as full as ever of sullen, sturdy capacity for self-help; scorning to ask for aid, save what was entirely legitimate in the way of one comrade giving help to another. A number of the examining surgeons, at the muster-out, spoke to me with admiration of the contrast offered by our regiment to so many others, in the fact that our men always belittled their own bodily injuries and sufferings; so that whereas the surgeons ordinarily had to be on the look-out lest a man who was not really disabled should claim to be so,
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in our case they had to adopt exactly the opposite attitude and guard the future interests of the men, by insisting upon putting upon their certificates of discharge whatever disease they had contracted or wound they had received in line of duty. Major J. H. Calef, who had more than any other one man to do with seeing to the proper discharge papers of our men, and who took a most generous interest in them, wrote me as follows: ‘‘I also wish to bring to your notice the fortitude displayed by the men of your regiment, who have come before me to be mustered out of service, in making their personal declarations as to their physical conditions. Men who bore on their faces and in their forms the traces of long days of illness, indicating wrecked constitutions, declared that nothing was the matter with them, at the same time disclaiming any intention of applying for a pension. It was exceptionally heroic.’’ . . . . When we were mustered out, many of the men had lost their jobs, and were too weak to go to work at once, while there were helpless dependents of the dead to care for. Certain of my friends, August Belmont, Stanley and Richard Mortimer, Major Austin Wadsworth—himself fresh from the Manila campaign—Belmont Tiffany, and others, gave me sums of money to be used for helping these men. In some instances, by the exercise of a good deal of tact and by treating the gift as a memorial of poor young Lieutenant Tiffany, we got the men to accept something; and, of course, there were a number who, quite rightly, made no difficulty about accepting. But most of the men would accept no help whatever. In the first chapter, I spoke of a lady, a teacher in an academy in the Indian Territory, three or four of whose pupils had come into my regiment, and who had sent with them a letter of introduction to me. When the regiment disbanded, I wrote to her to ask if she could not use a little money among the Rough Riders, white, Indian, and half-breed, that she might personally know. I did not hear from her for some time, and then she wrote as follows: ‘‘MUSCOGEE, IND. TER., ‘‘December 19, 1898. ‘‘MY DEAR COLONEL ROOSEVELT: I did not at once reply to your letter of September 23d, because I waited for a time to see if there should be need among any of our Rough Riders, of the money you so kindly offered. Some of the boys are poor, and in one or two cases they seemed to me really needy, but they all said no. More than once I saw the tears come to their eyes, at thought of your care for them, as I told them of your letter. Did you hear any echoes of our Indian war-whoops over your election? They were pretty loud. I was particularly exultant, because my father was a New Yorker and I was educated in New York, even if I was born here. So far as I can learn, the boys are taking up the dropped threads of their lives, as though they had never been away. Our two Rough Rider students, Meagher and Gilmore, are doing well in their college work. ‘‘I am sorry to tell you of the death of one of your most devoted troopers, Bert Holderman, who was here serving on the Grand Jury. He was stricken with meningitis in the jury-room, and died after three days of delirium. His father, who was twice wounded, four times taken prisoner, and fought in thirty-two battles of the civil war, now old and feeble, survives him, and it was indeed pathetic to see his grief. Bert’s mother, who is a Cherokee, was raised in my grandfather’s family. The words of commendation which you wrote upon Bert’s discharge are the greatest comfort to
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his friends. They wanted you to know of his death, because he loved you so. ‘‘I am planning to entertain all the Rough Riders in this vicinity some evening during my holiday vacation. I mean to have no other guests, but only give them an opportunity for reminiscences. I regret that Bert’s death makes one less. I had hoped to have them sooner, but our struggling young college salaries are necessarily small and duties arduous. I make a home for my widowed mother and an adopted Indian daughter, who is in school; and as I do the cooking for a family of five, I have found it impossible to do many things I would like to. Pardon me for burdening you with these details, but I suppose I am like your boys, who say, ‘The Colonel was always as ready to listen to a private as to a major-general.’ Wishing you and yours the very best gifts the season can bring, I am, Very truly yours, ALICE M. ROBERTSON.’’ Is it any wonder that I loved my regiment? Source: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York: Scribners, 1899). Also available online, Bartleby Great Books, www.bartleby.com/51, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 21 EDWARD A. JOHNSON, HISTORY OF NEGRO SOLDIERS IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR Although he dedicated The Rough Riders to ‘‘the officers and men of the five regular regiments made up the cavalry division at Santiago,’’ Teddy Roosevelt did not mention that they probably would have been massacred if the black regular cavalry troops had not come to their rescue. This story is told in Edward A. Johnson’s History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest. For many years, black Americans kept posters of the 9th and 10th cavalry’s charge in Cuba as a reminder of the deeds their people could accomplish. . . . . ‘‘Handsome young Sergeant Stewart, the Rough Rider protege of Henry W. Maxwell, when he was telling of the fight in the ambush, gave it as his opinion that the Rough Riders would have been whipped out if the Tenth Cavalry (colored) had not come up just in time to drive the Spaniards back. ‘I’m a Southerner, from New Mexico, and I never thought much of the ‘nigger’ before. Now I know what they are made of. I respect them. They certainly can fight like the devil and they don’t care for bullets any more than they do for the leaves that shower down on them. I’ve changed my opinion of the colored folks, for all of the men that I saw fighting, there were none to beat the Tenth Cavalry and the colored infantry at Santiago, and I don’t mind saying so.’ ’’
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The description which follows is interesting: ‘‘It was simply grand to see how those young fellows, and old fellows, too, men who were rich and had been the petted of society in the city, walk up and down the lines while their clothes were powdered by the dust from exploding shells and torn by broken fragments cool as could be and yelling to the men to lay low and take good aim, or directing some squad to take care of a poor devil who was wounded. Why, at times there when the bullets were so thick they mowed the grass down like grass cutters in places, the officers stood looking at the enemy through glasses as if they were enjoying the scene, and now and then you’d see a Captain or a Lieutenant pick up a gun from a wounded or dead man and blaze away himself at some good shot that he had caught sight of from his advantage point. Those sights kind of bring men together and make them think more of each other. And when a white man strayed from his regiment and falls wounded it rather affects him to have a Negro, shot himself a couple of times, take his carbine and make a splint of it to keep a torn limb together for the white soldier, and then, after lifting him to one side, pick up the wounded man’s rifle and go back to the fight with as much vigor as ever. Yes, sir, we boys have learned something down there, even if some of us were pretty badly torn for it.’’ . . . . . . . . Should the question be asked ‘‘how did the American Negroes act in the Spanish-American war?’’ the foregoing brief account of their conduct would furnish a satisfactory answer to any fair mind. In testimony of their valiant conduct we have the evidence first, of competent eyewitnesses; second, of men of the white race; and third, not only white race, but men of the Southern white race, in America, whose antipathy to the Negro ‘‘with a gun’’ is well known . . . . Again we have the testimony of men high in authority, competent to judge, and whose evidence ought to be received. Such men as General Joseph Wheeler, Colonel Roosevelt, General Miles, President McKinley. If on the testimony of such witnesses as these we have not ‘‘established our case,’’ there must be something wrong with the jury. A good case has been established, however, for the colored soldier, out of the mouth of many witnesses. The colored troopers just did so well that praise could not be withheld from them even by those whose education and training had bred in them prejudice against Negroes. It can no longer be doubted that the Negro soldier will fight. In fact such has been their record in past wars that no scruples should have been entertained on this point, but the (late) war was a fresh test, the result of which should be enough to convince the most incredulous ‘‘Doubting Thomases.’’ . . . . In considering their successful achievements, however, it is well to remember that there were some things the Negro had to forget while facing Spanish bullets. The Negro soldier in bracing himself for that conflict must needs forget the cruelties that daily go on against his brethren under that same flag he faces death to defend; he must forget that when he returns to his own land he will be met not as a citizen, but as a serf in that part of it, at least, where the majority of his people live; he must forget that if he wishes to visit his aged parents who may perhaps live in some of the Southern States, he must go in a ‘‘Jim Crow’’ car; and if he wants a meal on the way, he could only get it in the kitchen, as to insist on having it in the dining room with other travelers, would subject him to mob violence; he must forget that the flag he fought to defend in Cuba does not protect him nor his family at home; he must forget the murder of Frazier B.
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Baker, who was shot down in cold blood, together with his infant babe in its mother’s arms, and the mother and another child wounded, at Lake City, S.C., for no other offense than attempting to perform the duties of Postmaster at that place—a position given him by President McKinley; he must forget also the shooting of Loftin, the colored Postmaster at Hagansville, Ga., who was guilty of no crime, but being a Negro and holding, at that place, the Post office, a position given him by the government; he must forget the Wilmington MASSACRE in which some forty or fifty colored people were shot down by men who had organized to take the government of the city in charge by force of the Winchester—where two lawyers and a half dozen or more colored men of business, together with such of their white friends as were thought necessary to get rid of, were banished from the city by a mob, and their lives threatened in the event of their return—all because they were in the way as Republican voters— ‘‘talked too much’’ or did not halt when so ordered by some members of the mob; they must forget the three hundred Negroes who were the victims of mob violence in the United States during the year 1898; they must forget that the government they fought for in Cuba is powerless to correct these evils, and does not correct them. Source: Edward A. Johnson, History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest (Raleigh, NC: Capital Printing Company, 1899). Also available online, Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=CrUnAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=History+of+Negro+Soldiers+in+the +Spanish-American+War&ei=U2NfSqyZOKqEygTb-aXNDA, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 22 ADDIE W. HUNTON AND KATHRYN M. JOHNSON, TWO COLORED WOMEN WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES Relatively few black Americans were given the opportunity to fight in World Wars I and II. Two black women who worked with the YMCA and helped educated soldiers were Addie W. Hunton and Kathryn M. Johnson. While not ignoring the services of those blacks who did fight, they tried to instill a feeling of pride in black Americans for their work as support troops during the First World War I. Their book, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces, also contains poems by leading black authors praising the troops. Reburying the Dead . . . . Here was a tremendous task for the surviving American soldiers, but far more sacred than tremendous. Whose would be the hands to gather as best they could and
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place beneath the white crosses of honor the remains of those who had sanctified their spirits through the gift of their lifeblood? It would be a gruesome, repulsive and unhealthful task, requiring weeks of incessant toil during the long heavy days of summer. It also meant isolation, for these cemeteries for the American dead would be erected on or near the battlefields where the men had fallen. But it would be a wonderful privilege the beauty and glory of which would reveal itself more and more as the facts of the war should become crystallized into history. Strange that the value of such a task did not gather full significance in the minds of all American soldiers. Strange that when other hands refused it, swarthy hands received it! Yet, perhaps, not so strange, for Providence hath its own way, and in those American cemeteries in France we have strong and indisputable evidence of the wonderful devotion and loyalty and the matchless patience and endurance of the colored soldier. The placing of this task the most sacred of the whole war in his hands may have been providentially planned. It may have been just another means, as against the force of arms, to hasten here at home the recognition and enforcement of those fundamental principles that for four long years had held the world in deadly struggle. We looked upon these soldiers of ours the splendid 813th, 815th and 816th Pioneer Regiments and the numerous fine labor battalions as they constructed the cemeteries at Romagne, Beaumont, Thiencourt, Belleau Woods, Fere-en-Tardenois and Soissons. We watched them as they toiled day and night, week after week, through drenching rain and parching heat. And yet these physical ills were as naught compared with the trials of discriminations and injustices that seared their souls like hot iron, inflicted as they were at a time when these soldiers were rendering the American army and nation a sacred service. Always in those days there was fear of mutiny or rumors of mutiny. We felt most of the time that we were living close to the edge of a smoldering crater. At Belleau Woods the soldiers en masse banished some who mistreated them . . . . The chief educational work to be done among the colored troops overseas was that of teaching them to read and write, as large numbers were unable to sign the payroll. These men were drafted into the army often without regard to age or physical fitness. One man from Texas, upon delivering a company of men to a lieutenant whom he thought to be white, remarked that he had brought him a good bunch of Negroes, and had plenty more down there if he wanted them. At first, he said, they took all the men who had just purchased little farms, so that the property would soon return to the original owners, and then they just went out through the country and gathered them up everywhere, so that they could get their full quota without sending their white boys. Of course, he said, the Negroes didn’t know any better and just thought they had to come . . . . Mr. Julius Rosenwald visited Camp Lusitania during the year, and left two hundred dollars to be used for the benefit of the soldiers there. An automobile school was finally established and a number of the soldiers took advantage of the training. In the white camps much industrial training was introduced, and no small amount of attention given to higher education as well. . . . . About the first of April, 1919, the Army decided to take over the entire educational work of the Y.M.C.A., and invited the educational secretaries, the writer included, to leave the organization and come over to the army. It promised to carry
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out the original contract made by the Y.M.C.A., and give them the rank and uniform of an officer. Eight colored men accepted this offer and went into the army. These men were attached to the staff of the University of Beaune. As Supervisor of Instruction, Mr. [J. C.] Wright [formerly of the Tuskeegee Institute] was well qualified, being a graduate of Oberlin College, Dean of Tallahassee Normal School, and having done splendid work as a Y.M.C.A. secretary at Camp One, Hut 5, St. Nazaire. Here he found a large number of men from the 301st Stevedore Regiment, one of the largest military organizations in France, and among them the first colored American soldiers to land on French soil. About 30 percent, of these men were illiterate. On the contrary, a number of them were college trained men, having been engaged in professional and business pursuits. Mr. Wright undertook the task of preparing these men to go back to civilian life with at least the rudiments of an English education. His first method was to get men who could not read and write to voluntarily attend classes scheduled at the Y.M.C.A. hut; but this was quite a difficult matter, for after ten or twelve hours’ work on the dock, the men were usually too tired to do anything that was not compulsory. Then he succeeded in getting it made a military duty for all men who could not sign the payroll to attend class three nights in a week for a certain period. This plan was successful only to a limited degree, as compulsion was left largely with company commanders, who were not entirely in sympathy with the idea. They contended that the army was no place for a man to make up for his lost school advantages, and some said it was too much to require such a duty of tired, hard-working troops; but too anxious and determined to be discouraged, the effort was continued, and after much advertising and several large public meetings held in the interest of the work, there were over five hundred men who enrolled for class work. Of this number 328 were actually taught by volunteer teacher- soldiers. One sergeant compelled the thirty illiterates of his company to attend school every night there were classes being taught; and after eight weeks all but nine could sign the payroll, and many of them, men still in the morning of their manhood, received such an inspiration as to give them a desire to enter school after their return to the States, and it is known to be true that some of them are at this moment enrolled in different schools and receiving instruction. Mr. Wright, together with his colleagues, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Hubert, as members of the staff of the University of Beaune, were sent out singly and as a team to lecture and hold institutes in the different sections of France where colored troops were located. It is estimated by them that they reached as many as twenty thousand men, and impressed them with the importance of community cooperation and collective effort in bettering the conditions in the neighborhoods where their civic lots would be cast; also with the importance of buying land and taking advantage of the industrial opportunities which the war had brought about . . . . Mr. George W. Jackson had been assigned by the Y.M.C.A. to be Educational Director at Is-sur-Tille. Here he found about 15,000 colored soldiers hailing from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. They were S.0.S. troops, working just back of the combat area. Mr. Jackson was returned here by the army to complete the work started by the Y.M.C.A. During his period of service here he learned that about 2,500 of the colored soldiers had very
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limited education or none at all. With the assistance of detailed tutors he was able to eliminate 90 percent of this illiteracy in about three months. Most of them learned to sign the payroll after about three weeks’ instruction, and by the time they were demobilized fully one-third had written letters to their relatives at home. Classes in secondary and college subjects were also held, in addition to instruction in French, bookkeeping, current topics, and the Bible . . . . There were other schools where some colored soldiers secured training in wireless telegraphy and other technical subjects, and 33 2nd lieutenants received instruction at the French Artillery School at Vannes. While visiting that city during their period of training there, the writers were told by a French general with whom they conversed while waiting for a train, that these men all showed superior mental capacity, and were much loved by all the French citizens because of their splendid behavior and gentility of manners . . . . In a word of conclusion with regard to the entire record of the combatant troops, many of whom went overseas with hesitations and misgivings because of the great battle they had already been compelled to fight against the ill-will of their own countrymen, it seems that their wonderful achievements in the face of a propaganda that continued even across the seas, make them fully worthy of the beautiful tribute paid them in the following poem by Roscoe C. Jamison:
These truly are the Brave, These men who cast aside Old memories, to walk the blood-stained pave Of sacrifice, joining the solemn tide That moves away, to suffer and to die For freedom, when their own is yet denied! Pride! Prejudice! When they pass by, Hail them, the Brave, for you now crucified! These truly are the Free, These souls that grandly rise Above base dreams of vengeance for their wrongs, Who march to war with visions in their eyes Of peace through Brotherhood, lifting glad songs Aforetime, while they front the firing line. Stand and behold! They take the field today, Shedding their blood like Him now held divine, That those who mock might find a better way!
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR. THE BLACK REGIMENT
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Rushed the black regiment. ‘Freedom!’ their battle cry, ‘Freedom!’ or leave to die!’ Ah! and they meant the word, Not as with us ’tis heard, Not a mere party shout: They gave their spirits out; Trusted the end to God, And on the gory sod Rolled in triumphant blood, Glad to strike one free blow, Whether for weal or woe; Glad to breathe one free breath, Though on the lips of death; Praying alas! in vain! That they might fall again So they could once more see That burst to liberty! This was what ‘freedom’ lent To the black regiment. Hundreds on hundreds fell; But they are resting well; Scourges and shackles strong, Never shall do them wrong. Oh, to the living few, Soldiers, be just and true! Hail them as comrades tried; Fight with them side by side; Never, in field or tent, Scorn the black regiment. If the muse were mine to tempt it And my feeble voice were strong, If my tongue were trained to measure I would sing a stirring song. I would sing a song heroic Of those noble sons of Ham Of the gallant colored soldiers Who fought for Uncle Sam.
Source: Addie W. Hunton and Kathryn M. Johnson, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces (New York: Brooklyn Eagle Press, 1920). Also available online, Internet Archive, www.archive.org/stream/twocoloredwomenw00huntiala/twocoloredwomenw00huntiala_djvu.tx, accessed February 17, 2009
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DOCUMENT 23 EMMET J. SCOTT, THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN THE WORLD WAR Emmett J. Scott (1873–1957) was Booker T. Washington’s private secretary and served as special assistant for black affairs to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker during World War I. His book, The Official History of the American Negro in the World War, shows how quickly blacks’ hopes that their services during the war would lead to improved conditions at home were dashed. Briefly stated, the Negroes did their full share in the great struggle to make the world safe for democracy. Four hundred thousand Negro soldiers were drafted or enlisted and 200,000 served in France under white officers and 1,200 officers of color. Negroes served in all branches of the military establishment—the cavalry, infantry, artillery, signal corps, medical corps, aviation corps, hospital corps, ammunition trains, stevedore regiments, labor battalions, depot brigades, engineer regiments, as regimental clerks, surveyors and draftsmen. Negro soldiers acquitted themselves with honor in the battles of the Argonne Forest, at Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, at St. Mihiel, in Champagne, in the Vosges, and at Metz, and when the Armistice was signed Negro troops as has been pointed out were nearest the Rhine. Entire regiments of colored troops, including the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd, were cited for exceptional valor and decorated with the French Croix de Guerre. Groups of officers and men of the 92nd Division were likewise decorated. The first battalion of the 367th also received the Croix de Guerre. Many individuals like Harry Johnson, Needham Roberts, and William Butler were awarded the Croix de Guerre and scores of officers by devotion to duty earned, even if they did not receive promotion in their military units . . . . . . . . Upon the return to the United States, the Negro soldiers expected that ‘‘Jim Crowism’’ and segregation would receive a check if not eliminated altogether. The Negro soldier returning from the front bore it grievously that on arriving home be had to ride in ‘‘Jim Crow’’ cars, and be excluded from the use of public places. Their contention is that these places are licensed by the Government, established and often wholly maintained by it and, therefore, should be accessible to all. They contended, moreover, that exclusion from these public places often means no such facilities for Negroes or. if at all, decidedly inferior accommodations, . . . . The Negro expected, too, a change in the attitude of the white man toward the right of the blacks to exercise the highest functions of citizenship. It has required little argument to convince the Negroes that they are powerless in the hands of the militant whites when the former can neither vote nor hold office. Relying then upon principles long since set forth by the fathers of the Republic that the men who fight for the country ought to share the control of its government, the Negroes have boldly presented their case to the world. This petition has, in most places, fallen upon deaf ears. Instead
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of a tendency to extend the right of franchise there has been something like a recrudescence, as already stated, of the Ku Klux Klan so as to intimidate the Negroes of the South that they may not seek to reach this end. . . . . It will be interesting, therefore, to understand exactly what some of the colored leaders are thinking . . . . in the Southwestern Christian Advocate, of New Orleans, Louisiana, the Reverend Dr. Robert E. Jones, an outstanding leader of the Negro race, voices the sense of this new recognition of the Negro’s position as a citizen. He says: ‘‘The statement of Lincoln, that this country could not exist half slave and half free, has been thoroughly vindicated by subsequent history. Just as that statement was a true interpretation of the life of the American Republic, at the time it was uttered, so is a modern application of that statement equally true. This country cannot exist half democratic and half autocratic. This country cannot exist with a part of its citizenship enjoying the full privileges guaranteed by the Constitution, while a large segment of our citizenship is oppressed, discriminated against and hindered in many ways. . . . . These are not ordinary times. They are very unusual. The pot of civilization is boiling. Things are to be settled, but they will not be settled unless they are settled right. And the Negro wants his status changed from that of practical peonage to that of free, independent manhood with an upward look and an unhindered pathway. He wants this, first of all, on the basis of his place in the human brotherhood of divine right. He wants this on the basis of the marvelous progress that he has made in freedom. ‘‘It has often been said that no race in all history matches the progress in the same length of time of the Negro race during the past 50 years. He wants it by the revelation of his soul life as shown forth in slavery as well as in freedom. That superb fidelity of the Negro slave to the trusts of those who left him behind should bring a blush of shame to the South when it permits now such frequent lynchings without redress and in many cases without investigation. But the Negro wants also his status fixed on the basis of what he has earned by the force of arms. With our allies we won a mighty victory over Germany. It was a triumph of democracy over autocracy. The Negro had a hand directly in this victory, but did he not also indirectly win for himself by every rule of the game, larger privileges than be had heretofore enjoyed? ‘‘The New York World in a recent editorial says: ‘War has sinister markings of its own, won in all sufficiency. There is no room for the color line across its horrid front. Such is the thought that suggests itself afresh, for there have been other events calling to mind the gallantry of our colored troops.’ And then the New York World refers to the fact that the Negro soldiers were decorated by the French authorities, ‘For extraordinary heroism under fire.’ The World continues: ‘The words sweep aside every consideration other than that of soldierly merit. The man who dares and does, he is a man for all this and all that.’ ‘‘The Negro has WON his decorations in France on ‘soldierly merit.’ He has WON at the same time by the manifestation of his courage, and his devotion and his loyalty, a more even chance in American life. And the victory should be made sure. And let us not mince words. We do not intend now that we have served the Nation in every war of the Republic and that we have borne our full share, according to our capacity, in every phase of the World War, to further accept the indignities heaped upon us as a
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race without a solemn protest to every sense of conscience and right in America and without appeal to the sense of conscience of civilization the world over. ‘‘There is one thing this World War has done. It has lifted the Negro problem out of the provincialism of America into the circumspection of the civilized world. We propose to carry our cause into the open forum of the world. We propose to let the world know that the soldiers that brought glory to the American flag on the fields of France are denied the common courtesies in too many cases when they return home. And surely our appeal to the world will not fall altogether on deaf ears. There will be an awakening, you may rest assured, a sense of right and of justice that will react upon American life. We make this appeal to the world in no sense of disloyalty to our Nation. We do it because we are loyal. We will be heard. We will not be lynched and robbed and hedged about without a solemn protest. We do not plead for pity or sympathy. We want what we have earned by every rule of the game. Source: Emmett J. Scott, The Official History of the American Negro in the World War (Washington, DC: War Department, 1919). Also available online, Scott’s Official History . . . , Brigham Young University Library, http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/Scott/ScottTC.htm, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 24 JOYCE KILMER, “IN MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE“ Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), best remembered for his poem ‘‘Trees,’’ died serving his country in World War I. Among the works published in Main Street and Other Poems was this tribute to Rupert Brooke, a British poet also killed in the war. In Memory of Rupert Brooke
In alien earth, across a troubled sea, His body lies that was so fair and young. His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung; His arm is still, that struck to make men free. But let no cloud of lamentation be Where, on a warrior’s grave, a lyre is hung. We keep the echoes of his golden tongue, We keep the vision of his chivalry. So Israel’s joy, the loveliest of kings, Smote now his harp, and now the hostile horde. Today the starry roof of Heaven rings With psalms a soldier made to praise his Lord;
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And David rests beneath Eternal wings, Song on his lips, and in his hand a sword.
Source: Joyce Kilmer, Main Street and Other Poems (New York: George Doran, 1917). Also available online, Every Poet for Every Man, www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/ Joyce_Kilmer/Joyce_Kilmer_contents.htm, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 25 KIRKE E. SIMPSON, “DEDICATION OF THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER“ The dedication of the present Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—an earlier one was erected in Arlington National Cemetery following the Civil War—by President Harding on Armistice Day (November 11) 1921 is described by Kirke E. Simpson in the Associated Press report on the ‘‘Dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,’’ November 11, 1921. Under the wide and starry skies of his own homeland America’s unknown dead from France sleeps tonight, a soldier home from the wars. Alone, he lies in the narrow cell of stone that guards his body; but his soul has entered into the spirit that is America. Wherever liberty is held close in men’s hearts, the honor and the glory and the pledge of high endeavor poured out over this nameless one of fame will be told and sung by Americans for all time. Scrolled across the marble arch of the memorial raised to American soldier and sailor dead, everywhere, which stands like a monument behind his tomb, runs this legend: ‘‘We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.’’ The words were spoken by the martyred Lincoln over the dead at Gettysburg. And today with voice strong with determination and ringing with deep emotion, another President echoed that high resolve over the coffin of the soldier who died for the flag in France. Great men in the world’s affairs heard that high purpose reiterated by the man who stands at the head of the American people. Tomorrow they will gather in the city that stands almost in the shadow of the new American shrine of liberty dedicated today. They will talk of peace; of the curbing of the havoc of war. They will speak of the war in France, that robbed this soldier of life and name and brought death to comrades of all nations by the hundreds of thousands. And in their ears when they meet must ring President Harding’s declaration today beside that flag-wrapped, honor-laden bier: ‘‘There must be, there shall be, the commanding voice of a conscious civilization against armed warfare.’’ Far across the seas, other unknown dead, hallowed in memory by their countrymen, as this American soldier is enshrined in the heart of America, sleep their last. He, in
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whose veins ran the blood of British forebears, lies beneath a great stone in ancient Westminster Abbey; he of France, beneath the Arc de Triomphe, and he of Italy under the altar of the fatherland in Rome. . . . And it seemed today that they, too, must be here among the Potomac hills to greet an American comrade come to join their glorious company, to testify their approval of the high words of hope spoken by America’s President. All day long the nation poured out its heart in pride and glory for the nameless American. Before the first crash of the minute guns roared its knell for the dead from the shadow of Washington Monument, the people who claim him as their own were trooping out to do him honor. They lined the long road from the Capitol to the hillside where he sleeps tonight; they flowed like a tide over the slopes about his burial place; they choked the bridges that lead across the river to the fields of the brave, in which he is the last comer. . . . As he was carried past through the banks of humanity that lined Pennsylvania Avenue a solemn, reverent hush held the living walls. Yet there was not so much of sorrow as of high pride in it all, a pride beyond the reach of shouting and the clamor that marks less sacred moments in life. Out there in the broad avenue was a simpler soldier, dead for honor of the flag. He was nameless. No man knew what part in the great life of the nation he had died as Americans always have been ready to die for the flag and what it means. They read the message of the pageant clear, these silent thousands along the way. They stood in almost holy awe to take their own part in what was theirs, the glory of the American people, honored here in the honors showered on America’s nameless son from France. Soldiers, sailors, and marines—all played their part in the thrilling spectacles as the cortege rolled along. And just behind the casket, with its faded French flowers on the draped flag, walked the President, the chosen leader of a hundred million, in whose name he was chief mourner at his bier. Beside him strode the man under whom the fallen hero had lived and died in France, General Pershing, wearing only the single medal of Victory that every American soldier might wear as his only decoration. Then, row on row, came the men who lead the nation today or have guided its destinies before. They were all there, walking proudly, with age and frailties of the flesh forgotten. Judges, Senators, Representatives, highest officers of every military arm of government, and a trudging little group of the nation’s most valorous sons, the Medal of Honor men. Some were gray and bent and drooping with old wounds; some trim and erect as the day they won their way to fame. All walked gladly in this nameless comrade’s last parade. Behind these came the carriage in which rode Woodrow Wilson, also stricken down by infirmities as he served in the highest place in the nation, just as the humble private riding in such state ahead had gone down before a shell of bullet. For the dead man’s sake, the former President had put aside his dread of seeming to parade his physical weakness and risked health, perhaps life, to appear among the mourners for the fallen. There was handclapping and a cheer here and there for the man in the carriage, a tribute to the spirit that brought him to honor the nation’s nameless hero, whose commander in chief he had been. After President Harding and most of the high dignitaries of the government had turned aside at the White House, the procession, headed by its solid blocks of soldiery
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and the battalions of sailor comrades, moved on with Pershing, now flanked by secretaries [of the Army and the Navy] Weeks and Denby, for the long road to the tomb. It marched on, always between the human borders of the way of victory the nation had made for itself of the great avenue; on over the old bridge that spans the Potomac, on up the long hill to Fort Myer, and at last to the great cemetery beyond, where soldier and sailor folk sleep by the thousands. There the lumbering guns of the artillery swung aside, the cavalry drew their horses out of the long line and left to the foot soldiers and the sailors and marines the last stage of the journey. Ahead, the white marble of the amphitheater gleamed through the trees. It stands crowning the slope of the hills that sweep upward from the river, and just across was Washington, its clustered buildings and monuments to great dead who have gone before, a moving picture in the autumn haze. People in thousands were moving about the great circle of the amphitheater. The great ones to whom places had been given in the sacred enclosure and the plain folk who had trudged the long way just to glimpse the pageant from afar, were finding their places. Everywhere within the pillared enclosure bright uniforms of foreign soldiers appeared. They were laden with the jeweled order of rank to honor an American private soldier, great in the majesty of his sacrifices, in the tribute his honors paid to all Americans who died. Down below the platform placed for the casket, in a stone vault, lay wreaths and garlands brought from England’s King and guarded by British soldiers. To them came the British Ambassador in the full uniform of his rank to bid them keep safe against that hour. Above the platform gathered men whose names ring through history—Briand, Foch, Beatty, Balfour, Jacques, Diaz, and others [foreign leaders]—in a brilliant array of place and power. They were followed by others, Baron Kato from Japan, the Italian statesmen and officers, by the notables from all countries gathered here for tomorrow’s conference, and by some of the older figures in American life too old to walk beside the approaching funeral train. Down around the circling pillars the marbled box filled with distinguished men and women, with a cluster of shattered men from army hospitals, accompanied by uniformed nurses. A surpliced choir took its place to wait the dead. Faint and distant, the silvery strains of a military band stole into the big white bowl of the amphitheater. The slow cadences and mourning notes of a funeral march grew clearer amid the roll and mutter of the muffled drums. At the arch where the choir awaited the heroic dead, comrades lifted his casket down and, followed by the generals and the admirals, who had walked beside him from the Capitol, he was carried to the place of honor. Ahead moved the white-robed singers, chanting solemnly. Carefully, the casket was placed above the banked flowers, and the Marine Band played sacred melodies until the moment the President and Mrs. Harding stepped to their places beside the casket; then the crashing, triumphant chorus of ‘‘The Star Spangled Banner’’ swept the gathering to its feet again. A prayer, carried out over the crowd over the amplifiers so that no word was missed, took a moment or two, then the sharp, clear call of the bugle rang ‘‘Attention!’’ and for
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two minutes the nation stood at pause for the dead, just at high noon. No sound broke the quiet as all stood with bowed heads. It was much as though a mighty hand had checked the world in full course. Then the band sounded, and in a mighty chorus rolled up in the words of ‘‘America’’ from the hosts within and without the great open hall of valor. President Harding stepped forward beside the coffin to say for America the thing that today was nearest to the nation’s heart, that sacrifices such as this nameless man, fallen in battle, might perhaps be made unnecessary down through the coming years. Every word that President Harding spoke reached every person through the amplifiers and reached other thousands upon thousands in New York and San Francisco. Mr. Harding showed strong emotion as his lips formed the last words of the address. He paused, then with raised hand and head bowed, went on in the measured, rolling periods of the Lord’s Prayer. The response that came back to him from the thousands he faced, from the other thousands out over the slopes beyond, perhaps from still other thousands away near the Pacific, or close-packed in the heart of the nation’s greatest city, arose like a chant. The marble arches hummed with a solemn sound. Then the foreign officers who stand highest among the soldiers or sailors of their flags came one by one to the bier to place gold and jeweled emblems for the brave above the breast of the sleeper. Already, as the great prayer ended, the President had set the American seal of admiration for the valiant, the nation’s love for brave deeds and the courage that defies death, upon the casket. Side by side he laid the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. And below, set in place with reverent hands, grew the long line of foreign honors, the Victoria Cross, never before laid on the breast of any but those who had served the British flag; all the highest honors of France and Belgium and Italy and Rumania and Czechoslovakia and Poland. To General Jacques of Belgium it remained to add his own touch to these honors. He tore from the breast of his own tunic the medal of valor pinned there by the Belgian King, tore it with a sweeping gesture, and tenderly bestowed it on the unknown American warrior. Through the religious services that followed, and prayers, the swelling crowd sat motionless until it rose to join in the old, consoling ‘‘Rock of Ages,’’ and the last rite for the dead was at hand. Lifted by his hero-bearers from the stage, the unknown was carried in his flag-wrapped, simple coffin out to the wide sweep of the terrace. The bearers laid the sleeper down above the crypt, on which had been placed a little soil of France. The dust his blood helped redeem from alien hands will mingle with his dust as time marches by. The simple words of the burial ritual were said by Bishop [Charles] Brent [head of the Military Chaplains, World War I]; flowers from war mothers of America and England were laid in place. For the Indians of America Chief Plenty Coos came to call upon the Great spirit of the Red Men, with gesture and chant and tribal tongue, that the dead should not have died in vain, that war might end, peace be purchased by such blood as this. Upon the casket he laid the coupstick of his tribal office and the feathered war bonnet from his own head. Then the casket, with its weight of honors, was lowered into the crypt.
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A rocking blast of gunfire rang from the woods. The glittering circle of bayonets stiffened to a salute to the dead. Again the guns shouted their message of honor and farewell. Again they boomed out; a loyal comrade was being laid to his last, long rest. High and clear and true in the echoes of the guns, a bugle lifted the old, old notes of taps, the lullaby for the living soldier, in death his requiem. Long ago some forgotten soldier-poet caught its meaning clear and set it down that soldiers everywhere might know its message as they sink to rest [words of ‘‘Taps’’]:
Fades the light; And afar Goeth day, cometh night, And a star, Leadeth all, speedeth all, To their rest.
The guns roared out again in the national salute. He was home, The Unknown, to sleep forever among his own. Source: Available online, ‘‘Dedicating the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,’’ Novelguide, www.novelguide.com/a/discover/dah_09/dah_09_04809.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 26 WRIGHT PATMAN ARGUES FOR IMMEDIATE PAYMENT OF ADJUSTED COMPENSATION (“THE BONUS“) FOR WORLD WAR I VETERANS At the opening of the 72nd Congress in December 1931, Congressman Wright Patman of Texas introduced H.R. 1 to immediately pay the Bonus, or Adjusted Compensation, to World War I veterans, scheduled for 1945, as a means of stimulating the economy and aiding the poor during the Depression. Here is a radio address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that Patman made in favor of the Bonus that was inserted in the Congressional Record for January 23, 1932. Although the House approved payment of the Bonus in 1932, it did not become law until 1936 as both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt opposed it, and the law was finally passed over Roosevelt’s veto. . . . . The Veterans of Foreign Wars is a militant, aggressive organization: it is always battling for the rights of veterans of all wars, their widows and orphans . . . . I feel sure the veterans of the World War are grateful to their Government for the beneficial legislation passed in their behalf: on the other hand, the veterans are to be
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congratulated for being so reasonable in their requests for legislation . . . . Almost 5,000,000 citizens of our Nation were in the military service of the United States during the World War. These veterans are representatives of the great middle class—not the very rich nor the very poor, but the plain people—the class that builds our country in time of peace and saves it in time of war. A DEBT NOT A BONUS WE are not asking for the payment of a bonus. We are asking of the payment of an honest debt that has been publicly confessed and acknowledged by the Congress of the United States to the veterans of the World War for services rendered. In order to persuade the Congress of the United States to enact a law providing for the full cash payment of the adjusted-service certificates, the burden is upon us to show (1) that the face value of each certificate is past due, and (2) that the Government can pay the debt at this time without detriment to the general welfare. I believe we can make this showing. We can show further that the payment of the debt at this time will benefit all the people of the Nation and promote the general welfare. The Government can make the payment without a bond issue, without increasing taxes, and without paying interest. When the war was over bills were introduced in Congress providing for the adjustment of the pay of those who were in the military service. The private soldier drew $30 a month during his service. From this pay deductions of from $10 to $20 a month were often made from his dependents, $6.609 a month was deducted for a lifeinsurance premium; he also paid for altering and mending his clothing and shoes, as well as other incidental expenses. After thorough and deliberate consideration Congress declared that the lowest-paid civilian laborer during the war received between $1 and $1.25 more per day for his service than the veteran received. Congress on three different occasions passed bills confessing a debt to the veterans for adjusted pay. The amount agreed upon was $1 additional for each day one served in the United States and $1.25 for a day additional for each day one served overseas. The last bill which passed Congress became a law, but instead of making the payment an adjusted-service certificate or an IOU marked ‘‘Nonnegotiable,’’ payable in 20 years was given to the veteran; the ones who were entitled to receive $50 or less were paid in cash. The first bill I introduced to the House this session of Congress provides for the full and immediate cash payment of the adjusted-service certificates . . . . In this bill we are merely asking of the payment of the $1 or $1.25 a day as of the time the services were rendered, with 6 percent interest compounded annually . . . . NUMBER BORROWED AND REMAINDER DUE Three million six hundred thousand veterans hold these certificates. They range in value from $125 to $1,590 each, of the average value of $1,000. All except 1,000,000—or 5 out of every 7 veterans—have borrowed the limit allowed by law, 50 percent, on their certificates. It will require $2,200,000,000 to pay the remainder due, after deducting prior loans and interest to October 1, 1931. If this money is paid
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now, it will be equal to a distribution of $18 per capita over the entire Nation. This additional purchasing power is very much needed at this time. The benefits will not be restricted to the veterans and their families, but everybody will be helped. IS DEMAND FOR FULL PAYMENT UNPATRIOTIC? Many would accuse the veterans of being unpatriotic for seeking full payment at this time. IF full payment is not made, what will the average veteran, who has borrowed the limit, receive on his certificate in subsequent years? He will not be permitted to borrow any more until 1944, and then only $16.55. The next year, 1945, he will be given $66.25 and his certificate will be canceled. Compound interest will have consumed the remainder. The veterans are now 39 1/2 years of age; they need the money worse than the Government or the banks need it in compound interest. More than a million veterans who hold these certificates are unemployed and need the money to purchase necessities of life for themselves and families. An investigation disclosed that less than 7 percent of the money loaned to them under the 50 percent loan act was wasted. OTHERS RECEIVED ADJUSTED PAY IN CASH The war contractors and railroad owners after the war were paid billions of dollars by the Government in adjusted compensation for their war service, and much more than all the veterans will receive in adjusted pay if H.R. 1 becomes a law: they were paid in cash at a time when our Nation owed $10,000,000,000 more than it owes today. The 500,000 Federal employees, who received $2,5000 a year or less, also received adjusted pay of $240 a year, not only during the war but for five years after the war was over, costing the Government more than $300,000,000. Soldiers, who worked for a dollar a day on the public roads during the war side by side with civilians who received $8 a day, had their pay adjusted by Congress after the war and were given $7 a day additional for each day they so worked. FOREIGN COUNTRIES GIVEN BILLIONS Foreign countries, our allies during the war, persuaded Congress to adjust their debts. Congress passed laws which resulted in our Government giving to these countries more than $10,000,000,000 as a bonus gift or subsidy. These countries used our money to make public improvements, to pay unemployment insurance, doles, and to pay their own soldiers not only adjusted compensation but bonuses aggregating as much as $7,290 each. MISLEADING PROPAGANDA One who holds a high position with our Government has made the charge that the present deficit in the Treasury has been caused by loans made to veterans on their adjusted-service certificates. The charge is untrue. Two funds have been utilized in making these loans. Eight hundred and forty million dollars has been loaned from
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the adjusted-service certificate fund, which is a reserve fund built up over a period of years from annual appropriations by Congress. The remainder has been loaned from the Government life-insurance fund, which was created by insurance premiums paid by veterans on the Government life insurance. Not one penny has bee loaned by the Treasury of the United States on theses certificates. Therefore, not one penny of the deficit has been caused by such loans . . . . Considering the false propaganda that has been and is being circulated by the World War profiteers against the veterans, we do not wonder that some of our good citizens are deluded into believing that the veterans are bonus racketeers, Treasury raiders, and trying to bankrupt the government. WHERE WILL THE MONEY COME FROM? We need more money in circulation. This debt should be paid in Treasury notes, which will circulate as money the same as notes of the Federal reserve banks. They should be nontaxable and non-interest bearing, good for the payment of all debts public and private, and should be full legal tender. Such payment of $2,200,000,000 will cause moderate inflation of the currency, which is very much needed at this time, and which is being advocated by the President of the United States, bankers, economists, financiers, and others, and in no way [will] endanger the gold standard [which came to an end the next year}. This plan can become effective at once and the money distributed in payment of the debt to the veterans to every nook and corner of America; purchasing power will be placed into the hands of consumers; wheels of industry will commence to turn to supply demands from these consumers. The payment can be made in this way without a bond issue, without additional taxes, and without paying interest . . . . EQUALIZE BURDENS OF LAST WAR I am not thinking so much about equalizing the burdens of the next war as I am thinking about equalizing the burdens of the last war. We know who profited so much during the last war by reason of our country’s misery and misfortune [banks and big business]; they can yet be made to pay the bill. If they find such a policy to be expensive, a future war will be less likely. WHAT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE THINKING H.R. I will become law this session of Congress if the people get the truth and in turn communicate their wishes to their duly chosen Representatives in Congress. The veterans in this fight are not asking for sympathy; they are asking for understanding. They have a just cause; they are right; they are only asking for the payment of an honest debt that Congress has heretofore confessed for services rendered. No fair person who understands their cause is opposed to the proposal. The fight will continue until the wrong is righted and the debt is paid in full.
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Source: Congressional Record, House of Representatives, Vol. 75, Part 3, 72nd Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932), 2566–67 .
DOCUMENT 27 THE LEADER OF THE BONUS MARCH COMMENTS ON ITS MOTIVES AND FATE In June 1932, thousands of veterans belonging to the ‘‘Bonus Expeditionary Force’’ (B.E.F.) or Bonus March marched on Washington demanding the immediate payment of the Bonus that was to be paid in 1945. On July 28, their camp was burned and they were chased out of the city by order of President Hoover, who alleged there were few veterans among them, that they had been influenced by Communists, and that they sought to overthrow the government. Walter W. Waters of Oregon, the leader of the Bonus Army, told his story to William C. White in B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. Never until June and July of 1932, when the ‘‘Bonus Expeditionary Force’’ camped in the capital did such a movement include so many followers. Sixty to eighty thousand American ex-service men in all were in that ‘‘army’’ . . . . . . . . It has been charged that the Bonus march was inspired, sponsored, and supported by Communists. It has been said that the marchers intended to foment revolution and to take steps to overthrow our Government. These slurs on honest, American ex-service men must be corrected . . . . These men had fallen far down into the valley of despair . . . . Jobs would have provided the best sort of impetus but there were no jobs. On the very first day that the men of the B.E.F. were in Washington the deadlock that marked their entire stay there arose. One force, the City Government and the Federal Administration, strove with all its power, with kindness, threats, and finally with arms, to drive the B.E.F. out of the city. The other force, the staff of the B.E.F., with no disciplinary powers in its hands that were not self-imposed, tried to hold the army under discipline, tried to ward off all moves tending to dissolve it, and tried, until after July 16th, to keep it in Washington . . . . The men were chased out with drawn bayonets and gas bombs. The men of the B.E.F. had come to Washington, hoping to get something out of the government. They were getting it—the most modern form of tear gas . . . . Bedlam had broken loose, like a fire in a madhouse . . . . Source: William C. White, B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army (New York: The John Day Co., 1933).
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DOCUMENT 28 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, STATEMENT ON SIGNING THE SERVICEMEN’S READJUSTMENT ACT (GI BILL), JUNE 22, 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt was an early and persistent advocate that the needs of returning World War II veterans had to be generously met by a grateful nation. Most of the programs he requested in 1943 were passed by Congress in the ‘‘Servicemen’s Readjustment Act’’ of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill. Here is Roosevelt’s Statement on Signing Bill, June 22, 1944. This bill, which I have signed today, substantially carries out most of the recommendations made by me in a speech on July 28, 1943, and more specifically in messages to the Congress dated October 27, 1943, and November 23, 1943: 1. It gives servicemen and women the opportunity of resuming their education or technical training after discharge, or of taking a refresher or retrainer course, not only without tuition charge up to $500 per school year, but with the right to receive a monthly living allowance while pursuing their studies. 2. It makes provision for the guarantee by the Federal Government of not to exceed 50 percent of certain loans made to veterans for the purchase or construction of homes, farms, and business properties. 3. It provides for reasonable unemployment allowances payable each week up to a maximum period of one year, to those veterans who are unable to find a job. 4. It establishes improved machinery for effective job counseling for veterans and for finding jobs for returning soldiers and sailors. 5. It authorizes the construction of all necessary additional hospital facilities. 6. It strengthens the authority of the Veterans Administration to enable it to discharge its existing and added responsibilities with promptness and efficiency. With the signing of this bill a well-rounded program of special veterans’ benefits is nearly completed. It gives emphatic notice to the men and women in our armed forces that the American people do not intend to let them down. By prior legislation, the Federal Government has already provided for the armed forces of this war: adequate dependency allowances; mustering-out pay; generous hospitalization, medical care, and vocational rehabilitation and training; liberal pensions in case of death or disability in military service; substantial war risk life insurance, and guaranty of premiums on commercial policies during service; protection of civil rights and suspension of
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enforcement of certain civil liabilities during service; emergency maternal care for wives of enlisted men; and reemployment rights for returning veterans. This bill therefore and the former legislation provide the special benefits which are due to the members of our armed forces—for they ‘‘have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the rest of us, and are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems.’’ While further study and experience may suggest some changes and improvements, the Congress is to be congratulated on the prompt action it has taken. There still remains one recommendation which I made on November 23, 1943, which I trust that the Congress will soon adopt—the extension of social security credits under the Federal Old-Age and Survivors’ Insurance Law to all servicemen and women for the period of their service. I trust that the Congress will also soon provide similar opportunities for postwar education and unemployment insurance to the members of the merchant marine, who have risked their lives time and again during this war for the welfare of their country. But apart from these special benefits which fulfill the special needs of veterans, there is still much to be done. As I stated in my message to the Congress of November 23, 1943, ‘‘What our servicemen and women want, more than anything else, is the assurance of satisfactory employment upon their return to civil life. The first task after the war is to provide employment for them and for our demobilized workers . . . . The goal after the war should be the maximum utilization of our human and material resources.’’ As a related problem the Congress has had under consideration the serious problem of economic reconversion and readjustment after the war, so that private industry will be able to provide jobs for the largest possible number. This time we have wisely begun to make plans in advance of the day of peace, in full confidence that our war workers will remain at their essential war jobs as long as necessary until the fighting is over. The executive branch of the Government has taken, and is taking, whatever steps it can, until legislation is enacted. I am glad to learn that the Congress has agreed on a bill to facilitate the prompt settlement of terminated contracts. I hope that the Congress will also take prompt action, when it reconvenes, on necessary legislation which is now pending to facilitate the development of unified programs for the demobilization of civilian war workers, for their reemployment in peacetime pursuits, and for provision, in cooperation with the States, of appropriate unemployment benefits during the transition from war to peace. I hope also that the Congress, upon its return, will take prompt action on the pending legislation to facilitate the orderly disposition of surplus property.
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A sound postwar economy is a major present responsibility. Source: Available online, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odgibilt.html.
DOCUMENT 29 DIXON WECTER, WHY DO VETERANS ORGANIZE? At the end of World War II, the United States Army issued and distributed four dozen pamphlets to veterans returning home. They covered issues such as whether women who had been filling jobs traditionally reserved for men should continue to hold them (both sides of the issue), whether soldiers should continue their education (they should, both to help themselves and ease possible unemployment), and whether they should move to Alaska (definitely). One of the most memorable was written by historian Dixon Wecter (1906–1950), author of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, who explained the role of veterans and veterans’ organizations in American history in Why do Veterans Organize?
. . . . Pride in one’s outfit is one of the strong reasons why veterans organize. The average GI probably hasn’t given much thought as to how his fighting service will look to future historians—any more than did the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, or the boys in Blue and Gray at Shiloh and Gettysburg, or the devil dogs and doughboys at Belleau Wood and the Argonne. Tomorrow it will be Guadalcanal and Tarawa, Bizerte and Salerno, Hurtgen Forest and Bastogne. Historians and novelists will be writing about them for the next century; school children will study these new records of American enterprise and bravery. And the veteran, for many years, will be their living symbol. ‘‘The days I spent in the Army are the proudest of my life,’’ runs like a theme through the files of every veterans’ magazine. The soldier in uniform overseas idealizes home; but after he has laid away the old OD he comes more and more to idealize what happened to him in the Army. Distance lends enchantment. He once did his share of bellyaching about a lot of things that were snafu, the Spam and K rations, the brass hats, and the rear-echelon, as has been a soldier’s privilege since the old Stone Age, or at least since Caesar’s Legionaries. Then he brooded more about footslogging through the mud, about the rats and lice, than the history he was making. But once out of it all, a man finds the haze of fond recollection gathering over these incidents—like the doughboy of 1918 who cursed the French cattle cars, but came home to found a Legion club of ‘‘Forty Men and Eight Horses.’’ And at his reunions, these gripes and discomforts are likely to loom larger in the veteran’s mind than a bridgehead on the Rhine. For these are more comfortable subjects— whether for his sense of humor or his sense of modesty—than the really decisive events.
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The Spirit of Reunions In the long years of peace ahead, a veteran’s war service is linked with his own lost youth, its sense of strength and adventure, and a life simplified and relieved of petty responsibility. He also remembers its intervals of boisterous fun and freedom from petticoat government. He begins to think of himself and his friends as ‘‘old soldiers,’’ ‘‘old-timers,’’ veterans in a literal sense, and to find himself using phrases like ‘‘I remember when,’’ and ‘‘in my time.’’ And yet, in his reunions, the veteran tries to recapture his youth. Under the intoxication of being ‘‘with the boys’’ again, he is apt to act like the lad he once was. The carnival spirit of veterans’ reunions is something that puzzles, even annoys, the outsider. Everybody has witnessed the high jinks of American Legion conventions—of steers driven through hotel lobbies and paper bags full of water dropped from windows on the heads of luckless passers-by. Even the last reunion of the handful of ninety-yearolds of the Blue and Gray, at Gettysburg in 1938, consumed forty-two cases of whisky in eight days—according to one of the sponsors. A newspaper editor reported that ‘‘the old warriors found the effects to be so beneficent that, when the reunion ended, they demanded a small flask apiece to see them home. The phials were provided.’’ The fun of veterans’ conventions cannot be overlooked. Many attend these gettogethers for the sake of fraternal and convivial good times. Once they were young, and in recollection of the jokes they cracked and the misery and death they faced together, they meet again in a holiday mood—knowing that if a fellow chooses to play the fool, his old buddies will probably join in. Veterans’ reunions not only afford opportunity to relive old experiences, but give exsoldiers a chance to help one another in civilian life. The Army was a man’s world, and the symbols of that virile day are precious. Sixty years ago in a paper for Civil War veterans a wistful letter, signed by ‘‘Comrade Morse,’’ complained that regimental rallies in his state were turning into henpecked picnics. ‘‘What chance does a man have’ to reunite with his old comrades, if he has the care of a wife and two or three small children on his hands? . . . Women and children are good things . . . but at a reunion of old soldiers they are as much out of place as a hen in a flower garden.’’ Not very chivalrous, but his attitude is understandable. This robust spirit has often led veterans’ organizations to take special interest in promoting sports. Such was the American Legion’s effort to legalize and clean up boxing, based on the rules of the Commission on Training Camp Activities, and the still earlier influence of Civil War veterans in making baseball the ‘‘National Game.’’ . . . . Veterans organizations have refused to hitch on to the bandwagon of any one political party. Other countries have had their soldiers’ and sailors’ parties, which developed complete political platforms. Veterans’ groups in Italy and Germany adopted black and brown shirts and promoted an all-fascist program. But a thoroughgoing veterans’ political party has never taken root in the United States. In fact, the average American veteran inclines to be wary of ‘‘politicians.’’ In organized strength he veers away from party alignments and declares for independent interests—whether for veterans as a group, or the welfare of the country as a whole. Even the Grand Army of the Republic, though linked with sectional ties, asserted itself ‘‘above and independent of partisan feeling and
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action.’’ Wherever it was tempted to break this rule, it weakened its ultimate prestige. Much more carefully, the Legion has refused to lean either toward the Democratic or the Republican side, but remains at all times pro-Legion. While organized veterans are wary about a tie-up with politicians, politicians will always be found trying to attach themselves to the veterans, treating such organizations with great respect and angling for their support. Men in public life know, to begin with, how effective an organized bloc can become. And in the second place, they know how powerful is the sentiment wielded by and for a class deserving so well of the nation. Lincoln once told a group of Wisconsin farmers that he couldn’t imagine why politicians were always flattering the farmers—unless it was because the farmers cast so many votes. Today he might say the same thing of the veteran. . . . . Soldiers of earlier wars found no such provision as the GI Bill waiting for them at mustering out. Nor was there a Social Security Act in existence, a safety net to protect citizens as a whole from the disasters of unemployment, sickness, incapacity, and old age. And so veterans tended to organize for their common welfare. Like any fraternal order, they marshaled the resources of themselves and their friends to aid each other in time of need and to provide help for the widows and orphans of fellow members. ‘‘Every soldier will help a soldier,’’ ran a saying of post-Civil War days. The Confederate veteran found himself with a handicap suffered by no other American soldier, since the government under which he had fought ceased to exist when the last shot was fired. In early days of postwar need, he had to shift for himself. Confederate soldiers’ associations were formed to help poor comrades, along with such groups as veterans’ ‘‘shoe exchanges’’ where a one-legged veteran equipped with a peg leg could swap the unwanted half of a pair of shoes with another war casualty. State governments later took over the responsibility for artificial limbs, soldiers’ homes, and pensions for the badly disabled. . . . . No veterans’ organization in the history of the United States has ever represented a majority of the servicemen who fought a given war. Out of some two million who served under President Lincoln, the G.A.R. never attained more than approximately 400,000 members; while the American Legion has never included more than onefourth of those who wore the uniform in 1917–18. And these have been incomparably our biggest veterans’ organizations. The cost of paying dues and traveling to reunions, other interests and clubs and diversions, a certain human inertia, distrust of political activity and ‘‘bossism,’’ and a revolt against regimentation after Army service—these are some of the reasons why many veterans don’t organize, or join up only to let their membership lapse. There are two times in a man’s life when he is most apt to join such an organization: when he is fresh from the service and still full of the interests and camaraderie of the war, and again after the lapse of years when he begins to think sentimentally of his vanished youth. That at least is the conclusion suggested by the cycle of the G.A.R., which cut only a minor figure during its first fifteen years, but rapidly picked up strength in the 1880’s to reach its maximum in 1890—after which death began slowly to thin the ranks. The Legion’s roster in 1923 dropped to less than one-sixth of the eligibles, but registered marked gains in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. Factors like big membership drives, interest in bonuses and pensions, and the outbreak of war with renewal of patriotic memories, also stimulated enrollment.
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While a great many veterans never join these groups, their indifference is balanced by the enthusiasm of some eager beavers who turn into professional veterans. They haunt convention halls as some college men haunt class reunions, jockeying for place on committees or governing boards, and sometimes becoming paid workers of the organization. The opportunities for service that lie before a veterans’ group are very real: not just tending the evergreen of memory, or putting on jamborees, reunions, and parades, with all the fun that comes from dressing up again after long freedom from the old OD. Veterans’ organizations can provide not just loud-speakers and glad-handers, but intelligent, responsible leadership . . . . The veteran who has seen the robot bomb and the rocket in action and the worldshaking possibilities of atomic warfare is in a position to lead national opinion in favor of a just and durable peace, in which we shall play our share with other nations of good will. If this spirit doesn’t evaporate now that the war is over, if it insists that the same energy and intelligence which has been put to winning our biggest, toughest war be harnessed to making a creative peace—then the organized veterans of World War II will set the highest level of citizenship we have yet seen. It is also clear that the welfare of the veteran is enmeshed with the good of the whole United States. What benefits the country will benefit him, and vice versa. We have come to see that full employment, production and consumption, civil liberties at home, and responsibility in the new world order are everybody’s business. Veterans and civilians, individuals and organizations, must pull together. We are one nation. Source: Dixon Wecter, Why Do Veterans Organize? (Washington, DC: Department of War, 1946). Also available online, Constructing a PostWar World: The GI Roundtable Series in Context, www.historians.org/projects/GIRoundtable/titles.htm.
DOCUMENT 30 JOHN KERRY TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS ON BEHALF OF VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR, 1971 The Vietnam War marked the first time large numbers of veterans actively opposed a war in which they had been involved while the war was still occurring. Future Massachusetts senator and presidential candidate John Kerry (b 1943) was a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Here are selections from his testimony. He talks about the nation’s failure to care for returning veterans as well as the nature of the war itself. Opening Statement (Senator J. William Fulbright) The committee is continuing this morning its hearing on proposals relating to the ending of the war in Southeast Asia. This morning the committee will hear testimony from Mr. John Kerry and, if he has any associates, we will be glad to hear from them.
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These are men who have fought in this unfortunate war in Vietnam. I believe they deserve to be heard and listened to by the Congress and by the officials in the executive branch and by the public generally. You have a perspective that those in the Government who make our Nation’s policy do no always have and I am sure that your testimony today will be helpful to the committee in its consideration of the proposals before us. Statement of John Kerry, Vietnam Veterans Against the War Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington, Senator Pell. I would like to say for the record, and also for the men behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of one thousand, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony. I would simply like to speak in very general terms. I apologize if my statement is general because I received notification yesterday you would hear me and I am afraid because of the injunction I was up most of the night and haven’t had a great deal of chance to prepare. [Concerning the Winter Soldier Investigation] I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. We call this investigation the ‘‘Winter Soldier Investigation.’’ The term ‘‘Winter Soldier’’ is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, no reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
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Feelings of Men Coming Back from Vietnam I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn’t know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped. As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about it. We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country. In 1970 at West Point, Vice President Agnew said ‘‘some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse’’ and this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam. But for us, as boys in Asia, whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion. Hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country, because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so many who have died would have returned to this country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans’ Administration hospitals in this country which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol. And we cannot consider ourselves America’s best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. Returning Veterans Are Not Really Wanted But the problem of veterans goes beyond this personal problem, because you think about a poster in this country with a picture of Uncle Sam and the picture says ‘‘I want you.’’ And a young man comes out of high school and says, ‘‘That is fine. I am going to serve my country.’’ And he goes to Vietnam and he shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe he doesn’t kill, maybe he just goes and he comes back, and when he gets back to this country he finds that he isn’t really wanted, because the largest unemployment figure in the country—it varies depending on who you get it from, the VA Administration 15 percent, various other sources 22 percent. But the largest corps of unemployed in this country are veterans of this war, and of those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are black. That means 1 out of every 10 of the Nation’s unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam. The hospitals across the country won’t, or can’t meet their demands. It is not a question of not trying. They don’t have the appropriations. A man recently died after he had a tracheotomy in California, not because of the operation but because there weren’t enough personnel to clean the mucous out of his tube and he suffocated to death.
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Another young man just died in a New York VA hospital the other day. A friend of mine was lying in a bed two beds away and tried to help him, but he couldn’t. He rang a bell and there was nobody there to service that man and so he died of convulsions. I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn’t really care, that doesn’t really care. . . . Extent of Problem of Vietnam War We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is party and parcel of everything. An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation at Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said ‘‘My God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people.’’ And he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end. . . . Administration’s Attempt to Disown Veterans Finally, this administration has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifice we made for this country. In their blindness and fear they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in Nam. We do not need their testimony. Our own scars and stumps of limbs are witnesses enough for others and for ourselves. We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbarous war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say ‘‘Vietnam’’ and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning. Thank you.
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Source: Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia, Thursday, April 22, 1971, United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. Online version with comments by Professor Ernest Bolt, University of Richmond, http:// facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 31 PRESIDENT REAGAN DEDICATES THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL STATUE IN WASHINGTON, DC, 1984 On November 11, 1984, President Ronald Reagan dedicated the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue in Washington, DC. (The memorial wall of names had been erected two years previously.) Reagan’s praise for Maya Lin’s formerly controversial memorial reflected the mature national consensus that the wall was both a unique and appropriate monument. . . . . Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, my remarks today will be brief because so much has been said over the years and said so well about the loyalty and the valor of those who served us in Vietnam. It’s occurred to me that only one very important thing has been left unsaid, and I will try to speak of it today. It’s almost ten years now since U.S. military involvement in Vietnam came to a close. Two years ago, our government dedicated the memorial bearing the names of those who died or are still missing. Every day, the families and friends of those brave men and women come to the wall and search out a name and touch it. The memorial reflects as a mirror reflects, so that when you find the name you’re searching for you find it in your own reflection. And as you touch it, from certain angles, you’re touching, too, the reflection of the Washington Monument or the chair in which great Abe Lincoln sits. Those who fought in Vietnam are part of us, part of our history. They reflected the best in us. No number of wreaths, no amount of music and memorializing will ever bring to them justice but it is good for us that we honor them and their sacrifice. And it’s good that we do it in the reflected glow of the enduring symbols of our Republic. The fighting men depicted in the statue we dedicate today, the three young American servicemen, are individual only in terms of their battle dress; all are as one, with eyes fixed upon the memorial bearing the names of their brothers in arms. On their youthful faces, faces too young to have experienced war, we see expression of loneliness and profound love and a fierce determination never to forget. The men of Vietnam answered the call of their country. Some of them died in the arms of many of you here today, asking you to look after a newly born child or care for a loved one. They died uncomplaining. The tears staining their mud-caked faces
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were not for self-pity but for the sorrow they knew the news of their death would cause their families and friends. As you knelt alongside his letter and held him one last time, you heard his silent message—he asked you not to forget. Today we pay homage not only to those who gave their lives but to their comrades present today and all across the country. You didn’t forget. You kept the faith. You walked from the litter, wiped away your tears, and returned to the battle. You fought on, sustained by one another and deaf to the voices of those who didn’t comprehend. You performed with a steadfastness and valor that veterans of other wars salute, and you are forever in the ranks of that special number of Americans in every generation that the Nation records as true patriots. Also among the service men and women honored here today is a unique group of Americans whose fate is still unknown to our nation and to their families. Nearly 2,500 of the names on this memorial are still missing in Southeast Asia, and some may still be serving. Their names are distinguished by a cross rather than the diamond; thus, this memorial is a symbol of both past and current sacrifice. The war in Vietnam threatened to tear our society apart, and the political and philosophical disagreements that animated each side continue to some extent. It’s been said that these memorials reflect a hunger for healing. Well, I do not know if perfect healing ever occurs, but I know that sometimes when a bone is broken, if it’s knit together well, it will in the end be stronger than if it had not been broken. I believe that in the decade since Vietnam the healing has begun, and I hope that before my days as Commander in Chief are over the process will be completed. There were great moral and philosophical disagreements about the rightness of the war, and we cannot forget them because there is no wisdom to be gained in forgetting. But we can forgive each other and ourselves for those things that we now recognize may have been wrong, and I think it’s time we did. There’s been much rethinking by those who did not serve and those who did. There’s been much rethinking by those who held strong views on the war and by those who did not know which view was right. There’s been rethinking on all sides, and this is good. And it’s time we moved on in unity and with resolve—with the resolve to always stand for freedom, as those who fought did, and to always try to protect and preserve the peace. And we must in unity work to account for those still missing and aid those returned who still suffer from the pain and memory of Vietnam. We must, as a society, take guidance from the fighting men memorialized by this statue. The three servicemen are watchful, ready, and challenged, but they are also standing forever together. And let me say to the Vietnam veterans gathered here today: When you returned home, you brought solace to the loved ones of those who fell, but little solace was given to you. Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between our native distaste for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. But there’s been a rethinking there, too. And now we can say to you, and say as a nation: Thank you for your courage. Thank you for being patient with your countrymen. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to stand with us together.
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The men and women of Vietnam fought for freedom in a place where liberty was in danger. They put their lives in danger to help a people in a land far away from their own. Many sacrificed their lives in the name of duty, honor, and country. All were patriots who lit the world with their fidelity and courage. They were both our children, and our heroes. We will never ever forget them. We will never forget their devotion and their sacrifice. They stand before us, marching into time and into shared memory, forever. May God bless their souls . . . . Source: Ronald Reagan: Messages and Public Papers, 1984, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1984).
DOCUMENT 32 PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON SPEAKS TO VETERANS OF THE NORMANDY INVASION ON ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY In June 1994, thousands of World War II veterans who had served in the Normandy invasion 50 years earlier returned to France. President Bill Clinton gave a speech honoring them at the United States Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, on June 6. . . . . In these last days of ceremonies, we have heard wonderful words of tribute. Now we come to this hallowed placed that speaks, more than anything else, in silence. Here on this quiet plateau, on this small piece of American soil, we honor those who gave their lives for us fifty crowded years ago. Today, the beaches of Normandy are calm. If you walk along these shores on a summer’s day, all you might hear is the laughter of children playing on the sand or the cry of seagulls overhead or perhaps the ringing of a distant church bell, the simple sounds of freedom barely breaking the silence, peaceful silence, ordinary silence. But June 6th, 1944, was the least ordinary day of the 20th century. On that chilled dawn, these beaches echoed with the sounds of staccato gunfire, the roar of aircraft, the thunder of bombardment. And through the wind and the waves came the soldiers, out of their landing craft and into the water, away from their youth and toward a savage place many of them would sadly never leave. They had come to free a continent, the Americans, the British, the Canadians, the Poles, the French Resistance, the Norwegians, and others; they had all come to stop one of the greatest forces of evil the world has ever known. As news of the invasion broke back home in America, people held their breath. In Boston, commuters stood reading the news on the electric sign at South Station. In New York, the Statue of Liberty, its torch blacked out since Pearl Harbor, was lit as sunset for 15 minutes. And in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, a young mother named Pauline Elliot wrote to her husband, Frank, a corporal in the Army, ‘‘D-Day has arrived. The first thought of all of us was a prayer.’’
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Below us are the beaches where Corporal Elliot’s battalion, and so many other Americans landed, Omaha and Utah, proud names from America’s heartland, part of the biggest gamble of the war, the greatest crusade, yes, the longest day. During those first hours on bloody Omaha, nothing seemed to go right. Landing craft were ripped apart by mines and shells. Tanks sent to protect them had sunk, drowning their crews. Enemy fire raked the invaders as they stepped into chest-high water and waded past the floating bodes of their comrades. And as the stunned survivors of the first wave huddled behind a seawall, it seemed the invasion might fail. Hitler and his followers had bet on it. They were sure the Allied soldiers were soft, weakened by liberty and leisure, by the mingling of races and religion. They were sure their totalitarian youth had more discipline and zeal. But then something happened. Although many of the American troops found themselves without officers on unfamiliar ground, next to soldiers they didn’t know, one by one they got up. They inched forward, and together, in groups of threes and fives and tens, the sons of democracy improvised and mounted their own attacks. At that exact moment on these beaches, the forces of freedom turned the tide of the 20th century. These soldiers knew that staying put meant certain death. But they were also driven by the voice of free will and responsibility, nurtured in Sunday schools, town halls, and sandlot ballgames, the voice that told them to stand up and move forward, saying, ‘‘You can do it. And if you don’t, no one else will.’’ And as Captain Joe Dawson led his company up this bluff, and others followed his lead, they secured a foothold for freedom. Today many of them are here among us. Oh, they may walk with a little less spring in their step, and their ranks are growing thinner. But let us never forget, when they were young, these men saved the world. And so let us now ask them, all the veterans of the Normandy campaign, to stand if they can and be recognized. [Applause] The freedom they fought for was no abstract concept, it was the stuff of their daily lives. Listen to what Frank Elliot had written to his wife from the embarkation point in England: ‘‘I miss hamburgers a la Coney Island, American beer a la Duquesne, American shows a la Penn Theater, and American girls a la you.’’ Pauline Elliot wrote back on June 6th, as she and their one-year-old daughter listened on the radio, ‘‘Little DeRonda is the only one not affected by D-Day news. I hope and pray she will never remember any of this, but only the happiness of the hours that will follow her daddy’s homecoming step on the porch.’’ Well, millions of our GIs did return home from that war to build up our nation and enjoy life’s sweet pleasures. But on this field there are 9,386 who did not; 33 pairs of brothers, a father and his son, 11 men from tiny Bedford, Virginia, and Corporal Frank Elliot, killed near these bluffs by a German shell on D-Day. They were the fathers we never knew, the uncles we never met, the friends who never returned, the heroes we can never repay. They gave us our world. And those simple sounds of freedom we hear today are their voices speaking to us across the years. At this place, let us honor all the Americans who lost their lives in World War II. Let us remember, as well, that over 40 million human beings from every side perished: soldiers on the fields of battle, Jews in the ghettos and death camps, civilians ravaged by shell fire and famine. May God give rest to all their souls.
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Fifty years later, what a different world we live in. Germany, Japan, and Italy, liberated by our victory, now stand among our closest allies and the staunchest defenders of freedom. Russia, decimated during the war and frozen afterward in communism and cold war, has been reborn in democracy. And as freedom rings from Prague to Kiev, the liberation of this continent is nearly complete. Now the question falls to our generation: How will we build upon the sacrifice of D-Day’s heroes? Like the soldiers of Omaha Beach, we cannot stand still. We cannot stay safe by doing so. Avoiding today’s problems would be our generation’s appeasements. For just as freedom has a price, it also has a purpose and its name is progress. Today, our mission is to expand freedom’s reach forward; to test the full potential of each of our own citizens; to strengthen our families, our faith, and our communities; to fight indifference and intolerance; to keep our Nation strong; and to light the lives of those still dwelling in the darkness of undemocratic rule. Our parents did that and more; we must do nothing less. They struggled in war so that we might strive in peace. We know that progress is not inevitable. But neither was victory upon these beaches. Now, as then, the inner voice tells us to stand up and move forward. Now, as then, free people must choose. Fifty years ago, the first Allied soldiers to land here in Normandy came not from the sea but from the sky. They were called Pathfinders, the first paratroopers to make the jump. Deep in the darkness, they descended upon these fields to light beacons for the airborne assaults that would soon follow. Now, near the dawn of a new century, the job of lighting those beacons falls to our hands. To you who brought us here, I promise we will be the new pathfinders, for we are the children of your sacrifice. Thank you, and God bless you all. Source: Bill Clinton: Messages and Public Papers, 1994, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1994).
DOCUMENT 33 DENISE NICHOLS TESTIFIES ON THE PERSISTENCE OF “GULF WAR SYNDROME“ Although the Gulf War occurred in 1990 and 1991, ‘‘Gulf War Syndrome’’ has continued to effect veterans of the conflict. On July 26, 2007, Denise Nichols, a registered nurse and vice chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans War Coalition, testified before the Subcommittee on Health of the House Veterans Affairs Committee concerning the lack of continuing adequate care for these veterans. I am Denise Nichols a gulf war veteran and retired registered nurse with an MSN who served along the border of Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990–91 with the USAFR out of the 32nd Aeromedical Evacuation Group, Kelly Air Force Base, Texas.
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When deployed all the Air Force Aeromedical Evacuation resources came under the 1611 AES(P). Our facilities were deployed throughout the theater with units at KKMC, KFMC, and all along the border of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq . . . . I can tell you now that the symptoms of Gulf War illness began to appear when we hit Riyadh and then as we moved forward thru KKMC to our forward location. We just were not fully aware of what the symptoms were representing at the time. We had rashes, visual sensitive to light, joint aches, urinary urgency, and diarrhea occurring. When you are in a desert environment and you are at war your job and duty comes first. We also had weird accidents; I called them the clumsy/stupidity type accidents . . . falling from stairs of buses is but one example and then the weird ones of troops breaking training and handling explosive ordnance they found. We also had respiratory problems surfacing but again a lot of these symptoms were downplayed. And of course all the tens of thousands of alarms which were going off and we were being told that they were false. We had had our first round of anthrax shots in Riyadh and being a nurse I insisted that it be documented on my international immunization record (Type A vaccine but no lot number recorded and date). Probably not too many got documented because they had us signing a roster, which I have been told was lost in transit. We also were ordered to take the PB tablets. We also had to deal with the sand flies—leichmanasis. We also had pesticide spraying occurring at all the locations of troop deployment within Saudi. We also had shots on mobilization . . . . The symptom that I believe we all missed was the mental irritability/mental cognitive/neurological functioning changes that began to surface when we hit Riyadh. This showed up in weird behavior that I now can attribute to behavior much like brain concussion cases where you have a change in mental cognitive and behavior functioning. This was not PTSD! Since our return from the gulf war in 1991, the Gulf War veterans were directed to the DOD/VA Clinical Evaluation Program, these programs have all but died because of VA neglect. Testing that was done in these programs to include EEG’s, EMG’s, and neurocognitive functions and many other tests were never compiled and released to the veterans or to the researchers that would follow. Many research studies listed in the Presidential Advisory Report have never been published. In the majority of the VA hospitals there is no information posted directing the Veterans of Operation Desert Storm Veteran Gulf War 90–91 how to access this program i.e. the Registries and what list of tests to anticipate. The Environmental Agents’ names and locations within each VA are not posted and therefore veterans seeking help have no information. The gulf war veteran support groups at the VA hospitals were quickly dismantled. Some of our veteran advocates have asked individual VA’s to place posters and information and provide the information desk with information that occurs immediately after we bring it to their attention but slowly every time the information vanishes. The registry was supposed to be an ongoing program and updated but that has not occurred. Physicians and health care providers at the VA have not kept up on the advancements made and are not well informed. So a sick gulf war veteran appears at their doorstep there is no information and the physicians and staff don’t even have knowledge of the latest research findings. The veterans themselves like Anthony Hardy, myself and many others of us try to bring materials to them and update them. Thank goodness I did
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this with a VA emergency room doctor because it was shortly thereafter one of our young female veterans presented to that ER after being told by staff she called by phone she was just having indigestion. Well she was having an MI (myocardial infarction/heart attack). He took her seriously and did an EKG and she remembers him being astonished. She was quickly given a coronary catheterization and taken to surgery. She lived; others I know that went for help died because of lack of examining our Gulf War veterans. The data on heart conditions has not been shared. The data gained from autopsies and cause of death is not shared. This is simply not acceptable to have clinical staff that are not knowledgeable and to have valuable data and statistics not available. The expertise on treating a multitude of toxic exposures is not within the VA. Very few gulf war veterans that came to the VA even got a true physical neurological assessment—the kind you do at the bedside not with all the brain scans etc. Therefore they were never truly assessed, then ordered follow-up neurological testing. As a nurse with a master’s degree I was taught the basic physical assessment that medical students are taught and I was astounded at the lack of physical neurological assessment . . . . They do not even ask physicians in the civilian world involved in environmental health or anti-aging, which is a board certified field, to be involved in training their physicians. In fact it has been documented that these doctors have approached the VA headquarters and different VA’s to offer their expertise and to help train the physicians that are seeing gulf war veterans and they were turned down! There are advances in the treatment of these conditions and also in the area of chronic fatigue and oxidative stress that could immediately benefit gulf war veterans who are suffering from ill defined or undiagnosed illnesses. We have had many veterans go to civilian doctors for help and this is unacceptable when they fought the war they were told to fight and have to find money to go to civilian doctors. It is also unacceptable for ill patients who look to doctors for relief to have to be bring in stacks of research that shows the direction the physicians should be examining and then to be ignored. It is unbelievable that patients, our fellow veterans—this country’s veterans—who are ill suffering with neurological cognitive damage and other bodily system damage are having to share the expertise and teach doctors what they should know and practice and how they should be looking , examining, and testing the veterans . . . . We need to have a law that offers the Service Connection to ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease, deterioration of the nervous system] MS [multiple sclerosis], brain cancer, and any other disease that is found to be above the expected rate of occurrence in the general population. These need to be added to our presumptive list by law, not by arbitrary action of the VA that can change and does not get publicly covered. Consideration must be given to giving the veteran the true benefit of the doubt when you are exposed to radiation, chemicals (pesticides and nerve agents, jet fuel and other service related exposures), biologicals (including vaccines), endemic diseases in the area of operations. By having the data base public to all we do the right thing by shining truth on the subject. We served our country proudly and the debates must end. This country dishonors its servicemen and women to do no less and it sure doesn’t show ‘‘Support the troops’’ to speak the words and not carry through in a timely manner. And doing battle with the VA . . . is a deception to the troops, the families, and to this country’s sworn duty to
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care for its troops and veterans. The rat’s maze of circles of different government entities of denial must be stopped and the broken system put aside! Source: House Veterans Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Health, http:// veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?NewsID=46, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 34 OPENING REMARKS OF HERSCHAL GOBER AT THE 2000 NATIONAL SUMMIT ON WOMEN VETERANS ISSUES In June 2008, the Department of Veterans Affairs held its fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues. These summits have been held every four years since 1996. Below is the opening statement of Herschal Gober, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs, at the 2000 summit. I’m pleased to open this conference. I have strong, positive feelings about women veterans’ issues. The goal of this forum is clear—Gender-specific and gendersensitive care for the women veterans who served this nation. This meeting is the second collaboration of The White House Office on Women’s Initiatives and Outreach and The Department of Veterans Affairs. This year The Disabled American Veterans has joined us to work as ‘‘architects of change’’ for America’s women veterans. Our partnership will help set the course for the future. The work done here will echo in the programs available to women veterans far into the future. This second national ‘‘Summit’’ is three times as large as ‘‘Summit 96,’’ just four years ago. The work started then has brought about improved services to women veterans. Many of you here are due much of the credit! One of the proud chapters in women’s history is in the military. The tradition of women serving in America’s defense goes back to our earliest colonial days. The Revolutionary War saw women as nurses, scouts, messengers, and in battle . . . taking over for their fallen husbands . . . or even disguised as men! Since then, women have come a long way. They traveled a hard, uphill road in their pursuit of equal rights. The 20th century was an extraordinary time for women in which great social and legal strides were made; attitudes changed and opportunities multiplied. Today, 15 percent of America’s active duty force are women and this number will increase in the coming years. Women comprise 20 percent of new recruits (except in the Marine Corps). All military occupational specialties are now open to women—except combat arms and submarine service. In war and in peace, women have a proud record of service. In the past decade alone, tens of thousands of women served under hostile conditions. In the Gulf War, almost 50,000 women were deployed; more than 1,000 participated in military operations in Somalia, and more than 1,200 women were sent to Haiti for peace-keeping duties. Women in the military continue to distinguish themselves around the world, notably as part of the allied force in Kosovo.
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There are some 1.2 million women veterans. That is 4 percent of the veteran population. In ten years or by 2010, 10 percent of America’s veterans will be women. Our responsibilities toward women veterans have broadened and so has our focus. VA is targeting programs to meet the physical, emotional, mental, and social needs of women. VA’s Center for Women Veterans is committed to ensuring that the services women veterans require will be there. Under Joan Furey’s direction, VA is sensitizing our extended ‘‘veterans family’’ to the contributions made by women in the military . . . . And to their unique problems when they return to civilian life we have created equal programs with equal access, taken steps to ensure that gender-specific medical care is available at VA facilities, accomplished this while promoting sensitivity, understanding, and respect for women who served. VA now has some 100 women’s clinics across the nation and eight comprehensive women’s health centers that are strategically located and provide a full range of medical, surgical, and psychological care. We’ve setup a Women’s Division at VA’s National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Boston. It’s the first unit of its kind in the country to research the trauma-related problems of women veterans. We have established four stress-disorder treatment centers (Boston, New Orleans, Loma Linda, and Cleveland), health-care and sexual trauma counseling at VA medical centers and veterans centers, and readjustment counseling is available for women transitioning from military to civilian life. During this administration, the number of women treated by VA has increased 64 percent. One issue of special concern is women veterans who are homeless. Of the nation’s quarter-million homeless veterans, about 10,000 are women. We must be more aggressive in bringing them VA services, benefits, and expertise. We have a new initiative to reach out to them. Starting this year, pilot programs in eleven major cities will fund ‘‘hands-on’’ teams to go directly into local area shelters. These teams will seek out women veterans and those with children. These programs will offer help through health care and mental health services; benefit claims; housing and job training; and counseling referrals. There is more that needs to be done for women veterans. Women have been there in our country’s times of need . . . and we must be there to help in theirs. It’s important that the Nation remembers the sacrifices of all veterans, and treat them accordingly. Not just in health care and benefits . . . but across all the issues you are addressing this week: research; sexual harassment; violence against women; and transition and employment. They have been neglected for too long! I am proud of VA’s progress in providing care for women veterans. We have made and will continue to make dramatic improvements in our services to women. Problems remain . . . . But solutions can and will be found. You, the conferees of ‘‘Summit 2000’’ are the voice leading us to tomorrow’s policies and programs for women veterans. Your strength of purpose will carry out America’s promise to provide the best possible services to veterans, men and women alike. With your help, I’m here today to pledge that VA remains unswerving in keeping the full measure of that promise. Thank you Source: Department of Veterans Affairs, 2000 Summit, http://www1.va.gov/womenvet/ docs/Summit_2000.pdf, accessed February 17, 2009.
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DOCUMENT 35 DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR VETERANS AFFAIRS GORDON MANSFIELD TESTIFIES ON THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN INDIAN VETERANS American Indian veterans have served in the United States military in greater proportion than any officially recognized non-white ethnic group. On September 22, 2004, Gordon Mansfield, Deputy Secretary for Veterans Affairs, spoke about the role and problems of Native American veterans before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
Contributions in Combat I am pleased to be here to present the Department’s views on the presentation of Gold Medals to Native American Code Talkers and to discuss the Department’s outreach efforts to American Indian veterans. VA commends you for acknowledging their distinguished service in performing highly successful communications operations through the use of their unique languages that greatly assisted in saving countless lives and hastened the end of both World War I and World War II. VA has long acknowledged the honorable service of our American Indian veterans in the defense of this great nation. They have served with distinction in United States military actions for more than 200 years. Their valor and courage is well documented and it is only right that we further honor that same valor and courage with appropriate accolades. American Indians have served in every war fought by the United States of America. During World War I approximately 12,000 served with the American Expeditionary Force and many distinguished themselves in the fighting in France. In World War II over 44,000 fought against the Axis forces in both European and Pacific theaters of war. These Americans compiled a distinguished record of courage and sacrifice. Of those Indians in the Army, the Office of Indian Affairs reported in November 1945 that 71 Indians received the Air Medal, 51 the Silver Star, 47 the Bronze Star, 34 won the Distinguished Flying Cross, and 2 received the Medal of Honor with a total of 5 American Indians having received this highest award. Those in the Army Air Forces saw duty as pilots, navigators, gunners, bombardiers, and transport crews in all theaters of the war. Battle-experienced American Indian troops from World War II were joined by newly recruited American Indians to fight Communist aggression during the Korean conflict. The American Indians’ strong sense of patriotism and courage emerged once again during the Vietnam era. More than 42,000 American Indians fought in Vietnam. American Indian contributions in United States military combat continued in the 1980s and 1990s as they saw duty in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, and the Persian Gulf. They continue to play a major role in the armed services with nearly 11,000 on active duty today.
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VHA Outreach to American Indian Veterans Over 220,000 Native American veterans self-identified in a single race category as American Indian or Alaska Native according to Census 2000. Due to privacy issues mandated with veteran records, VA cannot determine the exact number of American Indian veterans now enrolled in the system; however, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is sensitive to the fact that these veterans currently report four times the unmet health care needs of other veterans. To begin to address this healthcare disparity, VHA and the Indian Health Service (IHS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in February 2003 . . . . VBA Outreach to American Indian Veterans VBA outreach coordinators participate in various events to reach American Indian veterans, such as VA benefits briefings on reservations and with local American Indian groups. In FY 2002, working with the Center for Minority Veterans, VBA developed benefits training for Tribal Veterans Representatives (TVR). TVRs, designated by tribal officials, serve as points of contact for tribal veterans, are a resource for information and referral on benefits and services, and provide assistance in submitting claims. Through this program, 35 TVRs from Montana and Wyoming have been provided comprehensive training on VA benefits and services, on the claims process, and on health care enrollment. Training sessions continued in FY 2003 and FY 2004 at the Ft. Harrison VA Medical and Regional Office Center. We expect that this program will expand to other states in FY 2005. Recognizing that housing on reservations is an issue for our American Indian veterans, VA administers the Native American Veterans Direct Loan Program for Indian veterans living on trust lands. This program assists American Indian veterans in financing the purchase, improvement or modification of homes on Federal trust territory. Loan Guaranty Service provides program information and materials to all interested parties and to VA personnel who assist American Indian veterans wishing to use this program. VA has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with 68 participating American Indian tribes. Since its inception, VA has made almost 400 loans to Native American veterans under the program, closing 120 loans in FY 2003 alone. NCA Outreach to American Indian Veterans . . . . NCA continues to provide burial benefits to all veterans. When a family wishes to have a burial at a VA national cemetery, NCA attempts to accommodate any special needs, including religious customs during committal services at its cemeteries. American Indian veterans and their families are able to perform tribal rituals in VA’s national cemeteries and many state veterans cemeteries. For example, at the Nashville National Cemetery, cemetery staff works closely with the Tennessee Native Veterans Society to provide an option for families so they can incorporate tribal rituals into the committal service, if requested. American Indian performers
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have been participating in the cemetery’s Memorial Day ceremonies since 2002, and just this April 2004, the cemetery director staffed an information booth at the Society’s second annual Powwow. The chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, chairman of the Northern Ute Indian Tribe, and acting chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe participated in the July 17, 2002, dedication of the Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado in Grand Junction, built with a VA State Cemetery grant of $6 million. The tribe has been actively involved and on March 14, 2003, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Southern Ute Veterans Association dedicated a black granite memorial to American Indian veterans at the cemetery. The new Idaho Veterans Cemetery in Boise recently conducted its first interment, an Idaho soldier killed in Iraq. American Indian veterans played a prominent role in the burial service. These examples are typical of the types of outreach and involvement of American Indian veterans at state and national veterans cemeteries. American Indian representatives have also participated in new national cemetery dedication and consecration ceremonies. For example, a representative of the Muckleshoot Tribe was one of several honored guests at the Tahoma National Cemetery’s 1997 consecration service and a member of the Comanche County Veterans Council was an honored guest at the Fort Sill National Cemetery’s 2001 dedication ceremony. A chaplain from the Tohono O’odham Nation participated in the rededication ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in 2001. In addition, NCA senior managers have visited tribal reservations and burial grounds, attended Memorial Day events and increased efforts to communicate memorial benefits to the American Indian veteran community. NCA also provides governmentfurnished headstones and markers for placement in cemeteries around the world. When choosing the inscription for a headstone or marker, a family may choose an authorized Emblem of Belief, including the Native American Church of America emblem. Conclusion VA will continue to explore all opportunities to increase eligible American Indian veteran participation in the benefits and healthcare services we provide. Again we acknowledge the honor and pride with which American Indians have served their country in the military and especially salute the extraordinary contributions of the Native American Code Talkers. We stand ready to serve them as they have so gallantly served their country. This completes my statement. I will be happy to respond to any questions you might have. Source: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, www.va.gov/OCA/testimony/other/ 040922GM.asp, accessed February 17, 2009.
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DOCUMENT 36 VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA TESTIFY ON THE PERSISTENT EFFECTS OF AGENT ORANGE While the federal government has extended medical and disability pensions to many veterans who suffered from Agent Orange in Vietnam, the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) have been concerned about the many more Vietnamese who suffered from contact with the chemical. On May 15, 2008, Richard Weidman, executive director for Policy and Government Affairs of the VVA, testified before the House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment on ‘‘Our Forgotten Responsibility: What Can We Do to Help Victims of Agent Orange?’’ Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) took our first mission back to Vietnam after the war in December of 1981. That mission was led by our then President, and founder, Robert O. ‘‘Bobby’’ Muller. The substance was two fold: first to start the process of securing cooperation of the Vietnamese government in achieving the fullest possible accounting of our POW/MIA from the Vietnam war (or ‘‘the American war’’ as the Vietnamese called it) and to move toward research in Vietnam as the natural laboratory for research into the epidemiological impact of Agent Orange and the other toxins used or inadvertently deposited in Vietnam during our presence there. VVA has returned to Vietnam many times since, always focusing on these two core missions. Since the early 1990s, VVA has had the ‘‘Veterans’ Initiative’’ (VI) of collecting information about graves of North Vietnamese Army casualties after battles with our forces that are contributed by American veterans who fought in Vietnam, including information, artifacts, etc. that VVA has transmitted to the Veterans Association of Vietnam. This veteran to veteran project has, according to the Vietnamese, contributed to the continued high level of cooperation that the Vietnamese have accorded the J-Pac forces searching for American remains in an effort to locate remains of missing American service members, repatriate them, and help bring closure to the families that have waited so long for final word on the fate of their loved one. Additionally, the Vietnamese have used the information imparted to continue their process of locating the remains of their MIA, and bringing closure to the Vietnamese families in a similar fashion. Our most recent VI mission to Vietnam was just last October. As to Agent Orange, VVA continues to be the leader among American veterans groups in pressing for more research regarding the deleterious and adverse health effects of Agent Orange and other herbicides and toxins to which we, and Vietnamese forces and population were exposed to during the war. Much of the residue of these toxins remains in Vietnam, and continues to expose the population to these dangerous chemicals. The common perception is that it is an ‘‘Agent Orange’’ problem, but that is
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only one of the herbicides used in Vietnam, and only accounts for about 48 percent or 49 percent of the aerial spraying . . . . There were a total of at least 15 different agents used at one time or another during our military presence in Vietnam for defoliation and (apparently) for crop destruction to deny food to enemy forces during the war. A number of these agents was used only in very limited tests for possible effectiveness, and therefore only minute amounts of these toxins were left behind. However, Agent Blue, Agent White, and Agent Purple were used extensively, particularly for destruction of rice crops, and for defoliation along roads. The basic ingredient of these agents was cal with lithium, more commonly known as salt of arsenic. You do not have to be a chemist to understand that arsenic is not healthy for humans and others. Because of the hard work of advocates outside of the Congress, as well as advocates in the Congress over the last 25 years, such as Congressman Lane Evans of Illinois as well as Senator Tom Daschle, Senator John Kerry, and Senator Tom Harkin and others, a number of maladies suffered in disproportionate numbers by American veterans of Vietnam have been recognized as being service connected presumptive. What this means is that if a veteran has this malady, and can prove that he or she served on the ground in Vietnam (or in some cases elsewhere in Southeast Asia or the DMZ in Korea) then it is adjudicated by the Veterans Benefits Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs as being a result of the exposure in military service, entitling the veteran to compensation and health care. VVA has continued to press for additional research into the effects of the toxic environment in which we lived and fought during our time in the military in Vietnam. One key aspect of that was seeking to get research going in Vietnam, as it is still the ‘‘natural laboratory’’ where all of this actually took place, and when we left the toxins were left behind. Really from the 1980s forward, and intensively from about 1995 until 2001, VVA pushed hard to secure an agreement, and the funds, to bring about scientific research in Vietnam about these toxins. Thanks in particular to the Senators noted above, and Congressman Lane Evans, the funds were appropriated for three years in a row to the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) specifically for this purpose, but remained unused. Some of the delay was due to recalcitrance on the part of NIEHS and some due to the reluctance of the Vietnamese to go down this road. Frankly, the Vietnamese makes sense to a layman in that they believed that the adverse effects of the toxins on the environment and on human health was pretty much self evident, and that the U.S. Government should accept responsibility for this and move to transfer funds and technical assistance to the Vietnamese to provide medical care and compensation to their citizens and to clean up the toxins still in their environment. In 2001 the former National President of Vietnam, Thomas H. Corey, a wheelchair bound former infantryman with the First Cave who was shot through the chest in what we still call the Ashau valley during the war, led a delegation to Vietnam where a key official of Vietnam finally agreed to move toward an agreement to conduct the research. For three years the NIEHS had blamed the Vietnamese for lack of progress in actually utilizing the funds for the purpose intended by the Congress. Once the Vietnamese said yes, then NIEHS came up with all kinds of ‘‘reasons’’ and excuses as to why they could not move ahead.
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Finally, in the fall of 2001, the NIEHS agreed to move forward, and the first ever International Conference on Agent Orange was held in Hanoi in late February/early March of 2002. Scientists, physicians, and officials from more than 90 countries attended, and many gave papers, served on panels, or presented scientific ‘‘posters.’’ At the end of that Conference, the United States government and the government of Vietnam signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to move forward with a joint scientific effort. The environmental survey was to be jointly executed, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having the lead on the American side. The NIEHS had the lead on the American side to move forward with epidemiological studies of the population in Vietnam that was exposed. The EPA did its job, and significant progress was being made on the ecological survey for the first three years, although not nearly as quickly as VVA believed possible. The NIEHS never did get a specific epidemiological study in place. By mid to late 2005 it was clear that there was an impasse that was unlikely to be resolved any time in the foreseeable future. In the spring of 2006, the Ford Foundation stepped forward and started providing funds for a survey of the ‘‘hot spots’’ with a view toward cleaning up those worst spaces, and least from dioxin and Agent Orange. Others at this hearing will I am sure provide a more complete picture of what has been accomplished there as a result of Ford Foundation’s leadership in stepping into this deadlocked situation. As you know, President Bush visited Vietnam in late 2006, and Vietnam was able, with the assistance of the United States, to achieve several major economic and trade goals that will (and already have) result in much investment in infrastructure, more free flow of goods from Vietnam to international markets, and a significant growth in the standard of living of the Vietnamese people. Vietnam still remains as one of the poorest countries in the world in regard to per capita income, despite the industriousness and creativity of their people. So why does VVA have stake in what happens now? By forgoing the epidemiological studies in Vietnam, the research that we believe would have been immediately applicable to American veterans and their families is not going to take place. The Vietnamese are getting largely what they wanted, and doing the best by their people in securing capital, expanding scientific and industrial capacity, and acquiring the resources to provide more health care to their people. They will also get remediation of their worst environmental ‘‘hot spots’’ at least for dioxin. Who loses are American veterans who do not get the benefit for studies that would be directly applicable to American veterans, particularly as to birth defects in not only our children but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It strains credulity that this is all by accident. There is currently not a single study regarding the adverse effects of Agent Orange being funded by any of the National Institutes of Health, nor by the Defense Department, nor by VA, nor by the EPA. Nor has the VA commented on the latest findings from the IOM pursuant to the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which was due months ago. Even the $1.5 million for the Medical Follow-up Agency of the IOM to care for the data from the now defunct Air Force ‘‘Ranch Hand Study’’ and to make it available to the scientific community mysteriously disappeared from the latest VA budget. American veterans still do not have the answers we need. While we wish the Vietnamese people all the best with their problems due to Agent Orange, it is a fact that
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American veterans of Vietnam, and our families, are being cast aside by the way things have developed in the past seven or so years. Source: House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment, www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/wei051508.pdf, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 37 CAROLYN BAUM, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY ASSOCIATION, ADDRESSES POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN IRAQ AND AFGHAN WAR VETERANS Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been a major problem faced by many Iraq and Afghan War veterans. On April 1, 2008, Carolyn M. Baum, immediate past president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) addressed the Subcommittee on Health of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on the nature of the problem and how to deal more effectively with it. AOTA and the Profession of Occupational Therapy AOTA and I are grateful to the Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee for your leadership in addressing the health care needs of the approximately 8 million veterans enrolled in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care delivery system. As the professional association representing occupational therapy, AOTA has more than 38,000 members dedicated to providing the health care and rehabilitative services that help people recover and gain the skills needed to return to family, work and community life. The goal of occupational therapy is to enable individuals with functional impairments, regardless of the cause, to attain their maximum level of participation and independence. With injured veterans, this can mean helping the veteran learn how to manage activities necessary for maintaining a household—everything from cooking and washing laundry to handling financial affairs; it can mean learning to manage medications; it can mean coping with triggers to prevent anxiety or anger and learning strategies to manage the health conditions associated with their injuries. Occupational therapists help wounded warriors return to their military roles and responsibilities or transition into civilian life; we do this by helping them to develop or regain the skills and strategies that allow them to be successful in all areas of their lives. Our purpose in this statement is to share the unique role that occupational therapy plays in helping veterans recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We also want to provide recommendations for improving the system of care for this
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all-too-common disorder among our veterans. This is particularly true in today’s environment as many of the returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have sustained serious injuries and been exposed to operational conditions that make PTSD a natural reaction to these extraordinary stresses. While immediate focus is necessary on veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), it must also be noted that the effects of PTSD, if unidentified and untreated, can be delayed and can impact people many years after the trauma took place. Experience with WWII veterans reaching the age of retirement and their increasing identification and struggle with PTSD raises a flag of caution for Korean War and Vietnam veterans. The importance of follow-up screenings to identify individuals who are living with delayed-onset PTSD can’t be overemphasized. This need alone provides a strong argument for the full use of occupational therapists for the ongoing assessment of PTSD signs and symptoms for all those who may be affected. Mr. Chairman, we at the American Occupational Therapy Association are aware that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to increase the Veteran Administration’s patient workload. From consultation with our members within the VA, we have heard that they are struggling to maintain the quality care for which they are known as a result of the increased demand for rehabilitation services. Of concern to AOTA and our members is the need for an increased focus on rehabilitation that will meet the needs of the veteran as he or she faces serious problems that require comprehensive rehabilitation services. There must be a continuum of rehabilitation in hospitals, outpatient clinics, and community rehabilitation centers. Because of the severity of their injuries and conditions, many injured veterans need rehabilitation in their home environment, in order to assess the modifications needed for them to be functional in their homes. Many who are in wheelchairs need an occupational therapist’s help to work with building contractors to design and build an accessible route into and out of their homes. Rehabilitation does not stop when veterans are discharged from hospital or medical care; the process continues with post-rehabilitation fitness, community reintegration, social reconnection and work accommodations. All of these are areas in which occupational therapists play an important role . . . . The effective treatment of PTSD and the return of veterans back into their family and community life requires an integrated system of care that includes assessment, goal setting, treatment, and learning to ‘‘self-manage’’ life after injury. The Role of Occupational Therapy in PTSD Treatment . . . . The unique perspective of occupational therapy is highly prized by the Army for combat and operational stress control and that model should inform the use of occupational therapy within the VA. AOTA understands the variations in the nature of combat stress and the deeper aspects of PTSD, but the Army model deserves additional attention from the VA and the Subcommittee because occupational therapy brings a third dimension to the system of care commonly employed for PTSD treatment within the VA. Pharmaceutical intervention and counseling are essential aspects of PTSD treatment but they do not use therapeutic activity nor focus as specifically as occupational therapy does on the reduction of functional impairment and the
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maximization of function and performance. Medication, counseling, and engagement and participation in social and therapeutic activities are all critical tools in helping veterans to recover from PTSD. Veterans with PTSD have difficulty performing their daily life roles and activities because they reexperience events, and avoid certain activities because they are numbing and/or result in a state of hyperarousal, anxiety or even anger. Consider for example, a soldier who is driving on routine patrol and when a roadside bomb explodes under the vehicle. The soldier might experience a life-threatening injury, or witness the death of a unit member in the vehicle. Upon returning stateside, the individual with PTSD might experience disturbing flashbacks of the event triggered simply by getting behind the wheel of a car, or by driving in general. The individual might then avoid driving altogether, creating a negative spiral that affects his or her ability to engage in important activities involving everything from employment to community and social participation. But occupational therapy can help. A study by Erica Stern, at the University of Minnesota, compared the driving behaviors and driving related anxiety of 150 soldiers who had returned from OIF to 49 soldiers who had not been deployed. Returned Soldiers’ reporting on their past 30 days of American driving, reported significantly worse driving behaviors (with a large percentage of OIF soldiers reporting that they sometimes or always fell into combat driving behaviors, e.g., drove through stop signs (25 percent), drove in the middle of the road or into oncoming traffic (23 percent), drove erratically in a tunnel (11 percent), made turns or lane changes without signaling (35 percent). Nearly a third of the group had been told that they drove dangerously. These soldiers were a general sample, without known PTSD, yet in addition to their slips into combat driving behaviors, they also reported significantly more frequent anxiety than their non-deployed comrades. Twenty percent were anxious when driving at any time, with larger numbers being anxious in specific civilian driving situations that mimic combat threats associated with driving, e.g., when driving near roadside debris (31 percent), near parked cars (25 percent), through tunnels/underpasses (19 percent), in slow or stopped traffic (41 percent), at night (28 percent), and when passed by other cars (31 percent), or another car approached quickly or boxed them in (49 percent). These Soldiers were a convenience sample without known PTSD or head injury. When we hear how their driving is effected, we can easily understand the ways that driving and other daily activities are likely to be changed in soldiers with PTSD . . . . Occupational Therapy in the Veterans’ Administration . . . . AOTA is concerned about the fragmented way the VA integrates or more problematically, does not integrate occupational therapists and other professionals into multidisciplinary teams for assessment and treatment of PTSD. While VA and Department of Defense (DoD) treatment guidelines for PTSD exist and include occupational therapy, it is the experience of our members that the inclusion of occupational therapists varies from site to site. This variation does not ensure full access to effective treatments and AOTA encourages the committee to look at this issue in detail. It is also our concern that because of the primary role occupational therapy plays in the
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assessment and treatment of other conditions like TBI, low vision and traumatic amputations, veterans with PTSD are not getting the access to occupational therapy they need. Occupational therapists are simply not as readily available as they need to be to address PTSD because their workload is so high in other areas. Additional therapists are needed to address PTSD because the unique, activity-based focus of occupational therapy is so critical to recovery from PTSD, particularly during the community reintegration phase of recovery . . . . Roughly 750 occupational therapists are currently employed by the VA, but many more will be necessary to meet the needs of the new generation of veterans. Occupational therapy allows veterans with PTSD to return to activities of meaning that deliver a sense of normalcy and belonging to veterans and their families. Source: House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Health, ‘‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment and Research: Moving Ahead Toward Recover,’’ www.veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?NewsID=188, accessed February 17, 2009.
DOCUMENT 38 NATIONAL COALITION FOR HOMELESS VETERANS TESTIMONY, 2008 Homelessness among veterans exceeds the rate of the general population. On May 21, 2008, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans explained the problem and suggested solutions to the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) appreciates the opportunity to submit written testimony to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee regarding S. 2273, the Enhanced Opportunities for Formerly Homeless Veterans Residing in Permanent Housing Act of 2007, a bill that would authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct pilot programs of grants to coordinate the provision of supportive services available in the local community to very low income, formerly homeless veterans residing in permanent housing. The homeless veteran assistance movement NCHV represents began in earnest in 1990, but like a locomotive it took time to build the momentum that has turned the battle in our favor. In partnership with the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA), Labor, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—supported by funding measures this committee has championed—our community veteran service providers have helped reduce the number of homeless veterans on any given night in America by 38 percent in the last six years. This assessment is not based on the biases of advocates and service providers, but by the federal agencies charged with identifying and addressing the needs of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.
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To its credit, the VA has presented to Congress an annual estimate of the number of homeless veterans every year since 1994. It is called the CHALENG project, which stands for Community Homelessness Assessment, and Local Education Networking Groups. In 2003 the VA CHALENG report estimate of the number of homeless veterans on any given day stood at more than 314,000; in 2006 that number had dropped to about 194,000. We have been advised the estimate in the soon-to-be published 2007 CHALENG Report shows a continued decline, to about 154,000. Part of that reduction can be attributed to better data collection and efforts to avoid multiple counts of homeless clients who receive assistance from more than one service provider in a given service area. But in testimony before this committee in 2006, VA officials affirmed the number of homeless veterans was on the decline, and credited the agency’s partnership with community-based and faith-based organizations for making that downturn possible. Addressing Prevention of Veteran Homelessness The reduction in the number of homeless veterans on the streets of America each night proves the partnership of federal agencies and community organizations—with the leadership and oversight of Congress—has succeeded in building an intervention network that is effective and efficient. That network must continue its work for the foreseeable future, but its impact is commendable and offers hope that we can, indeed, triumph in the campaign to end veteran homelessness. However, the lessons we have learned and the knowledge we have gained during the last two decades must also guide our nation’s leaders and policy makers in their efforts to prevent future homelessness among veterans who are still at risk due to health and economic pressures, and the newest generation of combat veterans returning from Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF). The lack of affordable permanent housing is cited as the No. 1 unmet need of America’s veterans, according to the VA CHALENG report. Last year, Public Law 110-161 included $75 million in FY 2008 for the joint HUD-VA Supported Housing Program (HUD-VASH), which allowed HUD and VA to make up to 10,000 HUD-VA supportive incremental housing vouchers available to veterans with chronic health and disability challenges. NCHV is pleased HUD has requested another increase in equal measure in FY 2009 and hope this new funding will be approved by the Congress. The affordable housing crisis, however, extends far beyond the realm of the VA system and its community partners. Once veterans successfully complete their Grant and Per Diem (GPD) programs, many formerly homeless veterans still cannot afford fair market rents, nor will most of them qualify for mortgages even with the VA home loan guarantee. They are, essentially, still at risk of homelessness. With another 1.5 million veteran families living below the federal poverty level (2000 U.S. Census), this is an issue that requires immediate attention and proactive engagement. Many homeless veterans receiving services today are aging and the percentage of women veterans seeking services is growing. Moreover, OIF and OEF combat veterans, both men and women, are returning home and suffering from war related conditions that may put them at risk for homelessness.
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Veterans who graduate from two-year GPD programs often need supportive services while they continue to build toward economic stability and social reintegration into mainstream society. Those who will need permanent supportive housing—the chronically mentally ill, those with functional disabilities, families impacted by poverty— may be served by the HUD-VASH program. But the majority of GPD graduates need access to affordable housing with some level of follow-up services for up to two to three years to ensure their success. Many community-based organizations are already providing that kind of ‘‘bridge housing,’’ but resources for this purpose are scarce. At present, the VA cannot meet the range of housing and resource needs of currently homeless and at-risk returning veterans. While the agency can provide homeless veterans with primary care and mental health services, along with transitional housing, it lacks the authority and funding to provide supportive services for the growing number of veterans who will need longterm affordable permanent housing. To meet these current and future needs, NCHV urges this Committee to support S. 2273, a measure that would authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish several pilot programs that would provide grants to public and non-profit (including faith-based and community organizations) to provide local supportive services to very low-income, formerly homeless veterans residing in long-term or permanent housing. The programs would be conducted at former military properties or installations in addition to properties where permanent housing is provided to formerly homeless veterans. Homeless and at-risk veterans need a community-based, coordinated effort that provides secure housing and nutritional meals; essential physical health care, substance abuse aftercare and mental health counseling; and personal development and empowerment. Veterans also need job assessment, training and placement assistance. NCHV believes all programs to assist homeless and at-risk veterans must focus on helping veterans reach the point where they can obtain and sustain employment and live independent lives in their community. Passage and implementation of S. 2273 would be a giant step towards helping these veterans have a higher chance of becoming productive citizens again. In Summation: NCHV believes it is now time to take the next step in the campaign to end veteran homelessness. Developing solutions that address the health and economic challenges of veterans who served in Viet Nam and other conflicts as well as OIF/OEF veterans —before they are threatened with homelessness—and provide the necessary funding and resources should be a national priority. Never before in U.S. history has this nation, during a time of war, concerned itself with preventing veteran homelessness. For all our collective accomplishments, this may yet be our finest moment. Source: Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, www.nchv.org/content.cfm?id=72, accessed February 17, 2009.
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DOCUMENT 39 SUICIDE AMONG IRAQ AND AFGHAN VETERANS The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) has been working with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the House and Senate Committees on Veterans Affairs to address the problems of returning veterans. At a hearing of the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs on September 16, 2008, Tom Tarantino, Policy Associate of IAVA, described the problem of suicide among recent veterans and the program his organization has developed to combat it. Mr. Chairman, ranking member and distinguished members of the committee, on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and our more than 100,000 members nationwide, I thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony regarding veteran suicide, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ outreach efforts. Since the beginning of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have witnessed a dramatic upswing in suicide rates among troops on active duty and veterans. In 2006, the suicide rate for active-duty soldiers reached its highest level in decades, with 97 Army suicides. In 2007, this disturbing trend escalated beyond all expectations to 115. And just last week, it was revealed that the suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2008 are likely to be even higher, as there have been 62 confirmed and 31 suspected suicides already this year. Tragically, for the first time since the Vietnam War, the Army suicide rate is on track to exceed that of the civilian population. While the rate of military suicides is closely monitored, the VA only just recently began tracking the suicide rate for veterans. From 2002–2005, 141 veterans who left the service after September 11, 2001, took their own lives. In 2006 alone, there were 113 suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans. The suicide rate for male veterans ages 18–29 in 2006 was about 46 suicides per 100,000, compared with about 20 suicides per 100,000 for their nonveteran peers. And these are just the cases that are being tracked by the VA. For veterans of all generations, data on suicide is equally troubling. While veterans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 20 percent of the suicides. As evidenced by these statistics, suicide is likely to be a long-term problem for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Multiple tours, inadequate dwell time between tours, strained relationships, and financial difficulties have all contributed to the rising rate of suicide among active-duty troops and veterans. Mental health injuries are also a major risk factor. According to a RAND study, 300,000 of the 1.7 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will develop combatrelated mental health issues. Many of these cases will go untreated, and if allowed, develop into severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Suicide is the end result of multiple failures in our military and veterans’ mental health care systems. Inadequate mental health screening upon redeployment, professional and personal stigma attached to mental health care, and inadequate VA outreach have brought us to this crisis, with little to no end in sight.
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The establishment of the VA suicide hotline last year was a critical first step in reversing this trend, and with over 55,000 calls received, it is clear that the VA is moving in the right direction in getting the message out about this service. The success of the VA hotline is admirable and we applaud them for making this toll-free hotline available to veterans in need. But with the hotline averaging 250 calls per day from troubled veterans and concerned family members, it is clear that more needs to be done to reach out to vulnerable veterans and get them the help they desperately need. The VA is currently testing outreach advertisements in the Washington, DC, region. While these efforts are necessary, the execution leaves much to be desired. Appearing on buses and trains, these print ads do not adequately relate to veterans of this conflict and are not as effective as they could be. The silhouette employed in the ad is clearly not of a modern soldier, and the ad itself blends into the background of ads that litter our public transportation system. It is clear that while the VA had the right idea with their outreach efforts, they have not done sufficient advertising research to connect with veterans of the current conflicts. IAVA is doing its part to reach out to new veterans, and ensure that they know about the services available to them. IAVA has recently partnered with the Ad Council for a historic 3-year Public Service Announcement campaign set to launch on Veterans Day. It is our belief that through extensive research, testing and the use of multiple mediums, including TV, radio, print, and the internet, we will be able to reach those veterans who need and do not typically seek help. However, outreach alone will not stem the rise in veteran suicide. IAVA believes that a mandatory and confidential mental health screening with a mental health professional pre- and post-deployment is the first and most critical step in the early detection and prevention of combat-stress injuries that so frequently lead to suicide. Additionally, IAVA believes that the VA must open its doors to the families of veterans so that they can receive and participate in the recovery and reintegration of our service men and women. Coupled with a targeted and thoughtful outreach campaign by both the VA and the VSOs [Veterans Service Organizations, such as the American Legion], these critical actions can begin to stem the tide of suicides that is tragically affecting our nation’s heroes. It is clear by the success of the VA hotline that there are those out there who want to reach out and need to receive care. Now, we must redouble our efforts to reach out to those who are reluctant, yet need care none the less. IAVA looks forward to working with the VA and the VSO community to ramp up outreach and formulate a message that modern veterans will respond to. The alarming trend of suicides can be reversed and we are committed to providing any and all assistance needed to the VA to improve their outreach efforts. Together as a community, we can help our brothers and sisters return from war and readjust from warrior to citizen. Source: House Veterans Committee, Subcomittee on Health, www.veterans.house.gov /hearings/hearing.aspx?NewsID=300, accessed February 17, 2009.
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APPENDIX I Monuments, Memorials, and Museums: A State by State Guide
ALABAMA The state of Alabama honors its veterans of all wars with three museums. The Alabama Veterans Memorial is located in Birmingham and contains an educational center along columns with engraved images and stories of veterans set in a 21-acre park. Names of all 11,000 Alabamans known to have died in American wars are engraved in a Greek-style temple. Location: Intersection of I-459 and Liberty Park. Web site: www.alabamaveterans.com/HTML/soldier.htm. The Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives may be found in the old L&N Freight Depot in Athens. It was the brainchild of the late Limestone County, Alabama, Veterans Service Officer Kenneth David. It opened informally in 2000 and officially in 2002 and contains the Tyler Craig Memorial Library; the Bob McAbee Exhibit Hall; and the Wendell Powers Auditorium. Collections include uniforms, medals, weapons, photographs, books, tapes, and other interesting memorabilia from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and the current ‘‘Operation Enduring Freedom’’ in Iraq. Veterans of different wars volunteer as guides to the museum. Location: West Pryor Street in Athens next to the railroad tracks, approximately 1.3 miles west of Highway 31. Address: 1500 West Pryor Street, Athens, Alabama 35611. Phone: 256-771-7578. Web site: www.alabamaveteransmuseum.com/about_veterans1.htm. Alabama veterans of all wars are honored at the USS Alabama Battleship Park. Saved from being scrapped in 1964 thanks to a fund-raising campaign undertaken by the citizens of Alabama, the World War II battleship is the focus of a park in Mobile Bay. The park includes numerous retired airplanes, motor vehicles, and the submarine USS Drum, along with Vietnam and Korean memorials. The Vietnam memorial is black rock and resembles the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, in that the names of all Alabamans who died in the war are engraved. The names of Korean War veterans are engraved on a gray monument, with an obelisk topped by a carved flame beside it. Location: End of U.S. 10, Exit 27 or 30, at Mobile Bay. 587
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Address: P.O. Box 65, Mobile, AL 36601. Phone: 251-433-2703. Web site: www .ussalabama.com. Last but not least, the State of Alabama Veterans Memorial Museum contains over 30 military vehicles starting with World War I along with memorabilia, artifacts, and dioramas documenting conflicts beginning with the Revolutionary War. It offers living history reenactments and contains a library of veterans’ memoirs and military history books and records. Location: U.S. 231 and Airport Road in Huntsville. Address: 2060 A Airport Road, Huntsville, AL 35801. Phone: 356-863-3737. Web site: www.memorialmuseum.org. Other museums and memorials deal with specific wars or themes. Alabama’s earliest military heritage can be discovered at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park. One of four national parks dedicated to the War of 1812, it is located at the site of Andrew Jackson’s victory over the Creek Indians in 1814, where 800 Native Americans died, the most of any single battle in American history. The ‘‘Red Sticks,’’ as they were known, believed they were invulnerable to bullets if they carried these objects. A visitors’ center has displays and artifacts relating to the battle, including a video and interactive exhibit. Location: Highway 49 between Dadesville and Newsite. Address: 112888 Horseshoe Bend Road, Daviston, AL 36256: Phone: 256-234-7111. Web site: www.nps.gov/hobe. Montgomery, Alabama, was the first capital of the Confederacy, and the Alabama Confederate Veterans Memorial is an impressive park containing two cemeteries, a museum of Civil War artifacts, and a historic Methodist church and post office on the site of the Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home. Unlike homes for Union veterans funded by the federal government, residences for impoverished or disabled Confederate veterans were paid for by private donations and the states. The only such home in Alabama was established as a private facility donated by Jefferson Manly Falkner, a Montgomery attorney and Confederate veteran, on 80 acres of land in Chilton County. Taken over by the state in 1903, it contained a 22-building complex that included a 25-bed hospital. In the course of its history it housed between 650 and 800 veterans and widows, and at its peak between 1914 and 1918 it was the home of 108 people. The last Confederate veteran died in 1934, and the five remaining widows were relocated when the home closed in 1939. Location: County Road 63 off U.S. 31, Marbury. Address: 437 County Line Road 63, Marbury, AL 36051. Phone: 205-7551990. Web site: www.historical.alabama.gov/confederatepark.aspx?sm=g_d. For World War II veterans, the Aliceville Museum may be found at the site of Camp Aliceveille, an important camp for German POWs in World War II. The Museum contains letters, artifacts, photos, works of art, and memorabilia from both captives and guards, who periodically reunite. Location: Highway 14 in Aliceville (28 miles west of I-59 off Exit 40). Address: 104 Broad Street, Aliceville, AL 35442. Phone: 888-751-2340. Web site: www.cityofaliceville.com/MuseumMain.htm. Alabama is also the home of the United States Warrant Officers Museum (warrant officers are ranked above noncommissioned officers but below commissioned officers and have special technical or strategic skills). It consists of several rooms at Fort Rucker on the second floor of the Headquarters Company Building (Building 5910) for the Warrant Officers Career Center. Display cases are used for smaller
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artifacts and several rooms have been set up in ‘‘tableau’’ style displays using larger artifacts. A fund has been incorporated to raise money for a larger museum (see Web site and address below). Location: U.S. Highways 84 or 231 between the cities of Enterprise, Daleville, and Ozark. Phone: 334-255-3869. The Warrant Officers Heritage Foundation is seeking to raise funds for a full-scale museum: 462 Herndon Pkwy, Suite 207, c/o USAWOA, Herndon, VA 20170. Phone: 757-336-6869. Web site: www.penfed.org/usawoa/woheritage/MuseumFund.htm. Fort Rucker is also the site of the U.S. Army Aviation Museum. It contains over 160 aircraft, including one of the world’s largest collections of military helicopters, plus artifacts related to the history of aviation from balloons and the Wright Brothers to the present. A research library contains reports, official documents, photographs, and memoirs/papers. The museum is supported by the U.S. Army Aviation Museum Foundation, Inc. Location: U.S. Highways 84 or 231 between the cities of Enterprise, Daleville, and Ozark. Address: P.O. Box 620610, Fort Rucker, AL 36330. Phone: 334598-2508. Web site: www.armyavnmuseum.org. Alabama boasts two museums relating to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Air Force Enlisted Heritage Hall and Research Institute is located on the site of the Wright Brother’s Montgomery Flying School (opened in 1910), on the Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base. It is part of the Air University, the Intellectual and Leadership Center of the Air Force. It contains tributes and exhibits to honor air force enlisted personnel in all twentieth-century wars, including a memorial to war dogs in Vietnam, a Vietnam POW cell, aircraft guns, exhibits on the Tuskegee airmen and their supporting troops, ‘‘Jimmy’’ Doolittle’s World War II squadron, and the Khobar Towers Memorial Display, honoring 19 air force personnel killed in the terrorist bombing of an American housing complex in Dhahran, Saudia Arabia on June 25, 1996. Location: Gunter Annex, Maxwell Airforce Base on North Boulevard near the intersection of I-85 and 65 in Montgomery. Phone: 334-953-1110. Web site: http://afehri.maxwell.af.mil. Alabama also is the home of the Southern Museum of Flight, which contains numerous planes in several galleries including 16 aircraft outside, dating from replicas of the Wright Brothers planes and memorabilia from the Wrights’ flying school to the present. Also featured are many scale models, including an 11-foot one of the USS Enterprise, and photographs of the Alabama Air National Guard, including some portraying the roles of women and African Americans. Location: From Interstate 20/59, two blocks east of Birmingham International Airport, take the Airport Boulevard exit to the museum. Address: 4343 73rd Street North, Birmingham, AL 35206. Telephone: 205-833-8226. Web site: www.southernmuseumofflight.org.
ALASKA The Alaska Veterans Memorial was constructed between 1981 and 1983 thanks to the efforts of State Senator Charles Parr, a World War II veteran. After entering through an alcove with a statue of two figures representing the Alaska National Guard Scout Battalion by Canadian artist George Pratt, the alcove terminates with panels describing the memorial itself and the histories of the Alaska National Guard and the Merchant Marine. Next the visitor encounters five 20-foot-tall panels, each with a
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carved star above inscriptions describing the history of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard in Alaska and the role of Alaskans in these services. Special plaques honor and describe Alaskans who won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Location: Denali (Mt. McKinley) State Park, Byers Lake, Mile 147 Parks Highway, between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Web site: http://69.36.168.59/articles/ akvetmem.html. The Alaska Veterans Memorial Museum is in the planning stages. The organizers may be reached at P.O. Box 773364, Eagle River, AK 99577. Phone: 907-753-2627. Web site: www.alaskaveterans.com. Alaska’ military heritage began under Russian rule, as many Native Americans resisted the Russian America Company that forced them to gather furs and perform hard labor. The Sitka National Historical Park was the site of the last battle between the Russians and Tlingits; it is the site of the Bishop of Alaska’s house and contains artifacts of Tlingit culture and Russian occupation. Location: On Baranoff Island, accessible by ferry or air from Juneau and other points. Address: 103 Monastery Street, Sitka, AK 99835. Phone: 907-747-6281: Web site: www.nps.gov/sitk/historyculture/ totem-poles.htm. Under American rule after 1867, the military’s principal function in Alaska was keeping order between the Native Americans and the civilian population. The Sitka National Cemetery was founded in the 1870s to bury American military personnel, but the cemetery was neglected by the 1910s. The American Legion post at Sitka persuaded the navy to repair it. It is now a national cemetery where ceremonies honoring veterans are regularly held. Address: 803 Sawmill Creek Road, Sitka, AK 99835. Phone: 907-384-7075 (administered by Fort Richardson National Cemetery). Web site: www1.va.gov/directory/guide/facility.asp?ID=267. The army’s task increased enormously with the Alaska Gold Rush: Fort Egbert was built in 1897, and on its site is a museum of military artifacts from this era. There are six other museums in Eagle City related to the Gold Rush. Address: c/o Eagle Historical Society, P.O. Box 23, Eagle City, AK 99738. Phone: 907-547-2230. Web site: www.eagleak.org/city.htm. The Kodiak Military History Museum is also located at on the site of a former fort. Housed in an ammunition dump, the museum contains electronic and radio equipment, a jeep, and various artifacts from World War II. The library contains numerous photo albums and memoirs from those who served on the base. Address: Ft. Abercrombie State Historical Park, 1417 Mill Bay Road #B, Kodiak (Island), AK 99615. Phone: 907-486-7015. Web site: www.kadiak.org. Air travel was (and still is) the only way to traverse much of Alaska, and two museums honor the military pioneers of this service. The Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum contains over two dozen aircraft from the 1920s to the 1940s. It is located at the north entrance to Anchorage Airport on the south side of Lake Hood. Address: 4721 Airport Drive, Anchorage, AK 99502. Phone: 907-348-5325. Web site: www .alaskaairmuseum.org. The Alaskaland Pioneer Air Museum is the farthest north aviation museum in the United States; it features planes (14), rare photographs, and artifacts from early Alaskan aviation. It may be found at the airport in Fairbanks, 2300 Airport Way,
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P.O. Box 70437, Fairbanks, AK 99707. Phone: 907- 451-0037. Web site: www.akpub .com/akttt/aviat.html. Many of Alaska’s memorials concern World War II, when two of the Aleutian Islands were the only U.S. territories in North America occupied by the enemy. The USS Juneau Memorial commemorates the sinking on November 13, 1942, of the USS Juneau, a light cruiser. Casualties included all except 10 of the 700 men on board including the 5 Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa, who had asked to serve on the same ship. On the concrete monuments are three brass plaques listing the names of the deceased and describing the tragedy. Location: Juneau Harbor, Cruise Ship Dock. Another memorial in Juneau, a stone marker at the tram terminal on South Franklin Street, honors marine Archie Van Winkle, who won the Congressional medal of honor and served in both World War II and the Korean War. Located on the military base, built in 1940–1941, Fort Richardson National Cemetery is the final resting place of Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, who fought in the Aleutians in World War II. Also buried here is medal of honor recipient Sergeant James LeRoy Bondsteel. Japanese soldiers killed in the Aleutians are interred in the Japanese mound, and Russians, Canadians, and Alaskans who died in World War II are also buried in separate sections. A plaque on the gates to the cemetery (which are dedicated to Roosevelt) states the cemetery honors ‘‘the memory of all the patriotic men and women who answered their country’s call to service.’’ Location: Anchorage. Address: P.O. Box 5-498, Building 58-512, Davis Highway, Fort Richardson, AK 99505. Phone: 907-384-7075. Web site: www1.va.gov/directory/ guide/facility.asp?ID=265. Alaska was an important region from which supplies were shipped to Siberia in World War II. The Merchant Marine Memorial was dedicated in 1991: it consists of an anchor that stands on a circular, concrete base. There is also a flagpole that honors the World War II Merchant Marine, whose members were recognized as veterans by the federal government in 1988. A plaque reads ‘‘This anchor is dedicated to American World War II Merchant Marine veterans, all Mariners past, present and future. Peace be unto ye. Tempus fugit VI-XXI-MCMXCI.’’ Location: Kenai, Leif Hansen Park. Also honoring naval and merchant marine veterans is the Sea Services Veterans Memorial Park, on the waterfront in Anchorage. It features an 11-ton anchor and chain, taken from the USS Anchorage and installed in 1992. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of Master Chief Jerry Harrington of the U.S. Navy, the Anchorage citizen who spearheaded the effort to create this park that honors veterans who served at sea. Native American and African American veterans both played a special role in Alaskan history. A bridge built in 1966 at Mile 305 on Parks Highway was dedicated as the Alaska Native Veterans’ Honor Bridge to honor Native Americans as the ethnic group with the nation’s highest per capita rate of military service over the course of its history. Display panels describe the role of Native Alaskans in America’s military history. Similarly, a 1944 bridge was dedicated in 1993 as the Black Veterans Memorial Bridge to honor the black soldiers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (units were segregated until 1948) who helped build the Alcan (now Alaska) Highway during
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World War II. Construction took only a little over eight months despite terrible weather and formidable geography. Location: Milepost 1392 of the Alaska Highway. Heritage Park at Eielson Air Force Base, at Fairbanks, contains monuments commemorating Alaskan aviation pioneer Ben Eielson and the state’s POWs, MIAs, and Medal of Honor winners. The park contains a pavilion, a corridor flanked by the flags of the 50 states, and a variety of military aircraft. The POW monument reads: ‘‘The Prisoners of War and Missing in Action monument reminds us not to forget the suffering of our comrades, who cannot be with us today. It was designed from a prison environment perspective. The monument is constructed of rock and concrete to give the feeling of the austere conditions prisoners of war endured. The raised wall reminds us of the limitations placed on those without freedom. ‘‘Lest we forget those that gave so much that we can be free.’’ The Medal of Honor Monument ‘‘recognizes the sacrifices and accomplishments of all airmen that helped make this country free by their unselfish acts. Their courage and bravery came at a high personal price and helped forge the ideas of democracy.’’ Information: 907-377-2116. Also in Fairbanks is the Interior Alaska Veterans Memorial. Flags and benches surround the small plaza in Veterans Memorial Park at Cushman Street and Seventh Avenue containing a granite memorial to the region’s veterans. An especially interesting local memorial, the Veterans Wall of Honor is being constructed by the community of Wasilla, of which 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin served as mayor. Designed to resemble the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, it was created through the efforts of a local veterans’ committee. Black stone plaques containing 120 names each are added as needed. All American veterans killed in action, honorably discharged, living or deceased, or those currently serving can have their names inscribed at a cost of $50 to defray the price of materials. A nearby 20-ton granite boulder on a large concrete pedestal has a bronze plaque that reads: ‘‘To all veterans of all conflicts in which the United States Armed Forces were engaged in past and present. To the mothers, fathers, and families whose sons and daughters have made the supreme sacrifice. To those veterans who still suffer the wounds and ravages of war and to those missing and not yet home. In order that we may continue to live in freedom in the greatest nation on earth, The United States of America. We, the people of the Matanuska-Susitna valley gratefully dedicate this monument this 11th day of November 1991. May their sacrifices never be forgotten.’’ Location: Milepost A 35 Parks Highway. Address: Areawide Community Service Council, P.O. Box 872358, Wasilla, AK 99689.
ARIZONA The last of the 48 contiguous states to join the union in 1912, much of Arizona’s military history can be experienced in museums that deal with the Indian wars. A good starting point is Fort Huachuca, located 90 miles south of Tucson. The museum houses displays of the military history of the Southwest beginning with the Mexican War. Huachuca means the ‘‘place of thunder’’ and was the principal base from which the army hunted Geronimo and his followers. The fort contains two museums: the Fort Huachuca Museum honors the (African American) Buffalo soldiers and others who
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fought in the Apache Wars. The Military Intelligence Museum honors those servicemen whose collection of information has been vital in fighting all the nation’s wars. A 3,000 pound section of the Berlin Wall is on display. Location: Route 90 south of I-10. Address: Museum Director, Attention: ATZS-TDO-M U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Huachuca, AZ 85613. Phone: 520-533-5736 Web site: www.huachuca.army.mil. Specifically related to the Indian wars is Cochise’s Stronghold, the mountainous rock formation where Cochise held out for 15 years against the U.S. military. He was never captured and died on the Chiricahua Apache Reservation after he surrendered. His secret burial place is supposed to be near the stronghold. Location: Coronado National Forest; From Sunsites, take Ironwood Road (off State Route 191) west 9.1 miles to campground entrance. Once inside the forest, Ironwood Road becomes Forest Route 84, which is a rough dirt road. Address: Douglas Ranger Station Rural Route 1, Box 228-R, Douglas, AZ 85607. Web site: www.cochisestronghold.com. For Geronimo’s last stronghold, visit the Chiricahua National Monument, set amid spectacular mountain scenery and a park for camping and hiking (no lodging). Location: 120 miles east of Tucson, Exit I-10 at Willcox, and follow Arizona Route 186, 36 miles south to the Monument. Web site: www.desertusa.com/chi. Fort Apache, founded in 1870, the site from which soldiers pursued Geronimo and Cochise, contains over 20 buildings dating from the 1870s to the 1930s. They may be visited on the 288-acre site, along with archaeological ruins, military artifacts, and an Apache cultural site. Location: 4 miles south of Whitewater. Take State Highway 73 East from Carrizo or South from Pinetop. The Fort is approximately 22 miles from the turnoff. Address: P.O. Box 628, Fort Apache, AZ 85926. Phone: 928-338-4625. Web site: www.wmonline.com/attract/ftapache.htm. Among the several surviving forts in Arizona is Old Fort Lowell, originally established in 1873 and now run by the Arizona Historical Society. The Fort Lowell Museum, in the reconstructed commanding officer’s quarters, has exhibits about military life on the Arizona frontier, living history demonstrations, and public programs. Location: Old Fort Lowell Park at the corner of Craycroft and Fort Lowell Road in Tucson. Address: 2900 North Craycroft Road, Tucson, AZ 85712. Phone: 520-8853832. Web site: www.arizonahistoricalsociety.org. Fort Bowie National Historic Site commemorates another fort used by the army in the fight against the Apaches. The fort contains exhibits on military and Apache life and the Butterfield mail route which served the area. Location: From Willcox drive southeast for 20 miles on Route 186 to the Fort Bowie turnoff, then drive another 8 miles on the unpaved road to the Fort Bowie Trailhead. From Bowie, drive 13 miles south on Apache Pass Road. Address: P.O. Box 158, Bowie, AZ 85605. Phone: 520847-2500. Web site: www.hikercentral.com/parks/fobo. The best preserved example of an Indian wars period fort in Arizona is Camp Verde, now a state park. The site contains three historic house museums: the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, Bachelors’ Quarters, and Doctor’s Quarters, all furnished in the 1880s period. In the former Administration Building there are interpretive exhibits with period artifacts on military life, Indian Scouts, and Indian wars history. Location: Take I-17 to Highway 260 (east). Turn left on Main Street to 125 East Holloman Street and turn left. Address: 125 East Hollomon, Camp Verde, AZ
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86322. Phone: 520-567-3275. Web site: www.pr.state.az.us/Parks/parkhtml/ fortverde.html. Another important location in the Indian wars was the Yuma Crossing Quartermaster Depot, now a historic site. This depot distributed supplies to western U.S. army posts from the 1860s until the railroad reached Tucson in 1880. U.S. Army posts in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and west Texas were supplied from the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico via the Atlantic Ocean, then through Panama and around Baja, California (part of Mexico), and finally up the Colorado River to Yuma. The post closed in 1883 but a few structures remain as part of a ‘‘ghost town.’’ There is a tourist center with information and artifacts. Location: South of I-8 on Fourth Avenue. Address: 201 North Fourth Avenue, Yuma, AZ 85364. Phone: 520- 329-0471. Web site: www.azstateparks.com. Arizonans enlisted, some as Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, in the SpanishAmerican War. The Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott Arizona, maintains an online only exhibit of Arizona’s role in the war. Web only: www.sharlot.org/index.shtml. Aviation has played a large part in Arizona’s twentieth-century military history. Several impressive museums document this fact. The Pima Air and Space Museum is the largest aviation museum in the American Southwest and third largest in the nation with over 275 air and space vehicles. It consists of five hangars, a World War II barracks, outdoor exhibits (planes and missiles), and a space exploration gallery. Many interactive exhibits encompass the period from the earliest days of flight to the present, including the role of women and black aviators, aviation art, aircraft, written and photographic archives, and extensive exhibits on aviation history. It also contains the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame and operates tours of the Davis-Monthan Airforce Base. Location: 6000 East Valencia Road, Tuscon, AZ 85706. Phone: 520574-0462. Address: Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, 3895 South 6 Street, DavisMonthan AFB, AZ, 85707. Phone: 520-228-3900. Web site: www.pimaair.org. On the grounds of the Pima Air and Space Museum is the 390th Memorial Museum related to this airborne unit that fought the Germans from 1943 to 1945, with the loss of 179 of its 301 planes. Exhibits also feature the role of African American and Medivac Aviators and showcase numerous airplanes and equipment in five hangars. One exhibit honors General James H. Doolittle. The Joseph A. Moller Library has over 90,000 pages of 390th combat history, with more than 10,000 photographs. Address: 6000 East Valencia Road, Tucson, AZ 85706. Phone: 520-574-0287. Web site: www.390th.org. The Arizona Wing Commemorative Air Force Museum is another location where planes, murals/displays, uniforms, and other artifacts from World War Il and other twentieth-century wars may be found. The museum encourages school field trips and collects veterans’ oral histories and memorabilia. Address: 2017 North Greenfield Road, Mesa, AZ 85215. Phone: 480-924-1940. Web site: www.arizonawingcaf.com /pages/museum.html. Visitors to the Grand Canyon’s Arizona entrance may also experience the Planes of Fame Museum. This is a satellite of the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California (see that entry for more information).
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Recently, the Southwest has been the testing and storage site for many of America’s missiles. Arizona’s Titan Missile Museum is the only Titan-II missile exhibit in the world that allows access to the missile, with both above- and below-ground facilities. It also includes the command station and accompanying Cold War exhibits. Location: Off I-19 south of Tucson. Address: 1580 West Duval Mine Road, Sahuarita, AZ 85629. Phone: 520-625-7736. Web site: www.titanmissilemuseum.org. The totality of Arizona’s military history is best experienced at the Arizona Military Museum. Located on the Papago Park National Guard base and run by the Arizona National Guard Historical Society, the museum’s building was constructed in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration. During World War II it was part of a German POW camp—a diorama in the POW/MIA room of the museum shows how 25 Germans tunneled out of the camp, although all were recaptured. Conflicts from the Spanish Conquest to the Iraq wars are represented by displays, uniforms, vehicles, artillery, and miscellaneous mementos. Recent exhibits highlight the National Guard’s own history in Arizona and a Vietnam War ‘‘Huey’’ helicopter visitors can enter. Contains airplanes, equipment, uniforms, murals, and other displays dealing with World War II. A recent exhibit concerns ‘‘The Home Front.’’ A collection of oral histories and written, verbal, and visual materials from veterans is also maintained. Location: Papago Park Military Reservation. Address: 5636 East McDowell Road, Phoenix, AZ 85008. Phone: 602-267-2676. Web site: www.azguard.gov/museum/museum.htm. The Arizona Historical Society Museum features many exhibits on the early history of Arizona, including the Indian wars. Among other exhibits is the Arizona home front during World War II. Address: 1300 North College Avenue, Tempe, AZ 85281. Phone: 480-929-0292. Web site: www.arizonahistoricalsociety.org.
ARKANSAS Several of Arkansas’ memorials are located at or near the state capitol building in Little Rock. These include the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, formerly the Arkansas Museum of Science and History, located in the Arsenal Tower of Little Rock’s first military post, built in 1840. The museum honors General Douglas MacArthur, who was born in the building in 1880, and contains artifacts and exhibits from throughout Arkansas history. Military exhibits rotate, but permanent exhibits are devoted to Arkansas Medal of Honor winners and General MacArthur. Address: MacArthur Park, 503 East 9th Street, Little Rock, AR 72202. Phone: 501-212-5212. Web site: www.arkmilitaryheritage.com. It is fitting that the Arkansas Korean War Veterans Memorial is in MacArthur Park near the MacArthur Museum, as the general commanded the UN and U.S. forces there. Dedicated in 2007, it consists of a commemorative wall containing the names of all Arkansas citizens killed during the war situated on an octagonal plaza shaped like a Korean temple. Bronze statues of two soldiers are also featured. Arkansas’ role in the Civil War is commemorated by the impressive Confederate Memorial on the state capitol grounds. A large statue of an angel holds a wreath over the head of a Confederate private soldier. The inscription reads: ‘‘Our furled banner
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wreathed with glory and though conquered, We adore it. Weep for those who fell before it. Pardon those who trailed and tore it.’’ Nearby is the Confederate Women’s Memorial, where statues consist of a returning soldier greeted by his wife and children. Its inscription honors those women ‘‘whose pious ministrations to our wounded soldiers soothed the last hours of those who died for the object of their tenderest love. Whose domestic labors contributed much to supply the wants of our defenders in the field; Whose jealous faith in our cause shone a guide star, undimmed by the darkest clouds of war; Whose fortitude sustained them under all the privations to which they were subjected; and whose patriotism will teach their sons to emulate the deeds of their sires.’’ Also at the capitol is the Arkansas Vietnam Veterans Memorial, consisting of a wall with the names of 662 service personnel killed or missing in action from Arkansas. The statue of an infantryman sits on a base inscribed with the names of each of the U.S. military branches. Much like the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, people come to place items near the names of their loved ones. The memorial is framed by the U.S. and Arkansas flags and is illuminated for night viewing. Designed by Stephen Gartmann, it was dedicated in 1987 by General William Westmoreland who commanded the forces in Vietnam. North Little Rock has two important sites for veterans. The Arkansas National Guard Museum, which opened in 1999, tells the story of the militia and National Guard in Arkansas from the colonial era to the present. There are numerous military artifacts and exhibits. Location: Lloyd England Building, Camp Robinson, North Little Rock. Phone: 501-212-5100. Web site: www.arngmuseum.com. North Little Rock’s Riverfront Park is the location of the Submarine Veteran’s Memorial. A torpedo accompanies plaques reminding visitors of the great havoc inflicted by submarines on enemy navies and the fact that 52 of 288 submarines and one out of five submarine sailors never returned. Web site: www.arkansasties.com /Pulaski/Structures3/Submarine/submarine.htm. Visitors to the town of Hardy will be impressed with the museum created as a memorial to the town’s history and the nation’s veterans by a community of about 3,000 people. The Veterans’ Military Museum contains donations by local veterans including a helicopter, jeeps, and various artifacts going back to the Civil War. Location: 738 Main Street, intersection of Routes 62 and 412. Address: P.O. Box 1051, Hardy, AR 72542. Phone: 870-856-4133. Web site: www.ohwy.com/ar/v/ vetmilmu.htm. In Harrison, you can also visit the Marine Corps Legacy Museum. Artifacts and exhibits detail the history of the Marine Corps from its founding in Philadelphia in 1775 to the present. Uniforms, equipment, weapons, and the marines’ combat missions are highlighted. Well-informed and friendly staff offer much information on the subject. Location: Business Route 65 at Town Square. Address: Marine Corps Legacy Museum, P.O. Box 2654. Harrison, AR 72602. Phone: 870-743-1680. Web site: www.mclm.com. Another town with a good small museum is Jacksonville, whose Museum of Military History features exhibits from the Civil War to Vietnam and connects this town and its people to the nation’s military history. Address: 100 Veterans
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Circle, Jacksonville, AR 72076. Phone: 501-982-6556. Web site: www.jax militarymuseum.org. Arkansas’ history as a territory is reconstructed at the Arkansas Post National Memorial, which is run by the National Parks Service. The museum and visitors center features military artifacts along with reconstructed fort walls from the first capital of Arkansas territory. Location: Highway 169 South from Highway 165 (south of town of Gillette). Address: 1741 Old Post Road, Gillette, AR 72055. Phone: 870548-2432. Web site: http://arkansasroadstories.com/history/arkpost.html. The Pea Ridge National Military Park marks Arkansas’ most important Civil War battle: a Confederate defeat there in 1862 gave the Union complete control of Missouri. A visitors center contains Civil War artifacts, an AV presentation, and explains the story of the battle. Location: Highway 62 east from Rogers. Address: P.O. Box 700, Pea Ridge, AR 72751. Phone: 479-451-8122. Web site: www.nps.gov/peri. Also of note is the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park, where a good visitors center highlights the site of a Civil War battle, which is reenacted every other year. Location: Highway 62 west from Fayetteville at Prairie Grove. Address: 506 East Douglas Street, Prairie Grove, AR 72753. Phone: 479-846-2990. Web site: www .arkansasstateparks.com. Arkansas’ contribution to World War II is highlighted at the Darby House. It was the boyhood home of General William O. Darby of Darby’s Rangers, the World War II unit which was the model for the U.S. special forces units. The house mostly contains material from World War II ranger units. Address: Darby Foundation, 311 General Darby Street, Fort Smith, AR 72901. Phone: 479-782-3388. Web site: www.fortsmith.org/things-to-do/Historic_Attractions.aspx. There are two museums in Fayetteville, the home of the University of Arkansas. The Ozark Military Museum in South Fayetteville has a good collection of World War II aircraft, uniforms, vehicles, and flags and holds events related to the war. Location: U.S. 71. Address: 4360 South School Avenue, Fayetteville, AR 72701. Phone: 479-587-1941. Web site: www.ozarkmilitarymuseum.org/about.aspx. For the entire history of aviation as well as planes dating back to the 1920s, visitors should visit the nearby Arkansas Air Museum. Many of the planes are still flown in air shows. The museum contains the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame. Location: U.S. 71 at southernmost point of Fayetteville. Address: 4290 South School Street, Drake Field, Fayetteville, AR 72701. Phone: 501-521-4947. Web site: www .arkairmuseum.org.
CALIFORNIA The California State Military Museum covers the entire gamut of the state’s military history. It contains exhibits with dioramas and over 30,000 artifacts from the Spanish Conquest to the twenty-first century. The African American, Native American, and Asian-America military experiences are highlighted along with the state National Guard. A research library has over 10,000 volumes plus donated documents. A publication series is available both online and in print. Address: 1119 Second Street,
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Sacramento CA 95814 (Old Town Sacramento). Phone: 916-442-2883. Web site: www.militarymuseum.org. Nearby, on the grounds of the State House, are five California veterans’ memorials. The California Veterans Memorial is an obelisk which, when examined closely, exhibits the horrors of war. A computer allows people to trace any California veteran. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a spherical structure that is segmented, with a statue of a soldier somewhat protected within. Both are troubling structures that cause people to question the costs and purposes of war. The Spanish-American War and the Mexican-American War Veterans Memorials are statues of soldiers, the latter being inscribed in Spanish. The Bell of the USS California, a ship commissioned between 1919 and 1949, is also part of the park. A grove of trees dedicated in 1897 honors Civil War Veterans. Location: State Capitol, Sacramento. Information: California Veterans Memorial, P.O. Box 942895, Sacramento CA 94295. Phone: 916-653-1863. Web site: www.vecsamnet.org/vetmemrl.htm. The Presidio of San Francisco served as a functioning fort from 1776 to 1994 under three governments (Spanish, Mexican, and U.S.). Now part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area, the Presidio contains museums (of science and maritime life) along with park grounds suitable for hiking and bicycling. Tours are available of Fort Point and a visitors center has information on the fort. Address: Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Building 201, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA 94123. Phone: 415; 561-4323. Web site: www.nps.gov/prsf/. Several forts take visitors back to the Gold Rush and Indian wars. The Fort Crook Museum, built in 1962–1965, commemorates the original fort. The museum contains six rooms of furniture and artifacts from the 1850s. Location: Just east of Fall River Mills near Highway 299. Address: P.O. Box 397, Fall River Mills, CA 96028. Phone: 530-336-5110. Web site: www.fortcrook.com. Fort Tejon Historical Park contains much of the fort that protected settlers and peaceful Indians from raids between 1854 and 1864. It has been restored. The park has exhibits on army life, local history, beautiful 400-year-old oak trees, and living history and Civil War reenactments. Location: Fort Tejon Exit off I-5 about 70 miles north of Los Angeles atop Grapevine Canyon. Address: P.O. Box 895, Lebec, CA 93243. Phone: 661-248-6692. Web site: www.forttejon.org. Fort Humboldt State Historic Park lies within the city of Eureka. This army fort was built in 1853 and abandoned in 1870; its troops tried to keep peace between Native Americans and Gold Rush settlers. Ulysses S. Grant commanded it for six months. The surviving building contains artifacts and exhibits describing the history of the fort. Address: 3431 Fort Avenue, Eureka, CA 95503. Phone: 707-445-6567. Web site: www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=665. The Military Museum of Butte County traces the history of California going back to the nineteenth century and displays weapons, supply wagons, uniforms, home front items, and signal corps exhibits including one dealing with the U.S. cavalry’s pursuit of Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution. Location: Inside Surplus City at Highway 70. Address: 4514 Pacific Heights Road, Oroville, CA 95965. Phone: 530-5349956. Web site: www.surpluscity.com/mmbc/armory.html.
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California sided with the Union in the Civil War. The Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in a suburb of Los Angeles is located in the last surviving building of the headquarters of the Union’s Pacific Department during the Civil War. Troops marched from the building to Arizona and defeated the Confederates from Texas who originally controlled the territory. It was later used in Indian wars. Location: Off I-110 or I-710 freeways, Avalon Boulevard to L Street to Banning Boulevard. Address: 1052 North Banning Boulevard, Wilmington, CA 90744. Phone: 310-548-7509. Web site: www.drumbarracks.org. Fort Mason was constructed to protect San Francisco from a possible Confederate or foreign (British or French) attack during the Civil War. The museum exhibits tell the fort’s history. Location: Left on Lincoln Drive Exit off 101 (immediately south of the Golden Gate Bridge). Address: Fort Mason, Box 29333, Presidio of San Francisco, CA 94129. Phone: 415-556-1693. Web site: www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/ wwIIbayarea/mas.htm. Fort McDowell, named after the first Union commander of the Army of the Potomac, is the centerpiece of Angel Island State Park in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. Originally a Civil War camp, it was next a hospital base during the Spanish-American War and World War I and finally a missile site. Buildings dating back to the Civil War survive and some are open. The largest island in San Francisco Bay, Angel Island, has hiking and biking trails and primitive campsites. Tours are available. Location: Reached by ferries from San Francisco, Tiburon, and Alameda/ Oakland. Address: P.O. Box 318, Tiburon, CA 94920. Phone: 415 435-1915. Web site: www.angelisland.org. The park headquarters for the Lava Beds National Monument contains buildings and exhibits of army Camp Gillette, headquarters for the war against Modoc Indians in 1872–1873, later used as a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp in the 1930s. The site also contains lava beds, rock formations, and forests. Location: Just south of Oregon border, between Routes 139 and 97, northeast of Weed. Address: P.O. Box 867, Indian Wells Headquarters, Tulelake, CA 96134. Phone: 530-667-2282. Web site: www.nps.gov./labe. Civil War veterans founded the Legion of Valor in 1890, a military order limited to those who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Service Corps. The Legion of Valor Museum is located in the Fresno Veterans Memorial Auditorium and contains several rooms—including a room honoring heroines—with pictures of the members and exhibits of wartime memorabilia and campaigns. Location: Off O Street west of Routes 41/127. Address: 2425 Fresno Street, Fresno, CA 93721. Phone: 559-498-0510. Web site: www.legionofvalormuseum.org/. The Veterans Museum and Memorial Center, housed in the former chapel of the Naval Hospital in Balboa Park, is devoted to California’s military history since World War I. The museum contains exhibits on the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and women in the military. Works of art on military themes by local artists are also displayed. A memorial garden on the site, known as ‘‘Inspiration Point’’ for its spectacular views of the city and harbor, was begun in 2005. Location: Exit 15B off I-5. Address: 2115 Park Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92101. Phone: 619-239-2300. Web site: www.sdvmc.org.
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California abounds in museums and memorials dealing with World War II. Perhaps California’s most famous military figure is General George Patton, the ground commander of the American forces that invaded France and Germany in 1944–1945. He was born in San Marino. The General Patton Memorial Museum was first established as the U.S. Desert Training Center in 1942; General Patton was the first commander of the 18,000-square-mile base, the largest in the world. After four months he was sent to North Africa. The museum honors Patton and the men who served there, and it has exhibits devoted to his life and career. Location: On I-10 30 miles east of Indio. Address: 2 Chiriaco Road, Chiriaco Summit, CA 92201. Phone: 760-2273483. Web site: www.generalpattonmuseum.com/about_general_patton.asp. The Camp Roberts Historical Museum contains exhibits dealing with the history of what was originally a World War II base for the National Guard and has materials relating to the Gulf War and Iraqi Republican Guard. There is a small reference library. Location: U.S. 101, 12 miles north of Paso Robles (about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco). Address: Building 114, Box 14, Camp Roberts, CA 93451. Phone: 805-238-8288. Web site: www.militarymuseum.org/CampRobertsMuseum. The SS Lane Victory Memorial consists of a World War II Victory ship. It may not only be visited inside but offers summer cruises to Catalina Island featuring services honoring a sunken Merchant Marine vessel. Location: Vincent Thomas Memorial Bridge, between I-110 Freeway and Long Beach at Swinford Street, Berth 94, San Pedro. Address: P.O. Box 629, San Pedro, CA 90733. Phone 310-519-9545. Web site: www.lanevictory.org/index.htm. The SS Red Oak Victory and Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Historical Park also has a restored Victory Ship made at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond. The Park staff is collecting memorabilia and oral histories for the visitors’ center which will honor the 18 million women who worked in defense industries during World War II. An online exhibit is available as well. The Rosie the River Memorial, dedicated in 2000, resembles a ship’s hull under construction. Location: Off I-580 on Marina Boulevard in Richmond. Address: c/o Richmond Museum of History, 400 Nevin Avenue, P.O. Box 1267, Richmond, CA 94802. Phone: 510237-2933. Web site: www.richmondmuseumofhistory.org. A new CEC (Civil Engineer Corps) and Seabee Museum is being built to replace the existing 1947 structure that will contain many new exhibits. Among these are the 48-star American flag flown by Seabees at Normandy Beach on D-Day, the original script for the John Wayne movie ‘‘The Fighting Seabees,’’ and a Seabee Humvee that served in the recent Iraq War. The new museum will retell the heroic history of the Seabees in five galleries. The core of the museum is the spacious sky-lit Grand Hall that includes a prominent Donor Recognition wall, battalion plaques, and flags. Other galleries are devoted to the World War II Experience, a We Build/We Fight hall containing construction equipment and materials of the Seabees, a We Build/We Deliver wing that will showcase CEC history, and a We Build/We Care exhibit honoring the CEC and Seabee humanitarian efforts. Interactive exhibits and films will be included. Location: North Ventura Boulevard and Sunset Street off US 1 or 101. Address: Naval Construction Battalion Center, 1000 23 Avenue, Building 99, Port Hueneme, CA 93043. Phone: 805-982-5163. Web site: www.seabeehf.org/museum/index.htm.
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The Jimmy Doolittle Air and Space Museum at Travis Air Force base is dedicated to the aviator who led the raid against Tokyo in 1943 and later commanded several U.S. air forces. It also has extensive exhibits consisting of planes and memorabilia from all ages of aviation. The Web site has an excellent pictorial history of aviation, especially military aviation in the United States. Location: About 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, east of I-80, near Fairfield. Address: 400 Brennan Circle (BLDG 80), Travis AFB, CA 94535. Phone: 707-424-5605. Web site: www .travisairmuseum.org. The Manzanar National Historic Site recognizes the most famous of the internment camps where Japanese Americans spent World War II. Over 100 oral history interviews may be examined along with extensive exhibits dealing with the area from 1885 to the present, with a focus on World War II. A large-scale model of the Manzanar War Relocation Center crafted by former internees, historic photographs and audiovisual programs, and artifacts are displayed along with a large graphic including the names of over 10,000 Japanese Americans who spent all or part of the war in Manzanar. Location: Route 395 just north of 190, northwest of Death Valley. Address: P.O. Box 426, Independence, CA 93526. Phone: 760-878-2932. Web site: www .nps.gov/manz. The Minter Field Air Museum is located at a World War II training facility with many vintage aircraft, artifacts including a period fire truck, 1944 Ford jeep, military uniforms, radio equipment, Echelons (Class Books), Snap Roll Newsletters, and hundreds of photographs of the men and women who were stationed there. Location: 12 miles north of Bakersfield off I-99, take 46 west (Lerdo exit) to Shafter. Address: 401 Vultee Street, Shafter, CA 93263. Phone: 805-393-0291. Web site: www .minterfieldairmuseum.com. The March Field Air Museum also has an exhibit honoring General ‘‘Jimmy’’ Doolittle as well as the dogs who served in American wars. It contains over 60 planes, indoor exhibits, and the Curtis LeMay Library, named after the commander of the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam. Location: March Field Reserve Air Force Base, Riverside, off I-215 near Route 60. Address: March Field, P.O. Box 6463, March Air Force Base, CA 92518. Phone 951-697-6604. Web site: www.marchfield.org. Minter Field and March Field are only two of many California museums in different parts of the state relating to the air force; several are on air force bases. The California Aerospace Museum, located on McClellan Air Force Base, contains over 30 planes plus museum exhibits on the history of the space program and aviation in general. Location: Off I-80 just northeast of Sacramento. Address: 5934 Price Avenue, McClellan, CA 95652. Phone: 916-643-3192. Web site: www.aero spacemuseumofcalifornia.org. The Flying Leathernecks Historical Foundation and Aviation Museum may be found on the Miramar Airforce Base. It is the only museum in America devoted to the Marine Air Force and has the only museum exhibit devoted to women marines. Twenty-five planes accompany indoor exhibits and artifacts. Location; Miramar Airforce Base, off Miramar Road, east of I-405 and west of I-15. Address: Flying Leatherneck Historical Foundation, P.O. Box 45346, San Diego, CA 92145. Phone: 1-877-FLY-USMC. Web site: www.flyingleathernecks.org.
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The China Lake Naval Air Force base, founded in 1943 to test the rockets and missiles being developed at the California Institute of Technology, is home to the U.S. Naval Museum of Armament and Technology. The museum displays many of these weapons such as Polaris and Tomahawk Missiles. Location: In Ventura County off State Highways 178, 14, and 395. Address: China Lake Museum Foundation, P.O. Box 217, Ridgecrest, CA 9335. Phone: 760-939-3511. Web site: www .chinalakemuseum.org. The Air Force Flight Test Center Museum is located at Edwards Air Force base, where supersonic flight first occurred. It contains over 65 planes, 16 of which may be inspected. Check first for access due to security reasons. Location: 405 South Rosamond Boulevard, on the base between Routes 58, 138, and I-395 in the Mojave Desert. Address: 6500 ABW/CCM, Edwards Air Force Base, CA 93523. Phone: 805-2778050. Web site: www.afftcmuseum.com/index.html. The Castle Air Museum has over 60 aircraft from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam on display along with indoor exhibits on aviation (including the Tuskegee Airmen and Women in Aviation). It is located on Castle Air Force Base that closed in 1994. Location: I-99 about one hour north of Fresno, two hours south of Sacramento. Take Buchrach Road to Santa Fe Road. Address: P.O. Box 488, Atwater, CA 9530. Phone: 209-723-2178. Web site: www.castleairmuseum.org. Perhaps the most comprehensive collection of aircraft in California may be found at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, which offers a history of aviation from the first manned balloon flight of 1783. Military items include aircraft from World Wars I and II and a mint condition Spitfire Mk. XVI, a Navy F6F Hellcat, and an A-4 Skyhawk jet. Aircraft from Korea, Vietnam, and more recent conflicts are also on display. Location: Exit 15B off I-5. Address: 2001 Pan American Plaza, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101. Phone: 619-234-8291. Web site: www.aerospacemuseum.org The Western Aerospace Museum has rooms dedicated to General ‘‘Jimmy’’ Doolittle, women and black aviators, a vast collection of aircraft, historic photos, news stories about historic flights, model planes, war artifacts, and piston-and-jet engines, along with 10 navy fighters from World War II and dozens of other planes dating back to the 1920s. The indoor exhibits are in a 1940 hangar. Location: Oakland International Airport, off Doolittle Drive on Earnhart Road. Address: 8260 Boeing Street, Building #621, North Field, Oakland, CA 94614. Phone: 510-638-7100. Web site: www.volunteerinfo.org/aerospac.htm. The Pacific Coast Air Museum has a large variety of exhibits on the history of aviation from the Wright Brothers to the present, including exhibits relating to the Sonoma County area. Location: Highway 101 North to Airport Boulevard. Head west, then left on North Laughlin Road, right on Becker Boulevard. Address: 2330 Airport Boulevard, Santa Rosa, CA 95403. Phone: 707-575-7900. Web site: www.pacific coastairmuseum.org. The Palm Springs Air Museum has one of the world’s largest collections (30 planes) of World War II military aircraft, many of which are regularly flown. Combat photographs are also incorporated into numerous exhibits on military flying. The museum also features aviation art by Stan Stokes, an antique automobile collection, and World War II memorabilia. Location: Route 111 at the Palm Springs Airport.
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Address: Palm Springs Air Museum, 745 North Gene Autry Trail, Palm Springs, CA 92262. Phone: 760-778-6262 ext: 222. Web site: www.air-museum.org. The Hiller Aviation Museum has over 60 aircraft on display along with exhibits dating from 1869 balloons to planned aircraft of the future. Location: U.S. Highway 101 between San Francisco and San Jose, east on Holly Road/Redwood Shores Drive to Airport. Address: 601 Skyway Road, San Carlos, CA 94404. Phone: 650654-0200. Web site: www.hiller.org. On the coast near Santa Barbara, the Santa Maria Museum of Flight offers vintage airplanes, displays, and a research library. Address: 3015 Air Park Drive, Santa Maria, CA 93455. Phone: 805-922-8758 Web site: www.smmof.org. The Air Museum—Planes of Fame has over 150 aircraft dating back to an 1896 glider on display there and at a satellite museum near the entrance to the Grand Canyon in Valle, Arizona (see Arizona). Location: Route 83, south of Route 60. Chino Airport. Address: 7000 Merrill Avenue, Chino, CA 91710. Phone: 909-597-3722. Web site: www.planesoffame.org. The Central California Historical Museum contains World War II vintage aircraft and vehicles as part of its exhibits of the history of the Central Valley. Location: On Route 33, about halfway between I-5 and Route 99, north of Route 180. Address: 11100 West Eagle Field Road, Firebaugh, CA 93622. Phone: 925-828-9690. Web site: www.eaglefield.net. For its part, naval history can be experienced at the USS Hornet Museum, named after the first U.S. submarine—an underwater barrel that sank in Charleston, South Carolina, harbor in 1775 during the American Revolution—this is the eighth ship of that name. A Hornet was also an aircraft carrier that distinguished itself in World War II and picked up the Apollo astronauts who first walked on the moon. The museum contains exhibits of the ships’ history and other naval aircraft. Location: Pier 3, Alameda. Address: P.O. Box 460, Alameda, CA 94501. Phone: 510-5218448. Web site: www.uss-hornet.org. Across the bay in San Francisco, you may go aboard the USS Pampanito. Since 1999, this World War II submarine has served as a museum. Location: Fisherman’s Wharf, The Embarcadero and Taylor Street. Address: Maritime Park Association, P.O. Box 470310, San Francisco, CA 94147. Phone: 415-441-0365. Web site: www.maritime.org/pamphome.htm. Within walking distance is the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, one of two Liberty Ships that still survive (used for World War II landings). It is the National Liberty Ship Memorial and can be toured. Location; Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf. Address: National Liberty Ship Memorial, Inc., Fort Mason Center, Building A, San Francisco, CA 94123. Phone: 415-441-3101. Web site: www.ssjeremiahobrien.org. Camp Pendelton, the Marine Corps base near Oceanside, maintains the Amphibian Vehicle Museum. More than just some of the Marine Corps’ historic amphibious vehicles, the museum contains historic pictures, artifacts, artwork, uniforms, patches, and newspaper articles. Location: Off I-5 north and east of Oceanside. Address: Marine Corps Base, Building 1160, Joint Public Affairs Office, Camp Pendleton, CA 92055. Phone: 619-725-5566. Web site: www.amtrac.org/2atmc/Museum/ Gatorgalley.asp.
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More vehicles may be found at the Military Vehicle Museum, maintained by the American Military Historical Society Museum. It contains numerous tanks, jeeps, artillery, and other vehicles from the United States and other nations. Location: 1/4 mile north of I-60 on Rosemead Boulevard. Address: 1918 North Rosemead Boulevard, South El Monte, CA 91733. Phone: 626-442-1776. Web site: www .tankland.com. The Fort MacArthur Museum is on the site of the fort that guarded Los Angeles from 1914 to 1974. Its displays contain the history of Los Angeles harbor defenses, home-front activities during the World Wars, Civil Defense, American Pacific Theater military campaigns, and early American air defenses. Location: Angeles Gate Park: Take I-110 Freeway to southernmost point, then Gaffey Street to southernmost point. Address: P.O. Box 268, 3601 South Gaffey Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. Phone: 310-548-2631. Web site: www.ftmac.org.
COLORADO The Colorado Veterans Monument was erected thanks to funds raised and labor supplied by volunteers. The 45-foot-tall red limestone tower is at the center of Veterans Memorial Park just west of the state capitol. Dedicated in 1990, it is the site of Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veterans Day, and other commemorative ceremonies. An attractive memorial book may be purchased. Location: Colfax and Lincoln, off Broadway, near the state capitol. Address: 205 East Colfax, Denver, CO 80203. Phone: 303756-0338 (Memorial Association). Web site: www.coloradoveteransmonument.org /index.php. The most famous military installation in Colorado is the U.S. Air Force Academy. Several buildings are open to the public, notably the spectacular Cadet Chapel designed in the shape of multiple aircraft. Location: I-25, 14 miles north of downtown Colorado Springs. Address: HQ USAFA/PAV, Colorado Springs, CO 80840. Phone: 719-472-2555. Web site: www.usafa.af.mil. Visitors to Colorado Springs should also check out the Peterson Air and Space Museum. It has a park dedicated to Air Force Medal of Honor winners, indoor replicas of strategic air defense/ballistic missile warning system sites, and the Minuteman, Nike, Peacekeeper, and other missiles. Indoor exhibits have models of airplanes, uniforms, maps, and special exhibits devoted to POWs and the World War II home front, as well as the base itself. Location: Building 981, 7 miles east of Colorado Springs on Highway 24. The main entrance (visitors center) is off Platte Avenue (U.S. 24). Address: 21 Space Avenue/MU 150 East Ent Avenue, Peterson Air Force Base, CO 80914. Phone: 719-556-4915. Web site: www.petemuseum.org. The Weisbrod Aeronautical Museum and International B-24 Museum has over 30 aircraft plus motor vehicles. The museum also has military uniforms, artifacts, and relics mostly from World War II, when the site was the Pueblo Army Air Force Base. Location: Pueblo Airport, 6 miles east of the city on U.S. Highway 50. Address: 3101 Magnusson Avenue, Pueblo, CO 81001. Phone: 719-948-9219 Web site: www.pwam.org.
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The Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum is located at the former Lowry Air Force Base, home of the Colorado Aviation Society. Rooms are devoted to the Colorado Air National Guard, the history of Lowry Air Force base, aviation radio, model aircraft, and the ‘‘Eisenhower Room’’—artifacts from the era when President Eisenhower made Denver the site of his Western White House. The museum also contains missiles and aircraft. Location: Off I-25 at Colorado Boulevard, turn north on Alameda, right on Fairmount Drive, north through turnaround, look for the B-52. Address: 7711 East Academy Boulevard, Denver, CO 80230. Phone: 303-3605360. Web site: /www.wingsmuseum.org. Colorado’s nineteenth-century heritage may be discovered at the Fort Morgan Museum. Exhibits depict Native Americans and the cavalry presence in eastern Colorado. A special exhibit honors band leader Glenn Miller, who attended Fort Morgan High School and was killed in an airplane crash while entertaining the troops in World War II. There are also lectures and a research facility. Location: Exit 80 off I-76 north of Denver; take the exit south on Main Street to the City Park. Address: 414 Main Street, Fort Morgan, CO 80701. Phone: 970-543-4010. Web site: www .ftmorganmus.org. The Third Cavalry Museum at Fort Carson contains uniforms, artifacts, and dioramas detailing the history of the cavalry from the Mexican War to the present. Location: 9 miles north of Colorado Springs off I-25. Address: Building 2160, Barkeley Road, Fort Carson, CO 80913. Phone: 719-526-1368. Web site: www.carson .army.mil.
CONNECTICUT The Connecticut Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 2006, features a Wall of Peace timeline, broken wherever the colony (from King Philip’s War of 1676) and state (to the current war on terror) went to war and contains the names of all Connecticut veterans known to have died in battle. Location: West Hartford, Goodman Green at City Center. Web site: www.westhartford.com/CommunityLife/VeteransMemorial/ VeteransMemorial.htm. Connecticut is not proud of New London native Benedict Arnold. Fort Griswold State Park commemorates the site where in 1781 as a turncoat British general he massacred 88 of 165 defenders during the Revolutionary War. The site has a museum of the Revolution. Location: From I-91 take Route 9S (at Exit 22) to end. Address: 57 Fort Street, Groton, CT 06340. Phone: 860-445-1729. Web site: www.revwar .com/ftgriswold/. Connecticut honors its Civil War veterans with the architecturally distinctive Soldier’s Monument, the statue of a soldier on top of a 44-foot tower. It was erected in 1890. Location: Intersections of Routes 8, 44, and 202. Address: 13 North Main Street, East End Park, Winsted, CT 06063. Connecticut is the home of the New England Civil War Museum that has belongings and papers of local soldiers and Civil War artifacts, along with books and documents on New England in the war. Location: I-84 to Exit 67 (toward Rockhill).
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Take Mile Hill Road to Grove Street into Vernon. Address: Vernon Town Hall, 14 Park Place, Second Floor, Vernon, CT 06066. Phone: 860-870-3563. Web site: pages .cthome.net/ne.civilwar.mus. The New England Air Museum is also found in Connecticut. A special exhibit is dedicated to the Lafayette Escadrille, 38 Americans and 4 Frenchmen who flew combat planes in World War I for the French from 1916 to 1918. In three buildings are numerous planes, artifacts, and weapons beginning with gliders from 1896 and planes from 1909. Exhibits are also dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen and Connecticut aviators. Location: I-91 to Route 20, second right off exit to Route 75 north. Museum is 2.8 miles on the right. Address: Bradley International Airport, 36 Perimeter Road, Windsor Locks, CT 06096. Phone: 860-623-3305. Web site: www.neam.org. The United State Coast Guard Academy is located in New London, Connecticut, and the USCGC Eagle may be viewed there. Built in Germany in 1936 and taken as reparations following World War II, the Eagle was sailed to New London and is now the largest and tallest sailing ship flying the Stars and Stripes and the only squarerigger in U.S. government service. In 1910, the academy moved to the former Revolutionary War fort and army post at Fort Trumbull in New London, Connecticut. Location: I-95 to Exit 82A in New London, Frontage Road Then turn onto Briggs Street, entrance is on Mohegan Avenue Address: Commanding Officer, USCGC Eagle, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 45 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT 06320. Phone: 860-444-8595. Web site: www.cga.edu. New London is adjacent to Groton, home of a naval base. It contains the USS Nautilus Submarine Force Library and Museum, which preserves the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine that logged a half-million miles between 1955 and 1980. The foremost museum and library of submarine artifacts, ships, and models in the world, it has information on and models of U.S. submarines from the Turtle, developed during the American Revolution in 1776, to modern designs. A research library contains over 20,000 documents including ships’ records, oral histories, and albums with over 30,000 photographs. Location: Off I-95 at Exit 86 (Submarine Base) 1.5 miles to museum. Address: Submarine Force Museum, Naval Submarine Base, Groton, CT 06349. Phone: 800-343-0079. Web site: www.ussnautilus.org. The National Iwo Jima Memorial Monument contains a sculpture similar to but differing from the famous one near Arlington National Cemetery as it is based on the original photograph of the soldiers raising the flag. Also an eternal flame on a marble column honors the men who died taking the island on February 23, 1945. Directions: Off Route 9 (Iwo Jima Memorial Expressway), Exit 29 onto Route 175. Address: Ella Grasso Boulevard, Newington, CT 06111. Phone: 860-666-5521. Web site: www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/CTNEWiwojima.html. The Military Museum of Southern New England has indoor and outdoor exhibits of tanks and other weapons from the United States, West Germany, China, the Soviet Union, Sweden, and France. Indoor galleries commemorate World War II and the 10th Mountain Division, the only U.S.-ski-trained unit, now headquartered at Ft. Drum, New York. Location: Exit 3 on I-84, turn right at the bottom of the ramp, follow signs to Park Avenue. Museum is a half mile away. Address: 125 Park Avenue, Danbury, CT 06810. Phone: 203-780-9277. Web site: www.usmilitarymuseum.org.
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The city of Danbury also has several war memorials in its Memorial Park. The Korean War memorial has the names of the state’s veterans who died in action on stones surmounted by an eagle; the Vietnam War memorial consists of the sculpture of a soldier holding a Vietnamese child. A memorial walkway connects the two. An angel on a column honors Civil War veterans. Veterans Memorial Park, Plainville, established in 1945, has monuments to Civil War, World War I and II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf veterans. Location: I-84 to Exit 32 (going east)—take East Street or Route 10 north for 2 miles, left off Whiting Street, then three-quarters of a mile on Maple Street. Web site: www.hereintown.com/warmemorials/ctplainville/index.html.
DELAWARE Note: General information about Delaware’s veterans memorials may be found on the Internet at www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061110/LIFE/ 611100329/1-/LIFEO8. Delaware honors its veterans with the 50-acre Veterans Memorial Park and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, Cherry Lane, New Castle. The bridge itself honors World War II veterans from New Jersey as well, and the park also pays tribute to veterans from the Korean and Vietnam wars, the first Persian Gulf war, recipients of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the submariners of World War II, and the five service branches. The city of Wilmington has a Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Statue of Victory honoring those who fought in World War I at 18th Street and Baynard Boulevard. The African American Medal of Honor Statue at the same location pays homage to African American soldiers in all wars. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, at Delaware and Broom streets near Trolley Square, commemorates those who died in Civil War battles. Sgt. James R. McCoy Sr. Park, at Sixth and Franklin Streets, honors the first Delawarean killed in the first Gulf War. At Kiwanis Park, on Stein Highway, Seaford, a 10-foot-tall stone memorial unveiled in 1987, lists the names of Seaford residents who died in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq. The Korean War Memorial at Georgetown Circle, Georgetown, is in the shape of the state of Delaware and sits in front of the town hall. The Vietnam Memorial is in front of the County Building. Cannons and a granite monument pay tribute to the soldiers who fought in the only battle of the Revolutionary War fought in Delaware, at Cooch’s Bridge, Old Baltimore Pike, near Newark. Another Revolutionary War monument stands on The Green in Dover, the state capitol, which also has a Monument to Prisoners of War and Missing in Action veterans at Loockerman Street and Legislative Avenue. Three memorials in Claymont stand as a tribute to war veterans from the area. The War Memorial is at the Knollwood entranceway to the town. A Memorial for the Gold Star Mothers and three flags—the United States, State of Delaware, and POW/MIA—are at the intersection of Governor Printz Boulevard and Philadelphia Pike. A POW/MIA Memorial monument on Commonwealth Avenue honors those veterans from this area.
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Delaware City’s Vietnam Memorial (on Route 9 about 7 miles south of Delaware City) is a helicopter that seems to hover above the ground. The World War II Memorial at Blades is in the town park between East Sixth and East Seventh streets. The marble structure has sculpted helmets of all the service branches with a family group in the background. Fort Delaware, a Civil War prison camp for Confederates and sympathizers, is well preserved. Seasonal access is available via ferry from Delaware City and Fort Mott, New Jersey. Address: P.O. Box 553, Delaware City, DE 19706. Phone: 302-8341630. Web site: www.del.net/org/fort. The Air Mobility Command Museum is on the site of former secret research on the Dover Air Force Base. The museum houses a B-17 and many other aircraft. It is dedicated to the history of airlifting and also has exhibits on U.S. Air Force enlisted personnel and Dover’s role in the development of rockets during World War II. Location: Route 113 south of the city to the airport entrance. Address: P.O. Box 02050, 1301 Heritage Road, Dover AFB, DE 19902. Phone: 302-677-5938. Web site: www.amcmuseum.org.
FLORIDA Florida, ruled by the Spanish for longer than it has been part of the United States (1565–1763 as opposed to 1819 to the present [the British it ruled in between]), boasts the well-preserved Castillo De San Marcos National Monument, built in 1672 by the Spanish. It is the oldest standing fort in North America. The monument comprises over 20 acres. Location: Off U.S. Route 1 in downtown St. Augustine. Address: One South Castillo Drive, St. Augustine, FL 32084. Phone: 904-829-6506. Web site: www .nps.gov/casa/. Also nearby is the Fort Matanzas National Monument, a Spanish fort built between 1740 and 1742 that successfully protected the city from British attack. Location: 14 miles south of St. Augustine on A1A. Address: 8635 A1A South, St. Augustine, FL 32080. Phone: 904-471-0116. Web site: www.nps.gov/foma. The Civil War Soldiers Museum was founded by Dr. Norman Haynes Jr., a native of Sharpsburg, Maryland, where the battle of Antietam was fought. Its beginning and specialty was his personal collection of Civil War medical equipment. The museum contains a model of a Confederate field hospital, a speaking wax mask of Abraham Lincoln, and contrasting exhibits of life in Union and Confederate camps. Location: I-10, south on I-110 to last exit, then south on Palafox. Address: 108 South Palafox Place, Pensacola, FL 32501. Phone: 850-469-1900. Web site: www.cwmuseum.org/main.asp. Florida’s participation in World War II is documented at the Camp Blanding Museum. One parachute and nine infantry divisions including the 30th (‘‘Old Hickory’’) trained here. The museum contains World War II weapons, photos, barracks, and uniforms and tells the story of the camp and surrounding areas during the war. The Florida Regimental Memorial next to the museum has a statue of a soldier and lists the Florida National Guard units and guardsmen who died in service. Adjacent is a Memorial Park which contains memorials honoring the camp’s 10 divisions,
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POW’s, and Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients. There is a picnic area and a highway marker from France presented to the camp from a liberated town, one of four in the United States. The camp is undergoing expansion with planned memorials and memorabilia for veterans of all recent U.S. conflicts. Location: About 50 miles southwest of Jacksonville, equidistant between I-95 and I-75 on Route 100. Address: Route 1, Box 465, Camp Blanding, Starke, FL 32091. Phone: 904-533-3196. Web site: www.campblanding-museum.org. SS American Victory was used in World War II, the Marshall Plan postwar relief of Europe, Korea, and Vietnam, as a landing vessel operated by the U.S. Merchant Marines. The Merchant Marines suffered a larger percentage of loss of life than any of the armed services in World War II. The ship may be toured and has educational programs. Location: I-275 in Tampa to Route 60 south on Twiggs Street to Channelside Drive at York Street. Address: 705 Channelside Drive, Tampa, FL 33602. Phone: 813-228-8766. Web site: www.americanvictory.org. The International Sport Aviation Museum contains home-built airplanes, antique and classic aircraft, military planes, ultralites, and other special exhibits, including a 1,300-square-foot library with more than 4,000 aviation books. Location: Sun ’n Fun EAA Fly-In convention site on the southwest corner of Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. Address: P.O. Box 6795, Lakeland, FL 33807. Phone: 941-644-0741. Web site: www.tripcart.com/usa-regions/Central-Florida/ museums/International-SportAviation-Museum-(ISAM).html. The only museum devoted to the history of the U.S. Navy Seals from World War II to the present is Florida’s UDT SEAL Museum. Exhibits focus on Medal of Honor winners and Seal participation in every conflict until Desert Storm (which is being updated). Location: Turn right coming from the South, left from the North, at the intersection of US 1 and A1A at the light in Fort Pierce. Drive 2.5 miles. At second light turn left (north) and drive approximately three-quarters of a mile. Address: 3300 North A1A, North Hutchinson Island, Ft. Pierce, FL 34949. Phone: 772-595-5845. Web site: www.navysealmuseum.com. Two military museums of interest may be found in the Miami area. The Military and Classic Aircraft Museum contains over 20 aircraft plus artifacts and memorabilia. Location: SW 137 Avenue and SW 128 Street. Address: 14710 SW 128 Street, Miami, FL 33196. Phone: 305-233-5197. Web site: www.wingsovermiami.net. The Military Heritage and Aviation Museum contains over 30,000 artifacts from every war from the American Revolution to the present, especially uniforms and equipment, arranged in displays. It contains about 20 planes from the Kermit Weeks collection (see below). A much larger building is under construction. Location: Off the Tamiami Trail (Route 41) at Madrid Boulevard. Address: 100 Madrid Boulevard, Unit 212, Punta Gorda, FL 33950. Phone: 941-575-9002. Web site: www.mhaam.org. The Weeks Air Museums (Polk City and Miami) house Kermit Weeks’s collection of over 50 airplanes, most of which are now in Polk City. The Miami Airport exhibit was heavily damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but still has over 20 aircraft. Locations: Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport, southwest Miami. 14710 SW 128 Street. Miami, FL 33196. Phone: 305-233-5197. 1400 Broadway Boulevard SE, Polk City, FL 33868. Phone: 863-984-3500. Web site: www.fantasyofflight.com.
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Pensacola is the home of a large naval air force base that is the site of the National Museum of Naval Aviation. It has over 120 aircraft and displays including those honoring POWs, naval aircraft pilots, and the ‘‘Flying Tigers’’ who assisted China in its defense against Japan before and during World War II. There are scale models of aircraft carriers and an IMAX theater. The Emil Buehler Research Library collects newspapers from naval air bases, oral histories, books, and other materials. Location: Southernmost point of Route 295 or 173 at Naval Air Station. Address: 1750 Radford Boulevard, Suite N.A.S., Pensacola, FL 32508. Phone: 850-452-3604. Web site: www.navalaviationmuseum.org. The Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum is a further attraction for those visiting the nearby Kennedy Space Center and Astronaut Hall of Fame at Cape Kennedy, formerly Cape Canaveral. Founded in 1977, it contains aircraft from pre-World War I days to the present and is the site of an annual air show. Location: I-95 to Exit 215, go right (east) on Route 50 to State Route 405. Address: 6600 Tico Road, Titusville, FL 32780. Phone: 321-268-1941. Web site: www.vacwarbirds.org. The Air Force Armament Museum is the world’s only museum that collects, preserves, and exhibits items focusing on Air Force Armament and its delivery. It has over 30 aircraft outdoors, 4 indoors, from World War II to the present, along with missiles, bombs, and rockets. A film Arming the Air Force and a mural may be viewed in the theater. Location: Near intersection of State Routes 85 and 198 in the Florida panhandle. Address: 100 Museum Drive, Eglin Air Force Base, FL 32542. Phone: 850-882-4062. Web site: www.afarmamentmuseum.com.
GEORGIA Georgia had only been in existence for seven years when in 1740 Fort Frederica was built, now a national monument, to protect the colony from the Spanish. The fort has a video, archaeological exhibits, and living history events. Location: From US 17, take the F.J. Torras Causeway to St. Simons Island. At the first traffic light on the island, turn left onto Sea Island Road. Go 1.5 miles to the next traffic light and turn left onto Frederica Road for 2 miles. Address: Route 9, Box 286C, St. Simons Island, GA 31522. Phone: 912-638-3639. Web site: www.nps.gov/fofr. Savannah was Georgia’s colonial capital and largest city. Today, the Coastal Heritage Society operates three sites relevant to military history. In the city itself Battlefield Memorial Park, at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Louisville Avenue (adjacent to the Savannah Historical Society) opened in 2006. It marks the site where U.S. troops unsuccessfully defended the city from the British in 1778. It consists in part of a reconstruction of the Spring Hill Redoubt on that location, and archaeological items such as bullets and gun parts have been found. Nearby 800 granite markers honor the 800 men killed in what was the second bloodiest battle of the Revolution. Old Fort Jackson (follow River Street to President Street east from downtown Savannah, turn left on Woodcock Road) on the Savannah River is one of eight forts in the nation still standing from before the War of 1812. The CSS Georgia was an ironclad built with funds raised from the Ladies Gunboat Society in 1862; it was scuttled in
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1864 to avoid falling into Union hands. Items from the vessel that were excavated by archaeologists are at Old Fort Jackson and the Savannah Historical Society. Address: 303 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Savannah, GA 31401. Phone: 912-651-6480. Web site: www.chsgeorgia.org/ccs/home.htm. Located in Franklin Square in downtown Savannah is the Haitian Revolutionary Monument to the 500 volunteer black and mulatto riflemen who enlisted to aid the United States as part of the French forces in the War for Independence. It consists of a sculpture of four soldiers atop a granite block explaining the Haitians’ role in the siege of Savannah. For information contact the Haitian American Historical Society. Web site: www.haitianhistory.org. Most of Georgia’s military heritage can be explored at the Georgia Veterans State Park that contains a museum with military artifacts from the Revolutionary War to the present plus numerous aircraft and motor vehicles on the grounds. There are stone memorials to veterans. Location: 9 miles west of I-75 (Exit 101) near Cordele on U.S. Highway 280. Address: 2459 U.S. Highway 280, West Cordele, GA 31015. Phone: 229-276-2371. Web site: gastateparks.org/info/georgiavet. The most famous monument in Georgia is the Stone Mountain Memorial. Located over what is now a theme park, Stone Mountain is the largest exposed mass of granite in the world. Following a viewing in Atlanta of the film Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith in 1915, William Simmons revived the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, founding the second Klan that survives today although its heyday was the early 1920s. The year before, the Atlanta chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, headed by Caroline Helen Jemison Plane, united with the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association to plan a memorial to the Confederacy and its veterans on the mountain depicting Robert E. Lee leading his troops. In 1916 they selected the northern sculptor Gutzon Borglum who executed Mount Rushmore. World War I, arguments of Borglum’s high salary, and his design for the sculpture led to his dismissal in 1925, only two years after he had begun carving, with only Lee’s head complete. In the 1950s, as Southern states once again began using the Confederate flag in their state flags (Georgia added it to the state seal) to protest integration and the civil rights movement, the Georgia legislature decided to revive the memorial, purchasing the property in 1958 from the Venable family for over one million dollars. The land became a state park, and with state and voluntary contributions, work on the memorial, dormant for over three decades, resumed. The Stone Mountain Memorial Association dropped the word ‘‘Confederate’’ from its name to render it more respectable, although the final sculpture, unveiled in 1970, showed noble figures of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on horseback. Now the site of a theme park with a golf course, a laser show at night superimposes an image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the African American Civil Rights leader, over the images of the Confederate leaders. Location: 16 miles east of downtown Atlanta on Highway 78. Web site: www.stonemountainpark.org. Suggested reading about the monument includes David B. Freeman, Carved in Stone: The History of Stone Mountain (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997); Grace Elizabeth Hale, ‘‘Granite Stopped Time: The Stone Mountain Memorial and the Representation of White Southern Identity,’’ Georgia Historical Quarterly 82 (Spring 1998): 22–44; and Nancy MacLean, Behind
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the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Another notable military site in Georgia is the Andersonville National Historic Site/National Prisoner of War Museum where 32,000 Union prisoners, of whom 13,000 died, were held during the Civil War. The museum, opened in 1998, is highly interactive; it has letters from POW’s and exhibits on their treatment from the Revolution to the present, along with sculptures and memorials. The largest artifact in the National Prisoner of War Museum is the 8-foot-high ‘‘Sack of Cement Cross’’ from Camp O’Donnell in the Philippines, built as a memorial to American prisoners of the Japanese who perished in that camp during World War II. Location: 10 miles south of Oglethorpe and 10 miles north of Americus on State Route 49. Address: Route 1, Box 800, Andersonville, GA 31711. Phone: 912-924-0343. Web site: www.nps.gov /ande. Of the many books on Andersonville, R. Fred Fuhlman’s, Captain Henry Wirz and Andersonville Prison: A Reappraisal (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006) tries to present objectively the evidence concerning conditions at the camp vis-a` -vis other prison and camps and assess Captain Henry Wirz’s culpability for the horrendous conditions (the Union executed him, the only ‘‘war criminal’’ so punished following the war). For a fascinating account of life at the camp, see Robert Scott Davis, Ghosts and Shadows of Andersonville: Essays on the Secret Social Histories of America’s Deadliest Prison (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2006). Most Georgia military sites deal with the Civil War. Not to be missed is the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum. The Cyclorama, completed in 1889, has been housed in the museum since 1921. This depiction of the Battle of Atlanta, which took place near the site, is one of three remaining examples of these enormous paintings of battlefields and other places that were popular in the late nineteenth century (the other two are at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Quebec City, Canada). At 42 by 358 feet, it is no longer complete (originally its was 60 by 360 feet) but still contains many scenes from the battle that are viewed by being consecutively lighted in an auditorium. A history of events leading up to the battle precedes the viewing, and afterwards visitors may enter a museum that contains the Texas, the locomotive that rescued the General, another train, after it was captured by Union spies. (See Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia, below.) Location: Grant Park, near downtown Atlanta. Take I-20 to Boulevard Avenue, Exit 59A. Travel south on Boulevard a half mile to the parking lot on the left. Address: 800 Cherokee Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30315. Phone: tickets: 404-624-1071; general information: 404-6587625. Web site: www.atlantacyclorama.org. The above-mentioned locomotive, the General, survives in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. It was captured in 1862 by Union spies (several of whom were executed, and all of whom won the Medal of Honor) who attempted to run it north to Union lines. The chase was the subject of the famous silent film starring Buster Keaton. An interactive exhibit lets you ‘‘ride’’ on the train, and another takes you inside the Glover factory, the only surviving belt-driven locomotive assembly line in the United States. The museum also contains Civil War railroad artifacts, uniforms, weapons, and extensive written and photographic archives of Southern
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history, especially railroads during and after the Civil War. Directions: From U.S. 41, in Kennesaw, turn on Watts Drive going east. Turn right on J. O. Stephenson Avenue. Cross the railroad tracks onto Cherokee Street. Address: 2829 Cherokee Street, Kennesaw, GA 30144. Phone 770-427-2117. Web site: www.southernmuseum.org. Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the first and largest of the National Military Parks, was authorized in 1890 by Congress. It was opened in 1894 and features over 500 Union and Confederate monuments built between 1890 and 1923. The largest monuments are to states, then regiments, then smaller units. The park covers the battlefields of Stone Mountain, Chickamauga, and Lookout Mountain on the border of Georgia and Tennessee. The Park Headquarters at Stone River houses the extensive Fuller collection of nineteenth-century firearms. The Web site includes booklets published by the park with extensive information on the park, its monuments, its archaeology, and the battles. Location of visitors center: Lafayette Road near the intersection of Georgia Routes 2 and 27. Address: Chickamauga & Chattanooga NMP, P.O. Box 2128, Fort Oglethorpe, GA 30742. Phone: 706-866924. Web site: www.nps.gov/chch/. Lee and Gordon’s Mill on the site of the Chicakamauga Battlefield was restored in 1993 to its Civil War-era appearance. This mill also contains a small museum of artifacts relative to the war and battle. Location: Off Highway 27 on Red Belt Road. Web site: roadsidegeorgia.com/site/leeandgordonmill.html. Kennesaw Mountain National Military Park was the site of a battle between June 18 and July 8, 1864, for the city of Atlanta: 67,000 of over 160,000 Union soldiers commanded by General William T. Sherman and Confederates led by General Joseph Johnstone were killed, wounded, or captured. Veterans began to consider setting aside parts of the battlefield as a memorial in 1899, but it did not become a national military park until much litigation with landowners and many unsuccessfully introduced congressional bills until 1937. The park has three monuments, erected by the states of Georgia, Texas, and Illinois. Location: Approximately 3 miles on Georgia Route NW41 off I-75. Address: 900 Kennesaw Mountain Drive, Kennesaw, GA 30152. Phone: 770-427-4686. Web site: www.nps.gov/kemo. The Blue and Gray Museum contains Civil War artifacts and honors both Union and Confederate soldiers. Veterans on both sides worked together to found the town of Fitzgerald in 1896. The museum contains memorabilia related to the war and town resident General Raymond Davis, Medal of Honor winner and vice commandant of the Marine Corps. Founded in 1961 and formerly located in the Lee-Grant Hotel (the largest wooden hotel in the world when it was built) it moved in 1973 to an old railroad depot. Streets are named after both Union and Confederate generals and ships. Location: Two blocks west of Route 90 on Route 107. Address: 116 North Johnston Street, Fitzgerald, GA 31750. Phone: 229-426-5069. Web site: www.fitzgeraldga.org/hist2. mfr.html. Fort Pulaski, now a national monument, built in 1847, fell to Union forces during the Civil War when in 1862 it became the first site in the world where rifled as opposed to smooth-bore cannons were used, making stone masonry forts obsolete. African Americans fled to Union lines there during the remainder of the war. Neglected until the 1930s, it was restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Exhibits illustrate the
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fort’s history. Location: 15 miles southeast of Savannah toward Tybee Island. Address: P.O. Box 30757, Savannah, GA 31410. Phone: 912-786-5787. Web site: www.nps .gov/fopu. The city of Columbus and nearby Fort Benning are especially rich sites for military history. The National Infantry Museum has artifacts from all of the nation’s wars, from weapons used at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 to equipment used in the Persian Gulf. Extensive exhibits change frequently and include weapons, uniforms, documents, equipment, and vehicles. A theatre shows films and an art gallery depicts the infantry in art. Among other curiosities, the museum owns General Ulysses S. Grant’s liquor chest. Location: Route 280 south of Columbus. In Building 396, Fort Benning, GA 31905. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1022, Columbus, GA 31902. Phone: 706-3279798. Web site: www.nationalinfantryfoundation.org/about_museum. The National Civil War Naval Museum, formerly the James W. Woodruff Jr. Confederate Naval Museum, has displays that illustrate the development and operation of the naval mine, submarine, and battleship, all of which trace their first practical deployment to the Confederate Navy. Two exterior exhibits display the remains of the 225-foot-long ironclad ram CSS Jackson, and the 130-foot-long steam/sail powered gunboat CSS Chattahoochee. Both were sunk in the Chattahoochee River near the war’s end and salvaged in the 1960s. Address: 1002 Victory Drive, Columbus, GA 31902. Phone: 706-327-9798. Web site: www.portcolumbus.org. Columbus was second only to Richmond as the most important manufacturing city in the South, and the Columbus Naval Iron Works were second only to Richmond’s Tredegar Works as the largest iron manufactory in the Confederacy. It supplied steam engines, iron cladding, and other machine parts to all the Confederate shipyards in the South, along with cannon and a wide variety of cast iron products. Today, the restored building serves as Columbus’ convention center, named the Columbus Iron Works Convention & Trade Center. The building is open to the public and has exhibits of machinery, products, casting and armor from the CSS Chattahoochee and CSS Jackson, and the ‘‘Ladies Defender,’’ a cannon manufactured from brass cooking utensils donated by the ladies of Columbus. Address: 801 Front Avenue, Columbus, GA 31902. Phone: 706-327-4522. Web site: www.columbusmuseum.com. Linwood Cemetery in Columbus has two Confederate sections—naval and army —with the graves of more than 200 men from the Civil War who died in hospitals or during the Battle of Columbus (which occurred on April 16, 1865). Those who died in a boiler explosion on the CSS Chattahoochee are buried in the Naval Section, with their graves symbolically guarded by one of the rifled guns from the Ironclad Jackson. Brigadier General Henry L. ‘‘The Rock’’ Benning, a Columbus lawyer who became a Confederate general and after whom Fort Benning is named, is buried there. Location: Linwood Boulevard west of Tenth Avenue. The Rome Area History Museum, in a town burned by General Sherman, contains artifacts from every war from the Civil War to the present. It also has materials relating to Mrs. Edith Axel Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson, who grew up in the area. Location: Off U.S. 27 (the Martha Berry Highway) toward Rome, 1 mile to Broad Street. Turn left and the museum is on the right. Address: 303 Broad Street, Rome, GA 30161. Phone: 706-235-8051. Web site: www.romehistorymuseum.com.
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The Roselawn Museum, former home of evangelist preacher Samuel Porter Jones, also holds a collection of United Daughters of the Confederacy Civil War artifacts. Location: I-75 Exit 288 (Cartersville/Main Street), go west on Highway 113 for 2.7 miles. Turn right on GA Highway 293. Address: 224 West Cherokee Avenue, Cartersville, GA 30120. Phone: 770-387-5162. Web site: www .roselawnmuseum.com. The Marietta Museum of History is on the second floor of the Kennesaw House. One of the three galleries is devoted to the Civil War. Location: I-75, Exit 263 (South Marietta Parkway/Highway 120) west. Turn right and continue to Mill Street. Turn right, then right again into the parking lot. The museum is across the railroad tracks. Address: 1 Depot Street, Suite #200, Marietta, GA 30060. Phone: 770-794-5710. Web site: www.mariettahistory.org. Located near a Civil War battlefield, the Allatoona Lake Visitors Center details the construction by the Army Corps of Engineers of Allatoona Lake and Dam, finished in 1947 and the model for future dams and lakes in the country. The museum is dedicated to the Corps—established during the American Revolution—and the Civil War. Location: I-75 to Exit 290, then east on Highway 20 to Spur 20. Center is 4 miles south, at Allatoona Dam. Address: Phone: 678-721-6700 Web site: http://allatoona .sam.usace.army.mil. Georgia is also home of the Signal Regiment Museum, whose exhibits trace the development of the Signal Corps from its beginning in 1860 through the present. It has artifacts from Albert J. Myer, the founder of the Signal Corps; equipment used in the West around 1880; and Spanish-American War equipment such as the telephone used by General Wheeler at the battle of San Juan Hill. Other exhibits pertain to the Greeley expedition to the Arctic; Signal Corps Aviation; WWI ‘‘Hello Girls’’; Trench Warfare; WWII Signal Message Center; Signal WACs; Korea; Signal Corps motion pictures; Pigeons; Signals in Space; Cold War Vietnam prisoners of war and Signal Corps equipment; Desert Shield; General Eisenhower; and Camp Gordon. The museum also has exhibits honoring Signal Corps Medal of Honor winners plus archives and collections of records and photographs. Location: I-520 to Route 1 south or I-20 to Route 221 south. Address: Building 29807, Fort Gordon, GA 30905. Phone: 706-791-2818. Web site: www.gordon.army.mil/ocos/Museum. Georgia has a major Museum of Aviation that houses the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame, with exhibits on Native American history, the Tuskegee Airmen, Senator Sam Nunn, General Robert L. Scott, the U-2 planes that flew over Russia, and the role of the base’s aircraft in World War II and subsequent conflicts. Five pavilions in adjacent Freedom Park honor those who died in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and Desert Storm. Location: Route 247, 15 miles south of the Macon Airport. Address: P.O. Box 2469, Warner Robins AFB, GA 31099. Phone: 912-926-6870. Web site: www.museumofaviation.org. The St. Marys Submarine Museum has artifacts, photos, videos, and exhibits (many interactive) of submarines from the United States and around the world. Location: I-95, Exit 3, take Route 40 east (left) about 10 miles to the St. Marys River. Turn right and park. Address: 102 St. Marys Street West, St. Marys, GA 31558. Phone: 912882-2782. Web site: stmaryssubmuseum.com.
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The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum honors this air force, which was founded in 1942 in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It became one of the most effective in the world during World War II, participating in all the major pre- and postD-Day operations in Europe. The museum includes wartime movies and photographs, graphics, exhibits or artifacts, and interactive features as well as numerous airplanes used both by the Eighth and against it by the Germans. Galleries deal with the cause of World War II, Britain’s struggle alone against Germany, and the holocaust. The attractive museum is a work of art by itself. Actor Jimmy Stewart—who flew 25 missions—and the famous African American Tuskegee airmen were members of the Eighth. Other exhibits tell the stories of prisoners of war, efforts to aid them, stories of escape, and the Mighty Eighth’s role from World War II to the present wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Location: From the intersection of I-16 and I-95, take I-95 North to US 80, the Pooler/Garden City exit. Turn right on US 80 and make the first left onto Bourne Avenue, The museum is on the left. Address: The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, 175 Bourne Avenue, Pooler, GA 31322. Phone: 912-748-8888. Web site: http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/mightyeighth.html.
GUAM Guam is the site of the Marianas Military Museum that contains artifacts from the islanders, American, and Japanese military pertinent to World War II. A guide to an outdoor history trail is available at the museum. Location: On the U.S. Naval Station, Sumay. Address: Marianas Military Museum Foundation, PSC 455 Box 152 FPO AP, GU 96540. Phone: 671-339-3319. Web site: www.guam.net/pub/milmuseum. The War in the Pacific National Historical Park is atop Nimitz Hill overlooking Asan Beach, where Americans landed in World War II. The Memorial Wall contains 16,142 names of Chamorro and American casualties who were wounded or died during the war on Guam. The Liberator’s Memorial in the park honors the armed forces that participated in the 1944 landing on Guam. Address: 115 Haloda Building, Marine Drive, Asan, GU 96922. Phone: 671-472-7240. Web site: www.nps.gov/wapa.
HAWAII The best-known Hawaiian veterans’ site is Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona Memorial Museum is located where the battleship anchored and where many of the 1,177 men who lost their lives in the attack remain (over half of Pear Harbor’s casualties were on the Arizona). Artifacts and photos in the museum first show the pleasant life at Pearl Harbor in prewar Hawaii before depicting the attack of December 7, 1941, and the loss suffered by military personnel and their families using photos, letters, telegrams, and possessions. Over 1.4 million visitors a year view a film, mural, and numerous photos of the attack and enter a shrine where the names of the casualties are inscribed. Location: Adjacent to Kamehameha Highway, near the Aloha Stadium, between Ford Island Bridge and Pearl Harbor’s Makalapa Gate. Address: One Arizona Memorial Place, Honolulu, HI 96818. Phone: 808-422-0561. Web site: www.arizonamemorial.org.
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Also at Pearl Harbor, the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park includes 52 memorials to the 52 U.S. submarines and 3,500 men who perished on them during World War II. Visitors may enter the submarine and learn what it was like to live in these cramped quarters. Exhibits include submarine-related artifacts such as weapons systems, photographs, paintings, battle flags, recruiting posters, detailed submarine models, and the only Poseidon missile in the world whose inner workings may be examined by visitors. Location: Walking distance from USS Arizona memorial (above). Address: 11 Arizona Memorial Drive, Honolulu, HI 96818.. Phone: 808423-1341. Web site: www.pearl-harbor.com/bowfin/bowfin.html. Also at Pearl Harbor is the Battleship Missouri, which became a national memorial in 1999. Tours are available. Location: On Ford Island, trolley and tickets available at USS Bowfin Museum (see above). Address: P.O. Box 6339, Honolulu, HI 96818. Phone: 888-877-6477 or 808-545-2265. Web site: www.ussmissouri.org. The USS Utah is located on Ford Island, to which a walkway permits access from the USS Arizona. This is a memorial to those who died on this ship during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Address: One Arizona Memorial Place, Honolulu, HI 96818. Phone: 808-422-2771. Web site: www.ussutah.org. Honolulu also is home to the U.S. Army Military Museum of Hawaii. Exhibits deal with the whole of Hawaiian history, from pre-contact warriors to twentiethcentury weapons and defense, World War II, Japanese Americans, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. One room is dedicated to the 41 Hawaiians who have won the Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Award. Address: Kalia Road, Honolulu, HI 96815 (south of Waikiki). Phone: 808-438-2821. Web site: www .hiarmymuseumsoc.org. The Nisei Veterans Memorial Center opened on July 22, 2006, after a 14-year fund-raising effort. The memorial’s first phase is a care center for children and the elderly. A planned educational center devoted to the Nisei (Japanese American) experience in various wars will contain artifacts, photos, archives, and a space for seminars and education. Location: Wailuku, Maui. Address: P.O. Box 216, Kahului, HI 96733. Phone: 808-244-6862. Web site: www.nvmc.org.
IDAHO Thirty-eight sites at the Nez Perce National Historical Park are dispersed over several hundred square miles in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington to honor the Nez Perce Indians, their leader Chief Joseph, and the American soldiers who finally subdued them in 1877. The main visitor center is at Spalding, Idaho, and it is best to go there and then decide where to go. The center features an outstanding collection of clothing, tools, weapons, and ceremonial objects along with a film about the Nez Perce and the war. Address: Route 1, Box 100, Highway 95 South, Spalding, ID 83540. Phone: 208-843-2261. Web site: www.nps.gov/nepe/sites.htm. Other sites related to the war are include 501 Indiana Street, Spalding, where Henry and Eliza Spalding established the first mission to the Nez Perce in November 1836. The Park Headquarters and Visitor Center/Museum are located here. The Lapwai
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Mission was the site of Henry and Eliza Spalding’s first house. After two years, they relocated closer to the Clearwater River. As part of treaty agreements, the U.S. government set up the Northern Idaho Indian Agency to oversee the terms of the treaties. Originally located at Spalding, the agency was relocated in 1904 to the site of Fort Lapwai. Established by a detachment of volunteers who arrived in the Lapwai Valley in 1862, they chose this location for their fort south of Spalding’s mission. This duplex officers’ quarters at the southwest end of the parade ground was built in 1883. The Craig Donation Land Claim is the site of the first claim by a white settler in Idaho. William Craig was a mountain man, interpreter, and friend of the Nez Perce. St. Joseph’s Mission was the first Roman Catholic mission among the Nez Perce. It was dedicated on September 3, 1874, by Father Joseph Cataldo, who directed its construction. Cottonwood Skirmishes marks the site where skirmishes with the U.S. Army and civilian volunteers occurred on July 3 and 5. 1877. Afterwards, the main body of the Nez Perce was able to flee to the east into the valley of the Middle Fork of the Clearwater. Also in the Park is the Weis Rockshelter where humans lived more than 8,000 years ago. The locale was continuously inhabited until about 600 years ago. The site is 7 miles from US 95 on a gravel road. Camas Prairie, where wheat fields stretch to the horizon today, is where camas lilies once grew in great profusion. Camas bulbs were a major food source for the Nez Perce, and they came here every year to dig them. It was from a camp near Tolo Lake, which can be seen in the distance to the northwest, that three Nez Perce rode off on the raid that sparked the 1877 War. White Bird Battlefield was where the first battle of the Nez Perce War was fought on June 17, 1877. Thirty-four U.S. soldiers were killed, while the Nez Perce lost none. A shelter on U.S. Highway 95 gives a good overview of the site. A walking tour of the Battlefield is accessible via the old spiral highway. Clearwater Battlefield marks a second battle site, where on July 11 General O. O. Howard hoped to take the Nez Perce by surprise. His hopes came to naught, and the fighting ended with the Nez Perce withdrawing. The Heart of the Monster at East Kamiah is the legendary birthplace of the Nez Perce Tribe. Audio stations tell the story. The park includes sites relevant to the Lewis and Clark expedition, such as the Lewis and Clark Long Camp where they camped in the spring of 1806 while they waited for the snow in the mountain passes to melt; and Canoe Campwas where Lewis and Clark rested and built canoes out of hollowed-out logs for the final leg of their trip to the Pacific, with the help of the Nez Perce. Weippe Prairie was a rootgathering place for the Nez Perce, where on September 20, 1805, Clark first met the Nez Perce. During the 1877 War, the Nez Perce came here after the Battle of the Clearwater and held a council to decide what to do. Lolo Trail is the historic Nez Perce trail, used by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806 and extends roughly from near Weippe to Lolo Pass. In many places the exact route they took is unknown. US 12 closely parallels the route. During the 1877 War the Nez Perce followed the trail to Lolo Pass and on into Montana. Buffalo Eddy, which straddles Idaho and Montana, contains unique petroglyphs demonstrating the antiquity of the Nez Perce culture.
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After the tragedy at Big Hole (see below) the Nez Perce gained time by stopping the advance of the troops, stealing more than 200 of their pack mules and horses and bringing the army’s forward momentum to a halt. The Looking Glass 1877 Campsite is named after the Looking Glass Band of Indians who tried to remain neutral in the conflict between the army and the non-treaty Nez Perce. The army did not trust them and attacked their village, destroying it and stealing hundreds of horses. The Looking Glass regarded this as treachery and joined the others against the army. The non-treaty bands congregated at the ancient council site of Tolo Lake on the Camas Prairie. Big Hole National Battlefield marked the defeat of the Nez Perce. On the morning of August 9, 1877, U.S. troops surprised them during their escape. Eighty-seven Nez Perce men, women, and children were killed. The army lost 29 soldiers; 40 were wounded. The park film, Weet’uciklitukt: There’s No Turning Back, Battle at Big Hole, provides an excellent introduction to the Nez Perce War. After emerging from Yellowstone National Park, the Nez Perce were pursued by cavalry, fighting a rear-guard action at Canyon Creek, gaining some time. At the Bear Paw Battlefield in Montana, just 40 miles short of the Canadian border, the Nez Perce were besieged by the army and forced to surrender on October 5, 1877. They had traveled 1,500 miles in the 3.5 months since the first battle. A film, information, and more exhibits are available at the Blaine County Museum in Chinook, Montana. Location: Off Route 2, 501 Indiana Street. Address: P.O. Box 927, Chinook, MT 59523. Phone: 406-357-2590. Nez Perce sites in the Oregon area of the park include the Dug Bar, a crossing of the Snake River, where Chief Joseph and his band crossed the river in 1877 as they left their homes in Oregon for the reservation in Idaho. Joseph Canyon Viewpoint in Oregon was one of the winter homes of the Nez Perce. Tradition holds that Chief Joseph was born in a cave along the east bank of the creek. Old Chief Joseph’s Gravesite contains the remains of the elder Chief Joseph—the father of Chief Joseph who surrendered—who was reinterred here in 1926. Nearby are the graves of other Nez Perce Indians and some settlers. The site is in the Wallowa Valley. In 1871 Old Chief Joseph died at the Summer Campsite for the Wallowa band. This landscape has changed little. The Nez Perce Cemetery in Washington is near the site where in 1885, eight years after his surrender at Bear Paw, Chief Joseph and his band were allowed to return to the Northwest from Indian Territory (Oklahoma), but never to the Wallowas. Joseph spent his remaining years on the Colville Reservation and died here in 1904. The Nez Perce (Nespelem) Campsites in Washington were their final homes, and even in exile on a reservation that was not in their homeland, the Nez Perce continued their traditional way of life, refusing to live in houses built by the U.S. government. The early history of Idaho may also be discovered at the Fort Sherman Museum, located on the Campus of the College of North Idaho. The fort’s chapel is the oldest building in Coeur d’Alene. The museum is part of the North Idaho Museum and has exhibits relating to the fort and early history of the area. Location: Garden Avenue and College Drive. Address: P.O. Box 812, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814. Phone: 208664-3448. Web site: www.museumni.org.
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The Idaho Military History Museum contains numerous exhibits of military history and artifacts from the Philippine Insurrection to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Exhibits are dedicated to Idaho Army and Air National Guard, Navy, and Marine personnel. There is also an archive and library. Location: Lindbergh and Guard streets adjacent to Gowen Air Force Base (use Harvard Street entrance). Address: 4748 Lindbergh Street, Building 924, Boise, ID 83705. Phone: 208-4224841. Web site: http://inghro.state.id.us/museum. Also in Boise is Veterans Memorial Park, dedicated in 1997 by the City of Boise. It contains several veterans’ memorials. Two further memorial projects are planned for the park, one to honor Idaho recipients of the Purple Heart and the other, a memorial walk, dedicated to all Idaho veterans. Location: State Street West, North 36 Street, and Curtis Road. Address: Boise Department of Parks and Recreation, 1104 Royal Boulevard, Boise, ID 83706. Phone: 208-384-4240. Web site: www.cityofboise.org /parks. A third site in Boise is the Idaho State Historical Society, whose annex houses the J. Curtis Earl Exhibit. Donated in 1999 by J. Curtis Earl, it is one of the largest weaponry collections in the nation. The earliest are Indian weapons from 3500 BCE. The collection is dedicated to ‘‘the memory of all those who served and fought, and especially those who paid the supreme sacrifice, in the defense of our great country in order to preserve our freedom and ideals and a free people.’’ Location: Main Street East to Warm Springs Avenue. Old Penitentiary Road is on your left. Address: Idaho State Historical Society/Old Penitentiary Annex, 2205 Old Penitentiary Road, Boise, ID 83712. Phone 208-334-2682. Web site: www.idahohistory.net/earl.html. The Warhawk Air Museum has numerous aircraft and motor vehicles, display cases of wartime artifacts, and an oral history archive of veterans’ reminiscences. Location: Garraty Boulevard at Nampa Airport off I-84. Address: 201 Municipal Drive, Nampa, ID 83687. Phone: 208-465-6446. Web site: www .warhawkairmuseum.org.
ILLINOIS Illinois’ state Spanish-American War, World War II, Korea War, and Vietnam War Veterans Memorials are concentrated in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, where the monumental Tomb of Abraham Lincoln is located. The most recent, the World War II memorial, dedicated in 2004, consists of a plaza with bricks naming those Illinois citizens killed in the war as two walkways converge on a globe. The Korean War memorial contains the names of the 1,700 Illinois citizens killed in the conflict; made of bronze, it consists of four larger-than-life figures protecting a Liberty Bell. The Vietnam War memorial has five black stone walls, representing the five armed services, converging on two granite markers: the walls contain the names of the 2,700 men and women from the state killed or missing during the war. The Spanish-American War Memorial is a buried cannon. Location: I-55, west on North Grand Avenue, north on Monument Avenue. Address: 1441 Monument Avenue, Springfield, IL 62702. Phone: 217-7892340. Web site: www.online-springfield.com/sites.
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Also in Springfield is the Illinois State Military Museum, where exhibits detail the role of the Illinois militia and National Guard from the 1700s to the present. Of special interest are exhibits on the Black Hawk War, in which Abraham Lincoln served; the Mexican War, in which Illinois soldiers found Mexican General Santa Anna’s wooden leg which is on display; the Civil War—featuring the 29th Colored Regiment, raised in Illinois; the career of General John Logan, future senator and leader of the Grand Army of the Republic; World War I; World War II, Korea; Vietnam; the Gulf War; and the War on Terror. A reference library, meeting rooms, and a superb Web site dealing with Illinois military history are available. Address: 1301 North MacArthur Boulevard, Camp Lincoln Castle, Springfield, IL 62702. Phone: 217-761-3910. Web site: www.il.ngb.army.mil/Museum/default.htm. Two Civil War museums exist in Springfield. The Museum and National Headquarters, Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War opened in 1969: the organization was headquartered since 1934 in Washington, DC, before moving to Springfield. Any female direct descendant of a Union veteran can join. The headquarters contains a research library plus Civil War memorabilia. Location: I-55 to Route 29 (Walnut Street). Address: 503 South Walnut Street, Springfield, IL 62704. Phone: 217-544-0616. Web site: www.duvcw.org. Nearby is the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Museum, located in the city where the GAR was founded. It contains Civil War artifacts as well as those pertaining to the history of the leading veterans’ organization to emerge from it. Location: I-55 to Route 29, follow into Spingfield to South 7th Street. Address: 629 South 7th Street, Springfield, IL 62704. Phone: 207-522-4373. Web site: www.springfield-il .com/attract/grandarmy.html. Springfield is also the home of the Air Combat Museum, honoring American air service veterans. It contains over a dozen aircraft. Location: I-55, Route 29 at Air National Guard Entrance to Abraham Lincoln Capitol Airport. Address: 835 South Airport Drive, Springfield, IL 62702. Phone: 217-698-3990. Web site: www .aircombatmuseum.org. On October 20, 2007, the Korean War Veterans National Museum and Library was dedicated at a groundbreaking ceremony in Springfield. Location: Opposite the Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library, Fifth and Madison Streets. Address: 303 North 5th Street, P.O. Box 299, Springfield, IL 62705. Phone: 888-295-7212. Web site: www.theforgottenvictory.org. Chicago’s Soldier Field was built between 1922 and 1924 to honor the soldiers of past U.S. wars. The bas-reliefs in the Greek-style edifice depict African American and white soldiers from World War I. The stadium is now the home of the Chicago Bears NFL football team. Location: Lake Shore Drive in downtown Chicago. Address: 1410 South Museum Campus Drive, Chicago, IL 60615. At least two small Illinois cities have exceptional veterans’ memorials. The Bement Veterans Memorial was dedicated on July 4, 1999, with funds raised by local veterans’ groups. Six granite blocks contain the names of 2,000 citizens from the area known to have served in every conflict since the Mexican War. Location: I-72, South on Route 105 to Bement. In park, center of town. Address: Veterans’ Memorial,
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Bement Foundation, P.O. Box 229, Bement, IL 61813-0229. Phone: 217-678-2881. Web site: www.bement.net/veterans.htm. The Streamwood Veterans Memorial Park features five large monoliths that honor the five branches of the U.S. military—the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. Two others pay tribute to women in the military and to POW’s and MIA’s. Fifteen smaller pieces are dedicated to various military conflicts. The latest addition by Anthony Quickle is a memorial to the nation’s War Dogs: the statue, which is about 57 inches high and 7 feet long on a 3 1/2-foot granite base, shows a German Shepherd at full alert, with a soldier kneeling beside him, one hand on the dog, the other gesturing into the distance. Location: Irving Park Road near Police Station, Streamwood, 30 miles west of Chicago. Web site: www.streamwood.org. The Rock Island Arsenal Museum is the second oldest army military museum in the United States, founded in 1905. One exhibit describes the camp’s original use as a prisoner of war camp for Confederates during the Civil War. ‘‘Meet the People of Rock Island Arsenal’’ focuses on the diversity of employees at Rock Island Arsenal and uses photographs, documents, and artifacts to tell the stories of those who worked there in the late-nineteenth century. Collections include guns, artillery, leather equipment, and mess equipment. Directions: I-74 to the 7th Avenue exit, then left to 14th Street. Turn right and go straight down the street and up the ramp to the Moline Bridge. Address: Building 60, Rock Island, IL 6129. Phone: 309-782-5021. Web site: http:// riamwr.com/museum.htm. The unique National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, founded in 1981, houses over 1,500 works of art, including paintings, photography, sculpture, poetry, and music. All the works in the museum’s permanent collection were created and comprised by 125 artists, who chronicled their individual experiences from the Vietnam War. Special exhibits by other artists are on topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder (in 2006) and the POW/MIA experience (2007). Location: Six blocks east of I-90/94, one block east of Michigan Avenue at 18th Street. Address: 1801 South Indiana Avenue, Chicago, IL 60616. Phone: 312-326-0270. Web site: www.nvvam.org. Chicago is also unique in that the Museum of Science and Industry owns the only German U-boat from World War II on display in the United States. Visitors can enter. Location: 57th Street and South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60637. Phone: 773684-1414. Web site: www.msichicago.org/exhibit/U505/index.html. World War I veterans are honored by the University of Illinois Veterans Memorial Stadium. Constructed between 1922 and 1924, tablets at the entrance to the stadium list the 189 members of the university and alumni killed in World War I. In 2002, the names of over 900 additional men and women killed or missing in action were added, dedicating the stadium as a memorial to the university’s veterans in all twentiethcentury wars. Location: Champaign-Urbana Campus, University of Illinois. Address: for donations and information—University of Illinois Alumni Association Alice Campbell Alumni Center, 601 South Lincoln Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801. Phone: 217-333-1471. Web site: www.uiaa.org/urbana/veterans. The First Division Museum at Cantigny is set in a park on the former estate (named after a French town destroyed in World War I) of Colonel Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and colonel of the state’s first division. It has (some
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interactive) exhibits on the Division’s history from World War I through Desert Storm. Artifacts include uniforms, flags and colors, insignia, medals and decorations, and an art collection including over 1,000 World War I posters, original drawings, paintings, and sculptures. It houses a research collection on McCormick and the Tribune as well as the First Division. Location: From downtown Chicago, 30 miles west on the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) or the East-West Tollway (I-88) to Winfield Road. Then 3.5 miles north to Cantigny. Address: 151 Winfield Road, Wheaton, IL 60187. Phone: 630-260-8185. Web site: www.firstdivisionmuseum.org/about/contact.aspx. Illinois has several aviation museums. The Heritage in Flight Museum, housed in a World War II German POW barracks, was moved from its original site at Camp Ellis, a POW camp near Macomb, Illinois. It contains memorabilia and artifacts from World War I to the present. Location: Off I-55 at Airport Road at Logan County Airport. Address: 1351 Airport Road, Lincoln, IL 62656. Phone: 217-732-3333. Web site: www.heritageinflight.org. The Prairie Aviation Museum contains historic planes outdoors and exhibits on the history of aviation inside. Location: Route 9 opposite the East Lawn Memorial Garden. Address: 2929 East Empire Street, Bloomington, IL 61704. Address: P.O. Box 856, Bloomington, IL 61701. Phone: 309-663-7632. Web site: www .prairieaviationmuseum.org. The Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum features aircraft, training modules, and exhibits on aircraft history. It is the largest aerospace museum in Illinois. Special emphasis is on the 99th Pursuit Squadron headquartered at the base. Location: I-57 to Exit 250, to US 136 to Rantoul. At the third traffic light, turn right to Century Boulevard, Left on Flessner Street that turns into Pacesetter Drive. Address: 1011 Pacesetter Drive, Rantoul, IL 61866. Phone: 217-893-1613. Web site: www .aeromuseum.org. Two private Illinois museums are also worth visiting. The Stuka Military Museum contains uniforms, helmets, swords, medals, patches, and souvenirs from past conflicts from the Civil War to Desert Storm. Location: Route 64 to Oregon on the Rock River. Address: 3178 South Daysville Road, Oregon, IL 61061. Phone: 815-732-2091. Web site: www.oregonil.com/attractions-stuka-military.html. The Russell Military Museum, formerly located in Kenosha, Wisconsin, relocated in 2006. Among thousands of artifacts are helicopters, aircraft, Sherman tanks, a D-day landing craft, and Vietnam river boats. Location: Russell, IL, at Routes 94 and 41, just south of the Wisconsin border. The Roberts Armory, however, will visit you. It is a traveling museum of over 20 tanks and vehicles used in movies, parades, and ceremonies. Location: Big Rock, IL 60511. Web site: www.robertsarmory.com.
INDIANA The Historic District of Indianapolis has perhaps the most impressive collection of war memorials in the nation assembled in one place outside of Washington, DC. Located in the heart of the city near the state capitol, these memorials are found in a
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series of plazas and parks. For all of them: Location: Take I-65 or I-70 to downtown Indianapolis where the two roads intersect. Address: 431 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204. Phone: 317-232-7615. Web site: www.ai.org/iwm. Most imposing is the Solders and Sailors Monument and adjacent Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum. At 284 feet, the monument is only 15 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty. It is the only Civil War monument specifically honoring ordinary soldiers and sailors. Erected in 1902, it includes several outside sculptures and a museum of the Civil War with exhibits on military life, POWs, black soldiers, and the home front. The Indiana War Memorial Plaza, under construction from 1926 to 1965, includes the World War Memorial Building that honors World War I veterans. A 24foot-tall bronze sculpture features a young man draped in an American flag reaching heavenward. The War Memorial has three main floors. The upper level Shrine Room has materials from all over the world, symbolizing peace and unity and indicating the global nature of World War I. The building also includes two 75-seat meeting rooms, the Pershing Auditorium which seats 500 (available for public use), and a Military Museum with exhibits on the role of Indiana citizens in all of America’s wars. The latest exhibits on Vietnam display the nature of jungle warfare. On the other side of North Street from Veterans’ Memorial Plaza, the American Legion Mall stretches for two city blocks. The National Headquarters Building for the American Legion is on the north side of the mall as are the state’s Korean and Vietnam War Memorials. The latter is slightly larger to indicate 1,525 Indianans were killed in the latter conflict as opposed to 927 in the former. All these names are listed on the memorials. The Sunken Garden and Cenotaph Square were built in 1931 as a tribute to Indiana’s war dead. A memorial to James B. Gresham of Evansville, the first member of the American Expeditionary Force killed in World War I, is located here. An outdoor Memorial to the USS Indianapolis, built in 1931 and sunk on July 29, 1945, with only 318 of 1,197 crew members surviving, is located at the north end of the Canal Water Walk at Senate Avenue and Walnut Street and was dedicated in 1995. Nearby is the Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial. Seventeen curved glass walls, illuminated at night, are dedicated to over 3,400 recipients of the Medal of Honor, each of whom has a plaque telling his or her story. The most famous recipient is Audie Murphy. Visitors to Indianapolis may also want to check out the aircraft and war memorabilia at the Stout Field Military Equipment Museum. Location: Off I-70 in southwest Indianapolis. Phone: 317-232-3140. Illinois was conquered by an expeditionary force led by George Rogers Clark from the British and Indians during the American Revolution. George Rogers Clark National Historical Park opened in 1936. Its central building resembles the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC. The rotunda is more than 80 feet high and 90 feet across at the base. Towering over the entrance is an eagle with outspread wings. Above the 16 Doric columns is an inscription which reads: ‘‘The Conquest of the West—George Rogers Clark and The Frontiersmen of the American Revolution.’’ Inside the rotunda are seven murals, painted by Ezra Winter. Hermon Atkins MacNeil, designer of the
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Standing Liberty quarter dollar, sculptured the bronze statue of Clark. Three of Clark’s quotations are inscribed in the memorial: ‘‘Great things have been effected by a few men well conducted’’; ‘‘Our cause is just . . . our country will be grateful’’; and ‘‘If a country is not worth protecting it is not worth claiming.’’ The Park also contains a memorial to the USS Vincennes. Address: 401 South 2nd Street, Vincennes, IN 47591-1001. Phone: 812-882-1776. Web site: www.nps.gov/gero. Vincennes is also the home of the Indiana Military Museum, with its extensive and varied collection of military memorabilia. Military vehicles, artillery, uniforms, insignia, equipment, and related artifacts span conflicts from the Civil War to Desert Storm. Location: Vigo Road (Route 50) and North 3rd Street. Address: 2074 North Bruceville Road, Vincennes, IN 47591. Address: P.O. Box 977, Vincennes, IN 47591. Phone: 812-882-8668. Web site: www.indianamilitarymuseum.org Indiana was the site of the major battle that finally won the Old Northwest from the British just before the War of 1812. The Tippecanoe Battlefield marks the site where General William Henry Harrison defeated Tecumseh’s Native American Federation in 1811. It features a museum with Indian artifacts and exhibits related to the battle. The park has an 86-foot-tall obelisk commemorating the event. The Indiana State legislature authorized it in 1834 although it was not completed until 1902. Location: 5 miles northwest of West Lafayette—take I-65 to Indiana Route 43 south. Address: 200 Battle Ground Avenue, Battle Ground, IN 47920 Phone: 765-567-2147. Web site: www.tcha.mus.in.us/battlefield.htm. When the War of 1812 ended, Historic Old Fort Wayne (of which the current fort is a replica) was constructed by Major John Whistler and his men during 1815–1816. It was the last fort to stand at the junction of the St. Mary’s, St. Joseph, and Maumee Rivers. It was designed purely for defense against Native Americans and could be comfortably defended by a relatively small number of men. Reenactments are staged there. Location: 1200 Spy Run Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46805. Address: Historic Fort Wayne, P.O. Box 12650, Fort Wayne, IN 46864. Phone: 260-460-4763. Web site: www.oldfortwayne.org. The Great Lakes Museum of Military History also has artifacts dating back to the War of 1812 among over 5,000 items including memorabilia, uniforms, medals, documents, posters, photographs, citations/awards, firearms, edged weapons, books, magazines, and other printed material. The museum maintains an excellent reference library and archive for researchers/students of military history. Location: Marquette Mall, intersection of Routes 421 and 20. Address: 360 Dunes Plaza, W. U.S. Highway 20, Michigan City, IN 46360. Phone: 219-872-2702. Web site: www.travbuddy.com/ Great-Lakes-Museum-of-Military-History-v177663. The Ernie Pyle Home is the birthplace (relocated) of America’s most famous war correspondent, who was killed at Iwo Jima, and contains memorabilia from his life. Location: 1 mile north of U.S. Highway 36 on Indiana State Road 71. Address: P.O. Box 338, 120 West Briarwood Avenue, Dana, IN 47847. Phone: 765-665-3633. Web site: www.in.gov/ism/StateHistoricSites/ErniePyleHome/index.aspx. The National Military History Center, formerly the World War II Victory Museum has one of the world’s greatest collections of vehicles from the war (over 150 from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and other countries including
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eight sole surviving types) and memorabilia—arms, uniforms, documents, and so on. They are grouped on display in thematic galleries: The Gathering Storm, the Axis High Tide, Victory in Europe and the Pacific, the Home Front, and the Postwar World. The museum also has living history presentations and reenactments. Location: Off I-69, 15 miles north of Ft. Wayne, just south of I-80/90 toll road. Address: P.O. Box 1, Auburn, IN 46706. Phone: 260-927-9144. Web site: www.militaryhistorycenter.org. Indiana’s U.S. Merchant Marine Museum contains uniforms, medals and pins, seaman papers, insignia, ships’ models, and ship instruments. Location: I-69 to downtown Anderson. Address: 1230 Jackson Street, Anderson, IN 46016. Phone: 765-643-SHIP. Honoring deceased astronaut Virgil ‘‘Gus’’ Grissom, the Grissom Air Museum has numerous aircraft, including a Phantom jet and a Huey Helicopter whose cockpits are open to the public. It contains armaments, flight trainers’ uniforms, models, photos, survival gear, engines, war prizes, aviation art, and a theater. Location: Route 218 at Grissom Air Force Base. Address: Grissom Air Museum State Historic Site, 1000 West Hoosier Boulevard, Peru, IN 46970. Phone: 765-689-8011. Web site: www.grissomairmuseum.com/home.html. The Museum of the Soldier highlights the service and sacrifice of the military veteran through uniforms, photographs, and related items. Location: Four blocks east of U.S. 27 near downtown Portland. Address: 510 East Arch Street, Portland, IN 47371. Phone: 260-726-2967. Web site: www.museumofthesoldier.com.
IOWA Many of Iowa’s veterans’ memorials are located on the grounds of the State Capitol in Des Moines. Most imposing is the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial designed to honor the nearly 80,000 Civil War personnel from Iowa, the largest number of soldiers per capita of any northern state during the war. It was first authorized by the legislature in 1887. Harriet A. Ketcham of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the designer, died before it was completed in 1896. Disputes over its placement and attractiveness delayed its formal dedication until the end of World War II in 1945. The memorial ‘‘Victory’’ figure stands atop the 135-foot column. Four equestrians—all Iowa Civil War generals—are depicted: Marcellus M. Crocker, who led his troops to victory at Shiloh, Corinth, and Vicksburg; John M. Corse, who joined Grant at the siege of Vicksburg; Grenville M. Dodge, who built railroads to support Grant’s army and accompanied Sherman on the ‘‘March to the Sea’’; and Samuel R. Curtis, commander of the Union Army at Pea Ridge. The four soldiers on the upper base represent Iowans who served in different branches of the military during the Civil War: Infantryman Shelby Norman, at the age of 18 the first Iowan killed in battle; Ensign William H. C. Michael, a school teacher turned sailor; artilleryman Captain Henry H. Griffiths, whose battery never lost a gun throughout the war; and Cavalryman Lt. James Horton, killed while leading a saber charge at the battle of Lovejoy Station. Senator James Harlan, an Iowan and member of President Lincoln’s cabinet, vowed that the statues ‘‘will be made from the figures of real Iowa soldiers. None of them will be dummies, modeled from the
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bodies of good looking men picked up on the streets by the artist to be dubbed ideal soldiers, but they will be copies of the actual bodies, limbs, arms, heads and faces of soldiers created by God almighty himself to defend Iowa and the nation.’’ The men that were to appear on the monument were selected by their fellow soldiers and submitted from GAR Posts from across the state of Iowa. Also honoring Union veterans are a 65-foot flag pole with an engraved bust of Abraham Lincoln at the base, a bronze sundial, and a stone honoring ‘‘Crocker’s Greyhounds,’’ named for their first commander, General Marcellus M. Crocker, who fought at the battles of Shiloh, Luka, Corinth, Big Shanty, Vicksburg, and Atlanta. It was donated by the Crocker Women’s Relief Corps. The unit marched 8,500 miles during the war. The Iowa Volunteer Troops from Camp McKinley raised a bronze cross on the front of a large granite marker, listing each Iowa regiment that fought in the engagements in the Spanish-American, Philippine, and China Campaigns from 1898 to 1902. World War II veterans are honored with the Freedom Flame a 50foot-high stainless steel stylized flame. Leading up to the flame is ‘‘Freedom Walk,’’ a walkway through time, beginning with Pearl Harbor. The plaza floor is comprised of a global map showing the five major theaters of operation. The ‘‘Wall of Memories’’ that lists major actions of the war stands behind the Freedom Flame. Next to the Freedom Flame is the Iowa Pearl Harbor Memorial, dedicated on Veterans Day, 1991. To honor all veterans, a red granite eternal flame burns atop a 10-foot-high white granite memorial. Installed in 1976, it was a Bicentennial gift from Iowa chapters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and their Ladies’ Auxiliary. Iowa’s Vietnam Memorial is similar in design to the monument in Washington, DC. When schoolchildren at the time objected there was no Iowa Korean War Memorial, the state added a 14-foottall central obelisk and eight 6-foot-tall tablets which tell the story of the Korean War utilizing words, pictures, and maps of Korea engraved in granite. Location: Near State Capitol, on East Grand Avenue at Fourth Street exit off I-235. Address: Department of Administrative Services, Hoover Office Building, 1305 East Walnut Street, Des Moines, IA 50314. Phone: 505-242-5120. Web site: http://publications.iowa.gov/ 135/1/profile/8-5.html. The Grant Wood Veterans Memorial Window is located in the Veterans Memorial Building. This 24×20-foot stained-glass window designed in 1932 by the famous American artist, Grant Wood, born in Anamosa. Iowa, depicts veterans of the different armed services resting beneath the wings of an Angel of Peace. When the Daughters of the American Revolution criticized his design, he satirized them in his painting ‘‘Daughters of the Revolution.’’ Location: 3851 River Ridge Drive NE, Veterans Memorial Building, 1st Floor, Cedar Rapids, IA 52402. Phone: 319-286-5038. Web site: www.cedar-rapids.org/vetsmemorial. The Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, part of the Grout Museum District, opened on Veterans Day 2008. These five Waterloo, Iowa, brothers insisted on serving on the same ship, USS Juneau, which was sunk on November 13, 1942. Thirteen thousand square feet of exhibit area is divided into sections, each with artifacts from a different conflict from the Civil War to the present. An Interactive ‘‘Communication Station’’ exhibit tells Iowans’ stories through letters and emails to and from individual soldiers, newspaper articles, and radio and television broadcasts from
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around the globe. The facility allows visitors to hear firsthand about Iowans’ war experiences based on oral histories. ‘‘Dog Tag’’ interactives allow each visitor to adopt a persona—young man, child, young mother, grandfather—to experience the impact a war has on all Iowans and how this impact has changed from one war era to another. Location: Near intersection of Routes 63 and 218. Address: 503 South Street, Waterloo, IA 50701. Phone: 319-234-6357. Web site: www.groutmuseumdistrict.org/sullivan. The Iowa Gold Star Museum has galleries honoring Iowans who have served in every conflict since the Civil War. Location: I-35/80 to NW 86 Street (Exit 129), north to NW 70 Avenue, then left into Camp Dodge. Address: 7700 Northwest Beaver Drive, Johnston, IA 50131. Phone: 515-252-4531. Web site: www.iowanationalguard.com /Museum/Museum.htm. In October 2001, Upper Iowa University dedicated ‘‘Reflective Tribute,’’ a veterans memorial. At its center is a life-size statue of UIU student James Beneke, who was killed in World War II, the focus of the memorial. The figure, in military regalia, leads the viewer’s eye to a plaque featuring the names of the other student-soldiers who have fallen in battle. A bronze relief placed directly across from the life-size sculpture depicts Beneke in his UIU football uniform, providing a contrast symbolizing the price this young man paid for his country, as well as the sacrifices all war veterans have made. The sculptures are situated in a large formal garden, with a flagstone walk, hedge, lawns, and shrubbery, encompassing half an acre at the Residential University in Fayette. The area is designated for visiting, sitting, and reflecting. Location: 605 Washington Street, on Route 93 just east of intersection with Route 150. Address: P.O. Box 1857, Fayette, IA 52142. Phone: 800-553-4150. The Camp Algona POW Museum contains information concerning the prisoner of war camp that existed in Algona from 1943 to 1946. It has artifacts pertaining to the camp and information on citizens in the area who experienced World War II in the military or on the home front. Location: Near intersection of Routes 422 and 18, 114 South Thorington Street. Address: P.O. Box 174, Algona, IA 50511. Phone: 515395-2267. Web site:www.pwcamp.algona.org. Iowa’s Airpower Museum has a large collection of antique planes from different wars, many of which are regularly flown. Location: Route 2, near intersection of Routes 63 and 34. Address: Box 172, Ottumwa, IA 52501. Phone: 515-938-2773. Web site: www.antiqueairfield.com/apm/.
KANSAS Kansas’ Veterans of All Wars Memorial, the nation’s first, was dedicated in the city park on May 26, 1991, in Emporia. Six stone pylons in the Circle of Honor remember those who served in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Beside the circle is the country’s first memorial to Persian Gulf War veterans. A gazebo shelters a monument to Marine Sergeant Grant Timmerman, of Emporia, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1944. A Walk of Honor is flanked by 34 plaques recognizing military units and veterans’ groups from Emporia. The memorial also features a World War II M-4A6 Sherman
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army tank. The ‘‘Vietnam Veterans Memorial’’ was dedicated March 29, 2001, with a Huey helicopter from the Vietnam War. Emporia is located at the intersection of I-35, U.S. 50, and State Route 99. Senator Bob Dole dedicated the impressive Veterans Memorial in Pittsburg, Kansas, on Memorial Day, 2004. It is designed as an outdoor amphitheater entered through crevices between two interlocking earthen forms. This allows for a transition from the outside world to a quiet area of remembrance. The interior includes the Vietnam Memorial Wall, a reflective pool, an eternal flame, and Walk of Honor. The plaza consists of hundreds of pavement markers honoring veterans and veterans’ organizations. Pittsburg is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69/160 and State Route 126. The city of Wichita has several veterans’ memorials in its downtown 3.5-acre park: John S. Stevens Veterans Memorial, Kansas Korean War Memorial, Pearl Harbor Memorial, U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II Memorial, U.S. Merchant Marine Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Location: Wichita, 2nd Street and Greenway Boulevard, by the Arkansas River. The Union Pacific Depot in Topeka has been restored as the All Veterans Memorial to Kansas veterans. A stainless steel sculpture depicts a rotating flame, with four bronze panels respectively inscribed with the phrases ‘‘Defend Our Nation,’’ ‘‘Preserve Freedom,’’ ‘‘Vanquish Tyranny,’’ and ‘‘Promote Peace.’’ The memorial also features a fountain and two rows of flag poles. Each of the 50 poles flies an American flag and a flag of one of the 50 states. The veterans’ memorial is located immediately south of the station and is an integral part of the 20-acre park. Location: 701 North Kansas Avenue, Topeka, KS 66608. Phone: 785-232-5533. Web site: www.allveteransmemorial.com. The beginnings of Kansas’ military history may be experienced at the Frontier Army Museum, located at Fort Leavenworth, the oldest fort in the nation west of the Mississippi in continuous use (since 1827). It is the site of a monument to the African American ‘‘Buffalo’’ soldiers who fought on the plains plus a museum detailing the history of the fort in the Civil and Indian Wars. In the twentieth century it has served as the central military prison for the Army as well as the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, which was founded by General William T. Sherman. The fort and its surroundings are a national historic district. Location: Metropolitan Avenue in Leavenworth off U.S. 73/Kansas 7. Address: 615 McClellan Avenue, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027. Phone: 913-684-3767. http://garrison.leavenworth.army.mil/sites/ about/history.asp. Fort Scott National Historic Site contains 20 restored buildings, 11 of which are open to visitors. They contain 33 historically furnished rooms. Operated from 1842 to 1873, Fort Scott was involved in the Mexican War, ‘‘Bleeding Kansas’’ struggles between free and slave state advocates in the 1850s, the Civil War, Indian wars, and building the transcontinental railroad. Three buildings serve as museums: the infantry barracks that describes the fort’s history, the dragoon barracks which has exhibits that relate the story of the soldiers’ lives, and the Wilson-Goodlander house that tells about the buildings. Location: Intersection I-69 and 54 about 90 miles south of Kansas City. Address: P.O. Box 918, Fort Scott, KS 66701. Phone: 316-223-0188. Web site: www.nps.gov/fosc.
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Kansas is also the home of the U.S. Cavalry Museum, which is dedicated to the cavalry from the Revolutionary War to the present. The museum is in the former hospital and subsequent headquarters of Fort Riley, built in 1855. The base also contains the Custer House, where George Armstrong Custer lived, a museum honoring the first infantry, two nineteenth-century chapels, a monument to the soldiers killed in the Battle of Wounded Knee with the Sioux in 1890, and a monument dedicated to ‘‘Old Trooper Bill’’ which marks the grave of ‘‘Chief,’’ the last horse belonging to the U.S. cavalry who died in 1968. Location: Between Junction City and Manhattan, off I-70. Custer Road and Henry Avenue. Address: P.O. Box 2325, Fort Riley, KS 66442. Phone: 785-784-5797. Web site: www.riley.army.mil. Two other forts recall the stories of America’s veterans of the Great Plains wars. Fort Hays, originally Fort Fletcher, was founded in 1865 to protect military roads, defend construction gangs on the Union Pacific Railway, and protect the mail service from the Cheyenne and Arapaho. It served as a major supply depot for other army posts in Kansas, and was an active post until 1889. General Philip H. Sheridan, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, Colonel Nelson Miles, and the 9th and 10th Black Cavalries, better known as ‘‘Buffalo Soldiers’’ were among those stationed here. Three original buildings, the blockhouse, guard house, and an officers’ quarters still stand. This state historic site is noted for educational and living history programs. Location: South of I-70. Address: 1487 U.S. Highway 183 Alternate, Hays, KS 67601. Phone: 785-625-6812. Web site: www.kshs.org/places/forthays. Fort Larned National Historic Site contains nine original buildings constructed during 1866–1868, a museum, and a visitors center. Location: 6 miles west of the town of Larned on Kansas Highway 156. Address: Route 3, Larned, KS 67550. Phone: 316223-0310. Web site: www.nps.gov/fols. The Kansas Vietnam Veterans Memorialconsists of seven black granite panels that stand13feettallandare46feetlong.Fourofthepanelsbearthenamesof753Kansanskilled inactioninVietnam,anotherofthe38Kansansstillmissinginactionasof1987.Twomilitary decorations,thePurple HeartandtheVietnamCampaignribbon, are alsoengraved on the panelhonoringtheMIA’s.Theremainingtwopanelsdepicttwosoldiersinlarger-than-life size. A poem from Kansas soldier Michael O’Donnell, whowas killed in Vietnam, is also inscribed.Location:EastsideofHeritagePark,6thandWashingtonStreets,JunctionCity, whichisonI-70inEastKansas.Address:VietnamVeteransofAmerica,NorthCentralKansas Chapter #344, P.O. Box 1492, Junction City, KS 66441. Web site: http:// grunt.space.swri.edu/kansmem.htm. The Museum of the Kansas National Guard opened in 1997 at the entrance to Forbes Airfield. It displays weapons, aircraft, vehicles, and memorabilia concerning the state’s national guard. Medal of Honor winners for conduct in wars fought with Native Americans within the state’s boundaries are featured in a superb online exhibit that highlights the library’s extensive research collections. Location: Opposite Cullen Village at entrance to Forbes Field. Address: 6700 SW Topeka Boulevard, Topeka, KS. Phone: 785-862-1020. Web site: www.kansas guardmuseum.org. Kansas has at least three air museums. The Combat Air Museum contains aircraft, artifacts, and exhibits from the beginnings of aviation to the present. Location:
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6700 SW Topeka Boulevard (at Forbes Field opposite Cullen Village). Address: P.O. Box 19142, Topeka, KS 66619, Phone: 913-862-3303. Web site: www.comba tairmuseum.org. The Kansas Aviation Museum is the site of the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame, artifacts from all periods of aviation history, and a research library. Location: Intersection of Washington Boulevard and South 31 Street at McConnell Air Force Base West entrance. Address: 3350 George Washington Boulevard, Wichita, KS 67210. Phone: 316-683-9242. Web site: www.kansasaviationmuseum.org. And the Mid-America Air Museum has over a hundred vintage aircraft plus memorabilia. Location: Near Liberal Airport, or the intersection of Routes 54 and 83, north of North Pancake Boulevard and west of North Western Avenue on 2nd Street. Address: P.O. Box 2585, 2000 West 2nd Street, Liberal, KS 67905. Phone: 316-624-5263. Web site: www.kansastravel.org/airmuseum.htm.
KENTUCKY Known as the ‘‘dark and bloody ground’’ during the American Revolution, Kentucky proved even more so during the Civil War as its citizens fought for both sides and it was contested terrain for much of the conflict. The states’ war memorials reflect this heritage. Old Bardstown Village Historical Site has three museums, including the fourth largest Civil War museum in the United States and the only one to concentrate on the western states. Four rooms dedicated respectively to the infantry, cavalry, navy, and artillery contain uniforms, weapons, artifacts, photographs, and documents. Museums of wildlife and the American Indian set in a pioneer village display life on the Kentucky frontier in the era of the American Revolution. On the grounds is the Women in the Civil War Museum, the nation’s only museum where the role of women as spies, disguised soldiers, nurses, and on the home front is exclusively honored. Location: Between I-65 and I-75 off the Bluegrass Parkway at Exit 25. Address: 310 East Broadway Street, Bardstown, KY 40004. Phone: 502-349-0291. Web site: www.civil-war-museum.org. Lexington and its vicinity abound in Civil War sites. Downtown is the HuntMorgan House, home of Confederate General John Morgan, who also has a statue in front of the county court house. The museum on the second floor has weapons and other artifacts related to Morgan and his cavalry. Address: 201 North Mill Street, Lexington, KY 40508. Phone: 859-233-3290. Web site: www.nps.gov/history/nr/ travel/lexington/hun.htm. The Bodley-Bullock House, which served as both Union and Confederate headquarters, is open for tours by appointment. Address: 200 Market Street, Lexington, KY 40508. Phone: 859-259-1266. Web site: www.nps.gov/history/NR/travel/lexington/ bod.htm. Morgan and John C. Breckenridge, Confederate general, and secretary of war, and former vice president of the United States (who also has a statue at the court house) are buried in the Lexington Cemetery along with 500 Confederate and 1,100 Union soldiers. Address: 833 West Main Street (Route 421), Lexington, KY 40508. Phone: 859-255-5522. Web site: www.lexcem.org.
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The Aviation Museum of Kentucky at the Lexington Airport contains airplanes, artifacts, and an exhibit honoring the state’s air veterans. Address: Bluegrass Airport, P.O. Box 4118, Lexington, KY 40544. Phone: 859-231-1219. Web site: www .aviationky.org. Southwest of Lexington is the Perryville Battlefield Historical Site, which contains a museum and Union and Confederate monuments. Over 6,000 soldiers were killed on October 8, 1862, in Kentucky’s deadliest battle of the war, which marked the end of Confederate control of the state. A reenactment occurs on approximately the date of the battle each year. Location: 45 miles south of Lexington, take I-68 west to 150 west. Address: 1825 Battlefield Road, Perryville, KY 40469. Phone: 859-3328631. Web site: parks.ky.gov/findparks/histparks/pb. About 20 miles south of Lexington may be found the restored officers’ quarters of Camp Nelson in Jessamine County. This museum commemorates the camp’s role as a primary recruiting station for African Americans once the Union Army began to accept them. Ten thousand black soldiers were trained here, the third largest camp in the North for that purpose. It contained schools and churches for African Americans and served as a refugee camp during the war. Four thousand soldiers are buried at the camp. Location: Off U.S. 27, about 20 miles south of Lexington. Address: Camp Nelson Restoration & Preservation Foundation, 200 South Main Street, Nicholasville, KY 40356. Phone: 859-881-9126. Web site: www.campnelson.org. In Harrodsburg is the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, a museum village with a biennial Civil War encampment. A weekend event honors the pacifist Shakers who offered assistance in the form of food, supplies, and medical treatment to soldiers on both sides. Location: On Lexington Avenue east of South College Street (Route 127). Address: 3501 Lexington Road, Harrodsburg, KY 40383. Phone: 800-734-5611. Web site: www.shakervillageky.org. Also close by in this town is the Old Fort Harrod State Park, which contains both a Civil War Museum and the cabin belonging to President Lincoln’s parents. Location: On Route 127 at East Lexington Avenue. Address: 100 South College Street, Harrodsburg, KY 40330. Phone: 859-734-3314. Web site: http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/recparks/fh. Still further south is Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, which contains the forts used by both Union and Confederate troops that changed hands several times during the war. Location: On Route 25E east in Middlesboro. Address: South 12th Street, Middlesboro, KY 40965. Phone: 606-248-2817. Web site: www.nps.gov/cuga. The downtown area near the state capitol, Frankfort, contains the Confederate Veterans Memorial Wall, along with one of two sites claiming to be the Grave of Daniel Boone. The pioneer and revolutionary war hero died in Defiance, Missouri, which now claims that the bones shipped back to Frankfort were not his. Boone’s Revolutionary War achievements are commemorated at Fort Boonesborough State Park where a reconstructed fort features living history demonstrations. Location: From I-75, take Exit 95 to KY 627. On I-64, exit at Winchester to KY 627. Address: 4375 Boonesborough Road, Richmond, KY 40475. Phone: 859-527-3131. Web site: parks.ky.gov/ findparks/recparks/fb. Downtown Frankfort is the home of the Kentucky Military History Museum which traces the role of the state militia and national guard from the American
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Revolution to the Iraq War in the old arsenal building, erected in 1850. Address: 300 West Broadway, Frankfort, KY 40601. Phone 502-564-3265. Web site: http://history .ky.gov/sub.php?pageid=24§ionid=8. Also in the city is the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a large sundial that casts its reflection on a granite plaza in such a way that each of the 1,103 Kentuckians killed and 23 missing during the war is honored on the anniversary of death when the tip of the shadow touches his or her name. Location: Near East-West Connector (I-676) at Kentucky River. Address: 300 Coffee Tree Road, Frankfort, KY 40601. Web site: www.kyvietnammemorial.net. At Fort Campbell on the outskirts of Frankfort the Don F. Pratt Museum commemorates the assistant commander of the 101st Airborne Division, who was killed during the Normandy Invasion. It contains airplanes, tanks, weapons, and other memorabilia. Address: 26th and Tennessee Streets (Frankfort), Fort Campbell, KY 42223. Phone: 502-798-3215. Web site: www.fortcampbell.com/pratt.php. The official Kentucky State Veterans Memorial may be found at the entrance to General Butler State Park in Carrollton, which contains a walkway with the names of 6,000 Kentuckians killed in different wars. Location: Route 227 at entrance to General Butler State Park, Carrollton. Admirers of General George Patton will want to visit the Patton Museum of Armor and Cavalry at Fort Knox—noted for housing the nation’s gold supply— which contains his touring car, helmet, and a research library along with other artifacts pertinent to his career. Location: On Route 31W/60 north of Joe Prather Highway. Address: 4455 Fayette Avenue, P.O. Box 208, Fort Knox, KY 40121. Phone: 502624-3812. Web site: www.generalpatton.org. Of special note is the Lost Squadron Glacier Girl Museum at the Middlesboro Airport, which honors the P-38 squadron shot down over Greenland in 1942 and includes one of the planes, rescued in 1992 after 12 attempts, by Middlesboro resident Roy Shoffner. Location: Near intersection of Routes 25E and 58, 1420 Dorchester Avenue, Middlesboro. Address: P.O. Box 776, Middlesboro, KY 40965. Phone: 606248-1149. Web site: http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl-recovery.htm.
LOUISIANA For most Americans, Louisiana’s military history means the Battle of New Orleans, won by Andrew Jackson in 1815, that destroyed a British army trying to conquer the city. Several sites that commemorate the battle are collectively called Jean Lafitte Park to honor the buccaneer who came to Jackson’s aid. The battlefield itself, several miles downriver from the city, is best reached by riverboat from the city at the base of Canal Street. It features a reenactment every January and a visitors center at the Beauregard Mansion, built by the son of Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard. Visitors may walk the ramparts and battlefield. Nearby Chalmette Cemetery has the graves of 15,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. Old-style Mississippi riverboats take visitors there from the base of Canal Street near the French Quarter. Andrew Jackson’s Statue is in the park in front of the Cathedral and Cabildo (Historic New Orleans
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Collection). Erected by grateful citizens to the victor of New Orleans, during the Civil War Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler ordered Jackson’s words ‘‘Our Union, It Must Be Preserved’’ carved on its base. A still functioning Tavern stands where Jean Lafitte carried out his business in New Orleans at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets (not part of the park). Battlefield location: 8606 West Street, Bernard Highway, 504-589-2636, Chalmette. Address: Jean Lafitte State Park Visitor Center: 419 Decatur Street, New Orleans, LA 70130. Phone: 405-527-6012. Web site: http://nps.gov/jela. The second major attraction related to veterans in New Orleans is the Confederate Museum, the largest collection of Confederate memorabilia outside Richmond, Virginia. A stage displays clothing and other items related to Jefferson Davis (who died in the city). Uniforms and swords of Generals Braxton Bragg and P. G. T. Beauregard accompany battle flags, artwork, and an exhibit honoring the Native Guard, free New Orleans blacks who fought for the Confederacy. Of note is one of the infamous ‘‘Beast’’ Butler chamber pots, with his picture at the bottom, used by Southerners to express their dislike of the Union general whose troops occupied the city. A block away at Lee Circle is a large column graced by a statue of Robert E. Lee. Address: 929 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130. Phone: 504-523-4527. Web site: www.confederatemuseum.com. Not far west of the French Quarter and a few blocks directly south of the Confederate Museum is the World War II (D-Day) Museum, whose several galleries are respectively devoted to the coming of the war, the home front, and the war in Europe and the Pacific. Two films depict the Battle of D-Day and soldiers’ lives during the war. Numerous interactive exhibits feature models of veterans and others telling their stories. Address: 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130. Phone: 504527-6012. Web site: www.ddaymuseum.org. New Orleans is the site of the Jackson Barracks Military Museum, the official museum of the Louisiana National Guard. It is located in the Barrack’s Powder Magazine, built in 1837. There are several aircraft on the grounds; flags, uniforms, artifacts, and medals date back to the American Revolution. Tableaus display soldiers’ life in all major American wars, and a research collection includes war letters and diaries. Address: 6400 St. Claude Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70146. Phone: 504-278-8242. Web site: www.la.ngb.army.mil. Also in the city is the Beauregard-Keyes House in the French Quarter, where Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard lived from 1865 to 1867, although the materials in the house reflect the tastes of novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes who later occupied it. Address: 1113 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70116. Phone: 504-523-7257. Web site: www.suite101.com/article.cfm/literary_tour/36193. Just outside the city is Fort Pike, built at the mouth of the Mississippi shortly after the War of 1812 and named to honor the recently deceased General Zebulon Pike (1779–1813) who discovered Pike’s Peak in Colorado. One of six forts guarding the South’s largest port and city by the 1830s, it was captured by Union troops early in the Civil War and used to train the U.S. Colored Troops. It was abandoned after the war and became a monument in 1972. Address: Fort Pike Historic Site New Orleans, 27100 Chef Menteur Highway (Highway 90), New Orleans, LA 70129. Phone: 888662-5703. Web site: www.crt.state.la.us/parks/iFortpike.aspx.
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Northern Louisiana is the home of the Camp Moore Confederate Museum and Cemetery. The seven-acre park has a museum with memorabilia, photographs, and a research library devoted to the largest training camp in Louisiana, along with a monument to the soldiers who died there of disease. Location: Highway 51 just north of Tangipahoa. Phone: 985-229-2438. Web site: www.campmoore.com. The North Louisiana Military Museum has a collection of weapons and memorabilia dating back to the Civil War. Location: Off I-20. Address: 201 Memorial Drive, Ruston, LA 71270. Phone: 318-251-5099. Web site: www.cab.latech.edu/~jurkus/. The Aviation History Museum of Louisiana in Patterson is focused around the exploits of aviators Jimmy Wedell and Harry Williams and includes planes—lifesize and models—race trophies, and a hot air balloon basket from the 1930s. Location: Route 90 in Kemper Williams Park, adjacent to Patterson Civil Center. Address: Chef Menteur Highway 90, Patterson, LA 70391. Phone: 985-399-1268. Web site: http:// lsm.crt.state.la.us/aviation/wedwm.htm.
MAINE Several of Maine’s war memorials reflect its heritage from the colonial era into the early-nineteenth century as a bastion of frontier defense, first against the French and Indians, and then against the British. The state’s oldest surviving monument is at Pemaquid near Bristol, built to protect the earliest Massachusetts settlements—Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820—in the region. The earliest remains date to the late-seventeenth century. In 1692, Massachusetts erected Fort William Henry during King William’s War. Later destroyed, it has been reconstructed and is accompanied by a museum, the Fort House (built in the late-eighteenth century), and an archaeological site. Location: Route 1 to Route 130 south for 12 miles into New Harbor, right on Huddle Road. Address: Friends of Colonial Pemaquid, P.O. Box 304, New Harbor, ME 04554. Telephone: 207-677-2423 (April–October); 207-624-6075 (off-season). Web site: www.acadianationalpark.com/midcoast_attractions/fort_william_henry.php. Maine boasts the oldest blockhouse and wooden fort in the nation, both dating from the French and Indian War. Garrisoned by colonial troops between 1754 and 1766, when it was abandoned, Fort Halifax in Winslow survived until a flood in 1987, when it was reconstructed from its salvaged timbers. Today, it contains colonial artifacts and hosts living history demonstrations. Location: 1 mile south of the Winslow-Waterville Bridge on U.S. Route 201. Address: Fort Halifax State Historic Site c/o Bureau of Parks and Lands, 106 Hogan Road, Bangor, ME 04401. Phone: 207-941-4014. Web site: www.state.me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=53. Old Fort Western in the heart of Augusta, the state capitol, is the oldest wooden fort in the country, also built in 1754. In 1775, Benedict Arnold began his unsuccessful march to Quebec to capture Canada from the British from this point. Location: On the Kennebec River just east of Route 100. Address: 16 Cony Street, Augusta, ME 04330. Phone: 207-626-2385. Web site: www.oldfortwestern.org. During the Revolution itself, the Maine coast was severely attacked by British raiders from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Fort Machias, 5 miles from the town of that name, was
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erected in 1775 and destroyed the same year. Rebuilt and renamed Fort O’Brien after Captain Jeremiah O’Brien of the ‘‘Margaretta,’’ who won the first naval victory of the Revolution nearby, it was destroyed again by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812. Rebuilt once again, it stood prepared a third time to defend the coast until the Civil War, when it was decommissioned. Location: From Machias, go 5 miles south on Route 92. Address: Fort O’Brien State Historic Site c/o Bureau of Parks and Lands, 106 Hogan Road, Bangor, ME 04401. Phone: 207-941-4014. Web site: www.state .me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=61. Fort McClary, named for New Hampshire Major Andrew McClary who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill, was built in 1775 to guard the Piscataqua River at Kittery, which separates Maine and New Hampshire and guarded New Hampshire’s leading port, Portsmouth. It remained active during four more wars—the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I—and currently items from all these conflicts may be seen there. Address: Location: 2.5 miles from U.S. Route 1 and Maine Turnpike on Kittery Point Road (Route 103). Address: Fort McClary State Historic Site, 28 Oldsfields Road, South Berwick, ME 03908. Phone: Park season: 207384-5160 (Memorial Day to September 30); off-season: 207-490-4079. Web site: www.state.me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=38. Built just prior to the War of 1812, Fort Edgecomb successfully deterred the British from attacking Wicasset, the United States’ largest harbor north of Boston. It now consists of the best-preserved wooden blockhouse in the United States along with panels describing the fort’s history. The War of 1812 did not end tension with the British along the Canadian border, as skirmishes called ‘‘the Aroostock War’’ continued until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty finally settled the boundary in 1819. Location: U.S. Route 1 to the Edgecomb end of the Wiscasset Bridge, then turn onto Eddy Road. Address: Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site, 66 Fort Road, Edgecomb, ME 04556. Phone: Park season: 207-882-7777; off-season: 207-624-6080. Web site: www.state .me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=32. Fort Kent may be found in the town of that name, where U.S. Route 1 that extends to Key West, Florida, begins. It was the principal border fortification between the United States and Canada during the years after the War of 1812. Location: Start of U.S. 1 in town of Fort Kent. Address: Fort Kent State Historic Site, c/o Bureau of Parks and Lands, 106 Hogan Road, Bangor, ME 04401. Phone: 207-941-4014. Web site: www.state.me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=56. Maine’s largest fort, and still in excellent shape, Fort Knox was built between 1844 and 1864 in the classic Vauban style. Located at the Penobscot Narrows to protect that river valley, it was garrisoned during the Civil War and World War I. Location: On Route 174, just off U.S. Route 1 west of Waldo-Hancock Bridge. Address: Fort Knox State Historic Site, 711 Fort Knox Road, Prospect, ME 04981. Phone: 207469-7719. Web site: www.state.me.us/cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl ?park_id=37. Begun during the Civil War and never completed, Fort Popham is a semicircular granite edifice also used during the Spanish-American War and Word War I. Location: 15 miles from Bath on Maine Route 209; just 2 miles away is Popham Beach State Park. Address: Fort Popham, 10 Perkins Farm Lane, Phippsburg, ME 04562.
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Phone 207-389-1335; off-season: 207-624-6080. Web site: www.state.me.us/cgi-bin/ doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=40. Maine’s participation in the Civil War is best known through the heroic exploits of Major Joshua L. Chamberlain, who won the Medal of Honor for his heroic defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and later served as governor of the state and president of Bowdoin College. He is a principal character in Michael Shaara’s book The Killer Angels (1987) and the film Gettysburg (1993) based on it. He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, where the Joshua L. Chamberlain Museum is located in his former residence on the Bowdoin College Campus. It was saved from demolition in 1982 after being turned into an apartment house following the death of Chamberlain’s daughter in 1939. It contains memorabilia, furnishings, and a research collection managed by the college and the Pejepscot Historical Society. Location: 226 Maine Street, Brunswick, ME 04011. Address: c/o Pejepscot Historical Society, 159 Park Row, Brunswick, ME 04011. Phone: 207-729-6606. Web; http://community.curtislibrary.com/chamberlain.htm. Another prominent officer associated with Maine was Admiral Robert Byrd Peary, discoverer of the North Pole in 1909, whose summer house at Peary’s Eagle Island, now a state park, is a museum containing artifacts of his life and arctic expedition. Location: Reachable by ferry from South Freeport and Portland, June 15 through Labor Day. Address: The Friends of Peary’s Eagle Island, P.O. Box 70, Bailey Island, ME 04003. Phone: Bureau of Parks and Lands, 207-624-2080. Web site: www .pearyeagleisland.org. Maine’s Sailors and Soldiers Memorial to veterans of all wars up to World War I— sailors are mentioned first to reflect Maine’s naval heritage—built on Route 1 in Kittery at the John Paul Jones State Historical Site on the Maine side of the bridge connecting Maine and New Hampshire, is one of the nations’ most controversial. Sculpted between 1924 and 1926 by Bostonian Bashka Paeff, it reflected the disillusionment with the First World War and war in general at that time. Her powerful design depicted a pair of life-sized naked men, drowned in the sea. Above them a draped fearful female figure cradles a naked child. A loyal dog sits at their feet. The original design offended many as too anti-war and so Paeff added military inscriptions and smaller figures. Lowrelief military images on the left show a soldier firing a gun and another throwing a grenade. On the right, a row of soldiers marches into the distance. The back of the monument includes a brass image of the Maine state seal and the figure of a farmer with a scythe and a sailor with an anchor. Address: John Paul Jones State Historic Site, c/o Bureau of Parks and Lands, 107 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333. Phone: Park season: 207-384-5160; off-season: 207-490-4079. Web site: www.state.me.us/ cgi-bin/doc/parks/find_one_name.pl?park_id=34; www.seacoastnh.com/monuments/ kitterypix.html. Maine’s participation in modern conflicts is honored by the Maine Air Museum at the Bangor International Airport. Exhibits include restored engines, World War II training equipment and a flight deck, displays honoring Maine Air Wardens and women pilots during World War II, and a memorial to the personnel of Loring Air Force Base depicting missions flown during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, and Desert Storm. Address: Maine Air Museum c/o Maine Aviation Historical Society, P.O. Box 2641, Bangor, ME 04402. Web site: www.maineairmuseum.org.
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The first monument to George Washington, Mount Vernon Square, Baltimore, Maryland. [Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-det-4a29716]
Bangor’s Mt. Hope Cemetery contains the Maine Korean War Memorial. One side displays the names of 245 Maine residents killed or missing in action along with five Medal of Honor recipients. The poem ‘‘Old Comrades’’ by Thomas Lynn, a Korean War veteran, is on the reverse side. Flags surround the memorial that is lighted at night and is approached by a 70-foot walkway honoring veterans of all wars. Location: 1048 State Street (Route 1), Bangor. Address: Maine Korean Memorial Fund, 270 Back Ridge Road. Orland, ME 04472. Phone: 207-469-7011. Web site: www .koreanwar.org/html/memorials/maine_mem.htm.
MARYLAND Maryland built the first monument to George Washington in the nation. The Washington Monument was proposed by important citizens of Baltimore in 1809. The Maryland Assembly approved a $100,000 lottery for its construction the following year, and leading inhabitants chosen to manage the lottery selected the design proposed by Robert Mills of Charleston, South Carolina—the first professional architect trained in America. Mills’s was the most costly and elaborate structure suggested: a massive column resting on a base
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with balconies at several levels, inscriptions, and a crowning statue representing Washington, dressed as a Roman warrior, riding in a horse-drawn chariot. Mills’ project, however, caused local house owners to fear the huge column would collapse on their dwellings. So Colonel John Eager Howard, a revolutionary war hero who had served with Washington, donated the present site, then well outside the city limits, on his estate, Belvidere. On July 4, 1815, between 25,000 and 30,000 people assembled for the cornerstone dedication. Progress, however, was slow, and only in 1824 was a simplified column completed, without the statue of Washington, at twice the projected cost. In 1826 the managers held another competition for the statue and selected the design of Enrico Causici of Verona, Italy, who had sculpted several panels for the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. Made out of three seven-ton blocks of marble, the Roman statue and chariot were discarded for reasons of cost in favor of a statue of Washington resigning his commission as commander in chief, which occurred in the Maryland State House in Annapolis in 1783, at that time where the U.S. Congress was meeting. To complete the daunting task of raising the statue (approximately 16 feet high) to the top of a 160-foot-high column, Causici and Mills called upon Captain James D. Woodside of the Washington Navy Yard, a rigging specialist. Captain Woodside devised an ingenious system of pulleys, levers, and braces and successfully hoisted the lower two portions of the statue into place. Finally, on November 25, 1829, the populace assembled in Howard’s Woods as the final section of the statue was raised to the top of the column during the Monument’s dedication ceremony. Colonel Howard had died in 1827, and his heirs donated the park comprising Mount Vernon Square around the statue to the city. By the 1850s, the area had become one of Baltimore’s most fashionable, and statues of John Eager Howard (in 1924), the Marquis de Lafayette, and sculptures representing War, Peace, Order, Force (by AntonieLouis Barye) and Military Courage (by Paul DuBois) along with prominent Baltimoreans now grace the park. Location: Mount Vernon Square, Central Baltimore, west of I-83. Further reading: J. Jefferson Miller II, ‘‘The Designs for the Washington Monument in Baltimore,’’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 23 (March 1964): 19–28. By standing firm against a British bombardment in 1814 during the War of 1812, Fort McHenry’s defense inspired Francis Scott Key to write the ‘‘Star Spangled Banner,’’ which officially became the national anthem in 1931. Self-guided tours of the fort, which was a prison during the Civil War, hospital in World War I, and coast guard training station in World War II, are available. A film about the defense of the fort is shown and there are frequent living history and educational programs. The original ‘‘Star Spangled Banner,’’ however, is in the Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institute) in Washington, DC, on the mall connecting the White House and the Capitol. Location: From I-95 take Exit 55, Key Highway, and follow Fort McHenry signs. Left on Lawrence Street, then left on Fort Avenue, 1 mile to the park. Address: East Fort Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230. Phone: 410-962-4290. Web site: www.nps.gov/archive/fomc/home.htm. Of further interest is the Flag House and Star-Spangled Banner Museum, which includes the 1793 home of Mary Pickersgill where in the summer of 1813 she sewed
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the 40×32-foot Star-Spangled Banner that flew over Fort McHenry. The house is preserved in excellent condition and furnished with graceful Federal antiques. Adjacent is a new War of 1812 Museum with uniforms, military and domestic artifacts, and an excellent film and beautiful garden. Location: Two blocks east of Inner Harbor. Address: 844 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: 410-837-1793. Web site: www.flaghouse.org. Baltimore’s maritime heritage is preserved in its beautiful Inner Harbor. The USS Constellation was the last all-sail warship built by the U.S. Navy in 1854. It intercepted three illegal ships importing slaves before serving in the Civil War. Tours and participation in recreated shipboard life take place on this U.S. frigate. Location: Inner Harbor, near the Baltimore Maritime Museum. Address: Pier 1, 301 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: 410-539-1797. Web site: www .constellation.org/. The Baltimore Maritime Museum contains the USCGC Taney, which served in World War II and Vietnam, the USS Torsk, a submarine, which sank the last two Japanese vessels in World War II and participated in the Cuban Missile Crisis blockade and the Lebanon expedition of 1982, the Lightship Chesapeake which guided ships into Chesapeake Bay, and the relocated Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, built in 1856. Other exhibits include ‘‘Mascots’’ devoted to the dogs who accompanied human crews out to sea. Location: At the Inner Harbor off Pratt or President Street, just east of Harbor Place, 802 South Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21231. Phone: 410-396-5528. Web site: www.baltomaritimemuseum.org. Project Liberty Ship honors the World War II Liberty Ships (landing vessels) by preserving the SS John W. Brown, one of two such ships that survive in the nation. Used as a floating maritime school for four decades after the war, it is now used for educational cruises and serves as a museum with exhibits on the Second World War’s use of the ships. Location: Pier 1, 2000 South Clinton Street, Baltimore Harbor (off I95/895 just north of Frances Scott Key Bridge). Address: P.O. Box 25846, Highlandtown Station, Baltimore, MD 21224. Web site: www.liberty-ship.com. Unlike Fort McHenry, Fort Washington, the only installation protecting the nation’s capital until more forts were built during the Civil War, was destroyed when the British burned the city in 1814. It had been built in 1809 and designed by Pierre L’Enfant, who planned Washington, DC. It was reconstructed in 1824. Location: Capital Beltway (I-495) to Exit 3, at traffic light at end of exit turn left (MD210 South); continue for approximately 4 miles to Fort Washington Road, turn right, follow to the park entrance. Address: 13551 Fort Washington Road, Fort Washington, MD 20744. Phone: 301-763-4600. Web site: www.nps.gov/fowa. The best-known military site in Maryland is the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Besides being open for tours, the academy probably has the finest naval museum in the nation inside Preble Hall. It contains uniforms, swords, firearms, manuscripts, rare books, photographs, ship instruments and gear, and memorabilia, including objects and documents relating to officers such as John Paul Jones, Edward Preble, Stephen Decatur, Oliver H. Perry, Matthew C. Perry, David G. Farragut, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey. The Naval Academy Art Collection has over 1,200 paintings and pieces of sculpture by artists including Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and
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N. C. Wyeth, 13 maritime paintings by Edward Moran, and works by sculptors Jean Antoine Houdon and Felix DeWeldon. The Beverley R. Robinson Collection of over 6,000 prints of naval history, from 1500 through World War II, includes high-quality woodcuts, etchings, line engravings, mezzotints, and aquatints, often painted contemporaneously with the events and people depicted. The U.S. Navy Trophy Flag collection, begun in 1814 and housed at the academy since 1849, was started with Oliver Hazard Perry’s ‘‘Don’t Give Up the Ship’’ flag flown at the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812 and contains the first U.S. flag seen in Japan (1853) and flags flown on the moon. Beautiful books about flags accompany the collection. The Malcolm Storer Naval Medals Collection of 1,210 commemorative coins and medals from 30 countries dates from 254 BC to 1936. The Rogers Ship Model Collection includes 108 ship and boat models of the sailing ship era dating from 1650 to 1850. A special feature are models built for the British Admiralty and original display cabinets from the seventeenth century. In addition to the main galleries in Preble Hall, museum objects are also exhibited in the Chapel Crypt—where John Paul Jones is buried—Memorial Hall, the Yard, and most of the academic buildings. Also at the Naval Academy is the Uriah Phillips Levy Memorial Chapel, opened in 2006, honoring the first Jewish commodore in the United States who commanded a fleet and fought anti-Jewish prejudice in the navy. Location: Preble Hall is just inside the Maryland Avenue gate of the U.S. Naval Academy. It is 35 miles east of Washington, DC, via U.S. Route 50 (Exit 24), and 26 miles south of Baltimore via Maryland Route 2 or Interstate 97. Address: 118 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21402. Phone: 410-293-2108. Web site: www.usna.edu/Museum. The U.S. government also operates the National Cryptologic Museum in Maryland at the headquarters of the National Security Agency. The museum exhibits devices for making and discovering codes beginning with the eighteenth century (a hornshaped alphabet scrambling device which Thomas Jefferson may have invented), including slave quilts, signal flags, and Civil War and World War I ciphers. Exhibits are also devoted to the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, use of codes in Korea and Vietnam, women and cryptology, a reconnaissance plane, a rare book collection, and supercomputers. The National Vigilance Park features a C-130 aircraft of the kind shot down over the Soviet Union, half surrounded by a grove of trees, and the NSA/CSS Memorial, a black granite block, honors the 153 cryptologists who have died in their nation’s service. Location: At Fort Meade, halfway between Baltimore and Washington at Route 32 and the Baltimore/Washington Parkway. Phone: 301688-5849. Web site: www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/. The U.S. Army Ordnance Museum displays over 200 tanks, vehicles, and missiles from the United States, its allies, and enemies from World War II to the present. The museum is supported totally by a private foundation. Location: I-95 to Exit 22, right on 40 West through the city of Aberdeen to Route 715 South, at Building 2601, Aberdeen Proving Ground. Address: The Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 699, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005. Phone: 410-272-3622 (foundation); 410278-3602 (museum). Web site: www.ordmusfound.org. Maryland’s Antietam Battlefield National Park commemorates one of the most important battles of the Civil War. Although neither side could claim victory, Antietam
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(also known as Sharpsburg) turned back the South’s first major invasion of the North in 1862. The battlefield visitor center has films of the battle and President Lincoln’s visit to the field and a museum of artifacts and exhibits. There are over 60 monuments to Union and Confederate units, the six generals killed during the battle, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, future President William McKinley (who served as a Union sergeant), an equestrian statue of General Robert E. Lee, and ‘‘Old Simon,’’ a 44-foot-tall, 250-ton statue of ‘‘The Private Soldier’’ first exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and installed at Antietam four years later. General Lee’s headquarters and the reconstructed Dunkard Church may be found on the battlefield. The battle is reenacted annually in September. Volunteers and funds are needed to help with the restoration and upkeep of the park. Antietam National Cemetery is adjacent to the park. Location: On Route 65, 10 miles south of I-70 from Exits 29 or 29A. Address: P.O. Box 158, Sharpsburg, MD 21782. Phone: 301-432-5124. Web site www.nps.gov/anti. The National Museum of Civil War Medicine operates the Fry House Field Hospital on the Antietam Battlefield. Through the eyes of a Civil War private it shows recruiting, training, camp life, field hospitals, the hospital system (the first largescale system in world history), medical education and instruments, medicines, dental treatment, and care of the dead. The museum has a research library and publishes books and a journal. Location: (Museum Headquarters) 48 East Patrick Street in downtown Frederick (Maryland Route 144 westbound) 1.5 blocks east of Market Street (Route 355). Address: P.O. Box 470, Frederick, MD 21705. Phone: 301-6951864. Web site: www.civilwarmed.org/Index.aspx. Near Frederick is a lesser-known Civil War site, the Monocacy National Battlefield, where in July 1864 General Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur [1880]) defeated Confederate troops under Jubal Early who attempted to attack Washington, DC, from the relatively undefended north. Artifacts and an electronic battlefield map may be found at the Gambrill House, the visitors center, which also tells about the 300-year history of the site; the Thomas and Worthington farmhouses are part of the park. Location: Take Route 355 exit off I-270 south of Frederick. Address: 4801 Urbana Pike, Frederick, MD 21704. Phone: 301-662-3515. Web site: www.nps.gov/mono. Baltimore was also an important Civil War location, as the ‘‘First Defenders’’ rushed from Pennsylvania to secure the heavily secessionist city once the war broke out. The Baltimore Civil War Museum, operated by the Maryland Historical Society, is housed in the railroad station (built in 1849) where they arrived from Harrisburg— they had to march across the city to connect to the train for Washington and were attacked en route. Before the war, the station was important in the escape of many slaves. Location: East of Inner Harbor waterfront and ship museums. Address: 601 President Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: 410-385-5188. Web site: www.mdhs.org. Maryland’s contributions to aviation history include the world’s oldest airport in College Park, where the first woman flew in a plane (1909), which is also the site of the army’s first flying school (founded by the Wright Brothers in 1911) and first commuter airline with regular service. The College Park Aviation Museum has 13 planes or replicas going back the Wright Brothers 1910 Model B. Adjacent is the 94th Aero
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Squadron Restaurant, also worth a visit. (Call the 94th Aero Squadron at 301-6999400.) Location: 5240 Paint Branch Parkway—east of Route 1, north of the University of Maryland in College Park. Address: 1909 Corporal Frank Scott Drive, College Park, MD 20740. Phone: 410-864-6029. Web site: www.collegeparkaviationmuseum.com. The Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum celebrates one of the major early aviation manufacturers and honors the company, planes, and communities he built in the Baltimore area. The museum has 13 historic aircraft; thousands of original motion picture films, plans, documents, research models, aircraft tools, and components; and an indexed collection of more than 200,000 aviation and company photographs. Location: 701 Wilson Point Road (off Eastern Avenue east of Baltimore, east of Martin Boulevard), Hangar 5, Suite 531. Address: P.O. Box 5024, Martin State Airport, Middle River, MD 21220. Phone: 410-682-6122. Web site: www .marylandaviationmuseum.org. Nor has the state of Maryland neglected its veterans. The War Memorial Building is the home of the War Memorial Commission at the War Memorial Plaza, built in 1927 to honor those Marylanders who died in World War I. Both the state of Maryland and the City of Baltimore contribute to the commission. The Building lies directly across from City Hall, and, with the plaza, was designed by Baltimore architect Lawrence Hall Fowler in 1927. The building is open and available for meetings of veterans’ groups and patriotic societies and for civic gatherings, provided that no collection or donation is taken nor any admission charged. Location: Just west of southern end of I-83. Address: 101 North Gay Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: 410-685-7530. Web site: monumentcity.org/2009/05/30/war-memorial-buildingbaltimore-md. Maryland memorials to Korean and Vietnam veterans are located in Baltimore. The Maryland Korean War Memorial is at the Canton Waterfront Park, 2903 Boston Street, Baltimore, MD 21224. Phone: 410-354-3550. The Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial is located at the Middle Branch Park, 2825 South Hanover Street, Baltimore, MD 21225. Phone: 410-354-3550. The Maryland World War II Memorial is located in Annapolis: Route 450 at Naval Academy Bridge, 1920 Ritchie Highway, Annapolis, MD 21401. Phone: 410-333-4428. For information on any of these state memorials, contact the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs, Jeffrey Building, 16 Francis Street, Annapolis, MD 21401. Phone: 866-793-1577. Web site: www .mdva.state.md.us
MASSACHUSETTS Birthplace of the American Revolution, Boston abounds in historic sites related to veterans and military history, most of which are incorporated into the Boston National Historical Park, established in 1974, which overlaps considerably with the Freedom Trail (below) and includes the Bunker Hill Monument (see separate entry) and USS Constitution ‘‘Old Ironsides.’’ Address: 15 State Street, Boston, MA 02019. Phone: 617-242-5642. Web site: www.nps.gov/bost. Driving in downtown Boston is not for the fainthearted. Sites in Boston can be reached by parking under the Common or in a nearby hotel or public garage and then
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walking, or better yet by public transportation. Park outside the city (suggested stations: Riverside on the Green Line, Alewife or Quincy on the Red Line) and take the ‘‘T’’ to Park Street. A visitors center is right in front of the kiosk on the Common, the State House is directly up the hill, and the Park Street Church is immediately across the street. Charlestown is accessible by bridge on foot, by car, or on the Orange Line at the Bunker Hill Community College stop. Less well known than the Bunker Hill Monument is the Dorchester Heights Memorial. Unlike the Bunker Hill Monument—whose funds were only raised with difficulty by a private memorial association—it was funded in 1898 by $100,000 from the Massachusetts legislature after the heights—like Beacon Hill—were considerably lowered to supply landfill for further development. South of Boston city limits during the Revolutionary era, Dorchester Heights were occupied by American soldiers on March 4, 1776, who placed the 59 cannons captured by Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga there, compelling the British to evacuate the city on March 17. The day is celebrated as a state holiday ‘‘Evacuation Day’’ which Massachusetts’ large Irish population is glad to honor as St. Patrick’s Day. Designed by the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns, the white marble Georgian revival tower was added in 1978 to the Boston National Park. Location: G Street in Thomas Park, South Boston. Web site: www.newenglandtravelplanner.com/go/ma/boston/sights/ dorchester_hts.html. At the Charlestown Navy Yard may be found the USS Constitution, or ‘‘Old Ironsides,’’ the oldest commissioned vessel in the U.S. Navy, whose captain and crew greet visitors in costumes of the early-nineteenth century. Construction began in Philadelphia in 1794 and the ship was commissioned in 1797. It took part in the expedition against Tripoli in North Africa in 1805. The Constitution’s greatest triumphs were against the HMS Guerriere and Java in the War of 1812; in the former case, when cannon balls bounced off, she was nicknamed ‘‘Old Ironsides.’’ After the war, the Constitution sailed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and African fleets before being sent to the Naval Academy in Annapolis to be used as a training vessel. During the Civil War, it was removed to Boston for safekeeping where, except for a tour of the nation between 1931 and 1934, it has remained since 1897. The Navy Yard itself was founded in 1800 and functioned until 1974, when it became part of the Boston National Park. Location: Charlestown, south of Bunker Hill Monument. Address: Building 5, Charleston Navy Yard, Boston, MA 02129. Phone: 617- 242-7511. Web site: www .ussconstitution.navy.mil Adjacent to the USS Constitution in the Charlestown Navy Yard, the USS Constitution Museum has journals, artifacts, a large collection of historical model ships, interactive programs for adults and young people, and the Samuel Eliot Morison Library, designed for research on the history of the Constitution and the early American navy. Address: P.O. Box 1812, Boston, MA 02129. Phone: 617-242-5642. Web site: www.ussconstitutionmuseum.org. The Freedom Trail consists of 14 sites in downtown Boston in addition to the Bunker Hill Monument and USS Constitution in Charlestown. The militia trained on the Boston Common before the Revolution and the British army camped there between 1768 and 1776. A large monument topped by the statue of a ‘‘Minute Man’’
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stands there. The new, current State House was designed by Charles Bulfinch and opened in 1798. (Not part of the Freedom Trail: a statue of Civil War General Joseph Hooker is on the front lawn.) The Park Street Church (built 1809) and the Old Granary Burial Ground behind it are down the hill, where John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Otis, and the five victims of the Boston Massacre are buried (in a circle around Adams). The tallest monument was built by Benjamin Franklin to mark the grave site of his parents. King’s Chapel and its burial ground are down the street. William Dawes, who rode the same night of April 17, 1775, as Paul Revere to spread the news that the British were coming, is buried there. Old South Meeting House was where the large Boston Town Meetings took place, such as the one from which the Tea Party was launched. Faneuil Hall was the site of most meetings leading up to the Revolution in Boston. The site of the Boston Massacre, which is commemorated with a monument on the Common, was in front of the Old State House, which served as the Massachusetts’ capitol from 1749 until 1798 and is now a museum of Boston history operated by the Bostonian Society. The Paul Revere House—the oldest surviving house in Boston—was built in 1690 and was used as apartments in the nineteenth century and restored in 1908. Revere later became a leading manufacturer of cannons after the Revolution. The Old North Church—at the time the tallest building in Boston—is where the sexton hung two lanterns to indicate the British would approach patriot forces in Concord by sea on April 18, 1775. Copp’s Hill Burial Ground is near Old North Church. The Old North Church, Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere House, and Old State House have exhibits and costumed guides. Guided tours of all or part of the trail are available. Address: The Freedom Trail Foundation, 99 Chauncy Street, Suite 401, Boston, MA 02111. Phone: 617-357-8300. Web site: www.freedomtrail.org. Before leaving Boston, visitors should pause a minute in front of the State House and admire the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial (Web site www.nga.gov/feature/shaw). The dramatic bas-relief, executed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, honors the 54th Massachusetts, the first African American Regiment raised for the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Its contours of marching soldiers and Shaw on horseback merged into the final scene of the film Glory (1989) about the regiment. The Boston African American Historical Museum is located across the street. Dedicated in 1897, the memorial took Saint-Gaudens 14 years to complete. Location: The Common at Beacon and Park Streets. Visitor Information: 617-742-5415. Web site: www.nps.gov/boaf. George Washington’s Headquarters during the siege of Boston (1775–1776) were at what is now the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow National Historic Site, so named because the poet later lived and wrote ‘‘The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’’ here. It has a beautifully restored nineteenth-century interior. Directions: Within walking distance of Harvard Square and Red Line T, take Church Street T exit, walk away from University toward Brattle Street or take Route 2 into Cambridge and follow signs for Harvard Square, and park, if possible. Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone: 617-876-4491. Web site: www.nps.gov/long. The Minute Man National Historic Park is located at the site of Concord Bridge, where the first major battle of the American Revolution was fought
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on April 19, 1775. The visitors center, near the eastern entrance of the park, shows the ‘‘Road to Revolution,’’ a multimedia theater program. It depicts Paul Revere’s ride and the battles at Lexington Green, North Bridge, and along the Battle Road (a marked highway from Boston to Concord). Exhibits include a 40-foot mural that portrays the fighting between colonists and British regulars. The center exits to the 5-mile Battle Road Trail which interprets the human story of the battle of Concord. The park includes The Hartwell Tavern on Route 2A in Lincoln and the Paul Revere Capture Site (he did not complete the famous ride), along with the Wayside Inn, a colonial home that was later the residence of Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. At Concord’s North Bridge is the famous Minuteman Statue sculpted by Daniel Chester French; Ralph Waldo Emerson commemorated the battle in his poem where he proclaimed ‘‘the shot heard round the world.’’ One of the four brass cannons taken to Concord by the patriots, which General Gage sent his troops to find, ‘‘the Hancock,’’ is on display in a carriage house near the North Bridge Visitor Center, a 1911 brick mansion. Location: The park stretches out over several miles in Concord and Lincoln. It is best to start at either of the visitors centers. From I-95: Take Exit 30B. You will be on Route 2A West. The park is 1 mile west off the ramp. The Old North Bridge is a mile and a half from the MBTA Concord Depot, the Boston commuter rail to Concord. Address: 174 Liberty Street, Concord, MA 01742. Phone: 978-369-6993. Web site: www.nps .gov/mima. Two worthwhile museums may be found in Worcester, about 40 miles west of Boston. The Massachusetts Military Museum and Archives was established in 1995. The museum holds the material culture and documents of the Massachusetts National Guard, which originated as the colony’s militia in the year 1636. Many exhibits display uniforms, flags, and artifacts related to the 26th ‘‘Yankee Division’’ active from World War I until 1993. It also has original armor and weapons from seventeenth-century Massachusetts troops and Revolutionary, Civil, and World War II materials. An archive has records and documents relating to the men and units of the Massachusetts’ volunteer regiments, from 1775 to 1940. Location: I-290 West to Route 9 (downtown Worcester, Lincoln Square); take Route 70, Lincoln Street, right into Concord Street which becomes Salisbury Street. Address: 44 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 0l062. Phone: 508-797-0334. Web site: http://states.ng.mil/sites/ma/resources/museum/ default.aspx. Worcester’s Higgins Armory Museum is the only museum in the western hemisphere dedicated entirely to arms and armor dating back to the ancient world and including American weapons from most of its wars. It was founded in 1927 by John Woodman Higgins (1874–1961), the owner of the Worcester Pressed Steel Company, to exhibit his collection. The latest of the 5,000 artifacts date from the seventeenth century, the era when Europeans first came to America. Many of the exhibits are described on a Worcester Polytechnic Institute Web site: www.higgins.org/Research/ virtualexhibitions.shtml; www.wpi.edu/News/Releases/20034/armory.html. Location: I-190 to Exit 1, Route 12 North for 1/4 mile past Greendale Mall. Stay in right lane, take first right over the Green Railroad Bridge onto Barber Avenue less than 1/4 mile to the museum, a tall glass and steel building. Address: 100 Barber Avenue, Worcester, MA 01606. Phone: 508-853-6015. Web site: www.higgins.org.
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Worcester is also the site of Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Dedicated in June 2002, it is located on Skyline Drive at Green Hill Park. The 4-acre location includes a pond, walking paths, and the memorials. It is designed to provide a dignified, quiet, natural location for reflection and learning. The memorial consists of three places. These are called the ‘‘Place of Flags,’’ ‘‘Place of Words,’’ and ‘‘Place of Names.’’ The Place of Words shows texts from letters written home by some of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who died in Vietnam. The Place of Names proclaims in stone the name of every Massachusetts resident who died in combat or as a result of wounds received while in action in Vietnam. Location: North of Belmont Street (Route 9) on Skyline Drive. Address: 50 Skyline Drive, Worcester, MA 01605. Web site: www.massvvm.org. The Battleship Massachusetts at Battleship Cove is the centerpiece of the world’s largest demobilized collection of warships in one place. It includes the World War II battleship Massachusetts, which contains the state’s official memorials to World War II, Korean War, and Persian Gulf veterans, and the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., which saw service in the Cuban Missile Crisis and is named after President Kennedy’s older brother who was killed in World War II. The port also contains, PT boats, the submarine USS Lionfish, helicopters, landing craft, the Arleigh Burke National Destroyer Museum, and a former East German missile cutter. Another museum has Massachusetts’ largest veterans’ oral history collection and offers public education programs. Location: Turn right at Exit 5 off I-195 into Fall River. Go left at Centre Street which becomes Water Street, where the ships are less than 1 mile from the expressway. Address: Battleship Cove, Fall River, MA 02721. Phone: 508-678-1100. Web site: www.battleshipcove.org. The Springfield Armory National Historic Site commemorates the first national armory in the United States. Beginning in 1862, the armory has served as a library and then a museum of small arms in U.S. history. Location: State and Walnut Streets, downtown Springfield. Address: 1 Armory Square, Springfield, MA 01105. Phone: 413-734-8551. Web site: www.nps.gov/spar. The U.S. Naval Shipbuilding Museum is located on board the USS Salem, the only preserved U.S. Naval Heavy Cruiser. Exhibits honor Navy SEALS and veterans of U.S. cruisers. Location: Washington Street, off Route 3A Address: 739 Washington Street, Quincy, MA 02169. Phone: 617-479-7900. Web site: www.uss-salem.org.
MICHIGAN As with most northern states, Michigan built an impressive monument to honor its Civil War military personnel. The state began collecting money to build the its Soldiers and Sailors Monument in 1865. In 1872, the impressive structure designed by Randolph Rogers was dedicated. The lowest sections are topped by eagles with raised wings that guide the eye upward to the next section which is surmounted by four male figures depicting the Navy, Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery branches of the U.S. armed forces. In 1881, four female allegorical figures, resting on pedestals, representing Victory, History, Emancipation, and Union were added above the male figures. There are
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also four plaques containing bas-reliefs of the Union leaders Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Admiral Farragut. Capping the monument, the heroic Indian warrior figure Michigan, or Victory, brandishes a sword in her right hand and in her other she raises a shield, prepared for attack. A time capsule buried at the site of the monument lists all Michiganders who have died in wars since the Civil War. Location: Intersection of Woodward Avenue, Michigan Avenue, Monroe Street, Fort Street, and Cadillac Square in downtown Detroit. Michigan has two Vietnam memorials. The state’s first, the Michigan Vietnam Memorial, was dedicated in 1990; it was the idea of Chapter No. 438 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, which maintains it. It contains a flag gallery, a series of brick monuments that name all American servicemen and the one servicewoman from Michigan killed in Vietnam, along with prisoners of war and those missing in action. An information building was added in 1991 and in 1994 the statue ‘‘War Cry’’ by Derek Rainey, which shows a soldier embracing a wounded comrade, was added. Location: Island Park, Mt. Pleasant Michigan, near intersection of Routes 20 and 27. Web site: http://vietmemorialmi.com. The Michigan Vietnam Monument stands in the state capital of Lansing at the intersection of Allegan Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It is an impressive colonnade structure, lighted at night, that contains the names of the state’s men and women who served in Vietnam. Michigan is also the home of several air museums. The K. I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum honors the 13 aircraft wings and squadrons stationed at the base of that name during its years of operation beginning in 1944. It contains several aircraft and indoor displays relevant to the military history of these units. Location: Adjacent to Sawyer International Airport in the Upper Peninsula, south of Marquette, north of Michigan Route 35. Address: K. I, Sawyer Heritage Air Museum, c/o Elder Agency, 500 South Third Street, Marquette, MI 49855. Phone: 906-372-5000. Web site: www .kishamuseum.org/New_website_files_grj/ind2.htm. The Kalamazoo Air Zoo is home to the National Guadalcanal Memorial Museum honoring one of the longest and bloodiest campaigns of World War II in the Pacific. It contains a large collection of artifacts, dioramas, and the Wall of Honor to honor the 20 men who won the Congressional Medal of Honor during this engagement. Another exhibit, ‘‘Sea Wings: The Story of Carrier Aviation,’’ begins with the balloon barges of the Civil War and has over 400 photographs in addition to artifacts, three large models of aircraft carriers, and two simulated cockpits. What the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes as the World’s Largest Indoor Mural (800×32 feet) depicts the history of aviation from the first hot air balloon flight in France (1783) to modern space flight. The Air Zoo also contains the Michigan Aviation Hall of Frame and Space Science Center and a workshop where visitors can observe the reconstruction of old aircraft. Location: Take directions from Exit 78 of I-94 toward the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Airport. Address: 3101 East Milham Road, Kalamazoo, MI 49002. Phone: 616-382-6555. Web site: www.airzoo.org. The Selfridge Military Air Museum has over 30 airplanes on display in its air park while indoor exhibits honor veterans of American wars from World War I to Iraq. Located on the Michigan Air National Guard base, it especially pays tribute to members of that service. Location: Exit 240, east of I-94 on Lake St. Clair. Address:
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Selfridge ANG Base, 29423 George Avenue, Mt. Clemens, MI 48045. Phone: 810307-5110. Web site: www.selfridgeairmuseum.org. The Yankee Air Museum is located at the site of the famous Willow Run Airport, built in 1941 by the Ford Motor Company to produce the B-24 bomber, the first plane in history to be made using mass production techniques. The museum is recovering from a devastating fire in 2004 which destroyed most of the indoor exhibits, although all of the outdoor historic planes were saved and remain on exhibit. Location: Intersection of East Huron River Drive, Main and South Streets and Columbia Avenue, Belleville. Address: c/o The Yankee Air Force, P.O. Box 590, Belleville, MI 48112. Phone: 734-483-4030. Web site: www.uankeeairmuseum.org. Those interested in World War II and submarine naval history should head to the Great Lakes Naval Miltary Museum, which consists of the USS Silversides, a World War II submarine that undertook 14 missions before serving as a naval training vessel in Chicago. Location: Beach Street and Lakeshore Drive. Address: P.O. Box 1692, Muskegon, MI 49443. Phone: 616-755-1230. Web site: www.glnmm.org.
MINNESOTA Many of Minnesota’s tributes to veterans are located in the state capitol of St. Paul. Veterans of several Minnesota wars are honored at the State Capitol Building or on its grounds. The Court of Honor radiating from the Veterans Service Building consists of a curved granite wall with plaques listing Minnesota’s sacrifices and participation in U.S. wars from the Civil War to Vietnam. The Minnesota Vietnam Veterans Memorial, entitled ‘‘Lakefront DMZ,’’ was designed by Nina Ackerberg, Jake Castillo, Rick Laffin, and Stanton Sears and dedicated in 1992. The entrance consists of paving stones shaped like a map of Minnesota with inlaid green stones marking the home towns of those killed or missing in the war. Their names are engraved into granite panels which face a house facade suggesting a theme of coming home. Above the names of those killed or missing are the words ‘‘We Were Young. We Have Died. Remember Us.’’ Ten years earlier, sculptor Roger Brodin’s ‘‘Monument to the Living’’ was dedicated. The 12-foot-tall steel statue of a soldier lies on the ground in a melancholy pose that reinforces the question Brodin, himself a Vietnam vet, has inscribed at the figure’s feet: ‘‘Why do you forget us?’’ That the statue is almost lost in a grove a trees reinforces its message. The Minnesota Korean War Memorial, with the sculpture by Art Norby, was dedicated in 1998. A larger-than-life soldier moves towards a silhouette of a soldier representing the missing in action. Paving stones are engraved with a chronological account of the war. The stone markers behind the silhouette list the names of the 700 Minnesotans who died in the Korean War. Location: Exit 241 on I-94, then to the Capitol. Address: The State Historical Society, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. Boulevard, St. Paul, MN, 55155. Phone: 651296-2881. Tours of the Capitol grounds are offered. Web site: www.mnhs.org. St. Paul has three aviation museums. Two are located at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. The American Wings Air Museum is dedicated primarily to the ‘‘Mohawk’’ plane and has memorabilia and actual aircraft. Location: At Blain Airport. Address: P.O. Box 120901, 1260 Colorado Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55112. Phone: 763-7864146. Web site: www.americanwings.org/museum.htm. The Minnesota Air National
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Guard Museum has 22 aircraft available for viewing outside. The indoor museum exhibits in detail the history of the Minnesota Air National Guard and includes several aircraft training simulators, cockpits, and numerous engines. Location: At the Army Reserve Base, next to the airport, off Route 62 in St. Paul. Address: 631 Minuteman Drive, St. Paul, MN 55111; ANG Base, P.O. Box 11598, St. Paul, MN 55111. Phone: 612-713-2523. Web site: www.mnangmuseum.org. At the smaller, auxiliary airport south of the city is the Confederate Air Force—Southern Minnesota Wing Museum that contains World War II planes and memorabilia, especially related to Minnesota’s role in the air war. Address: Fleming Field, Hangar #3, 310 Airport Road, South St. Paul, MN 55075. Phone: 612-455-6942. Web site: www.cafsmw.org. It is hard to imagine Fort Snelling in the center of nearly uninhabited territory, but this was the case when it was completed in 1825. Fort Snelling was the center for U.S. military operations in the Minnesota and adjoining Dakota territories during the 1860s. During World War II it served as an induction center. Museum exhibits, living history programs, and artwork detail the history of the fort and its veterans from the beginning until it was designated Minnesota’s first national historic landmark in 1960. Location: Highways 5 and 55 near Blain Airport. Address: Fort Snelling History Center, St. Paul, MN 55111. Phone: 612-726-1171. Web site: www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs. Other sites that commemorate Minnesota’s frontier heritage include Fort Ridgely and the Lower Sioux Agency. Fort Ridgely is located in and maintained by Nicolett County to honor the U.S. Army post built in 1851. Attacked twice in 1862 by the Dakota Indians, its defenders held out until relieved. Location: Minnesota Highway 4, 7 miles south of Fairfax in Fort Ridgely State Park. Address: Fort Ridgely Historic Site, 72404 County Road 30, Fairfax, MN 55332. Phone: 507-426-7888. Web site: www.mnhs.org/places/sites/fr. The Lower Sioux Agency was the site of the first organized Sioux attack in the U.S. -Dakota War of 1862. The site presents Indian life before and after the U.S. government arrived and established a reservation: broken promises led to the outbreak of a war that killed over 500 people. Location: In the southwestern corner of the state, 9 miles east of Redwood Falls, off Route 19, and 1.5 miles east of Jackpot Junction Casino. Address; Lower Sioux Agency Historic Site, 32469 Redwood County Highway 2, Morton, MN 56270. Phone: 507-697-6321. Web site: www.mnhs.org/places/ sites/lsa. The most comprehensive guide to Minnesota’s military heritage may be found at the Minnesota Military Museum. Permanent exhibits illustrate the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Civil War, Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection, the World Wars, Korean War, and Persian Gulf War. Another exhibit is devoted to Minnesota’s early forts and garrisons and their role in subduing the Plains’ Indians. There is a scale model of Old Fort Riley, which functioned from 1849 to 1877 and which is still located within Camp Riley. A room is devoted to Minnesota’s state armed forces, especially the National Guard, from the pre-Civil War militia to the present. The Arms Rooms illustrates the history of small arms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while the story of the Jeep (which was named at Fort Riley in 1940) features six models. The stories of Minnesotans who have received the Medal of Honor are told and other decorations are explained and exhibited. Address: Camp Riley, 15000
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Highway 115, Little Falls, MN 56345. Phone: 320-632-7374. Web site: www .minnesotanationalguard.org/campripley/SpecFeatures/muse1.htm. Two other powerful Vietnam memorials in the state are the Minnesota Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a black reflecting wall with the names of the deceased similar to the memorial in Washington, DC, and the Northland Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Lake Walk in Duluth, which honors the veterans of northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin with a white semicircular monument set against the water. Addresses: Minnesota Vietnam Veterans Memorial Association, 6738 Jocelyn Road, North Stillwater, MN 55082. Phone: 651-777-0686. Web site: www.mvvm.org. Northland Vietnam Veterans Association, P.O. Box 16975, Duluth, MN 55816. Web site: www.nvva.us
MISSISSIPPI Mississippi’s veterans’ sites are devoted to the Civil War. The most famous battle to occur in the state is commemorated at the Vicksburg National Military Park. It extends as well into Louisiana. A 15-mile tour encompasses sites in the town and surrounding areas. Visitors may also observe the restoration in progress of several of the monuments. The visitors center has exhibits on Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General John Pemberton (originally from Pennsylvania), a Confederate trench, life in the caves and bomb shelters in the city under siege, a Union officer’s tent, and the starvation ration meals eaten during the siege. The park has 661 monuments, 594 cast iron tablets and position markers, 141 cannons, and the Union gunboat USS Cairo, which sank in the Mississippi in 1862 and was raised in 1864. A Union cemetery founded in 1866 has over 18,000 burials, a Confederate cemetery over 5,000. Many of the state monuments are works of art. Of the Union monuments, the most impressive is the Illinois State Memorial, completed in 1906. Modeled after the Roman pantheon, it is 62 feet high and has 47 steps, one for each day in the siege of the city that ended on July 4, 1863, and gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River. The names of all 36,000 Illinois soldiers who participated in the campaign are listed. The tallest monument belongs to the U.S. Navy, an obelisk 202 feet high with statues of Admirals David Farragut, David Dixon Porter, and flag officers Charles Henry Davis and Andrew Hull at its base. The Rhode Island Monument is a moving sculptor of an infantryman who has picked up a fallen banner. The Iowa Memorial is a semi-ellipse that includes sculpted scenes of the battle. The Kentucky Memorial, dedicated in 2001, features bronze statues of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, both of whom were born in that state. The Missouri Memorial is the only one dedicated to the soldiers of both armies and features a bronze angel symbolizing ‘‘The Spirit of the Republic.’’ For the Confederacy, Alabama’s memorial consists of seven soldiers firing outward, at the center of whom is a woman representing ‘‘the Spirit of Alabama.’’ Arkansas’ monument, erected in 1954, features two large stone slabs united by a cross; its inscription reads, ‘‘A Nation Divided by the Sword and Reunited on the Altar of Faith.’’ Mississippi’s memorial is an obelisk with a statue of Clio, the muse
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of history, at its base. Texas’ features a soldier loading a cannon. Although it remained in the Union, Maryland’s memorial honors troops from the state who fought on the Confederate side. Location: I-20 to Exit 4B, then Clay Street west 1/4 mile to entrance. Address: Vicksburg National Military Park, 3201 Clay Street, Vicksburg, MS 39180. Phone: 601-636-2199. Web site: www.nps.gov/vick. For more information see Harold Young, Vicksburg Battlefield Monument: A Photographic Record (1984). Brice’s Cross Roads National Battlefield Site marks the battle on June 10, 1864, between armies led by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Union General Samuel Sturgis. Although Forrest won, the Union had achieved its goal of diverting Forrest from the railroad line supplying General William Sherman’s march to Atlanta. The park features a visitors center, a monument crowned by an eagle, and a well-marked trail. Location: Intersection of Routes 45 and 370. Address: 2680 Natchez Trace Parkway, Tupelo, MS 38804. Phone: 800-305-7417. Web site: www.nps.gov/brcr. A month later, Forrest clashed again with a Union force commanded by General Andrew Smith at the site of the Tupelo National Battlefield, again keeping him away from the railroad. Location: Take Natchez Trace Parkway to Route 6, Main Street, go east; the monument is in downtown Tupelo, the battlefield a mile further east, the visitors center at the intersection of the Parkway and Route 45 north of town. Address: c/o Natchez Trace Parkway, 2680 Natchez Trace Parkway, Tupelo, MS 38804. Phone: 800-305-7417. Web site: www.nps.gov/tupe. Although primarily preserved as the final home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir was also the site of a Confederate Veterans’ Home from 1903 to 1957 and some of the exhibits at the museum deal with this period. Owned and operated by the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, it is also a memorial to the Confederate soldier. Seriously damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it was restored and opened in 2008. Location: Route 90 on the Gulf of Mexico. Address: 2244 Beach Boulevard, Biloxi, MS 39531. Phone: 228-388-7800. Web site: www.beauvior.org.
MISSOURI Most of Missouri’s war memorials deal with the Civil War, during which the state was bitterly divided. Although Missouri sided officially with the Union, the state in 1891 opened a Confederate home where veterans and their families from throughout the South lived until 1950. Today, the chapel, cemetery, and several historic buildings with museum exhibits tell the story of the home and its residents. Location: Routes 13 and 1 intersection to West First Street. Address: Confederate Memorial State Historic Site, Route 1, Box 221-A (221 West First Street), Higginsville, MO 64037. Phone: 660-584-2853. Web site: www.mostateparks.com/confedmem.htm. The Battle of Athens State Historic Site commemorates a battle at the extreme northeast corner of the state, where on August 5, 1861, a union force defeated the Missouri State Guard’s attempt to seize the fort for the Confederacy. A museum interprets
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the battle and history of the town. Location: Highway CC and Route 1. Address: Box 26, Revere, MO 63465. Phone: 660-877-3871. Web site: www.mostateparks.com/ athens.htm. The Battle of Lexington Historic Site preserves the Oliver Anderson mansion as a memorial and museum on the spot where the Union army defeated the proConfederate Missouri State Guard at the outset of the Civil War. Location: Just west of the intersection of Highways 13 and 24. Address: P.O. Box 6, Extension Highway 13 North, Lexington, MO 64067. Phone: 660-259-4654. Web site: www.mostate parks.com/lexington/index.html. The Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, ‘‘White Haven,’’ was the home of Grant’s wife Julia Dent and where he lived with her before and after the Civil War. The house and grounds have been restored to their original appearance. Location: Now in St. Louis; I-270 to Highway 30 (Gravois Road), entrance to farm and building less than a mile. Address: 7400 Grant Road, St. Louis, MO 63123. Phone: 314-8423298. Web site: www.nps.gov/ulsg. Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield commemorates the first major battle in the Civil War west of the Mississippi. On August 10, 1861, a Confederate army defeated Union troops under General Nathaniel Lyon (the first union general killed in the war) but did not advance further into Federal-held territory following the battle. A museum/visitors center tells the story of the war in the Western theater. Location: U.S. Route 60 to Missouri Highway M, go a half mile then right at Highway ZZ, 1.5 miles to Farm Road, turn left to entrance. Address: 6424 West Farm Road 182, Republic, MO 65738. Phone: 417-732-2662. Web site: www .nps.gov/wicr. The National World War One Museum, so designated by Congress, opened in 2006 and features exhibits, planes, and weapons dedicated to the First World War. It is located at the Liberty Memorial, a tower dedicated in 1921 to honor those who fought in the war. Address: 100 West 26 Street, Kansas City, MO 64108. Phone: 816-784-1918. Web site: www.libertymemorialmuseum.org. Laclade, Missouri, is the site of the General John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site, a house museum that depicts the general’s life and accomplishments. Location: Laclede is northeast of the intersection of Routes 5 and 36. Address: 1100 Pershing Drive, Laclede, MO 64651. Phone: 660-963-2525. Web site: www.mostateparks.com/pershingsite.htm. Museums dedicated to two branches of the armed forces may be found at Fort Leonard Wood: the U.S. Army Engineer Museum has exhibits on the role of U.S. Army Engineers building bridges, undertaking geographic surveys, mapmaking, and demolition and mine warfare from the Revolution to the present. Location: I-44, 125 miles south of St. Louis and northeast of Springfield. Address: Building #1607, Fort Leonard Wood, MO 65473. Phone: 573-596-8015. Web site: www.wood.army.mil/MUSEUM. The fort is also home to the Military Police Corps Regimental Museum where exhibits preserve the history of the military police. Address: Fort Leonard Wood, MO 65473. Web site: www.wood.army.mil/usamps/history. Missouri’s most spectacular veterans’ memorial is Branson’s Veterans Memorial Museum, the creation of Nebraska-born sculptor Fred Hoppe, whose 70-foot-long
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bronze Memorial Veterans Sculpture is the highlight of the large collection. It features 50 full-size statues of soldiers landing on a beach, each representing and modeled on the citizen of a particular state. Nearby the names of approximately 400,000 Americans who died in combat in World War II are listed. Ten large galleries and many sculptures, murals, documents, artifacts, and memorabilia honor veterans of all the nation’s major conflicts since World War I. Location: Downtown Branson on Route West 76. Address: 1250 Country Music Boulevard, Branson, MO 65616. Phone: 417-336-2300. Web site: www.veteransmemorialbranson.com/.
MONTANA Two of Montana’s memorials honor participants in two of the nation’s most famous Indian campaigns. The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument marks the spot where Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry command of 263 men were annihilated at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. The monument to the cavalry has recently been joined by a monument to the American Indians who fought for their homelands. A visitors center tells the story of the battle and the cavalry on the Great Plains. Location: Exit 510 off I-90 at Highway 212. Address: P.O. Box 39, Crow Agency, MT 59022. Phone: 406-638-2621. Web site: www.nps.gov/libi. Big Hole National Battlefield includes the Bear Paw Battlefield where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce surrendered after a five-day battle and siege. A visitors center explains the battle and has a film. Location: Highway 43, 10 miles west of Wisdom or 27 miles east of the intersection of Highways 43 and 93. Address: P.O. Box 237, Wisdom, MT 59761. Phone: 406-689-3151. Web site: www.nps.gov/biho. The Montana Veterans Memorial consists of the 12-foot-high statue of a Warrior Angel, who extends a peach branch composed of five doves, each representing one of the armed services, surrounded by a wall with plaques honoring individual veterans. Location: 25th Street and River Drive. Address: P.O. Box 3524, Great Falls, MT 59403. Phone: 406-454-9070. Web site: www.montanaveteransmemorial.org. Adjacent to Great Falls is the Malmstrom AFB Museum, which has an excellent indoor exhibit including a World War II-era barracks room; Lend Lease Diorama; SAGE computer, flight suit, and survival equipment displays; Minute Man I and II missile launch consoles; Minute Man Launch Facility cutaway; Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force uniform display; and Lewis and Clark Portage Map of Great Falls, Montana. Outside are eight historic military aircraft. Location: East end of Second Avenue, in Great Falls, then north inside the base, 341 Space Wing/MU 21. Address: 77th Street North, Room 144 Malmstrom AFB, MT 59402. Phone: 406-731-2705. Web site: http://russell.visitmt.com/listings/3165.htm. The Miracle of America Museum, while devoted to the history of the West generally, has items related to military history and frontier settlement. Location: Frontage Road off Highway 93, 3/4 miles south of junction with Route 35. Address: 36094 Memory Lane, Polson, MT 59860. Phone: 406-883-6804. Web site: www .miracleofamericamuseum.org
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NEBRASKA The Strategic Air and Space Museum displays 32 aircraft and offers air shows, a summer camp, and educational materials related to the Strategic Air Command. Location: Between Omaha and Lincoln on I-80. One half mile west at Exit 426. Address: P.O. Box 8343, Omaha, NE 68108. Phone: 800-358-5029. Web site: www .strategicairandspace.com. Omaha’s Freedom Park Navy Museum has a collection of naval crafts including the USS Marlin SST-2 submarine, the USS Hazard AM-240 minesweeper, a propeller and anchor garden, rocket launchers, and several aircraft. Location: Just south of the Omaha Airport, south of East Locust Street on the Missouri River. Address: 2497 Freedom Park Road, Omaha, NE 68110. Phone: 402-345-1959. Web site: www .ci.omaha.ne.us. The Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles has about 100 vehicles including helicopters, tanks, halftracks (vehicles with wheels on the front and caterpillar tracks on the back), ambulances, and a jeep from every branch of the service plus displays of weapons, uniforms, engines, equipment, and more. The everyday necessities of a soldier’s life are displayed alongside vehicles like those used by the German army in World War II. The museum has mostly World War II items although some are from other wars. Address and Location: 612 North Grant (take I-80 exit), Lexington, NE 68850. Phone: 308-324-2393. Web site: www.heartlandmuseum.com.
NEVADA The Nevada Vietnam War Memorial is located in Mills Park in the state capital of Carson City. It consists of plaques on stones cut by imprisoned Vietnam War veterans who belonged to the Vietnam Veterans of America, the organization which sponsored the memorial. The stones name those Nevadans killed during the war. Fort Churchill State Historic Park contains a visitors center that tells the story of this fort built in 1861. Abandoned in 1870, it protected early settlers on the Pony Express and the Overland Telegraph. It is now partially in ruins. Location: On Highway 95 Alternate, 8 miles south of Silver Springs. Address: 1000 Highway 95A, Silver Springs, NV 89429. Phone: 775-577-2345. Web site: www.parks.nv.gov/ fc.htm.
NEW HAMPSHIRE The majority of New Hampshire’s war memorial sites are located in Portsmouth, and most relate to the American Revolution and its naval heritage. The Portsmouth Historical Society is located in the John Paul Jones House, where the captain rented rooms in 1777 and 1781–82 during his stays in the town. It contains period furniture and historical artifacts. Location: Middle and State Streets, downtown Portsmouth. Address: 43 Middle Street, P.O. Box 728, Portsmouth, NH 03802. Phone: 603-4368420. Web site: www.portsmouthhistory.org/john_paul_jones_house. Many historic
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art works, documents, and items related to the Revolution are found at the Portsmouth Atheneum. Location: I-95 to Market Street exit, then east. Address: 9 Market Square, Portsmouth, NH 03801. Phone: 603-431-2538. Web site: www .portsmouthathenaeum.org. The Warner House, built in 1716, has the oldest mural in the United States, in its stairwell, depicting the British and French rivalry in early America as well as Iroquois Indians. It contains period furnishings and information on New Hampshire’s early history. Location: I-95, Market Street exit, to downtown Portsmouth. Address: 150 Daniel Street, P.O. Box 895, Portsmouth, NH 03802. Phone: 603-436-5909. Web site: www.warnerhouse.org. On the outskirts of the city, the Fort Constitution Historic Site was one of seven forts built to protect Portsmouth Harbor during the American Revolution. The original Fort William and Mary was built in 1632, and the last additions were made in the Spanish-American War. Fort Stark, nearby, continued to be used until World War II and has a visitors center open by appointment. Location: Route 1B at Coast Guard Station, New Castle. Phone: 603-436-1552. Web site: www.nhstateparks.com/ fortconstitution.html and www.nhstateparks.com/fortstark.html New Hampshire’s Soldiers & Sailors Monument to honor Civil War veterans is located in Goodwin Park on Islington Street in Portsmouth. Dedicated in 1888, the statue of Lady Liberty towering over soldiers with the names of leading battles on the pedestal was prefabricated by the Monumental Bronze Company which made similar statues for many American communities. Web site: www.seacoastnh.com/monuments/goodwin.html The Port of Portsmouth Maritime Museum and Albacore Park is the home of the USS Albacore, the prototype for the first U.S. nuclear submarine, which served as a research vessel from 1952 to 1971. Visitors can board the ship. The Albacore is located in a park with a visitors center and contains models, artifacts, and information on other submarines as well as a memorial to those who died on submarines. Location: Market Street exit off I-95 to Route 1 bypass. Address: 600 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801. Phone: 603-436-3680. Web site: www.ussalbacore.org. The Fort at No. 4 near the Connecticut River has displays and living history demonstrations. It was used by General Stark in the Revolutionary War as his base to attack invading Hessian troops at Bennington in Vermont. Location: Route 11 off Route 12. Address: Fort at No. 4, 267 Springfield Road, P.O. Box 1336, Charlestown, NH 04604. Phone: 603-826-5700. Web site: www.fortat4.com. New Hampshire’s American Independence Museum has exhibits in the LaddGilman House (1721), home of a leading revolutionary merchant family, and the Folsom Tavern, the center of Exeter’s political scene during the Revolution. Museum exhibits highlight the Society of the Cincinnati, and its first president, George Washington. It contains original copies of the Declaration of Independence and early drafts of the U.S. Constitution. Permanent collections include American furnishings, ceramics, silver, textiles, and military ephemera. Location: Water and Main Streets (Routes 111A and 85), downtown Exeter. Address: One Governor’s Lane, Exeter, NH 03833. Phone: 603-772-2622. Web site: www.independencemuseum.org. The Wright Museum: America at War, the Home Front is devoted to the American experience of World War II. Exhibits tell the story of student life, sports,
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entertainment and fashion, civilian support for the war, recycling and rationing, and scientific and technological advances along with dozens of fully operational military vehicles. A special exhibit is devoted to the WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots). Location: Intersection of Routes 28 and 109. Address: P.O. Box 1212, 77 Center Street, Wolfeboro, NH 03894. Phone: 603-569-1212. Web site: http:// wrightmuseum.org.
NEW JERSEY Most of New Jersey’s military memorials relate to the American Revolution, many of whose critical battles occurred there. Washington Crossing State Park, at the site where the Continental Army crossed the Delaware River from Pennsylvania before surprising the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas Day, 1776, has a visitors center with relevant documents and artifacts, including the 700-piece Swan Historical Foundation Collection. The Johnson Ferry House briefly housed Washington and his officers during the campaign. Location: Route 29 about 5 miles north of I-95. Address: 355 Washington Crossing-Pennington Road, Titusville, NJ 08560. Phone: 609-737-0623. Web site: www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/washcros.html. Governors of 8 of the original 13 states turned out for the dedication of the Trenton Battlefield Monument in 1893, honoring the Christmas Day surprise of the Hessian garrison in 1776. Designed by John H. Duncan, who designed Grant’s Tomb, a statue of George Washington surmounts a 150-foot-tall Doric column. Location and Address: North Broad and North Warren Street, Trenton, NJ 08608. Phone: 609-737-0623. Web site: www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/historic/Trentonbattlemonument/index.htm. On January 3, 1777, Washington again surprised a British force at Princeton. The impressive Princeton Battle Monument showing Washington amid his troops, sculpted by Frederick MacMonnies, is located at Bayard and Stockton Streets in Princeton (adjacent to Morven, the home of Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence). The Princeton Battlefield is 1.5 miles south of town on Mercer Road. It is marked by an Ionic Colonnade and the Clarke House Museum several miles outside of town. Location: I-95 to Princeton Pike, then 3.8 miles north. Address: 501 Mercer Road, Princeton, NJ 08540. Phone: 609-921-0074. Web site: www.state.nj.us /dep/parksandforests/parks/princeton.html. The Monmouth Battlefield State Park commemorates the near-defeat of the British army retreating from Philadelphia to New York in June 1778. The visitors center (on Monmouth County Route 522) has flyers that guide visitors around what is mostly a working farm owned by the Applegate Family where they can pick their own fruit. The Craig House was built in 1746. Location: 12 miles east of Exit 8 of the New Jersey Turnpike on Route 33. Address: 347 Freehold-Englishtown Road, Manalapan, NJ 07726. Phone: 732-462-9616. Web site: www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/ monbat.html. The Morristown National Historic Park honors the Continental Army’s winter encampment during 1779–1780, the coldest winter in recorded American history and the only time New York Harbor froze over. Washington’s Headquarters, the Ford
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Mansion in Morristown, and Jockey Hollow visitors center and Fort Nonsense—which Washington had the troops build to keep them occupied and moving about—contain materials relevant to the winter. The park has the Lloyd Smith Collection of over 30,000 books and manuscripts related to the Revolutionary era. There is a selfguided automobile or walking tour of the cantonment. For more information see James Bailey, ‘‘A Tale of Two Winters: Valley Forge and Jockey Hollow,’’ in Pennsylvania’s Revolution, edited by William Pencak (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2010). Location: Headquarters—Exit 36 or 36A off I-287 to Morris Avenue (Route 510). Jockey Hollow—Exit 30B, right on 202 North, left on Temple Wick Road 1.5 miles to entrance. Address: 30 Washington Place, Morristown, NJ 07960. Phone: 908-7668215 (headquarters); 973-543-4030. Web site: www.nps.gov/morr. The 33-acre Fort Lee Historic Park, located in a beautiful spot on the Hudson River, marks the fort Washington abandoned in November 1776, leaving New York to the British and retreating south into New Jersey. Guides, beginning at a large visitors center, explain the fort’s history using surviving walls, huts, and other remnants. Location: Routes 4, 46, or I-95—Fort Lee exit to Hudson Terrace, first New Jersey exit after the George Washington Bridge. Address: Hudson Terrace, Fort Lee, NJ 07024. Phone: 201-461-1776. Web site: www.njpalisades.org. The Dey Mansion served as Washington’s headquarters in July 1780. Along with several outbuildings, it contains Revolutionary-era artifacts and is the meeting place of the Bergen County Militia which performs reenactments. Directions: I-80 East to Minnisink Road/Totowa, left on Minnisink Road to the end, left on Totowa Road. Address: 199 Totowa Road, Wayne, NJ 07470. Phone: 973-696-1776. Web site: www.passaiccountynj.org/parkshistorical/historical_attractions/deymansion.htm. New Jersey chose to honor the veterans of World War I with the Patriots War Memorial Theatre (Trenton), an impressive classic building dedicated in 1932. It contains a museum with artwork, uniforms, weapons, and documents honoring the New Jersey militia and National Guard from the Revolution to the present. Address: 1 Memorial Drive, Trenton, NJ 08608. Phone: 609-984-8400. Web site: http:// thewarmemorial.com. The main location for the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey is in Sea Girt, which has ‘‘the Intelligent Whale’’—a prototype for a submarine built in Newark during the Civil War—along with numerous historical vehicles and exhibits on the state’s military history. Location: From I-195, take Highway 138 east to Highway 35, then south 2.5 miles to Sea Girt Avenue, and left 1.5 miles to the National Guard Training Center. There is an artillery annex in Lawrenceville (off Route 27). Addresses: Sea Girt Avenue, Sea Girt, NJ 08750 and 101 Eggert Crossing Road, CN-340, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648. Phone: 732-974-5966. Web site: www.state.nj.us/military/museum/index.html. New Jersey is the only state to build a museum, officially the Vietnam Era Educational Center, as a Vietnam Memorial. The difficulties involved may discourage other states from following. During the five years between the conception and dedication (1993–1998), veterans complained at first they were insufficiently involved in the planning process, and then veterans disagreed over the meaning of the war and the validity of the protests against it. The final structure, a large room filled with photographs, documents, and videos portraying the war in the context of American life, attempts to
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present different perspectives. Scrapbooks and letters of veterans and their families can also be examined. Adjacent is a memorial comprised of 366 granite black panels, each 8 feet high, one for each day of the year, engraved with the names of more than 1,500 soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen from New Jersey who were killed or are still listed as missing in action. At the center of the memorial stands a Red Oak—the state tree—shading statues representing all five branches of the U.S. military service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. Location: Garden State Parkway at Exit 116. Address: 1 Memorial Lane, PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ 07733. Phone: 732-335-0033. Web site: www.njvvmf.org Almost as controversial as the Vietnam Memorial in its day was the Civil War Jersey City Soldiers and Sailors Memorial. When the city built its new city hall in 1897, it selected three of America’s finest sculptors—Daniel Chester French, Augustus St. Gaudens, and George B. Post—to select the best design for a memorial. They chose a seated female Victory with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other designed by Philip Martiny of New York. The local Grand Army of the Republic post sued, claiming it was insufficiently martial, and thought Greek mythological figures inappropriate. The county Granite and Marble Dealers’ Association joined in the suit, complaining that an expensive New York firm would take income and employment away from local craftsmen. The state Chancery Court threw out the suit, arguing that as the monument was meant to stand for all time, and the world was becoming more educated, in time its tastes would approximate those of the artistic panel. The memorial was dedicated in 1899. Location: 238 Grove Street, near PATH train, at City Hall. Atlantic City has two impressive monuments to veterans. The New Jersey Korean War Memorial, located where Park Place meets the Boardwalk, consists of a 12-foothigh statue of ‘‘The Mourning Soldier’’ clutching dogtags and remembering his lost comrades. A group of soldiers ‘‘under fire’’ emerges through a sheet of water just to his left. The back wall of the memorial, beneath an eternal flame, is engraved with the names of the 822 New Jerseyans who were killed or are missing in action from the war. The Purple Heart Memorial on Atlantic Avenue in O’Donnell Park honors the 800,000 Americans killed or wounded in action and thus eligible for this medal, the oldest military decoration in the world currently in use, designed by George Washington. The red stone tablet bears these words, along with an engraving of the medal: ‘‘My stone is red for the blood they shed; The medal I bear is my country’s way to show they care; If I could be seen by all mankind perhaps peace would come in my lifetime.’’ Web site: www.njcrda.com/purpleheart.html. The New Jersey Naval Museum contains the USS Ling (a World War II submarine), a river patrol boat used in Vietnam, a two-man German Seehund (Seadog) coastal submarine, and a museum with articles related to submarine and naval history. Location: Corner of Court and River Streets. Address: 78 River Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Phone: 201-342-3268. Web site: www.njnm.com. New Jersey has two fine aviation museums. The Aviation Hall of Fame & Museum of New Jersey has a Great Hall with planes and memorabilia, a gallery honoring members of the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame, and a MASH unit and Cobra gunship among other planes outside. Location: On Route 46, turn into the airport. Address: 400 Fred Wehran Drive, Teterboro Airport, Teterboro, NJ 07608.
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Phone: 201-288-6344. Web site: www.njahof.org. Equally impressive is The Air Victory Museum, which has airplanes, engines, uniforms, and ordnance dating from the Wright Brothers’ 1903 wind tunnel to the present, including early rockets and the model of a space weather station. Location: Route 38 (off Exit 40 of I-295) east to Ark Road, south and then left on Stacy Haines Road. Address: 68 Stacy Haines Road, South Jersey Regional Airport, Lumberton, NJ 08048. Phone: 609-267-4488. Web site: www.airvictorymuseum.org.
NEW MEXICO One of the most stunning veterans’ sites in the United States is the Vietnam Veterans National Memorial. Formerly maintained by the Disabled American Veterans who raised over $2 million for its maintenance, it is now a New Mexico state park. It was begun by Dr. Victor Westphall five days after his son David was killed in Vietnam in May 1968. It was completed in 1971. The large, striking white structure soars toward the sky in the mountains. A visitors center tells the story of the war and honors those who died there. A chapel has David’s picture and those of 12 other New Mexicans killed in the war are rotated each month. Some of David’s moving poetry is preserved. Location: About 30 miles east of Taos, north of U.S. 64, west of intersection with NM 434. Address: David Westphall Veterans Foundation, P.O. Box 608, Angel Fire, NM 87710. Phone: 575-377-6900. Web site: www.angelfirememorial.com. The Pecos National Historical Park & Glorieta Pass Battlefield commemorates the Civil War battle of March 28, 1862, where a Confederate force attempting to invade California was defeated. The park also has an Indian pueblo, mission ruins, and a twentieth-century ranch site. A visitors center tells the story of the battle and history of the region. Location: 25 miles east of Santa Fe on I-25. Address: P.O. Box 418, Pecos, NM 8755. Phone: 505-757-6414. Web site: http://nps.gov/peco. The Confederate Air Force Museum (New Mexico Wing) has a number of World War II airplanes, land vehicles, engines, and artifacts. Location: Hobbs/Lea County Airport at Highway 62-180. Address: P.O. Box 1260, Hobbs, NM 88240. Phone: 505-397-7180. Web site: www.nmculturaltreasures.org/cgi-bin/instview.cgi? _recordnum=NMW. The War Eagles Air Museum is a 6400-square-foot facility that is the home of 22 classic World War II and Korean War aircraft, many in flying conditions, and others under reconstruction. Location: Exit 8 off I-10, west on Artcraft Road, right on Airport Road. Address: 8012 Airport Road, Santa Teresa, NM 88008. Phone: 505-589-2000. Web site: www.war-eagles-air-museum.com. The outstanding feature of the White Sands Missile Range Museum is the collection of over 60 missiles tested at the range in a park outside the museum. The museum itself contains scale models of the first atomic bomb tested, the MacDonald Ranch used by the Manhattan project, control towers, rockets, their parts and engines, and Indian and ranch artifacts from the area. Location: Between El Paso and Las Cruces on the missile base, off I-10. Address: White Sands Missile Range, NM 88002. Phone: 505-670-8824. Web site: www.wsmr-history.org.
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NEW YORK Several New York memorials date to the colonial period. The oldest is Old Fort Niagara, built by the French in 1726, conquered by the British in 1759, and not surrendered to the United States until 1796. It controlled access to the inner Great Lakes and was the site of a major Indian refugee camp during the Revolution. The museum’s collection has over a thousand pieces of arms, clothing, artillery, and furniture and 100,000 archaeological items from ongoing digs. Living history guides introduce visitors to the fort. Location: Northern terminus of Robert Moses Parkway north from Niagara Falls. Address: P.O. Box 169, Youngstown, NY 14174. Phone: 716-745-7611. Web site: https://oldfortniagara.org. Two other former colonial forts were involved in General John Burgoyne’s unsuccessful attempt to invade the colonies through New York in the summer of 1777, leading to his surrender at Saratoga. The ruins of the British Fort at Crown Point survive. It was used as a base for the British conquest of Canada during the French and Indian War and captured from the Americans by Burgoyne’s troops during the Revolution. A visitors center explains the role of the fort in these two wars. Location: At Lake Champlain Bridge, 4 miles east of Routes 9N and 22; the Lake Champlain Visitors Center is across the road. Address: 739 Bridge Road, Crown Point, NY 12928. Phone: 518-5974666. Web site: http://nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?siteID=8. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga during his march, but the garrison surrendered it to the Americans after his defeat. Originally the French Fort Carillon, built at the beginning of the French and Indian War, the British captured it in 1759. Ethan Allen seized it ‘‘in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress’’ in 1775 and hitched its cannon to oxen, taking them to Boston during the winter of 1775–1776 enabling the Continental Army to chase the British out of Boston. It is probably the best-preserved and presented eighteenth-century Vauban fort in North America—the most advanced kind with multiple moats and arrayed as a six-pointed star to prevent successful assaults. Run by a private nonprofit foundation, Ticonderoga features museums and living history demonstrations of eighteenth-century military life. Location: Take Ticonderoga exit off I-87. Address: P.O. Box 390, Ticonderoga, NY 12883. Phone: 518-585-2821. Web site: www.fort-ticonderoga.org. The Oriskany Battlefield Historic Site is marked by a large obelisk. Dedicated in 1874, it honors upstate New Yorkers who defeated a combined force of British soldiers, loyalists, and Indians. The British force was hoping both to join General John Burgoyne’s army that was invading the state via Lakes Champlain and George and to cut the colonies in two. Markers are on the battlefield and reenactments occur. Location: On Route 69 west of Oriskany village. Address: 7801 State Route 69, Oriskany, NY 13424. Phone: 315-768-7224. Web site: http://nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp? siteID=23. Fort Stanwix, site of the last major Indian land purchase by the colonists before the Revolution in 1768, had earlier repulsed the same force. The fort retains its original shape, has a museum, and is the site of living history demonstrations and a major archaeological dig. Location: Route 69 off Erie Boulevard, center of Rome, New York.
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Address: 100 South James Street, Rome, NY 13440. Phone: 315-338-7730. Web site: www.nps.gov/fost. Although the town of Bennington, Vermont, is the closest community and erected the monument to the battle where Hessians soldiers from Burgoyne’s army seeking horses were defeated by the militia in August 1777, the Battle of Bennington actually took place in New York. It is commemorated by a State Historical Site, a park where markers inform visitors of the battle. Location: North side of Route 67 between Wallomoosac and the Vermont state line. Address: c/o Grafton Lakes State Park, P.O. Box 163, Grafton, NY 12082. Phone: 518-686-7109. Web site: http://nysparks .state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?siteID=3. The Saratoga National Historical Park contains the battlefield where Burgoyne was forced to surrender on October 17, 1777, for which self-guided tours are available at the visitors center (also a museum). The country house of General Philip Schuyler (Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law) is 7 miles north of the battlefield, and a 155-foot obelisk commemorating the victory stands a half mile north of the Schuyler House. Location: About 40 miles north of Albany, 8 miles south of the intersection of Routes 29 and 4 (29 East off Exit 14 of I-87). Address: 648 Route 32, Stillwater, NY 12170. Phone: 518-6644-9821. Web site: www.nps.gov.sara. Several memorials in New York City honor the Battle of Brooklyn and subsequent struggle for New York City. The Old Stone House is a reconstruction of the 1699 Vechte-Cortelyou House that changed hands several times during the battle. Location: Between Third and Fourth Streets and Fourth and Fifth Avenues in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Address: P.O. Box 150613, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Phone: 718-768-3195. Web site: www.theoldstonehouse.org. The Conference House on Staten Island was the site of a peace conference on September 11, 1776, when British Admiral Sir Richard Howe unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Congressmen John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge to make peace following Washington’s defeat. The house has colonial furnishings going back to its erection in 1674. Location: Southwest terminus of Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island (about 10 miles west of Hylan Boulevard exit off I-278). Address: 7455 Hylan Boulevard, P.O. Box 171, Staten Island, NY 10307. Phone: 718-984-0415. Web site: www.conferencehouse.org//. The Morris-Jumel Mansion, built in 1765, served as General Washington’s headquarters during the New York campaign in September and October of 1776. It contains artifacts from the Revolution and its time period. Location: Jumel Terrace is a short street between West 160 and 162 Street between St. Nicholas and Edgecomb Avenues in Manhattan. Address: 65 Jumel Terrace, New York, NY 10032. Phone: 212-923-8008. Web site: www.morrisjumel.org. Note: for locations in lower Manhattan, it is best to park somewhere and walk or take subways or taxis. Because of heavy traffic, driving to sites and parking would be extremely difficult. Designed by Stanford White, Washington Arch in Greenwich Village (at the north end of Washington Square Park at the start of Fifth Avenue) was dedicated in 1895. Resembling the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, its two likenesses ‘‘Washington at War’’ and ‘‘Washington at Peace,’’ added in 1916, are badly eroded from pollution. Web site: www.nycny.com/content/history/washingt.htm.
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Washington bid farewell to his officers on December 4, 1783 in the long room of Fraunces Tavern, built as a private residence in 1719 and then converted to a tavern by Samuel Fraunces, an African American who also owned a Fraunces Tavern in Philadelphia. His efficiency in preparing good meals, accommodations, and entertainment led Washington to appoint him as his household steward when he became president. It is still a functioning restaurant that serves eighteenth-century specialties. The museum includes numerous Revolutionary-era artifacts and a fine art collection of which John Ward Dunsmore’s 45-painting set of Revolutionary War scenes is a major part. Location: Lower Manhattan, Broad Street subway station. Address: 54 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10004. Phone: 212-425-1776 (museum); 212-968-1776 (restaurant). Web site: www.frauncestavernmuseum.org. The present Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial, an obelisk, was built in 1908 in Fort Greene Park, originally the site of a Revolutionary War fort. About 11,000 of the prisoners of war held on British ships in nearby Wallabout Bay died during the war. Buried at sea, their bones frequently washed up and were buried in shallow graves. The first monument, built by New York City Democratic politicians in the 1840s, was neglected. A sturdy crypt was built underground in 1873. Location: Fort Greene Park, two blocks east of Flatbush Avenue off DeKalb Avenue (exit from Manhattan Bridge). Web site: www.fortgreenepark.org/pages/directions.htm. Four early forts remain in New York Harbor. The first fortifications at Fort Jay, part of a still-active military post on Governor’s Island (accessible only by ferry from Battery Park), were earthworks built in 1776 to protect the city from the British (unsuccessfully). Further additions in 1794 and during the War of 1812 have resulted in the present structure. Castle Clinton, built at the Battery in Manhattan during the War of 1812, has served since as an arena for circuses and shows—including Jenny Lind’s American debut in 1851—as the principal site for processing immigrants to America before Ellis Island in New York Harbor, and as an aquarium. It currently contains a museum of its own history and is the ticket center for New York Harbor attractions such as the Statue of Liberty. Address: Castle Clinton Monument, Battery Park, New York, NY 10004. Phone: 212-344-7220. Web site: www.nps.gov/cacl. Fort Hamilton and Fort Wadsworth guarded the Narrows, where Brooklyn and State Island are connected by the Verrazzano Bridge, in the years following the War of 1812. The Fort Hamilton Museum has weapons, small arms, uniforms, and other items from the eighteenth century to the present. Some exhibitions rotate. Topics have included the Battle of Brooklyn and defense of New York during World War II. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson both served at Fort Hamilton, constructed in 1826 but not given its present name until the twentieth century. Location: One block left of Fourth Avenue and 101 Street, Brooklyn. Web site: www.hamilton.army.mil/ default.asp?page=museum. When it closed in 1994, Fort Wadsworth was the oldest continuously manned fort in the United States, first fortified with a Dutch blockhouse in 1663. It has a museum that features living history presentations, the National Light House Museum, and guest quarters. Location: End of Bay Street (exit on Staten Island Expressway) near the Verrazzano Bridge. Phone: 718-354-4500. Web site: www.statenislandusa.com/pages/ ft_wadsworth.html.
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The oldest publicly owned historical site in the United States is Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, where he spent the last winter of the war and discouraged officers from plotting to overthrow the republic and make him a king. He prevented this by, before reading a speech, taking out his eyeglasses and telling the officers that not only had he grown old in the service of his country, he was also growing blind, which led them to embrace him and make the speech unnecessary. Location: Exit 10 on Route 84, take 9W south, left on to Broadway, right on Liberty Street, to Washington Street, downtown Newburgh. Address: P.O. Box 1783, Newburgh, NY 12551. Phone: 845-562-1195. http://nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?siteId=32. Knox’s Headquarters State Historical Site is where Henry Knox, commander of the Continental Army artillery, lived during the final winter of the war (1782–1783). The fine Georgian house may be visited. Location: Left at Forge Hill Road on Route 9W. Address: P.O. Box 207, Vails Gate, NY 12584. Phone: 845-561-5498. Web site: http://nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?siteid=18. Between 1776 and 1783, the Continental Army’s main headquarters was in Fishkill, where it kept watch on the British in New York City. The Van Wyck Homestead Museum, a 1732 structure, contains information on the camp’s history and life. Address: 504 Route 9 (Box 133), Fishkill, NY 12524. Phone: 845-896-9560. Web site: http://fishkillridge.org/history/vanwyck.htm. The British Army occupied New York City and its environs for most of the Revolution. Raynham Hall, originally built in 1738, in Oyster Bay was the headquarters of the Queens’ Rangers, commanded by John Graves Simcoe, later the governor of Canada. The house contains information about the Rangers and eighteenth-century life. Location: Exit 41N on Long Island Expressway, then Route 106, 6 miles north to Main Street, turn left. Address: 20 Main Street, Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY 11771. Phone: 516-922-7640. Web site: www.raynhamhallmuseum.org. The Steuben Memorial State Historic Site is a monument marking the grave of Baron Von Steuben, who drilled the Continental Army into a traditional Europeanstyle fighting force during the Valley Forge Winter. It is located on land given him for his services in the Revolution, where he died in 1794. Location: In Remsen, Starr Hill Road, 2.5 miles west of Routes 12 or 28. Address: c/o Oriskany Battlefield, 7801 State Route 69, Oriskany, NY 13424. Phone: 315-831-3737 Web site: http:// nysparks.state.ny.us/sites/info.asp?sitei=6. West Point was first fortified by the Americans during the Revolution. In 1780, Commander Benedict Arnold unsuccessfully attempted to betray it to the British and fled for his life from there to New York City. The Military Academy opened in 1802. It has a large museum open to the public. Galleries in the basement display weaponry, on the first floor dealing with the history of the academy and of warfare, and on the second floor recounting the history of American wars. The exhibits include the last message sent by Colonel Custer before the Battle of Little Big Horn, George Washington’s field glasses, and a wall of honor devoted to graduates of the academy who won the Medal of Honor. Accompanied tours may be arranged at the visitors center to see various other attractions at the academy: chapels, parades, and monuments to, among others, Generals Patton, Sedgwick, Kosciuszko, Eisenhower, and MacArthur, the Cadet Monument, American Soldiers’ Statue, the Great Chain (which prevented
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British ships from sailing up the Hudson during the Revolution), the Southeast Asia Memorial, and the Flight Memorial. Location: Short Line bus from Port Authority Terminal, New York City; Palisades Interstate Parkway north to Bear Mt. Traffic Circle, follow signs for West Point on Route 9W. Phone 845-938-3671 (museum). Web site: www.usma.edu/museum. New York honors the Civil War most spectacularly at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, which ranks with the Indiana War Memorial as the greatest tribute to Union Veterans of the Civil War. The arch, designed by John H. Duncan, architect of Grant’s Tomb, was unveiled in 1892. Three monumental groups of statues were added 9 years later by Frederick MacMonnies: the Quadriga, the Spirit of the Army, and the Spirit of the Navy. The Quadriga resides at the top and depicts the Lady Columbia, an allegorical representation of the United States, riding in a chariot drawn by two horses. Two winged Victory figures, each leading a horse, announce Columbia’s arrival. The lower pedestals facing the park hold the Spirit of the Army and the Spirit of the Navy sculptural groups. Location: Intersection of Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenues, Grand Army Plaza subway station. Web site: http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php? id=11874. The General Grant National Memorial (commonly known as Grant’s Tomb) was built in 1897 following plans of John H. Duncan and was the largest funding-raising effort (90,000 people contributed $600,000) in history to that point. It is still the largest tomb in the Americas. It contains a museum that describes Grant’s life and Civil War flags and memorabilia in addition to the tombs of Grant and his wife. (People who answered ‘‘Grant’’ when Groucho Marx posed the question ‘‘Who is Buried in Grant’s Tomb’’ to losing contestants on his ‘‘You Bet Your Life’’ television show were only half correct.) Monuments to several of Grant’s generals are also in the tomb, which was sadly neglected until Frank Scaturro, a student at nearby Columbia University, mobilized civic consciousness to restore it to its former glory in the 1990s. The tomb is managed by the National Park Service Manhattan Sites office which also administers Castle Clinton, Federal Hall, and the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, among others. Location: Riverside Drive and 122nd Street, 116 Street/Broadway subway station. Address: 26 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005. Phone: 212-825-6900. Web site: http://nps.gov./gegr. New York is the location of the East Coast World War II Memorial in Battery Park, New York City (South Ferry or Whitehall Street subway stations). It consists of eight large walls listing the names of the 4,600 service personnel who died in the Atlantic Ocean during the war. A large eagle is in front of the walls. New York’s Korean War Memorial, nearby. was dedicated in 1991 and designed by Welsh sculptor Mac Adams. It features a 15-foot-high black granite stele with the shape of a Korean War soldier cut out of the center. Also known as ‘‘The Universal Soldier,’’ the figure forms a silhouette that allows viewers to see through the monument to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Adams also designed the piece to function as a sundial. Every July 27 at 10 a.m., the anniversary of the exact moment in New York when hostilities ceased in Korea, the sun shines through the soldier’s head and illuminates the commemorative plaque installed in the ground at the foot of the statue.
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One of the three tiers in the base of the monument is decorated with a mosaic of flags of the countries that participated in the UN-sponsored mission. The plaza’s paving blocks are inscribed with the number of dead, wounded, and missing in action from each of the 22 countries that participated in the war. Web site: www.nycgovparks.org /sub_your_park/historical-signs/hs_histdorical_sign.php/id=12355. The New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a wall on which are inscribed letters, diary excerpts, and poems from the Vietnam era supplemented by news dispatches, public statements, and the names of all New York residents killed during the war. The Web site describes and offers for sale a film and a book made up of some of the items considered for incorporation into the wall. Location: One block east of Fraunces Tavern, three blocks north of the Battery. Address: 55 Water Street, New York, NY 10041. Phone: 212-693-0446. Web site: www .nyvietnamveteransmemorial.org. Not many New Yorkers are aware of the pioneering role the state played in the history of aviation (as in film). Fortunately, there are several aviation museums to remind them. On Long Island, the Cradle of Aviation Museum concentrates on Long Island’s many contributions to aviation. The exhibits in the museum go back to the days of balloon flights. Charles Lindbergh’s first trans-Atlantic flight from Roosevelt Field is featured in one exhibit among many. The museum has an IMAX theatre that provides facsimiles of flight. Location: Meadowbrook Parkway to Charles Lindbergh Boulevard west (at Nassau Community College). Address: Mitchell Field, Garden City, NY 11530. Phone: 516-572-4111. Web site: www.cradleofaviation.org. Also on Long Island is the American Airpower Museum, the home of 15 historic airplanes, some of which participate in air shows. Location: Any Long Island expressway/parkway to Route 110, east on Conklin to New Highway, right to Museum. Address: 1230 New Highway, Republic Airport Farmingdale, Long Island, NY 11735. Phone: 631-2936398. Web site: http://americanairpowermuseum.com. The Glenn H. Curtiss Museum of Early Aviation honors Hammondsport’s favorite son whose early twentieth-century efforts were indispensable in furthering American air power. In 1911 he mastered the technology associated with taking off and landing an aircraft on water, thereby making the ‘‘seaplane’’ a practical reality. Seaplane development led Curtiss to an association with the U.S. Navy that began when he trained their first pilots and built the ‘‘A-1,’’ their first aircraft. Today, he is acknowledged as ‘‘The Father of Naval Aviation.’’ Visitors to the museum will also see a fullscale reproduction of this first naval aircraft. Additional Curtiss aircraft in the collection are a 1912 ‘‘Pusher,’’ a 1913 ‘‘Model E’’ flying boat, a 1917 ‘‘Jenny,’’ a 1919 ‘‘Seagull’’ flying boat, and a 1927 ‘‘Robin.’’ From the Curtiss-Wright era (post-1929), included are a 1931 ‘‘Junior,’’ a 3/4-scale P-40 and last—but certainly not least—a C-46, WWII transport at the main gate. Address: 8419 Route 54, Hammondsport, NY 14840. Phone: 607-569-2040. Web site: www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org. In upstate New York is the National Warplane Museum. It has over 30 planes, two missiles, engines, and other artifacts. Location: Interstate 86 to Exit 51A, north on Chambers Road, follow signs to Elmira/Corning Airport entrance. Address: 17 Aviation Drive, Horseheads, NY 14845. Phone: 607-739-8200. Web site: www .wingsofeagles.com.
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The Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Schenectady County has an extensive collection: the black ‘‘TopGun’’ F-5, F-14A Tomcat, A-6E Intruder, A-4F Skyhawk II, F-4D Phantom II, F-101F ‘‘Voodoo,’’ F-105G ‘‘Wild Weasel,’’ Huey helicopter, Russian MiG-17F and MiG-21, A-10 ‘‘Warthog,’’ A-7E Corsair II and F-84F Thunderstreak. The main galleries contain some of the more fragile aircraft, detailed models, dioramas, historical artifacts and memorabilia, and photographic displays. A sampling of the exhibits are the DePischoff ‘‘flying motorcycle,’’ the Amelia Earhart Exhibit, and a 32-foot-scale model of the Japanese aircraft carrier ‘‘Akagi.’’ The museum also contains some hands-on exhibits including a mock-up of a 1910 Von Pomer airplane, electronic ‘‘spotter’’ aircraft identification, and a simulated reality vehicle (SRV) which treats occupants to a video and ‘‘ride’’ that makes them feel as if they are part of the action. The Restoration Center houses aircraft in various stages of restoration. Location: I-890 to Route 5, north on Route 50 to county airport. Address: 250 Rudy Chase Drive, Glenville, NY 12302. Phone: 518-377-2191. Web site: www.esam.org. Finally in New York’s flight collections is the amazing Old Rhinebeck Aerodome, the home of over 200 old airplanes, ground vehicles (cars, trucks, and tanks) and aircraft engines dating from 1900 to 1930. Location: Follow signs to the KingstonRhinebeck Bridge from New York State Thruway Exit 19 to 209 North. Take 9G south (first exit over the Hudson) to 9 North right to Stone Church Road and then left on Norton Road. New York Central RR stops at Rhinebeck. Address: P.O. Box 229, Rhinebeck, NY 12572. Phone: 845-752-3200. Web site: www.oldrhinebeck.org. New York also has an inland naval heritage related to Lakes Erie and Ontario. The Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park offers the following exhibits: Marine Corps Memorabilia World War I to Present; Ex-POW Memorabilia; Contributions of African Americans to Our Country’s Military Heritage; Women in the Military; the Polish Armed Forces; Destroyer Escort Sailors; Vietnam Veterans; Models of Military Aircraft World War II to the Present; and Western New York Medal of Honor Recipients. Location: Waterfront in Buffalo, I-190 Church Street exit to Lower Terrace then right on Pearl Street. Address: One Naval Park Cove, Buffalo, NY 14202. Phone: 716-847-1773. Web site: www.buffalonavalpark.org. The H. Lee White Maritime Museum is devoted to the maritime history of the Great Lakes, which includes the British/French and British/American conflicts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also has the only functioning tugboat surviving form the Normandy Invasion in World War II. Location: West First Street Pier. Address: P.O. Box 101, Oswego, NY 13126. Phone: 315-342-0480. Web site: www.hleewhitemarinemuseum.com. Visitors to Manhattan should investigate the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, which consists of the Intrepid Aircraft Carrier, the diesel-powered submarine Growler, and an extensive collection of aircraft from the earliest days of flight. Location and Address: Pier 86, 12th Avenue & 46th Street, New York, NY 10036. Phone: 212245-0072. Web site: www.intrepidmuseum.org. Because of its upstate location, few investigate the superb New York State Military Museum, relocated to the armory in Saratoga Springs in 2001. The museum houses over 10,000 artifacts such as uniforms, weapons, artillery pieces, and art
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dating from the Revolutionary War to Desert Storm that relate to New York State’s military forces, the state’s military history, and the contributions of New York’s veterans to the nation. A significant portion of the museum’s collection is from the Civil War such as Colonel Elmer Ellsworth’s (the Union’s first martyr) uniform, the medical kit of Jubal Early’s surgeon, and the uniform and bugle of Gustav Schurmann (General Philip Kearny’s boy bugler). Included in the museum are significant holdings relating to New York’s 27th Division in World War I and World War II and notable state military regiments such as the 7th (Silk Stocking Regiment), 69th (Fighting Irish), 71st, and 369th (Harlem Hell Fighters) New York Infantry. The museum also owns the largest collection of state battle flags in the country and the largest collection of Civil War flags in the world. Of the over 1,700 flags in the collection, more than 60 percent are from the Civil War. The flags date from the War of 1812 through the 1991 Gulf War. The museum maintains an exhibit of its flag collection in the state capitol building in Albany where the museum collection was originally housed. The library and archive holdings in the Veterans Research Center include a 2,000-volume library of military and New York State history, over 6,000 photographs, unit history files, broadsides, scrapbooks, letters, and maps. Highlights of the library and archives material are over 2300 Civil War photographs, a collection of Civil War-era newspaper clippings arranged by New York units, and New York National Guard service cards and service records dating from the 1880s to 1965. The Veteran Research Center operates and archives the New York State Veteran Oral History Program and the Veteran Questionnaire Program. The Oral History Program actively collects interviews of New York State veterans from all eras. The largest part of this collection is of World War II veteran interviews. The Veteran Questionnaire Program, similar to the Oral History Program, solicits and preserves the written and photographic record of the state’s veterans. Location: State Route 9 to Route 29, which is Lake Avenue, then left. Address: New York State Military Museum, 61 Lake Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. Phone: 518-581-5100. Web site: www.dmna.state.ny.us/historic/mil-hist.htm. The USS Slater is the only remaining World War II destroyer escort that protected convoys of men and material; it is open to the public. Location: Foot of Madison Avenue, under Dunn Memorial Bridge. Address: P.O. Box 1926, Albany, NY 12201. Phone: 518-431-1943. Web site: www.ussslater.org. Founded in 1813, the Watervliet Arsenal Museum, the nation’s oldest functioning arsenal and still a manufacturing site for heavy artillery, has an extensive collection of artillery from the past 400 years. Location: Route 155, north of Albany. Address: U.S. Army Arsenal Museum, 1 Buffington Street, Watervliet, NY 12189. Phone: 518-266-5418. Web site: http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/forts/fortsT_Z/ watervlietArsenal.htm.
NORTH CAROLINA Colonial wars, the American Revolution, and the Civil War were all fought in North Carolina. Ruins survive of the old town of Brunswick, site of a fort that guarded the Cape
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Fear region which repulsed a Spanish attack in 1748. During the Civil War Fort Anderson on the same site turned back federal attacks, and with Fort Fisher, kept Wilmington open as the Confederacy’s last port until February 22, 1865. A visitor center tells the history of the region. Location: Take U.S. 17/74 to NC 133 south in the city of Wilmington, then about 17 miles south. Address: 8884 St. Philip Road SE, Winnabow, NC 28479. Phone: 910-371-6613. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/Brunswic/brunswic.htm. About 255 yards of earthworks and part of Battery Buchanan survive from Fort Fisher. The location and purposes of different parts of the fort are well marked and there is a visitors center. Battle Acre is a monument adjoining the ocean to the Confederate dead and there is also an underwater archaeology display. Location: South of Wilmington off U.S. 421 past Kure Beach. Address: P.O. Box 169, Kure Beach, NC 28449. Phone: 910-458-5538. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher/ fisher.htm. Fort Dobbs, used to fight the Cherokees during the French and Indian War, has living history interpreters and a log cabin on the fort’s site. Location: I-40, take exit 151, U.S. 21 north, then left on Fort Dobbs Road Address: P.O. Box 241, 438 Fort Dobbs Road, Statesville, NC 28625. Phone: 704-873-5882. Web site: www.fortdobbs.org. Alamance Battlefield commemorates the struggle between Regulators protesting high taxes and colonial officials and the North Carolina troops who suppressed them in 1771. The Allen House, a typical frontier dwelling, markers (including one commemorative one), and a visitors center explain the course of the battle. Location: 6 miles south of I-40/85 from Exit 143 on NC 62. Address: 5803 NC 62S, Burlington, NC 27215. Phone: 336-227-4785. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/alamance/alamanc.htm. Moore’s Creek National Battlefield marks the site where 1,000 patriots defeated 1,600 loyalists on February 27, 1776. The visitors center has a video of the battle, and an obelisk stands at the park. A history of the park is available on its Web site. Location: NC Route 210 about 20 miles northwest of Wilmington. Address: 40 Patriots Hall Drive, Currie, NC 28435. Phone: 910-283-5591. Web site: www.nps.gov/mocr. ‘‘The House in the Horseshoe’’—that is, the bend in the Deep River—was the site of a skirmish where patriot Philip Alston, owner of the house, surrendered to Tory militia led by David Fanning in the American Revolution. Living history demonstrations enhance this well-preserved house typical of the frontier gentry. Location: 16 miles west of Sanford off Highway 42. Address: 288 Alston House Road, Sanford, NC 27330. Phone: 910-947-2051. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/horsesho/horsesho.htm. Guilford Courthouse National Military Park commemorates the largest of several battles, fought on March 15, 1781, in which the Continental Army’s General Nathanael Greene severely weakened the British forces commanded by Lord Cornwallis, forcing him to retreat to Yorktown later that year. A large collection of items related to the campaign is collected at the visitors center, and there is an impressive statue of Greene on horseback. There is also an online exhibit. Location: U.S. Route 220 is Battleground Avenue in Greensboro. Turn right (east) on New Garden Road to reach the visitors center. Address: 2332 New Garden Road, Greensboro, NC 27410. Phone: 336-288-1776. Web site: www.nps.gov/guco. North Carolina’s role in the Civil War is also commemorated at several sites. CSS Neuse State Historic Site contains a full-size model of this Confederate ironclad
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gunboat, along with remnants of its hull and items related to nineteenth-century naval warfare. Memorials on the site include one honoring Civil War soldiers and the first governor of North Carolina, revolutionary war General Richard Caswell, as well as the Lenoir County Vietnam and Korean War memorials. Location: U.S. 70 west of Kinston onto U.S. 70 business, 2612 West Vernon Avenue. Address: P.O. Box 3043, Kinston, NC 28502. Phone: 252-522-2091. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/neuse/neuse.htm. The Bentonville Battlefield marks the last major attack by a Confederate force in the Civil War, on March 19–21, 1865, by General Joseph E. Johnston against Union General William T. Sherman. It was also the largest battle ever fought in the state. The Harper House is furnished as a Civil War field hospital. A video and markers guide visitors to the leading events of the battle. Texas and North Carolina built monuments on the battlefield. Location: From I-95 in Smithfield, Exit 90 onto U.S. Route 701. About 15 miles south, then left on Harper House Road. Address: 5466 Harper House Road, Four Oaks, NC 27524. Phone: 910-594-0789. Web site: www .nchistoricsites.org/bentonvi/bentonvi.htm. Bennett Place is the reconstruction of the farmhouse where on April 26, 1865, General Johnston surrendered the last large Confederate force to Sherman. A monument consisting of two Doric columns and a plaque mark the site as well. A visitors center has artifacts and a video presentation. Location: I-85 to Hillsborough Road exit, go west, then south to Bennett Memorial Road. Address: 4409 Bennett Memorial Road, Durham, NC 27705. Phone: 919-383-4345. Web site: www.nchistoricsites.org/Bennett/Bennett.htm. Two museums are located at Fort Bragg. The 82nd Airborne Division War Memorial displays eight aircraft and approximately one-third of the many artifacts in its collection, begun in World War II by General James M. Gavin. A monument to the division’s members who died in Vietnam consists of a pair of bronze boots and an M-16 rifle with a helmet on top. The names of the fallen are inscribed on the pillar on which the sculpture rests. Location: Near the intersection of Routes 87 and 401. Address: Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, NC 28301. Phone: 910-432-4272. Web site: www.bragg.army.mil/18abn/museum. The Airborne & Special Operations Museum honors the army air force from its beginnings until the present. Films and a motion simulator accompany standard exhibits. Location: 100 Bragg Boulevard in downtown Fayetteville. Address: P.O. Box 89, Fayetteville, NC 28302. Phone: 910-643-2766. Web site: www.asomf.org. Battleship North Carolina represents the history of all six ships of that name, a USS ship-of-the-line, Confederate ironclad, armored cruiser, World War I and World War II battleships (the latter of which is the site of the museum), and the present nuclear attack submarine. The museum contains documents, oral histories, gear, artwork, ship furnishings, and photographs. Location: On the ocean at U.S. Route 421 north (reached from U.S. 74/76). Address: P.O. Box 480, Wilmington, NC 28402. Phone: 910-251-5797. Web site: www.battleshipnc.com. Carolinas Historic Aviation Commission and Museum honors both North and South Carolinians at the Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame. A DC-3 and two Mohawks can be flown. Other planes and artifacts related to the history of aviation in the Carolinas are on display. Location and Address: 4108 Airport Drive, Charlotte/Douglas
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International Airport, Charlotte, NC 28208. Phone: 704-359-8442. Web site: www.carolinasaviation.org.
NORTH DAKOTA Nearly all of North Dakota’s military sites relate to the Indian wars fought in the territory from the 1860s to the 1880s. Fort Abercrombie, the first permanent military post in the Dakotas, was beseiged for six weeks by the Sioux during the war of 1862. Reconstructed by the WPA during the 1930s, the fort has a museum of early Dakota history. Location: 35 miles south of Fargo on Route 75. Address: P.O. Box 148, Abercrombie, ND 58001. Phone: 701-553-8513. Web site: http://history.nd.gov/historicsites/abercrombie/index.html. Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park contains buildings from the fort where Colonel Custer rode out with the Seventh Cavalry to the Little Big Horn in Montana. It contains nineteenth-century buildings and artifacts and also a reconstructed Mandan Indian village—the tribe met Lewis and Clark but was wiped out by smallpox before permanent white settlement. Location: 7 miles south of Mandan on Highway 806. Address: 4480 Ft. Lincoln Road, Mandan, ND 58554. Phone: 701-667-6340. Web site: www.parkrec .nd.gov/parks/flsp.htm. Sitting Bull surrendered to the U.S. government at Fort Buford. Three original buildings, one of which is a museum, and a cemetery survive at the site where reenactments occur. Location: Williston is 20 miles east of the Montana border on the Missouri River, follow signs from I-90. Address: 15349 39th Lane NW, Williston, ND 58801. Phone: 701-572-9034. Web site: www.state.nd.us/hist/Buford/Buford.htm. Fort Totten, which appears much as it did when in use from 1867 to 1890, became a boarding school for Indian children when the fort closed. Seventeen buildings survive and there is a museum. Location: 13 miles SE of Devil’s Lake, near Route 281. Address: P.O. Box 224, Fort Totten, ND 58835. Phone: 701-766-4441. Web site: http:// history.nd.gov/historicsites/totten/index.html. Bottineau, North Dakota, also has the Four Chaplains Memorial, honoring the four clergymen—Rabbi Alexander Goode, priest Father John Washington, and Revs. George Fox and Clark Poling—who on February 3, 1943, on the USS Dorchester gave their life vests to others and went down with the ship. The memorial is a small, fourcolumned cement arch, shading an upright cement slab to which is bolted a bronze plaque depicting the Dorchester going down. Above the doomed ship, in the cloud of steam and smoke exploding out of it, the large faces of the chaplains can be seen, Above their heads are the words: ‘‘For God And Country.’’ Location: From Dakota Route 5 NE left to Sinclair Street, left to corner of Fourth Street West. Web site: www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11789.
OHIO Two early episodes of Ohio history are spectacularly depicted in paintings found in the rotunda of the Ohio State House, at the corner of Broad and High Street in downtown
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Columbus. First is Howard Chandler Christy’s ‘‘Treaty of Greenville,’’ commemorating the 1795 agreement by which the defeated Indians left what became the state eight years later. Second is William Henry Powell’s ‘‘Battle of Lake Erie,’’ which depicts Commodore Perry leaving his sinking ship the Lawrence for the Niagara: the African American crew member probably pays tribute to the recent emancipation of slaves, as the painting was completed in 1873. The monumental canvas is 201 inches tall and 319 inches wide. Fort Meigs was commanded by William Henry Harrison and twice besieged by the British and their Indian allies in the War of 1812. The reconstructed fort and visitors center feature living history recreations along with archaeological and other collections. Location: Take I-90 or I-75 to State Route 65 (River Road). Address: 29100 West River Road, Perrysburg, OH 43552. Phone: 419-874-4121. Web site: www.fortmeigs.org. Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial features a 352-foot-tall column that marks the harbor from which Oliver Hazard Perry set out to achieve victory and capture of an entire British fleet on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. It also celebrates subsequent peace with Canada. Location; On South Bass Island, accessible by ferry from SR 2 East (in turn accessible from U.S. 250 or SR 53 off the Ohio Turnpike). Address: 93 Delaware Avenue, P.O. Box 549, Put-in-Bay, OH 43456. Phone: 419285-2184. Web site: www.nps.gov/pevi. The Butler County Soldiers, Sailors & Pioneers Monument stands on the site of Fort Hamilton in the city of Hamilton, founded by General Arthur St. Clair in 1791. Built between 1902 and 1906, the large granite structure is capped by a 14-foot-tall statue of a young Civil War soldier waving his hat in victory. Glass windows honor army nurses and ‘‘our loyal mothers and sisters.’’ Uniforms, weapons, medals, and other items represent wars from the Civil War to Vietnam. Location: High Street Bridge. Address: c/o Butler County Board of Commissioners, 315 High Street, Hamilton, OH 45011. Phone: 513-867-5823. Web site: http://home.fuse.net/monument/. Mott’s Military Museum contains an extensive collection of artifacts from every major American conflict from the Revolution to Desert Storm. Location: Just south of Columbus, Ohio, take Groveport exit off I-270. Address: 5075 South Hamilton Road, Groveport, OH 43125. Phone: 614-836-1500. Web site: www .mottsmilitarymuseum.org. Designed by Captain Levi T. Schofield, the Cleveland Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, built in the 1890s, consists of a 125-foot shaft on top of a memorial building. A column topped with a statue of the ‘‘Goddess of Liberty’’ signifies loyalty to the nation. Departing from the stereotypical soldiers’ monument design, this one was intended to be historical and educational. The principal features of the exterior of the monument are four realistic groups of bronze statuary, representing in heroic size the four principal branches of the service: infantry, artillery, cavalry, and navy. Then men are realistically depicted in the heat of battle. In the base are tablets listing 9,000 Civil War veterans from the area. Also, four bronze relief sculptures depict the Soldiers’ Aid Society, comprised of women, the Emancipation of the Slaves, the Beginning of the War in Ohio, and the End of the War. Two especially moving bas-reliefs show Lincoln arming an African American and an African American on an artillery crew. Location: Intersection of Ontario, Superior, and Euclid Avenues in downtown Cleveland.
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Address for the foundation to keep the monument in repair, c/o Neil K. Evans, 3230 South Green Road, Beachwood, OH 44122. Phone: 216-274-2256. Web site: www.soldiersandsailors.com. The Camp Dennison Civil War Museum is located in the Christian Waldschmidt Homestead, built in 1794. It was the headquarters of Camp Dennison, a Civil War training camp, and houses artifacts from the war and the pioneer era. Location: On Route 126 between Indian Hill and Milford east of Cincinnati. Address: 7509 Glendale/Milford Road, Camp Dennison, OH 45111. Phone: 513-576-6327. Web site: http://home.fuse.net/campdennison/. Ohio has been identified with aviation since the days of its native sons, the Wright Brothers. The U.S. Air Force Museum has over 400 flight vehicles, from planes the Wright Brothers used to Gemini and Apollo capsules launched into space. Numerous exhibits of uniforms, photographs, and documents complement one of the nation’s most comprehensive museums of flight. Location: Six miles northeast of Dayton at historic Wright Field. Take I-675 to Exit 15 (Col Glenn Highway). Three traffic lights to Wright Bros. Parkway, turn right onto Springfield Pike, then right at end of exit ramp. Address: 1100 Spaatz Street, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433. Phone: 937255-3286. Web site: www.nationalmuseum.af.mil. The WACO Aircraft Museum & Aviation Learning Center Museum exhibits include a WACO primary glider, 1902 Wright Brothers Glider replica, WACO 4 replica, the Mackey Taperwing, owned by Goodrich Corp., and a WACO UPF-7. (WACO at first was the Weaver Aircraft Company, founded in 1921.) These last two are fully functional flying aircraft. Many spectacular murals grace the walls of the 7,500square-foot facility. Additional exhibits feature some of the thousands of rare WACO photographs held by the WACO Historical Society and numerous WACO Factory and WWII WACO combat glider artifacts and photos. The museum also features 10 WACO RC models, some interactive scale models, radial aircraft engines, vintage propellers, a museum archive library, and a museum gift shop. Location: 1865 South County Road 25A (north on 25A after taking exit 69 off I-75). Address: P.O. Box 62, Troy, OH 45373. Phone: 937-335- 9226. Web site: www.wacoairmuseum.org. The MAPS (Military Aircraft Preservation Society) Air Museum has over 25 aircraft and exhibits dedicated to World War I, World War II, and Vietnam air power, women who worked and flew planes in World War II, and African American airmen. Location: West side of Akron-Canton Airport. Address: 5359 Massillon Road, North Canton, OH 44720. Phone: 330-896-6332. Web site: www.mapsairmuseum.org. The Firelands Museum of Military History has over 60 pieces of military equipment such as planes and tanks, from World War II to Vietnam, most of them in working condition. It has three ‘‘Huey’’ helicopters, probably the only ones still able to fly. For access, contact the museum at the 202 Citizens Bank Building, Norwalk, OH 448547. Phone: 419-668-8161. Web site: www.huey.org/page4.html. The USS Cod is a restored World War II submarine that may be visited on the Cleveland waterfront. Location: One block east of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at western edge of Burke Lakefront Airport. Address: Cleveland Coordinating Committee for Cod, 1089 East 9th Street, Cleveland, OH 44114. Phone: 216-566-8770. Web site: www.usscod.org.
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OKLAHOMA In 1868, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer surprised a band of Cheyenne Indians at the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. A visitors center and outdoor markers along a trail explain this tragic incident in which the Indians were slaughtered. Location: Take I-40 to Exit 20 then Route 283 through Cheyenne to Highway 47. Turn north on Highway 47A. Address: 426 East Broadway, Cheyenne, OK 73628. Phone: 580-497-2742. Web site: www.nps.gov/waba. Two sites may be found in Oklahoma City. The 45th Infantry Division Museum has the Bill Mauldin Cartoon Collection, the most famous cartoons depicting the lives of infantrymen in World War II, the Reaves Military Weapons Collection of firearms and related artifacts from the Revolution through the Vietnam War, exhibits on World War II and the Korean War, and the 15-acre Thunderbird Park with over 60 tanks, helicopters. artillery, personnel carriers, and other items. The 40-foot-tall Thunderbird Monument pays tribute to those who served in the 45th Division. The chapel has a stained glass window of a soldier, and Commanders Hall pays tribute to the division’s commanders and Medal of Honor winners. Members of the division liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp and a special exhibit commemorates that achievement. Address: 2145 NE 36th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111. Phone: 405-424-5313. Web site: www.45thdivisionmuseum.com. The Kirkpatrick Air and Space Museum at Omniplex is part of the Science Museum of Oklahoma. It has a collection of planes, artifacts, and exhibits devoted to Oklahomans’ contributions to aviation. Location: 2100 Northeast 52nd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111. Phone: 405-602-6664. Web site: www.omniplex.org. The U.S. Army’s Fort Sill Museum occupies 26 of the 46 historic buildings at the Fort Sill National Landmark. It is the largest museum maintained by the U.S. Army in the nation and its artifacts cover every war from the Revolution to the present. Location: From I-44 in Lawton take Exit 41 (Sheridan Road), right on Randolph Road, right on Chickasha Road, then left on Quanah Road. Address: 437 Quanah Road, Fort Sill, OK 73503. Phone: 580-442-5123. Web site: http://sill-www.army.mil/museum/home %20page.htm. The J. M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum houses the huge collection formerly maintained in the Claremore Hotel by its owner. It contains such rare items as a 500-year-old Chinese hand cannon and the world’s smallest manufactured automatic pistol, the Kolibri. Several outstanding collections were purchased complete, such as Outlaw Guns of the Old West. The museum contains knives, swords, steins, saddles, Indian artifacts, political buttons, music boxes, World War I posters, and more. Location: On Route 66. Address: 333 Lynn Riggs Boulevard, Claremore, OK 74018. Phone: 918-341-5707. Web site: www.state.ok.us/~jmdavis. The Muskogee War Memorial Park is the home of the USS Batfish, the most decorated submarine in World War II. Plaques name all 52 submarines and their 3,505 crew members who were lost in the war. Location: Take Route 1-65 to Route 62 south until it intersects with Route 64. Address: 3500 Batfish Road, P.O. Box 253, Muskogee, OK 74402. Phone: 918-682-6294. Web site: www.ussbatfish.com/wm-park.html.
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OREGON Inspired by the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, Oregon veterans built the Vietnam Veterans of Oregon Memorial using a a similar design in 1987. The curved black granite wall lists the names of all Oregon residents who died in Vietnam or who are missing in action. The wall also chronicles three years of the conflict and concurrent local events, providing a poignant contrast. Its location in an arboretum provides a serene setting for reflection. The memorial also includes several symbolic components: a bosque of pear trees at the entrance symbolizes life and sacredness; water elements in the Garden of Solace signify life, purity, and hope. Location: Route I-5 or I-405, west on 26 to SW Canyon Road. Address: 4000 SW Canyon Road, Portland, OR 97221. Web site: http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm ?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=835. Portland is also home to the USS Blueback, the last non-nuclear submarine built by the United States. It can be toured at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry Location: Just off I-5 immediately north of the Willamette River. Address: 1945 SE Water Avenue, Portland, OR 97214. Phone: 503-797-4000. Web site: www.omsi.edu /visit/submarine. Oregon’s Evergreen Aviation Museum contains over 50 planes from a replica of the Wright Brothers’ first vehicle to the present. Of special interest is the ‘‘Spruce Goose,’’ a flying boat developed by Howard Hughes during World War II but never used. The Oregon Aviation Hall of Fame is also here. Location: McMinnville is at the intersection of Routes 18 and 221. Address: 3850 SW Three Mile Lane, McMinnville, OR 97128. Phone: 503-434-4180. www.sprucegoose.org. The Oregon Air & Space Museum contains seven aircraft built by the French, Germans, and Americans in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam along with artifacts detailing the history of aviation, especially in Oregon. Location: At south end of Eugene Airport one block north of Airport Drive. Address: 90377 Boeing Drive, Eugene, OR 97402. Phone: 541-461-1101. Web site: www.oasm.info. The Tillamook Air Museum has a collection of over 30 warbirds, a jet simulator, and rare historical wartime artifacts. The museum is housed in a World War II blimp hangar—the largest wooden structure in the world. Location: On Route 101, 2 miles south of Tillamook. Address: 6030 Hangar Road, Tillamook, OR 97141. Phone: 503842-1130. Web site: www.tillamookair.com. The Oregon Military Museum contains weapons, uniforms, and other artifacts pertaining to military history, mostly from the twentieth century. Location: Grounds of Camp Withycombe, just east of I-205. Address: Clackamas, OR 97015. Phone: 503-557-5359 Web site: www.swiftview.com/~ormilmuseum.
PENNSYLVANIA See also Gettysburg National Cemetery. Pennsylvania’s military heritage dates from the French and Indian War after seven decades of peace instituted by William Penn and the pacifist Quaker government came
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to an end. The war began in 1754 in what is now western Pennsylvania. Fort Necessity National Battlefield is a reconstruction of the small circular fort where Colonel George Washington, aged 22, hoping to claim the region for Virginia, surrendered to a larger French force, precipitating the war. Programs include reenactments and training for those who will be interpreters at Indian villages. Location: On Route 40 southeast of Uniontown. Address; RD 2, Box 528, Farmington, PA 15437. Phone: 412-3295512. Web site: www.nps.gov/fone. The Fort Pitt Museum stands on the site of the original fort, built by the British in 1758, of which only a small blockhouse owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution remains. It has dioramas and artwork on the fort’s role in the settlement of the West from the French and Indian War to the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805, which used it as their headquarters to gather men and supplies. Videos and artwork, including paintings by Robert Griffing, the foremost painter of the French and Indian War and frontier life at the present time, enhance the display of artifacts. Location: At the start of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, take I-376, I-79, or U.S. 22 to downtown Pittsburgh and follow signs. Address: 101 Commonwealth Place, Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Phone: 412-281-9285. Web site: www.fortpittmuseum.com. The French were defeated in the war, but not the Indians. Bushy Run Battlefield is the site where in 1763 Colonel Henry Bouquet and 400 soldiers marching from Carlisle defeated the Indians who had been besieging Pittsburgh, opening western Pennsylvania to settlement after the war. The only historic site devoted to Pontiac’s War, the visitors center and museum has artifacts and a statue of a Native American Warrior (fully painted); the battlefield site is well marked and an annual reenactment occurs. Also included are works by Robert Griffing, the foremost contemporary painter of the French and Indian War and frontier life at the time. Location: On Route 993 West, 3 miles from Business 66 North/toll road 66 intersection near Greensburg. Address: Bushy Run Road, Jeanette, PA 15644. Phone: 412-527-5584. Web site: www.bushyrunbattlefield.com. Fort Ligonier is one of the best-preserved eighteenth-century Vauban forts in the world. Its extensive exhibit halls set the French and Indian War in context of the world war occurring at the same time in Europe, Indian, Africa, and the West Indies. An art gallery has 13 portraits of notable figures of the war, and ‘‘The Hermitage’’ preserves the surviving parlor of General Arthur St. Clair’s late-eighteenth-century mansion. Location: Route 30, intersection with Route 711, 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. Address: Fort Ligonier Foundation, 200 South Market Street, Ligonier, PA 75658. Phone: 412238-9701. Web site: www.fortligonier.org/index.htm. Robert Guy Jr. and Kenneth Hoover have designed a traveling museum honoring ‘‘William Thompson, The Forgotten Patriot, 1736–1781’’ that is available to educational and historical institutions. It is devoted to the leader and soldiers of the Pennsylvania riflemen, who fought in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. It features artifacts and displays on warfare in western Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. Contact:
[email protected]. Pennsylvania was both the center of the national government and the site of many military actions during the American Revolution. Most famous is Valley Forge, where the National Historical Park features a visitors center, video, and costumed
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interpreters who tell the story of the deadly winter Washington’s army spent here in 1777 and 1778. Notable sites are ‘‘Muhlenberg’s Brigade,’’ a reconstruction of troop quarters, Washington’s headquarters (the James Potts mansion), General Varnum’s headquarters, a typical farm house of the era, the Horace Wilcox Library which has research materials on the encampment and area (formerly the estate of Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox), and the Washington Chapel, a Gothic style functioning Episcopal Church built in 1903. It has stained glass windows depicting the history of Valley Forge and a beautiful carillon with 58 bells. Location: Near the intersection of I-76 and U.S. 202 and 422, on Route 23, at King of Prussia. Address: 1400 Outer Line Drive, Valley Forge, PA 19406. Phone: 610-783-1077. Web site: www.nps.gov/vafo. Fort Mifflin, south of Philadelphia, was built to defend the city in 1777 from the British, and occupied by the U.S. Army until 1954. The fort has several buildings that tell the history of it and offers periodic living history reenactments. Site of the largest bombardment in the history of North America in 1777, it held off the British navy to prevent it from ascending the Delaware River and thus occupying Pennsylvania north of Philadelphia. Location: Off I-95 and then Route 15, Island Avenue, then left on Enterprise Avenue, right on Fort Mifflin Road. Address: Fort Mifflin Road, Philadelphia, PA 19153. Phone: 215-685-4192. Web site: www.fortmifflin.us. Most of the sites at Independence National Historical Park, such as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, concern the civilian aspects of the American Revolution and founding of the nation (such as Franklin Court). But the park also contains the New Hall Military Museum (located on Chestnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets) and the reconstructed Carpenters’ Company of 1791. The latter housed the offices of the War Department and Secretary of War Henry Knox when Philadlephia became the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800. Exhibits highlight the founding of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial is the house at Third and Pine Streets where the Polish patriot and Revolutionary War general lived in the 1790s after the Polish struggle for independence was defeated. Portraits of many revolutionary war generals are in the Second Bank of the United States building (Chestnut Street between Fourth and Fifth). A statue of John Barry, the first captain in the U.S. Navy, is at the rear of Independence Hall. A statue of George Washington and an eternal flame commemorate the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution at Washington Square (Pine Street and Sixth Street), where many American Revolutionary soldiers are anonymously buried. Location: Off I-95 or I-676 in downtown Philadelphia, National Park. Address: 143 South Third Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Phone: 215-965-2305. Web site: www.nps.gov/inde. Western Pennsylvania also figured in the War for Independence. Fort Roberdeau was built in 1778 under the direction of General Daniel Roberdeau to protect workers in the adjacent lead mine and smelting facility from loyalists and Indians. The reconstructed fort features a museum of contemporary artifacts in an 1860 farm house. Location: Follow signs off I-99 or U.S. 220 north of Altoona. Address: RR 3, Box 391, Altoona, PA 16601. Phone: 814-946-0048. Web site: http://fortroberdeau.org. The fleet that won the principal U.S. naval victory in the War of 1812 was built in Erie, Pennsylvania., with materials gathered from the state. The U.S. Brig Niagara
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is a reconstruction of the flagship Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry used to win the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. It is used as a training ship; there is also a museum of artifacts of the maritime history of the lake and region. Location: I-79 North becomes the Bayfront Highway, take it to Holland Street where you will see the Bayview Commons Building opposite the ship. Address: 150 East Front Street, Erie, PA 16507. Phone: 814-452-BRIG. Web site: www.brigniagara.org. Besides Gettysburg (see separate entry) there are several sites devoted to the Civil War in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum has several galleries: escutcheons, that is military crests which only came into existence in the United States following the Civil War, medical and hospital items, music and games relating to the war, and weapons. Individual galleries are devoted to Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. On the wall is the head of ‘‘Old Baldy,’’ Meade’s horse who survived 14 wounds and died at the age of 30 in 1882. Meade’s house (1836 Delancey Street) is around the corner and is a private residence. Location: I-76, left on South Street, left on 18th Street, 3 blocks north to Pine. Address: 1815 Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Phone: 215-735-8196. Web site: www.cwurmuseum.org. Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall is a monumental classical structure built by the Grand Army of the Republic in the 1890s. Its four halls are available for events, and the National Military Museum tells the role of southwest Pennsylvania in America’s conflicts beginning with the Civil War. Location: 5th Avenue and Bigelow Boulevard. Address: 4141 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Phone: 412-621-4253. Web site: www.soldiersandsailorshall.org. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is the site of the National Civil War Museum, which has 17 galleries devoted to the history of the war. Noteworthy are ‘‘Costs of the War’’ about medicine and mortality; ‘‘Why Men Fought’’; the naval war; women and war; memory of the war; Camp Curtin—located in Harrisburg where many soldiers trained and were shipped to the Army of the Potomac; and particular battles, campaigns, and the general history of the war. Markers outside record the number of men who served and died from each state. Location: U.S. 22 (Walnut Street) to Parkside Cafe´ then turn up the hill into Reservoir Park. Address: 1 Lincoln Circle, Reservoir Park, Harrisburg, PA 17103. Phone: 866-258-4729. Web site: www.nationalcivilwarmuseum.org. There are few monuments relating to the Spanish-American War, but one of them can be found in Philadelphia. Among various items relating to the naval history of the city at the Independence Seaport Museum is the USS Olympia, the flagship of Admiral George Dewey when he captured Manila in the Philippines during the War. Location: North on Columbus Boulevard off I-95 exit. Address: 211 South Columbus Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Phone: 215-925-5439. Web site: www.phillyseaport.org. For an overview of Pennsylvania’s role in twentieth-century wars, the best site is the Pennsylvania Military Museum. A World War I trench is a notable feature, along with weapons, uniforms, and artifacts. Adjacent is the 28th Division Infantry Shrine, commemorating Pennsylvania National Guard units mustered as part of this division in World Wars I and II. The fac¸ ade of the museum has a wall depicting the ribbons appearing on all the nation’s medals. Location: Business 322 (90 miles northwest of
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Harrisburg) or I-80, exit 162, south to Atherton Street (about 15 miles) then left. Address: P.O. Box 160A, South Atherton Street, Boalsburg, PA 16827. Phone: 814466-6401. Web site: www.pamilmuseum.org. World War II veterans are honored at several museums. The Pennsylvania Veterans Museum features exhibits (some interactive) on World War II devoted to the invasion of Europe, the home front (women’s and children’s role), and the war in the Pacific. Several films may be viewed. Location: Downtown Media in Delaware County. Right from the north, left from the south at Exit 2 on Route 476. Address: 12 East State Street, Media, PA 19063. Phone: 610-566-0788. Web site: www .paveteransmuseum.org. The Eldred World War II Museum contains a Hall of Flags of all the Allied powers; dioramas of the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Kursk in Russia, and General Patton’s advance through Europe; large operations maps; and the story of the National Munitions Company, formerly located in Eldred where 1,500 workers labored day and night from 1942 to 1945 and produced 8,000,000 bombs, mortar shells, and fuses. Visitors can ‘‘operate’’ a tank on a simulated battlefield. Exhibits are devoted to the various theaters of the war and the war’s causes. Location: On Route 446 at 201 Main Street—85 miles south of Niagara Falls. Address: Box 273, Eldred, PA 16731. Phone: 814-225-2220. Web site: www.eldredwwiimuseum.org. Among the Carnegie Science Center’s many exhibits is the USS Requin, a World War II submarine whose functions are explained using advanced video technology. Location: Next to Heinz Field on the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, off Exit 7A of I-376. Address: One Allegheny Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15212. Phone: 412-237-3400. Web site: www.carnegiesciencecenter.org. Eisenhower National Historic Site, adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield, was the president’s weekend retreat during his presidency and home after he retired. The home is furnished much as he lived in it. A virtual tour is available online, and items at the house illustrate Eisenhower’s military career and role as supreme commander in World War II. Location: Only accessible via shuttle buses from Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center, 1.5 miles south of Gettysburg on Route 97, 1195 Baltimore Pike. Address: 97 Taneytown Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325. Phone: 717-338-9114. Web site: www.nps.gov/eise. Philadelphia has one of the nation’s more impressive Vietnam War memorials. The Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial consists of two walls, one with the names of Philadelphians who died in the war, the other of eight panels designed by Temple University student Tom Rice illustrating aspects of the war from the launching of the first air strikes to the evacuation of Saigon. Location: I-95 to Bridge Street exit, right on Mercer Street. Address: 4720 Mercer Street, Philadelphia, PA 19137. Phone: 215535-0643. Web site: www.pvvm.org. Pennsylvania has several aircraft museums. The Air Heritage Museum and Aircraft Restoration facility has seven restored aircraft, some of which participate in air shows, along with artifacts related to aviation history of the region. Location: Exit 1 of Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76), south on Route 60 to 51 (west). Address: Beaver County Airport, Beaver Falls, PA 15010. Phone: 724-843-2820. Web site: www.airheritage.org.
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The American Helicopter Museum and Education Center has over 35 helicopters on display, the largest number in the United States, both civilian and military, along with a research library and artifacts. Visitors can enter the helicopters. Location: From Route 202 north of I-95 right (east) on Boot Road to Wilson Drive, right on Wilson Drive, left on Airport Road, right on American Boulevard. Address: 1220 American Boulevard, Brandywine Airport, West Chester, PA 19380. Phone: 610-436-9600. Web site: www.helicoptermuseum.org. The Delaware Valley Historical Aircraft Association has 14 aircraft, over 200 models, and 40 display cases focusing on World Wars I and II, Korea, Southeast Asia, women in aviation, and contemporary aircraft and space exploration. Location: Route 611 (1155 Easton Road, Horsham) 3 miles north of Turnpike Exit 343. Address: Naval Air Station—Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove, PA 19090. Phone: 215-4436039. Web site: www.dvhaa.org. The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum contains 43 civilian and 22 military airplanes from 1928 to the present plus 2 Wright Brothers’ replicas. Many of these are used in air shows. Location: At the Reading Airport, off Route 183 (18 miles south of I-78 or just north of the intersection of Routes 422 and 183). Address: 11 Museum Drive, Reading, PA 19605. Phone: 610-372-7333. Web site: www.maam.org. The Piper Aviation Museum is dedicated to the former company located on this site and contains aircraft and aircraft equipment, corporate and family records, flight journals and magazines, photographs, and memorabilia. Location: Exit for Piper Memorial Airport off Route 150, or follow Walnut Street toward business district in Lock Haven and look for signs. Address: One Piper Way, Lock Haven, PA 17745. Phone: 570-748-8283. Web site: www.pipermuseum.com. Finally, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center offers rotating exhibits on different aspects of U.S. military history, but its primary function is to preserve journals, letters, and other memorabilia relating to veterans, to present lectures and other educational programs, and to facilitate research. It is adjacent to the Army War College. Location: Off Route I-81, exit 49 at High Street. Address: 22 Ashburn Drive, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. Phone: 717-258-1102. Web site: www.carlisle.army.mil/ahec.
RHODE ISLAND Rhode Island has several sites that commemorate its role in the War for Independence. The Mansion of James Mitchell Varnum, brigadier general in the Continental Army and commander of the Rhode Island militia, has artifacts relating to the Revolutionary War. It is run in tandem with the Varnum Memorial Armory, headquarters for the Rhode Island State and National Guard from 1918 to 1996. Built in medieval style, it has an extensive Military and Naval Museum which features collections of flags, decorations, and artifacts from the sixteenth century to the present. Location: On U.S. Route 1. Take Exit 2 off I-95 and follow Route 4 south to Route 1. Address: 6 Main Street (Armory) and 57 Peirce Street, East Greenwich, RI 02818. Phone: 401-8844110. Web site: www.varnumcontinentals.org. The Fort Barton Nature Walk has over 3 miles of trails around the Revolutionary War redoubt where the patriots assembled for the Battle of Rhode Island. This occurred
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when a combined French and American force failed to retake Newport from the British in August 1778. . A 20-foot-tall observation tower offers spectacular views. Location: From Route 138, take Route 77 south to Lawton Avenue. Go to the end of Lawton Avenue where it meets Highland Road. Address: Highland Road, Tiverton, RI 02878. Phone: 401-625-6700. Web site: http://newportvisions.com/home/barton1.html. Fort Wetherill State Park is the site of the Revolutionary War fort that the British seized that guarded Newport Harbor. It was repeatedly updated and remained active until after World War II, after which it trained German prisoners of war to participate in law enforcement on their return home. Location: I-95 to Exit 2 to Route 4 south to Route 1 south to Route 138 east to Canonicus Avenue to Walcott Avenue to Fort Wetherill Road. Address: c/o Goddard State Memorial Park, 1095 Ives Road, Warwick, RI 02818. Phone: 401-884-2010. Web site: www.riparks.com/fortweth.htm. The Sloop Providence faithfully replicates John Paul Jones’ first command in the American Revolution. He captured 40 British ships with this 12-gun vessel. It is now used for sailing instruction in addition to portraying navy history. Location: 408 Broadway (on the bay) in Providence. Address: Providence Maritime Heritage Foundation, 408 Broadway, Providence, RI 02909. Phone: 401-274-7447. Built between 1824 and 1826, Fort Adams is a well-maintained state park that can be reached via ferry that leaves near the visitors center in downtown Newport. Otherwise take Bellevue Avenue, right on Ruggles Avenue to its end, then left on Brenton Road. Address: Eisenhower House, l Lincoln Road, Newport, RI 02840. Phone: 401841-0707. Web site: www.fortadams.org. The Rhode Island World War II Memorial was unveiled in 2007 in downtown Providence. Two granite tablets name all of the Rhode Islanders who died in the war. An engraved map of the world serves as the stone floor at the center of the monument. Stars mark where various campaigns and major battles took place and direct visitors to the eight surrounding columns which give a brief history of those campaigns. Location: South Main Street in Providence. Web site: www.visitrhodeisland.com/what-to -do/beaches/1502/world-war-ii-memorial-state-park/. The Quonset Air Museum currently has 28 planes and helicopters (and one missile) on display, along with artifacts relating to the aerospace history of Rhode Island. Location: On U.S. Route 1 take Exit 2 to Route 4 south to Route 1. Address: 488 Eccleston Avenue, P.O. Box 1571, North Kingston, RI 02852. Phone: 401-294-9540. Web site: www.theqam.org.
SOUTH CAROLINA South Carolina commemorates well its significant role in the American Revolution. The Cowpens National Battlefield witnessed the defeat of Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s British army by General Daniel Morgan on January 19, 1781, giving the patriots nearly total control of the Carolina backcountry. The museum contains artifacts of the period, a laser disc presentation, interactive maps, and hands-on activities. Location: Route 11. Accessible from I-85 (10 miles west of Exit 92 at Gaffney) or I-26 (Exit 5 east toward Chesnee about 20 miles). Address: P.O. Box 308, Chesnee, SC 29323. Phone: 803-461-2828. Web site: www.nps.gov/cowp.
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Fort Moultrie National Historic Site traces the entire history (1776–1947) of national seacoast defense. The original fort, built in 1776, held off a British naval attack during the Revolution, and, with Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie withstood a Union assault that lasted 22 months from 1863 until the city of Charleston surrendered in February 1865. It was then modernized and defended Charleston Harbor until the end of World War II. The museum has Revolutionary, Civil War, and SpanishAmerican War exhibits. Location: Route 17 in Charleston or I-526 to Route 703, southeast to Sullivan’s Island, then west to Middle Street. Address: 1214 Middle Street, Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482. Phone: 843-883-3123. Web site: www.nps.gov /fosu/historyculture/fort_moultrie.htm. Charleston is also the home of a very large street sign identifying Lincoln Way, downtown, as being named for Benjamin Lincoln, the Massachusetts general who unsuccessfully defended the city from the British in 1780, rather than the sixteenth president. A tablet in front of City Hall (80 Broad Street, downtown) honors Major Francis Salvador, the first Jew killed in the American Revolution. Kings Mountain National Military Park marks the first major patriot victory, on October 7, 1780, of the Southern campaign (1779–1781) where mostly Scots-Irish patriots from what became Tennessee defeated a loyalist force of nearly 1,000 men. The park contains two monuments (an obelisk and a large stone rectangular one), the grave of loyalist commander Patrick Ferguson, a visitors’ center with a film of the battle, and artifacts including Ferguson’s rifle, and a trail explaining important sites on the battlefield. Location: On SC Route 216, which is accessible from Exit 2 on I-85 in North Carolina. Address: 2625 Park Road, Blacksburg, SC 29702. Phone: 864-9367921. Web site: www.nps.gov/kimo. Ninety Six National Historic Site, the site of two backcountry Revolutionary War battles, contains the reconstructed fort and visitors center with a museum and artifacts and a video documenting the history of the fort. Location: 2 miles south of the town of NinetySix on Highway 248, which can be reached from I-26 or I-85. Address: P.O. Box 496, Ninety Six, SC 29666. Phone: 864-543-4068. Web site: www.nps.gov/nisi/index.htm. Fort Sumter National Historic Site consists of the island fort, along with an onshore visitors center and museum, that explain the history of the site where the Civil War began when Confederate troops began shelling this Union post on April 12, 1861. The fort was built to remedy the defenses of Charleston following the War of 1812. The Web site has extensive introductions to the museum and visitors center explaining the fort’s history and the origins of the Civil War with particular reference to South Carolina and Charleston. Location: By ferry from the visitors center and museum, located at the eastern end of Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston. Address: 1214 Middle Street, Sullivan Island, SC 29482. Phone: 803-883-3123. Web site: www.nps.gov/fosu. The second floor of the restored Market Hall in Charleston is a Confederate Museum consisting of flags, weapons, uniforms, and photographs on display at the state headquarters of the Daughters of the Confederacy, who created the museum in 1898. Location: I-26 south to U.S. Hwy 52 Spur south and then a right on Meeting Street. Address: 188 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC 29401. Phone: 843-723-1541. Web site: www.csa-scla.org/articles/ConfederateMuseum.htm.
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Up country, the Museum and Library of Confederate History has artifacts and photographs from the war, ‘‘a hall of honor’’ focusing on the activities of Confederate veterans, and an exhibit of the home front during the war. Location: End of I-385 in Greenville (Exit 42) which goes into North Street. Two blocks on North Street, then left on Boyce Avenue to Pettigrew Street. Address: 15 Boyce Avenue, Greenville, SC 29601. Phone: 864-421-9039. Web site: www.confederatemuseum.org. The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, has a museum and research archive. These cover the history of the institution and the role of its graduates and students (who fought in the Civil War) played in various wars since its founding in 1842. Location: Daniel Library of Citadel; I-26 to Exit 219, Rutledge Avenue, go west to Moultrie Street, then right (north). Address: 171 Moultrie Street, Charleston, SC 29409. Phone: 843-953-6848. Web site: www.citadel.edu/museum/index.html. Fort Jackson, on the outskirts of the state capital, Columbia is the home of four museums. The Fort Jackson Museum has over 4,000 artifacts dealing with the history of the fort and U.S. military history since World War I. The U.S. Army Adjutant General’s Corps Museum deals with the corps which is responsible for the administration of army posts, morale, events, and so on. The U.S. Army Chaplains Museum honors the clergymen and their assistants responsible for the spiritual health and morale of the troops. U.S. Army Finance Museum tells the story of the men responsible for the soldiers’ wages, purchases with contractors, and more. The last three of these museums have exhibits explaining the histories of these services dating back to the Revolution. Location: Exit 12 to Gate 2 off Highway 77 northeast of Columbia, South Carolina. Addresses: c/o each museum. Fort Jackson, SC 29207. Phones: Fort Jackson Museum, 803-751-7419; Adjutant General’s Corps Museum, 803-751-1747; Chaplain’s Museum, 803-751-8079; Finance Museum, 803-751-3771. Web site: www.jackson .army.mil—check for each museum. Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum is home to the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier that served in World War II and the Vietnam War and on which is located the Congressional Medal of Honor Museum that explains the origins and history of the award and the story of the men and women who received it. The USS Laffey (a battleship), USS Clamagore (a submarine), and USCG Ingham (a coast guard vessel) are also available for inspection along with 24 airplanes. A Cold War Memorial to the submarine service and a reconstructed Vietnam support base are also part of the museum. Location: Highway 17 to Mt. Pleasant exit, cross Ravenel Bridge, right at foot of Bridge onto Coleman Building (703), right at first light to Bud Darby Lane which ends and becomes Patriots Point Road. Address: 40 Patriots Point Road, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464. Phone: 843-884-2727. Web site: www.patriotspoint.org.
SOUTH DAKOTA Memorials to South Dakota Veterans may be found on the grounds of the Capitol Complex in Pierre: Veterans of All Wars (an eternal flame lighted at night in front of tablets listing names of veterans), World War II (six bronze statues representing the services that participated in the war—including one woman), the Korean War
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(a serviceman in front of tablets with names of those who died from the state) and Vietnam (a serviceman guarding a tablet set off by a U.S. flag listing the names of those who died). Location: Two blocks north of the Missouri River behind Griffin Park on Capitol Avenue. Web site: www.state.sd.us/applications/mv91mvainternetrewrite/ default.asp?navid=55. Also in the state capitol is the South Dakota National Guard Museum that has displays tracing the history of the state’s militia/national guard from its inception in the 1860s, when South Dakota was a territory, until its role in the Iraq War. These contain uniforms, weapons, other artifacts, and documents. An AD-7 jet and a Sherman tank are among the weapons displayed outdoors. Location: Intersection of Routes 14, 34, and 83 near downtown Pierre. Address: 301 East Dakota, Pierre, SD 57501. Phone: 605-224-9991. Web site: www.state.sd.us/applications/MV91MVAInternetRewrite/ natl_guard_museum.html. The South Dakota Air and Space Museum consists of 25 planes, 4 missiles, 2 interactive cockpits, and the South Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame. Location: Adjacent to main gate of base. Take Exit 67 off I-90 and follow signs. Address: 2890 Davis Drive, Ellsworth Air Force Base, SD 57719. Phone: 605-385-5188. Web site: www.sdairandspacemuseum.com. The USS South Dakota Battleship Memorial houses artifacts, memoirs, and photographs of men who served on this World War II vessel and it is host to their annual reunion. Location: I-29 south of I-9 to Exit 79, east on 12th Street, right on Kiwanis Avenue to 12th Avenue at Sherman Park. Address: 600 East 7 Street, Sioux Falls, SD 57103. Phone: 605-367-7141. Web site: www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10849. The Indian Museum of North America contains artifacts related to the history of Native Americans at the site of the unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial (begun in 1948, the face was finished and dedicated in 1998) to honor the Lakota chief who led that people’s resistance to white settlement. The sculpture’s final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet high as opposed to the four heads of U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore, which are 60 feet high. The idea for the monument arose in 1939, when Lakota (Sioux) Chief Henry Standing Bear contacted sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who had worked on Mount Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum’s direction, and urged him to depict an Indian hero so that visitors to Mount Rushmore, 8 miles away, would also be aware of the people who fought to preserve their homeland on its site. Eight years later, Zilokowski began work that continued sporadically until his death in 1982. He twice refused $10 million in funding from the federal government, and all funding has come from the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation along with over a million visitors a year. Corporations have donated most of the heavy equipment needed for blasting stone and moving large amounts of earth. When completed at some date in the future (one guess is 2050), the memorial will be the largest sculpture in the world unless a larger one is begun at some future time. It will also include the University and Medical Training Center for the North American Indian. Some American Indians are opposed to the monument on the grounds. Crazy Horse never allowed himself to be photographed and kept his burial site secret. Russell Means has termed the sculpture a desecration comparable to carving up Mount Zion in the Holy Land, and other Indians believe it destroys a
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beautiful landscape. Some point out that the monument has been struck several times by lightning, indicating Crazy Horse’s posthumous displeasure. Location: U.S. Highway 16/385, 8 miles south of Mt. Rushmore. Address: Crazy Horse Memorial, 12151 Avenue of the Chiefs, Crazy Horse, SD 57730. Phone: 605-673-4681. Web site: www.crazyhorse.org.
TENNESSEE Most of Tennessee’s tributes to veterans relate to the several hard-fought Civil War battles that occurred in the state. The Fort Donelson National Battlefield, where in 1862 Ulysses S. Grant demanded unconditional surrender and freed Kentucky from Confederate control, has a visitors center with artifacts that tell the story of the battle. Trails of the battlefield may be followed and an excellent Web site is available. There is also a museum devoted to the Underground Railroad and African Americans in the war and a national cemetery where both Union and Confederate veterans and their families are buried. Location: On Highway 79 just south of the Kentucky/Tennessee border, 13 miles east of Murray. Address: P.O. Box 434, Dover, TN 37058. Phone: 931-232-5706. Web site: www.nps.gov/fodo/. Shiloh National Military Park is the site of the two-day battle in April 1862 where General Grant reversed his losses of the first day in one of the war’s bloodiest battles and obtained federal control of most of western Tennessee. The site contains hundreds of statues, monuments, and markers, erected to veterans of particular states and units, as well as individuals. Many are located to highlight particular movements or events of the battle. Both the visitors center and the nearby Civil War Interpretive Center in Corinth, Mississippi, have programs and artifacts explaining the war and the battle. Location: Shiloh: on Route 22 south of I-64. Corinth: continue south on Route 22. Address: 1055 Pittsburg Landing, Shiloh, TN 38376. Phone: 901-689-5696. Web site: www.nps.gov/shil. Stones River National Battlefield commemorates the battle also known in the South as Murfreesboro, where the Union prevented the South from controlling middle Tennessee in a struggle from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. A visitors center tells the story of the battle and houses artifacts. Location: Exit 26 off I-24, south on Medical Center Parkway, right onto access road to Old Nashville Highway then left at stop sign onto the highway itself. Address: 3501 Old Nashville Highway, Murfreesboro, TN 37129. Phone: 615-893-9501. Web site: www.nps.gov/stri. Just outside Chattanooga, part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (for more information see Chickamauga under Georgia) is the visitors center for the Battle of Lookout Mountain that enabled besieged Union troops to drive away the Confederate Army in 1863. The center contains James Walker’s 13×33-feet painting of the battle. The park has over 3,000 acres of trails with hundreds of markers and monuments. Location: Follow signs from Exit 178 off I-24. Address: P.O. Box 2128, Fort Oglethorpe, GA 30742. Phone: 706-866-9241. Web site: www.nps.gov/chch. The Tennessee Civil War Museum is devoted to the life of the common soldier and illustrates it with artifacts and demonstrations. Location: Base of Lookout
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Mountain (see Chattanooga Battlefield). Address: 3914 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37409. Phone: 423-821-4954. Web site: www.planetware.com/ chattanooga/tennessee-civil-war-museum-us-tn-54.htm. The Tennessee Military Museum is part of the Tennessee State Museum and has exhibits devoted to the state’s participation in American wars. Sergeant Alvin York, the state’s most famous World War I soldier and Medal of Honor recipient, is honored with a special exhibit as well as a statue on the grounds of the state capitol. Outside the museum are the states’ World War I, Korean War, and Vietnam War memorials. Location: Route 431 to Fourth Avenue North, left on Deaderick Street in downtown Nashville. Address: 505 Deaderick Street, Nashville, TN 37243. Phone: 615-7412692. Web site: www.tnmuseum.org/exhibitions.cfm/16.
TEXAS The most frequently visited historical site in Texas is the Alamo, with about 2.5 million visitors a year. It was originally a Spanish mission outside San Antonio constructed between 1724 and 1762. On March 6, 1836, a Texas force of between 150 and 250 men (the number is still uncertain) was finally conquered after a 13-day siege by a Mexican army commanded by General Santa Anna. At least a dozen of the defenders were Tejanos, or Texans of Mexican descent. Of the many myths surrounding the Alamo, one is that no one survived. But at least two men did—Joe, a slave of Texas Commander William B. Travis, who was released, and Brigido Guerrero, who convinced the Mexicans he had been taken prisoner. Women and children were also released. At least one man left the Alamo rather than remain and fight to the death, and there may have been others. The legend that Colonel Travis drew a line in the sand and asked all those willing to fight to the death to cross it can neither be proven nor unproven. Several couriers sending for help also left and 32 men from Gonzales were able to arrive and reinforce the fort. The men at the Alamo did not know that Texas had declared independence on March 2, although they probably expected it, and they did not buy time for General Sam Houston to form his main army, which had already assembled. ‘‘Remember the Alamo’’ and the fact Santa Anna took none of about 50 combatants who probably remained alive at the end as prisoners became the rallying cry of Texas independence. Participants Jim Bowie and former Tennessee Congressman David Crockett are especially remembered as heroes. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas purchased the site in 1903, after it served as both a U.S. Quartermaster Depot and then a general store. They turned it over to the state of Texas in 1905 but continue to manage it; since 1913 they have posted a sign requesting gentlemen to remove their hats inside as a gesture of respect. Five gates allow access to the four-acre Alamo complex. At the center is the old church, the Shrine, where artifacts such as Travis’ ring, Crockett’s vest, a rifle from the battle, and a Bowie knife may be found. The Alamo Gardens are attractively arranged and separate the Shrine from the Wall of History, an outdoor exhibit that explains the entire history of the site. The Long Barrack Museum, opened in 1968, contains the Clara Driscoll Theater which shows the History Channel’s film on the Alamo. Location: Easily accessible at Exit 141A off Route 181 in downtown
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San Antonio. Address: P.O. Box 2599, San Antonio, TX 78299. Phone: 210-225-1391. Web site: www.thealamo.org. Also in San Antonio is Fort Sam Houston, which has exhibits containing artwork, weapons, documents, uniforms, and other artifacts explain the history of the fort from 1718 to the present. The site has been used by Spanish, Mexican, Texas, and U.S. forces to defend and proceed from San Antonio. Theodore Roosevelt mobilized the Rough Riders here in 1898 and the first U.S. military airplane was flown here in 1910. More artifacts dealing with the Rough Riders may be found on the first floor and in the bar of the Menger Hotel, near the Alamo, where Roosevelt stayed and organized his volunteer regiment. Location: 1210 Stanley Road, Building 123; Gate on Walters Avenue north of I-35. Address: MCCS-GPTMS-M, 2250 Stanley Road, Suite 36, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234.. Phone: 210-221-1886. Web site: http:// ameddregiment.amedd.army.mil/fshmuse/fshmusemain.htm. Also at Fort Sam Houston is the U.S. Army Medical Department Museum, which contains artwork, equipment, uniforms, vehicles, and descriptions of medical practices in every American war from the Revolution to the present. Location: 2310 Stanley Road, Building 1046; Gate on Walters Avenue, north of I-35. Address: 2310 Stanley Road, Building 1046, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234. Phone: 210-221-6358. Web site: http://ameddregiment.amedd.army.mil/museum2/. The San Antonio Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the most impressive in the state. It was dedicated on November 9, 1986. The bronze sculpture depicts a radio operator comforting a wounded comrade while awaiting a medivac helicopter. It is 10 feet tall, 23 feet long, and 12 feet wide and weighs 10 tons. It sits in front of the Municipal Auditorium in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza, next to which is the Korean War Veterans Memorial Plaza. Location: Intersection of Richmond. Jefferson, Convent, and Avenue A about five blocks northwest of the Alamo. Early Texas history is commemorated by the San Jacinto Battle Monument that is the world’s tallest monumental column at 570 feet, capped by a 34-foot-tall Lone Star to symbolize Texas. It commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto where Texas won its independence when General Sam Houston’s army defeated General Santa Anna’s Mexican forces on April 21, 1836. Although the Texas Veterans Association began planning the monument and the state purchased the land in the 1890s, the monument was only constructed between 1936 and 1939. The museum at the base of the column not only contains artifacts from the Texas Revolution, but Mayan, Aztec, Spanish, French, Mexican, and Civil War artwork. The Jesse H. Jones Theater features a spectacular 35-minute film, ‘‘Texas Forever!’’ on Texas history. The column is the key feature of the 1,200 acre San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Site. Location: Off I-10 or Highway 225 to Battleground Road east of Houston. Address: One Monument Circle, La Porte, TX 77571. Phone: 281-479-2821. Web site: www.sanjacintomuseum.org. Also on the grounds of the San Jacinto site is the Battleship USS Texas. Commissioned in 1912 and the first U.S. ship to launch an airplane in 1919, the Texas served as the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet during World War II before it was decommissioned in 1948. Visitors may board and experience the ship as it was during World War II. Location: Off I-10 or Highway 225 to Battleground Road east of Houston. Address: 3523
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Highway 134, La Porte, TX 77571. Phone: 281-479-2431. Web site: www.tpwd .state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/battleship_texas. The entirety of Texas’ military history appears at the Texas Military Forces Museum. It features large dioramas of the battles of the Alamo, San Jacinto, Sabine Pass, and the Civil War Battle of the Wilderness. The only museum dedicated to the history of Texas forces from the Texas Revolution to the present, it contains weapons from all these wars, including aircraft, tanks, and motor vehicles. There are exhibits on soldiers’ food, women in the military, and Texans who have received the Medal of Honor, along with a research library. Location: Just west of Loop 1, MOPAC Boulevard at 35th Street, enter Camp Mabry, Building 6. Address: 2200 West 35 Street Austin, TX 78763. Phone: 512-406-6916. Web site: www .texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org. The first battle of the Mexican-American War occurred on May 8, 1846, at the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site. The American troops were led by future President Zachary Taylor, and the clash of armies in what was then territory disputed between the two nations led to the American declaration of war. A visitors center has a film and exhibits relating to the battle. There are reenactments and a trail of events from the battle. Location: About 5 miles north of downtown Brownsville; from Route 77/83 take FM 511 exit and go east about two miles to FM 1847. Address: 1623 Central Boulevard, Suite 213, Brownsville, TX 78520. Phone: 956-541-2785. Web site: www.nps.gov/paal. Founded in 1848, Old Fort Bliss was the headquarters for General Pershing’s punitive expedition against Pancho Villa in 1915. The museum features artifacts and adobe buildings from its days as a cavalry post. Living history interpreters and period rooms depict the fort as it was in 1857. Location: On Route 54 north of I-110 to Fort Bliss, corner of Pershing and Pleasonton Roads. Address: ATSA-MM, Fort Bliss, TX 79916. Phone: 915-568-6940. Web site: www3.ausa.org/webpub/DeptArmyMagazine .nsf/byid/CCRN-6CCRX5 Also close to Fort Bliss and administered by it is the U.S. Army Museum of the Noncommissioned Officer. It contains uniforms, weapons, tools, and equipment to present a visual image of the noncommissioned officer’s duties, daily life, and accomplishments from the American Revolution to the present. Documents, posters, drawings, and photographs enhance visual images provided by museum exhibits. Location: Exit 4 off Highway 54 adjacent to the El Paso International Airport and Fort Bliss. Address: SSG Biggs Road, Biggs Army Airfield, TX. Phone: 915-568-8319. Web site: www.epcounty.com/history/border_archives.htm. The Fort Davis National Historic Site has some of the best-preserved frontier military buildings in the nation. Five are restored to the 1880s and have period furnishing; 20 other buildings are preserved or restored. The fort protected west Texas from the Apaches and Comanches between 1854 and 1891. Location: On Highway 17 between San Antonio and El Paso. Address: P.O. Box 1456, Fort Davis, TX 79734. Phone: 915-426-3122. Web site: www.nps.gov/foda The Confederate Memorial in Dallas consists of a 60-foot pillar topped with a Confederate soldier. Surrounding the base are statues of General Robert E. Lee, General Stonewall Jackson, General Albert Johnston, and President Jefferson Davis. Dedicated
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in 1896, the inscriptions read, ‘‘The brazen lips of Southern cannon thundered an unanswered anthem to the God of Battle.’’ ‘‘It was given the genius and valor of Confederate seamen to revolutionize naval warfare over the earth.’’ ‘‘This stone shall crumble into dust ere the deathless devotion of Southern women be forgotten.’’ ‘‘The Confederate sabreur kissed his blade homeward riding on into the mouth of hell.’’ ‘‘Confederate infantry drove bayonets through columns that never before reeled to the shock of battle.’’ Location: Pioneer Park next to the Convention Center, downtown. The First Cavalry Division Museum has galleries dealing with the history of the cavalry and the First Division, formed in 1921 at Fort Bliss, Texas. The Civil, Indian, Spanish-American, World, Korean, Vietnam, and First Gulf Wars along with the Bosnian expedition of 1993 are covered. A gallery pays tribute to the Congressional Medal of Honor winners from the Division. Location: At Fort Hood on Route 190 west of Killeen. Address: Building 2218, P.O. Box 5187, Fort Hood, TX 76545. Phone: 254287-7068. Web site: www.first-team.us/journals/ftmuseum. Numerous artifacts dealing with the World War II in the Pacific are found in the large George Bush Gallery of the National Museum of the Pacific War, formerly the Admiral Nimitz Museum that honors the Texas president who served in that theater. The Gallery is entered through the Plaza of the Presidents that has memorials to the 10 American Presidents who served in World War II and is adjacent to a Japanese Peace Garden. Exhibits related to Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, are found in the nearby Nimitz Hotel, where he spent his childhood. Location: Intersection of Routes 16, 87, and 290, 75 miles northwest of San Antonio. Address: 340 East Main Street, Fredericksburg, TX 78624. Phone: 830-997-4379. Web site: www.nimitz-museum.org. Preserved as a memorial to the sunken USS Seawolf, the USS Cavalla and the adjoining destroyer USS Stewart are from World War II and available for tours. Location: Seawolf Park on Pelican Island; I-45 to Galveston, exit off Highway 275, left onto Pelican Island Causeway. Address: P.O. Box 3306, Galveston, TX 77552. Phone: 409-744-5738. Web site: www.cavalla.org The 910-foot-long World War II USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier Museum on the Bay may be toured. It also contains a mega theater and a flight simulator. It was decommissioned in 1991, and some of the volunteer tour guides served on the ship. Location: I-37 across the bay from downtown Corpus Christi. Address: 2914 North Shoreline Boulevard, Corpus Christi, TX 78402. Phone: 361-888-4873. Web site: www.usslexington.com. A. M. Pate Jr., owner of the Texas Refinery Company, collected vintage vehicles, but the museum also includes an outdoor collection of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam War-era guns and tanks that now comprise the Pate Museum of Transportation. Location and Address: (near Fort Worth) 18501 Highway 377 South, Cresson, TX 76035. Phone: 817-396-4305. Web site: www.texasescapes.com/FortWorthTexas/ Pate-Museum-of-Transportation.htm. Texas has several museums devoted to the U.S. Air Force. The American Airpower Heritage Museum is devoted to the air force and air culture during World War II. It has the world’s largest exhibit of planes’ nose art and has walls of honor for both pilots and veterans in general. It also has traveling exhibits on the USO and the artwork of Peter Hurd (1904–1984), one of the foremost painters of the American
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Southwest. Location: At Midland Airport halfway between Odessa and Midland, on Wright Drive north of I-20 business. Address: 9600 Wright Drive, P.O. Box 62000, Midland, TX 79711. Phone: 915-563-1000. Web site: www.airpowermuseum.org. The Cavanaugh Flight Museum has 40 aircraft from World War I to the Vietnam War era and offers rides and air shows. It has an excellent collection of aviation art as well as artifacts such as weapons, vehicles, engines, and other airplane parts. Location: Dallas Parkway to Addison Road to Addison Airport to Claire Chennault Street. Address: 4572 Claire Chennault Street, Addison, TX 75001. Phone: 972-380-8800. Web site: www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com/. The Flight of the Phoenix Aviation Museum has eight planes, models, and artifacts relating to aviation and honors important people in the history of east Texas aviation. Location: Off Route 271 south of Gilmore at airport, Hangar One. Address: P.O. Box 610, Gilmer, TX 75644. Phone: 903-843-2457. Founded in 1988 with the collection of George Haddaway, the Frontiers of Flight Museum contains artifacts, planes, models, and exhibits from the earliest days of aviation to the present. Location: Southeast side of Dallas’ Love Field Terminal. Address: LB-18, 6900 Lemmon Avenue, Dallas, TX 75235. Phone: 214-350-1651. Web site: www.flightmuseum.com. The Lone Star Flight Museum has 16 vintage bomber and fighter planes, vehicles, artifacts, and over 90 works of aviation art from the Dee and Betty Howard Collection. It is also the site of the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame. The museum was severely damaged by Hurricane Ike but has reopened. Location: Next to the Moody Gardens at Galveston International Airport, 2002 Terminal Drive. Address: P.O. Box 3099, Galveston, TX 77552. Phone: 888-359-5736. Web site: www.lsfm.org. The Silent Wings Museum is devoted to gliders used during World War II to land behind enemy lines. It has a 15-minute film, a research library, real gliders, and artifacts related to them. Location: Two blocks east of I-27 at Exit 9 just north of Lubbock. Address: P.O. Box 775, Terrell, TX 75160. Phone: 972-563-0402. Web site: www.silentwingsmuseum.com. The Texas Air Museum has a large collection of planes, vehicles, uniforms, and weapons. It specializes in early, historic aircraft. Location: Off Route 536 at 99th Street at Stinson Municipal Airport. Address: 1234 99th Street, San Antonio, TX 78214. Phone: 210-977-9885. Web site: www.texasairmuseum.org. The Vintage Flying Museum consists of over 20 aircraft, some of which can be flown. It includes a rare B-17 ‘‘Chuckie’’ built in 1944. Location: South end of Meacham International Airport, Fort Worth. Address: 505 NW 38th Street, Hangar 33 South, Fort Worth, TX 76016. Phone: 817-624-1935. Web site: www .vintageflyingmuseum.org.
UTAH The Fort Douglas Military Museum contains buildings open to the public that detail the military history of Utah from the post’s founding in 1862 to its deactivation in 1991. Location: At the Douglas Army Reserve Center, off Route 282 (Wasatch Drive).
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Address: 32 Potter Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84113. Phone: 801-576-3898. Web site: www.fortdouglas.org. The Hill Aerospace Museum has over 4,000 items, including aircraft, that illustrate the history of aviation from the beginning. The exhibits are divided into five sections: The Beginnings, World War II, Dawn of the Jet Age, the Cold War, and Keeping the Peace. Location: I-15 to Exit 338. Address: 75th ABW/MU, 7961 Wardleigh Road Hill AFB, UT 84056. Phone: 801-777-6868. Web site: www.hill.af.mil/library/ museum/index.asp.
VERMONT Three of Vermont’s military sites relate to the invasion from Canada of British General John Burgoyne during the American Revolution. Actions by Vermonters prior to his final defeat at Saratoga, New York, were instrumental in contributing to his surrender. The first resistance he met was at the Battle of Hubbardton (Historic Site), which permitted 4,000 American troops withdrawing from Fort Ticonderoga to escape and fight again. Vermonters commanded by Colonel Seth Warner held off the British here. Location: 7 miles north of U.S. Route 4 from Castleton. Address: c/o Chimney Point State Historic Site, RD 3, Box 3456, Vergennes, VT 05491. Phone: 802-759-2412. Web site: www.historicvermont.org/hubbardton/. The Mount Independence Historic Site, which overlooks Fort Ticonderoga in New York at the southern tip of Lake Champlain, is also preserved as a historical site. It was the location of a fort that the British captured and later destroyed. Location: Take Route 73 west from Route 22A in Orwell. Address: c/o Chimney Point State Historic Site, RD 3, Box 3456, Vergennes, VT 05491. Web site: www.historicvermont.org/ mountindependence/. The Bennington Battle Monument, a 306-foot-tall obelisk completed in 1891, honors the 1,400 men from the area who came to the defense of Vermont and defeated Hessian Colonel Baum’s forces on August 17, 1777. An elevator takes visitors to the top of the column. Statues of the commander, General John Stark, and others may be found on the grounds. The Bennington Battlefield is 10 miles away in Wallomsac, New York. Location: On Route 9, Monument Circle. Web site: www.historicvermont.org/bennington/. Vermont established the first government Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the nation in 1982 on Route 89, 138 miles from the Canadian border, symbolizing the 138 men from the state who died and whose names are listed on the granite marker. Web site: www.vvavtsc.com/vvvm.htm.
VIRGINIA No state in the nation commemorates more battlefields with national parks than the state of Virginia. In many ways, Virginia is the shrine of memory not only for the Confederate states’ experience during the Civil War, but for the nation’s as well. (See Arlington National Cemetery; Iwo Jima Memorial). All four national parks feature museums/visitors centers, trails, markers, and personnel prepared to explain the parks and battles.
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The Richmond National Battlefield Park commemorates three major land campaigns and a naval action of the Civil War: the 1862 Seven Days Campaign, June 26– July 1, 1862 encompassing the battles of Beaver Dam Creek, Gaines’ Mill, Glendale (Frayser’s Farm), and Malvern Hill; a portion of the 1864 Overland Campaign, May 28–June 13, 1864, including Cold Harbor; the May 15, 1862, naval action at Drewry’s Bluff (which prevented Union ships from approaching and bombarding Richmond for the rest of the war); and actions along the Richmond-Petersburg front, notably the Siege of Petersburg, September 29, 1864–April 2, 1865, encompassing the battles of Fort Harrison, New Market Heights, Deep Bottom, and Parker’s Battery. The National Park Service maintains 13 separate sites in this park and four visitors centers on an 80-mile route. Park Headquarters is the former headquarters of Tredegar Iron Works in downtown Richmond, the leading factory for the Confederacy’s production of artillery and ammunition. It contains three floors of exhibits on the war, interactive maps, and machinery and displays telling the history of the factory. From there, visitors can walk to Brown’s Island where women and children produced ammunition, and Belle Isle, a prisoner-of-war camp for thousands of Union troops. Chimborazo Hospital, which treated over 75,000 Confederate and Union soldiers during the war, more than any other, no longer stands, but a museum on its grounds contains a scale model and exhibits on the medical history of the war. Location: Information on
Dedication in 1865 of the monument commemorating the Battle of Bull Run. [Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpb-03774]
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particular sites from Park Headquarters, 470 Tredegar Street—off I-64. Take 5th Street in downtown Richmond to its end on the James River, right on Tredegar Street. Address: 3215 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23223. Phone: 814-226-1981. Web site: www.nps.gov/rich. Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park encompasses the sites of the battles of Fredericksburg (December 1862), Chancellorsville (May, 1863), and the Wilderness (April 1864). Over 50 monuments and the Stonewall Jackson shrine, at the spot where he died, mark locations from the battles where over 85,000 men were wounded and 15,000 were killed. Visitors centers are located at Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg and have exhibits, films, and artifacts. Location: Fredericksburg, Exit 130A from I-95, east on Route 3 for 2 miles, left at Lafayette Boulevard for a half mile. The visitor center is on the left. Address: 1013 Lafayette Boulevard, Fredericksburg, VA 22401. Phone: 540-373-6122. Chancellorsville location: Exit 130 west off I-95. About 7 miles, center is on right, north side of Route 3. Phone: 540-786-2880. Web site: www.nps.gov/frsp. The Manassas National Battlefield Park commemorates the sites of the two battles of Manassas or Bull Run (1861 and 1862). Efforts by historians and national and community leaders prevented the construction of a theme park at the site in the early-twenty-first century. The Henry Hill Visitors Center shows a 45-minute film on the battles, houses artifacts and exhibits, and provides directions for those who wish to tour the battlefield. Location: Take I-66 to Exit 47 or 47B—North Sudley Road. Entrance to the center is past the first traffic light. Address: 6511 Sudley Road, Manassas VA 20109. Web site: www.nps.gov/mana. The Petersburg National Battlefield is located around that city 25 miles south of Richmond where Union forces besieged Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for 292 days in 1864–1865. Location: Right on Hickory Road off U.S. 460. Address: 1539 Hickory Hill Road, Petersburg, VA 23803. Phone: 804-732-3531. Web site: www.nps.gov/pete. In conjunction with the battlefield, visitors should view the Siege Museum in the 1839 Exchange Building where artifacts, documents, photographs, and a film explain life in Petersburg and in the trenches during the siege. Location: From I-95 to U.S. 301 west to Bank and Market Streets in downtown Petersburg. Address: 15 West Bank Street, Petersburg, VA 23803. Phone: 804-733-2404. Web site: www.petersburg-va.org. Also in Petersburg is the Blandford Church, built in 1735, established in 1901 as a Confederate Memorial Chapel by the Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg, which solicited donations from all the former Confederate states. Windows from the studio of Louis Tiffany, the foremost manufacturer of stained glass in the nation, depict saints, each of whom represents a different state of the Confederacy. The first Confederate Memorial Day was celebrated here in 1866: 30,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the siege are buried on the church’s Memorial Hill. Location: I-95 to U.S. 301/460 which is Crater Road, go to 319 South Crater Road for church. Address (cemetery and tourist center): 111 Rochelle Lane, Petersburg, VA 23803. Phone: 804-733-2396. Web site: www.petersburg-va.org/ tourism. The main attraction at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is the McClean house, where General Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s
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surrender on April 9, 1865. The restored house was opened in 1950 at a ceremony where Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee IV cut the ribbon. There is also a visitors center and theater where films on the final campaign and another based on soldiers’ diaries are shown. Location: Virginia Route 24 about 2 miles northeast of the town of Appomattox. Address: P.O. Box 218, Appomattox, VA 24522. Phone: 434352-9897, ext. 26. Web site: www.nps.gov/apco. Richmond is the center for honoring the Confederacy. Monument Avenue, one of the most beautiful streets in the nation, frequently used for parades by Confederate reenactors and to honor Confederate and national holidays, contains statues of Robert E. Lee (by Anonin Mercie, 1890); J. E. B. Stuart (by Frederick Moynihan, 1907); Jefferson Davis (by Edward Valentine, 1907); Stonewall Jackson (by Frederick William Sievers, 1919); and of Matthew Fontaine Maury (also by Sievers, 1929), an internationally renowned oceanographer who served in the Confederate navy. In 1996, over considerable opposition, they were joined by a (smaller) statue of African American tennis player Arthur Ashe (sculptor Paul DiPasquale). Web site: /www .monumenthouse.com/richmond/monument. Downtown Richmond is the home of the Museum of the Confederacy which includes and began in the Confederate White House, saved in 1890 from destruction by a group of Richmond women. It opened in 1896 and now includes a larger, adjoining modern building as well. With over 15,000 artifacts and a research library, it houses the largest collection of Confederate memorabilia and research materials including over 550 flags, 35 sculptures, 150 paintings including many by leading American artists, 200 uniforms, and 6,000 photographs. Location: I-95 to Exit 74C to Route 240 West (Broad Street). At 11 Street turn right; go two blocks to Clay Street. Address: 1201 East Clay Street, Richmond, VA 23219. Phone: 804-649-1861. Web site: www.moc.org. Hollywood Cemetery, a garden cemetery founded in 1847 in Richmond, is in many ways the South’s equivalent of Gettysburg. Here, a 90-foot-tall granite pyramid honors 18,000 Confederate dead buried nearby, many of them transported from Gettysburg. Three ‘‘presidents’’—Jefferson Davis, John Tyler (who served as a Confederate senator), and James Monroe (who was reburied from New York City in 1858) lie here, along with Generals J. E. B. Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of General Lee and U.S. general in the Spanish-American War; General Lee’s principal biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman; and novelist Ellen Glasgow. The only statue in the cemetery is that of Davis; he looks south, immediately over a tomb marked ‘‘Grant’’ (no relation to the Union general). His services to the Union before 1861 face north and are noted on the back of the pillar supporting the statue, those to the South on the front. An inscription notes: ‘‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.’’ Location: two blocks south of I-195 and three blocks east of South Belvedere Street. Address: 412 South Cherry Street, Richmond, VA 804-648-8501. Web site: www.hollywood cemetery.org. Lexington is second only to Richmond as a site of Confederate memory. The Lee Chapel and Museum at what was then Washington College and is now Washington and Lee University was built in the late 1860s and designed by George Washington
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Custis Lee, the general’s son. In 1870, Robert E. Lee, recently deceased president of Washington College, was buried in a crypt which serves as the tomb of the Lee family (Richard Henry or ‘‘Light Horse Harry’’ Lee, Revolutionary War general and signer of the Declaration of Independence, the general’s father, is also buried there). An altar over Lee’s tomb containing a reclining sculpture of the general, asleep in his tent, by Edward Valentine was added in 1883. The chapel also contains the first-ever portrait of George Washington, painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, and the only one in which he wears a British military uniform. In the basement is a museum devoted to Washington, Lee, and the college, along with the recreation of Lee’s office as university president. Traveler, General Lee’s horse, is buried outside. For many years students stood guard over Lee’s tomb night and day: people still bring apples and carrots to place on Traveler’s grave. Location: On the campus, off Route 11 business (Jefferson Street). Address: Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA 24450. Phone: 540-458-8768. Web site: http://chapelapps.wlu.edu. Also in Lexington is the Virginia Military Institute, which Generals George C. Patton and George Marshall attended and where General Stonewall Jackson taught before the Civil War. A museum in Jackson Memorial Hall focuses on the achievements of the graduates, 1,700 out of 1,900 of whose then-living alumni fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. There is a collection devoted to Stonewall Jackson including his stuffed horse, ‘‘Little Sorrel,’’ a Vietnam exhibit, a large collection of historic firearms, and excellent military artwork. The only house General Jackson ever owned is located in downtown Lexington, contains period furnishings, and is open for tours. Jackson is buried in the local cemetery which is named for him. Location: Follow Route 11 business into Lexington, ask for directions to other sites at the Museum. Address: Smith Hall No. 11, VMI, Lexington, VA 24450. Phone: 540-464-7000. Web site: www.vmi.edu/museum. The VMI Museum also operates the Hall of Valor Civil War Museum (with a stunning stained glass mural and Civil War exhibits) at the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park to honor the 257 VMI cadets who in 1864 defeated a much larger Union force there. Location: Exit 264 off I-81, west to Route 211 West, right on 305 one mile to Hall of Valor. Address: P.O. Box 1864, New Market, VA 22844. Phone: 866-555-1864. Web site: www4.vmi.edu/museum/nm/index.html. Virginia’s Revolutionary War heritage is also second-to-none. Mount Vernon, the home of General George Washington, was purchased in 1853 and saved from ruin by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and is still owned and managed by this allwoman trust. It is supported entirely by donations, tickets, and other sales, employs 450 paid workers and over 400 volunteers, and is the most visited historical estate in the nation with about a million visitors per year. Twelve outbuildings, a new museum, and a research collection accompany the galleries in the main house, outdoor exhibits, the tombs of George and Martha Washington, and grounds of over 500 acres of the original 8,000-acre estate. Nearly 30 percent of the artifacts in the mansion were originally used in the house. Washington’s extensive activities as a scientific farmer and economic entrepreneur as well as his personal life and civilian and military career, along with the work of his slaves, are all covered. For a history of the house, see Jean Lee, editor, Experiencing Mount Vernon: Eyewitness Accounts, 1784–1865
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(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006). Location: At the southern terminus of the George Washington Parkway, which intersects just south of the Potomac River with I-95 and I-395. Address: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, P.O. Box 110, Mount Vernon, VA. 22121. Phone: 703-780-2000. Web site: www .mountvernon.org. The commander in chief is also honored at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, modeled on the appearance of the ancient lighthouse in Alexandria, Egypt. Its 10 floors contain a replica of the Masonic lodge Washington attended, artifacts relating to his membership in the Masons and his life, and a meeting hall. The monument is maintained by the 52 Grand Masonic Lodges of the United States. Location: West of I-95, intersection of Duke and King Streets. Address: 101 Callahan Drive, Alexandria, VA 22301. Phone: 703-683-2007. Web site: www.gwmemorial.org. Washington is also honored at the Colonial National Historical Park, which not only includes Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown but the Yorktown Battlefield, where in 1781 he and the French defeated General Cornwallis in the last major battle of the American Revolution. The Yorktown Monument to the Alliance and Victory, although authorized by Congress just 10 days after the battle ended, was not begun until 1881 and not finished until 1884. Visitors can make the 7-mile walk along original and reconstructed earthworks. The Victory Center contains exhibits on the battle and allows visitors to interact with likenesses of historical characters. Historical reenactors are present and the battle is at times reenacted. Location: Follow Colonial Parkway (Exit 242B) from I-64 in Williamsburg to its end. Address: P.O. Box 210, Yorktown, VA 23690. Phone: 757-898-2410 or 3400. Web site: www.nps.gov./colo. Those interested in Washington’s earliest military experiences should head to Winchester, the site of Washington’s Headquarters, from where he directed Virginia’s frontier defenses during the French and Indian War. It is maintained as a museum with a statue of the young Washington outside. The French and Indian War Foundation maintains the nearby site of Fort Loudon, one of over 20 forts that protected the frontier, has purchased nearby Fort Colville for renovation, and holds lectures and events. Location: Within one block of Virginia Route 11 (between I-81 and U.S. 522) in downtown Winchester. Address: P.O. Box 751, Winchester, VA 22604. Phone: 540-6652046. Web site: www.fortedwards.org/cwffa/gw-off.htm. All Virginia’s veterans are honored by the Douglas MacArthur Memorial in the Norfolk, Virginia, City Hall, which contains the tomb of General and Mrs. MacArthur. It has flags, inscriptions, and memorabilia of the general’s career, including his 1950 Chrysler Imperial Limousine, which he donated to the city in 1961. The MacArthur Foundation sponsors educational programs, a library and research center devoted to the general and his times, and online exhibits. Nine galleries are dedicated to the experiences of American soldiers and veterans throughout history. Location: I-264 to City Hall Avenue. Address: MacArthur Memorial, MacArthur Square, Norfolk, Virginia 23510. Phone: 757-441-2965. Web site: www.macarthurmemorial.org. Nearby, on the second floor of the Nauticus Maritime Museum, is the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. It honors the U.S. Navy’s 220-year presence in Hampton Roads and is maintained by the Navy. The Nauticus complex includes a theme park and the battleship USS Wisconsin, which is available for tours, and changing exhibits
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related to naval history. A permanent display honors the ‘‘Great White Fleet’’ President Theodore Roosevelt had constructed and sent around the world in 1907 to demonstrate American seapower. Location: Route 337 (accessible from I-64) to Waterside. Address: One Waterside Drive, Norfolk, VA 23510. Phone: 757-6641000. Web site: www.nauticus.org. The Virginia War Museum, which contains over 60,000 artifacts, is in the city of Newport News which adjoins Norfolk. Due to space limitations it can only display about 10 percent of them in nine galleries dedicated to the American experience of war in general beginning with the Revolution, and including women at war, the role of Hampton Roads as a point of embarkation in World War II, the Axis Powers, American Prisoners of War in World War II, a gallery of arms, an exhibit (including art work) on the evolution of weaponry, visions of war in posters and art work, and African Americans in the military. Location: From I-64 take Exit 263A, travel south on U.S. 258 until the last signal before the James River Bridge, turn right into Huntington Park. Address: 9285 Warwick Boulevard, Newport News, VA 23609. Phone: 757-247-8523. Web site: www.warmuseum.org. Soldiers disembarking from ships in Newport News at the end of World Wars I and II marched through the Victory Arch, built in 1919 to resemble the Arc de Triomphe. Despite opposition, in 1986 Vietnam War veterans established the Vietnam War Monument Foundation and, with the support of the nearby Virginia War Museum, built the Virginia Vietnam War Monument nearby in Huntington Park. Built entirely with private funds, the monument is a granite obelisk whose sides represent the branches of the armed forces. On each side above the POW/MIA symbol are the words ‘‘We Honor Those Who Gave Their Best.’’ As at the Victory Arch, an eternal flame burns. Web site: www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/4056/ History.htm. Virginia is also the birthplace of the U.S. space program, which is commemorated at the Virginia Air and Space Center, the visitor center for the Langley Air Force Base and NASA Research Center. It contains over a hundred interactive exhibits and numerous airplanes and spacecraft, a model of the USS Ronald Reagan, and a replica of the first airplane flown by the Wright Brothers in 1903, to illustrate the history of air and space travel. Location: At I-64 take Exit 267 to Settlers Landing Road, proceed over the bridge; the center is on your left. Address: 6500 Settlers Landing Road, Hampton, VA 23669. Phone: 757-727-0900. Web site: www.vasc.org. Finally, Fort Lee, Virginia, is the home of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum, which in 2008 received the Army Museum of Excellence Award from the Army Historical Foundation. From 1945 until the fort closed in 1999, this museum was located at Fort McClellan, Alabama, where the first Women’s Army Corps officers were trained during World War II. Dioramas, artifacts, and art work depict the role of women in the armed forces since the American Revolution, but principally in the twentieth century when they have formally been enlisted in the military. Location: Right at Temple Avenue, Exit 54 on I-95, at the sixth light turn right on Oaklawn Boulevard, then left on Lee Avenue to Fort Lee. Left on Avenue A inside the gate, the museum is the third building on the left. Address: 2100 Avenue A, Fort Lee, VA 23801. Phone: 804-734-4327. Web site: www.awm.lee.army.mil.
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WASHINGTON Two museums preserve early military life in the Pacific Northwest. Fort Simcoe State Park and Museum is a fort dating to the 1850s that is used to showcase life on an army post as well as Native American and civilian history in the northwest. Location: Highway 97 in Toppenish to Fort Simcoe Road, then 20 miles to White Swan and another 7 miles further west to the fort. Address: 5150 Fort Road, White Swan, WA 98952. Phone: 509-874-2372. Web site: www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp ?selectedpark=Fort%20Simcoe. Military equipment, uniforms, and other artifacts dating from the founding of the fort in the 1850s until World War II are part of the extensive collection at the Fort Walla Walla Museum. Living history events occur each weekend. Location: South side of Fort Walla Walla Park in the city. Address: 755 Myra Road, Walla Walla, WA 99362. Phone: 509-525-7703. Web site: www.fortwallawallamuseum.org. Founded in 1917, Fort Lewis trained soldiers for the Pacific Theaters of World War II and subsequent wars. The Fort Lewis Military Museum tells the story of the fort along with the role of the U.S. military in the exploration and settlement of the Pacific Northwest. Location: On I-5. Address: P.O. Box 331001, Fort Lewis, WA 98433. Phone: 206-967-7206. Web site: www.lewis.army.mil/dptms/pomm/museum.htm. The largest Museum of Flight on the West Coast has over 100 planes on display and features a large collection of model airplanes, exhibits on the World Wars and Bush pilots, the birth of aviation, the story of Boeing, a flight simulator, and a research library. Location: At the Seattle Airport off I-5. Address: 9404 East Marginal Street South, Seattle, WA 98108. Phone: 206-764-5720. Web site: www.museumofflight.org. The Naval Undersea Museum has displays of torpedoes used throughout U.S. history, including a Confederate mine from the Civil War, a simulation of a control room, and exhibits on submarine technology, diving, women divers, the ocean environment, mine warfare, and torpedo technology. Location: Route 16 north to Route 3, then east on 308. Or take ferry from Seattle to either Bainbridge Island or Bremerton. Address: 610 Dowell Street, Keyport, WA 98345. Phone: 360-396-4148. Web site: www.history.navy.mil/museums/keyport/index1.htm. The Pearson Air Museum is located on one of the world’s first airfields, founded in 1905. Its exhibits include the world’s first bomber, the second oldest hangar in the nation, built in 1918, a flight simulator room, and films on aviation. Devoted to preWorld War II aircraft. Location: Mill Plain Boulevard exit off I-5, follow signs. Address: 1115 East 5th, Vancouver, WA 98661. Phone: 360-694-7026. Web site: www.pearsonairmuseum.org The Washington National Guard Museum has exhibits related to the state’s militia and national guard. Location and Address: Camp Murray, Tacoma, WA 98430. Phone: 253-512-7834. Web site: http://museum.washingtonguard.org.
WASHINGTON, DC Note: Many of the sites in the Washington area, such as Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Memorial, are in Virginia (these two have separate entries).
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Given the difficulty of driving in Washington, it is usually best to take the Metro and leave your car at a hotel or parking lot adjacent to a Metro stop. Several memorials and museums, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the Washington Monument (see entries) are located on the Mall connecting the White House and the Capitol; the Smithsonian Metro stop is a convenient exit approximately midway on the Mall. The desire to create a Korean War Veterans Memorial began after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was completed. In 1988, the present site near the Lincoln Memorial was chosen by the American Battle Monument Commission. Sculptor Frank Gaylord of Barre, Vermont, created the statues of 19 servicemen, wearing ponchos and marching through a field of obstacles, to symbolize the difficult terrain and harsh climate in which the war was fought. The 19 statues represent the different branches of the service and people of different races. Their images are reflected in a Memorial Wall constructed by Louis Nelson of New York that has over 2,000 sandblasted faces of Korean War service men. Another memorial wall lists the men killed during the war. A UN Memorial Wall lists the other 22 nations that supported the war. A Pool of Remembrance is highlighted by the inscription ‘‘Our Nation Honors Her Sons and Daughters Who Answered the Call to Defend a Country They Never Knew and a People They Never Met.’’ Where the two walls meet the statement ‘‘Freedom is Not Free’’ appears. The memorial was dedicated in 1995. Congress approved the construction of the National World War II Memorial in 1993. The final design by Friedrich Street Florian was dedicated in 2004. It consists of 56 pillars set in a semicircle, each 17 feet tall, representing the (then) 48 United States, the District of Columbia, and seven territories, around a reflecting pool. Two 43-foot-tall arches are set on either side of the pillars. A Wall of Freedom consists of 4,048 gold stars, one for every hundred Americans killed in the war. The memorial is located at the base of the Washington Monument and is illuminated at night. The American Expeditionary Forces Memorial that honors World War I veterans is a statue of Commander John J. Pershing, located near the Mall on Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets NW (about a block and a half from the White House). It is 8 feet tall and flanked by stone walls with inscriptions including Pershing’s tribute to the men he commanded: ‘‘In their devotion, their valor, and in the loyal fulfillment of their obligations, the officers and men of the American Expeditionary Forces have left a heritage of whom those who follow may ever be proud.’’ The mailing address for information about the memorials on the mall is 900 Ohio Drive SW, Washington, DC 20024. Phone: 202-426-6841. Web site: http://www.abmc.gov/memorials/memorials/pe.php. Although not a museum of military history, the National Museum of American History houses the original flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write ‘‘The Star Spangled Banner’’ and over 3,000 military small arms, 2,400 civilian firearms, 4,000 swords and knives, uniforms, and exhibits illustrating America’s various wars. Location: Constitution Avenue NW, north side of mall, near Smithsonian Metro stop. Phone: 202-633-1000. Web site: http://americanhistory.si.edu. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world. Its main building contains both the original Wright Brothers’ plane that made the first flight in 1903 and the Spirit of St. Louis with which
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Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic nonstop for the first time in 1927. Even larger is the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near the Dulles International Airport, begun in 2003, which when completed will have 900 aircraft and 135 spacecraft on display. At present its collections include the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. Location and Address of main building: 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20560. Phone: 202-357-2700. Web site: www.nasm.si.edu. The National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II was dedicated in 2000. The moving sculpture by Nina Akamu depicts two cranes confined by barbed wire trying to break free: cranes are Japanese symbols of peace and long life. Japanese cherry trees, a bell, and a pool of water with stones are present to represent Japanese culture while pink walls listing the names of the internment camps partially enclose the memorial. Statements apologizing for the internments and quotations from Japanese American writers appear on the memorial as well. Location: Intersection of Louisiana and New Jersey Avenues and D Street NW (near Union Station Metro). Address: c/o NJAMF, 1920 N Street NW, Suite 660, Washington, DC 20036. Phone: 202-861-8845. Web site: www.njamf.com. Dedicated to exhibiting the role of Jews in the military history of the United States, the National Museum of American Jewish Military History has a permanent core exhibit and other permanent exhibits on Major General Julius Klein and Jewish recipients of the Medal of Honor. Traveling exhibits include Women in the Military, GIs and Displaced Persons, Liberating the Concentration Camps, a Salute to Jewish Military Chaplains, and the Life of Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy. Location: DuPont Circle Metro stop. Address: 1811 R Street NW, Washington, DC 20009. Phone: 202-265-6280. Web site: www.nmajmh.org The National Museum of Health and Medicine, a division of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, was founded in 1862 and is located on the grounds of the Walter Reed Hospital. It has over 12,000 objects including surgical instruments, microscopes, anatomical models, and x-ray equipment, along with more than 5,000 skeletons and 10,000 organs and body parts, including parts of Abraham Lincoln’s skull. One exhibit depicts an emergency room from an air force hospital in Iraq. A research library has especially strong resources for studying military medicine. Location: Unlike most other museums in Washington, this one is near the northern suburb of Silver Spring easily accessible by car. Take I-495 to Georgia Avenue exit (31), south to Elder Street gate. Address: 6900 Georgia Avenue NW, Building 54, Washington, DC 20306. Phone: 202-782-2200. Web site: http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum. In 1998, the African American Civil War Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, at Vermont Avenue and U Streets in the primarily African American Shaw community, named after Robert Gould Shaw, who led the first African American regiment in the Civil War. Here several 11-foot-tall statues of African Americans sculpted by Ed Hamilton of Louisville, Kentucky, entitled ‘‘The Spirit of Freedom’’ do not share their glory with the white officers who commanded them. The names of over 208,000 black soldiers and sailors who served in the war are also etched into the memorial. Near the Memorial is the Freedom Foundation and Museum. Address: 1200 U Street NW, Washington, DC 20009. Phone: 202-667-2667. Web site: www.afroamcivilwar.org.
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The U.S. Navy Museum has permanent exhibits on the American Revolution, Forgotten Wars of the Nineteenth Century (Tripolitan War, South American conflicts), Civil War, Opening of Japan, Polar Expeditions, World Wars, Korean War, and Navigation. Location: O and 11 Street SE, or Navy Yard Metro. Visitor parking is available. Address: Washington Navy Yard Building 76, 805 Kidder Breese SE, Washington, DC 20374. Phone: 202-433-4882. Web site: www.history.navy.mil/branches/org8-1.htm.
WEST VIRGINIA West Virginia’s military history began in the French and Indian War when it was part of Virginia. Fort Edwards, named after one of the original settlers of the area north of Winchester, is preserved and managed by the Fort Edwards Foundation, which operates a museum, archaeological, and educational programs. Location: On Highway 50. Address: The Fort Edwards Foundation, P.O. Box 623, Capon Bridge, WV 26711. Phone: 304-856-2336. Web site: www.fortedwards.org. Harpers Ferry National Park contains the ‘‘fort,’’ actually a small building, where John Brown was captured in 1859 when he attempted to incite slaves to revolt in Virginia. A Civil War site as well, the battlefield and old town, consisting of nineteenthcentury buildings, is open for exploration and is explained by park rangers. Location: On U.S. Route 340 where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. Accessible by MARC commuter rail from Washington, DC. Address: P.O. Box 65, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425. Phone: 304-535-6029. Web site: www.nps.gov/hafe. The West Virginia Veterans Memorial is located on the grounds of the state capitol in Charleston. The two-story oval monument is composed of four limestone monoliths, each containing a figure representing the four major twentieth-century conflicts, surrounded by a reflecting pool. On a polished granite surface inside are the names of 10,000 men and women from the state who were killed in these wars. Address: 900 Kanasha Boulevard, Charleston, WV 25305. Phone: 304-558-0230. Web site: www.wvculture.org/History/wvvets.html. The Veterans Memorial Museum features exhibits and memorabilia from the Civil, the Revolutionary, the Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars as well as from World War I and World War II. Group tours are available by reservation. Location: One block east of Route 20, Temple Street. Address: 423 Ballengee Street, Hinton, WV 25951. Phone: 304 466-4443. Web site: www.visitwv.com/companies/400/180. Top Kick’s Military Museum includes over 30 trucks and jeeps, gear, weapons, uniforms, and other items from World War I to the Iraq War. Location: 1.5 miles west of Petersburg on Route 44. Address: P.O. Box 152 Petersburg, WV 26847 Phone: 304257-1392. Web site: www.topkicksmilitarymuseum.com
WISCONSIN The Wisconsin Veterans Museum originated in 1901 when the state passed a law establishing a memorial to its citizens’ role in the Civil War and subsequent conflicts. The first museum, designated GAR Memorial Hall, was in the capitol building, which
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burned in 1904. The battle flags, however, were saved and the museum exhibits were reinstalled once the new capitol opened in 1909. The present, expanded museum opened in 1993 and as of 2006 attracted 11,000 visitors per month. The museum’s permanent exhibit features dioramas of military personnel in action: the largest are the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle for Buna in New Guinea from World War II, and the Battle of Antietam from the Civil War. These exhibits incorporate full-size helicopters, tanks, airplanes images, and descriptions of American conflicts (including the Mexican border expedition of 1915–1916 and other Latin American campaigns), plus changing exhibits. A research library includes records of the state GAR and other military and veterans’ organizations, papers of veterans, oral history collections, posters, films, and photographs. The museum publishes a quarterly newsletter, The Bugle, and offers educational programs for students—including arranging for veterans to speak and sending a trunk with facsimiles of soldiers’ gear, uniforms, and so on from different wars to schools. The museum’s Web site has many online exhibits and offers articles to read on the veterans’ experience. Location: 30 West Mifflin Street, Capitol Square, Madison, WI 53703. Phone: 608-267-1799. Web site: http://museum .dva.state.wi.us. The Wisconsin War Memorial is a 54-acre park in Arcadia, Trempealeau County. It features an ‘‘Avenue of Heroes’’ with statues representing military personnel from wars in which the state’s citizens have fought since the Mexican War. The Vietnam and World War II memorials are modeled on the statues at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, and the Iwo Jima Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, respectively. Especially moving are the statues of Civil War child soldiers, of whom there were many, and a memorial to the World Trade Center. Location: State Route 95, just west of Route 93. Washington Street and Gavney Road, Arcadia. Web site: www.arcadiawi.org/Memorial%20Park%20Brochure.htm. The Wisconsin Korean War Veterans Memorial is located on an island in Lake Pacawa, in the village of Plover. A bridge leads to the life-size statues of a nurse and members of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. An evolving memorial wall contains tiles to honor those who fought. These can be purchased with proceedings maintaining the park and providing medical care for veterans. Ceremonies honoring Korean veterans are held annually the first Sunday in June. Location: Adjacent to the Worzella Pines Park at the junction of I-39 and County Road B in Plover. Web site: www.koreanmemorial.org Located on the parade grounds of the Clear Lake Cemetery set aside for the Grand Army of the Republic is the All Veterans’ Memorial that contains five gray granite monuments with the names of all known veterans of any war from the Clear Lake area. A black cenotaph at their center honors the 65 citizens killed in action. Entry to the memorial is through a sculpted blue steel archway. A Civil War memorial is also on the grounds. Only private donations were used to build the memorial. Location: One half mile east from U.S. Highway 63 on Veterans’ Memorial Drive, Clear Lake. Web site: www.clvetsmemorial.com. The Highground Veterans Memorial, Neillsville, was the brainchild of Tom Miller, who was moved by the death of his partner Jack Swender in Vietnam to construct a memorial. With assistance from the Vietnam Veterans of America, it opened
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in 1984 and includes several monuments. The most recent, dedicated on July 31, 2006, is a statue of Carol Hamilton that honors the women pilots of World War II. The park includes the first veterans’ memorial statue in the nation to include a woman, ‘‘Fragments,’’ by Robert Kanyusik who won a nationwide competition in 1986. Other statues honor nurses and World War I veterans; a globe honors World War II ex-servicemen, a grove of juniper trees in the shape of a Gold Star the Gold Star Mothers, and an earthen dove effigy mound prisoners of war and those missing in action. In 1995, with the approval of the Congress of Native American Indians, Highground became the site of the National Native American Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a bronze sculpture by Harry Whitehorse of a Native American soldier holding a rifle and an eagle feather staff. The names of all Native Americans who died in the war are recorded on the base of the statue. Location: 4 miles west of Neillsville, and 30 miles east of Osseo from the junction of I-94 and U.S. Highway 10. Web site: www.thehighground.org. The ‘‘Fields of Honor’’ Military Veterans Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, contains the logbook of the USS California and a section of the USS Arizona from Pearl Harbor. Military vehicles (especially jeeps), a collection of uniforms, insignia, flags, and other war memorabilia, and a special exhibit devoted to the Wisconsin 32nd ‘‘Red Arrow’’ Division are features of this museum, which also has a library and speakers’ bureau. Location: Center City Mall off Route 41 at Fox River. Address: P.O. Box 2194, Oshkosh, WI 54923. Phone: 920-426-8615. Web site: www.mvmwisconsin.com/Museum/index.shtml. The War Memorial Center, Milwaukee is the city’s largest performing arts center and auditorium. Designed by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, it opened in 1957 and features a tiled mosaic designed by Edwin Lewandowski of Wisconsin weighing 10,000 pounds and containing 1,440,000 pieces of glass and stone spelling out the years of World War II and the Korean War in Roman numerals. Open for concerts and special events; rental is available. Location and Address: 750 North Lincoln Memorial Drive, Office Room 315 (at Wisconsin Avenue and Lake Michigan), Milwaukee, WI 53202. Phone; 414-273-5533. Web site: www.warmemorialcenter.org.
WYOMING The Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum is dedicated to the lives and stories of people who participated in America’s wars. Located at the Casper Army Air Base that operated during World War II, it is operated solely by volunteers and contains memorabilia, a research collection, and artifacts from the base. Fifteen murals depicting Wyoming history were executed by service personnel during World War II. Location: I-25 to Natrona County Airport. Address: 3740 Jourgensen Avenue, Casper, WY 82604. Phone: 307-472-1857. Web site: www.wvmm.org/building.html. Old Fort Caspar (original spelling) is the 1936 reconstruction of the fort that protected travelers on the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails. The museum has an extensive exhibit of Wyoming history, not only of the fort itself. Location: I-25 to Exit 188B, south on 220 to 20/26 west, south on 258. Address: 4001 Fort Caspar Road,
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Casper, WY 82604. Phone: 307-235-8462. Web site: http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/fortcaspar256k.htm. Fort Laramie was founded in 1849 and was the first permanent settlement in Wyoming. It protected travelers on the Oregon Trail from Indians and then guarded telegraph and railroad workers. In 1890 the fort closed. Some of the original buildings remain along with a visitors center and exhibits relating to the history of the fort and region. Location: From U.S. 26, left or south on Route 160, 3 miles to entrance. Address: 965 Gray Rocks Road, Fort Laramie, WY 82212. Web site: www.nps.gov/fola. The Wyoming State Memorial Wall honors Vietnam veterans with inscriptions of their names on a wall in an attractive park. It is supported by local veterans. Location: Routes 14, 16, 20 all go to Cody, 2519 26th Street. Address: Vietnam Memorial, P.O. Box 2200, 1338 Rumsey Avenue, Cody, WY 82414. Phone: 307-527-7511. Web site: www.cityofcody-wy.gov/parks_recreation.cfm?id=30.
APPENDIX II Veterans’ Organizations
The organizations listed below are chartered by Congress and/or authorized by the Department of Veterans Affairs to present and handle claims on behalf of veterans. Most also offer social, patriotic, and community service activities. The African American Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Association was founded in 1996 as a result of the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Brain Trust Symposium. Studies had revealed that whereas 13 percent of the American military in the Vietnam War era was African American, 30 percent of all those who served in combat units and 28 percent of the casualties were black. One in three blacks who served in the war suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The organization has worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Services, Howard University, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Brain Trust Organization, and the Institute of Medicine to spread information about this condition and find effective ways to treat it. Address: 9129 Veterans Drive SW, Lakewood, WA 98498. Phone: 253-589-0766. Web site: www.aaptsdassn.org. The Air Force Sergeants Association was founded in 1961 and currently has about 130,000 members. It has successfully fought for cost-of-living allowances for service personnel and retirees’ pensions and has been successful in obtaining expanded health care benefits, support for relocation expenses, and better health care for enlisted personnel. In 1983 it founded the Airmen’s Memorial Foundation to support college scholarships for enlisted personnel’s dependent children and in 1988 the Airmen Memorial Museum devoted to the achievements of enlisted personnel at its headquarters. Address: 5211 Auth Road, Suitland, MD 20746. Phone: 800-638-0594. Web site: www.hqafsa.org.
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American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor was founded in 1946 and currently has about 5,400 members. Address: 1963 Silverlee Circle, Carlsbad, CA 92009. Phone: 703-527-6983. Web site: www.west-point.org/family/adbc. American Ex-Prisoners of War was established in 1942 and currently has about 21,000 members. It holds meetings where former POWs (Prisoners of War/Missing in Action) can meet and support each other. It also informs members of the veterans’ benefits to which they are entitled. Address: 3201 East Pioneer Parkway, No. 40, Arlington, TX 76010. Phone: 817-649-2979. Web site: www.axpow.org. American GI Forum of the United States has about 65,000 members and is the most important organization dedicated to the interests of Hispanic veterans. Address: 2870 North Speer Boulevard, Suite 102, Denver, CO 80211. Phone: 303-458-1700. Web site: www.agif.us. American Gold Star Mothers began in 1928 and has about 1,000 members. Address: 2128 Leroy Place NW, Washington, DC 20008. Phone: 202-2655-0991. Web: www.goldstarmoms.com. American Legion was founded in 1919 and has about 2,600,000 members with 850,000 women in its auxiliary. Address: P.O. Box 1055, Indianapolis, IN 46206. Phone: 317-630-1200. Web site: www.legion.org. American Red Cross functions much as do veterans’ organizations to assist veterans with their claims from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Its members also do extensive volunteer work in veterans’ hospitals. Address: 2025 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006. Phone: 202-303-5834. Web site: www.redcross.org. American War Mothers was founded in 1917 and chartered by the Congress in 1925. It has about 500 members. Address: 5415 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite L30, Washington, DC 20015. Phone: 202-362-0090. Web site: www.americanwarmoms.org. AMVETS founded in 1944, has about 260,000 members with 39,000 in its auxiliary. Address: 4647 Forbes Boulevard, Laham, MD 20706. Phone: 301-459-6000. Web site: www.amvets.org. Armed Forces Services Corporation is the descendant of the army Mutual Aid Association that was formed in 1879. It was customary for soldiers to collect money to aid the families of deceased comrades, which was impossible following the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, when all of Custer’s command was killed. The Armed Forces Service Corporation provides members, which includes veterans and their survivors who join, with services including storing relevant documents and assistance in obtaining benefits. Address: 2800 Shirlington Road, Suite 250, Arlington, VA 22206. Phone: 703-379-9311. Web site: www.afsc-usa.com.
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Army and Navy Union, USA, Inc., was founded in 1886 by members of the Grand Army of the Republic, Mexican-American, and War of 1812 veterans to maintain a veterans’ society of descendents of veterans of all wars after their members have passed away. It is devoted to promoting defense and patriotism and assisting veterans in need. It currently has about 12,000 members and 2,400 in its auxiliary. Address: 604 Robbins Avenue, Niles, OH 44446. Phone: 330-307-7049. Web site: www .armynavy.net. Blinded Veterans Association was founded in 1946 and has about 10,500 members plus about 400 in its auxiliary. Address: 477 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20001. Phone: 202-371-8880. Web site: www.bva.org. Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc., was founded in 1942 and chartered by Congress in 1960. It has about 1,500 members. Address: P.O. Box 555, Kensington, MD 20895. Phone: 505-352-2941. Web site: www.bluestarmothers.org. Catholic War Veterans, USA, Inc., was founded in 1935 and has about 20,000 members. Address: 441 North Lee Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Phone: 703-549-3622. Web site: www.cwv.org. Congressional Medal of Honor Society of the United States of America was formed in 1946 and has 130 members. It sponsors a museum at Patriots’ Point (see Appendix I, South Carolina) and assists members and their families in obtaining veterans’ benefits. Address: 40 Patriots Point Road, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464. Phone: 843884-8862. Web site: www.homeofheroes.com/moh/history/society.html. Disabled American Veterans was founded in 1921 and has about 1,250,000 members. Address: 3725 Alexandria Pike, Cold Spring, KY 41076. Phone: 859-441-7300. Web site: www.dav.org. Fleet Reserve Association was founded in 1924 and currently has about 90,000 members with 13,000 in the auxiliary. It works to obtain benefits for U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard personnel and veterans and also enables former shipmates to stay in touch. Address: 125 North West Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Phone: 800FRA-1924. Web site: http://www.fra.org. Gold Star Wives of America, Inc., was founded in 1945 and currently has about 10,000 members. It provides services for wives whose husbands were killed in action or died from service-connected disabilities. Address: P.O. Box 361986, Birmingham, AL 35236. Phone: 205-823-1778. Web site: www.goldstarwives.org. Italian American War Veterans of the USA was founded in 1932 and has about 10,000 members. It offers patriotic, social, and community activities in addition to assisting members with benefits. Address: 1729 Sanderson Avenue, Scranton, PA 18509. Phone: 570-342-9582. Web site: www.itam.org.
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Jewish War Veterans of the USA was founded in 1896 and has about 100,000 members. Address: 1811 R Street, Washington, DC 20009. Phone: 202-265-6280. Web site: www.jwv.org. Korean War Veterans Association, Inc., was founded in 1986, primarily to obtain more recognition for veterans of this ‘‘forgotten war’’ and to obtain a national memorial after seeing the Vietnam War Memorial erected. It also provides services for veterans seeking benefits and currently has about 17,000 members. Address: Korean War Veterans Association, P.O. Box 407, Charleston, IL 61920. Phone: 217-345-4414. Web site: www.kwva.org. Marine Corps League was founded in 1923 by General John A. Lejeune and assists marines and their families in need of benefits in addition to promoting patriotism and community service. It has about 76,000 members. Address: 8626 Lee Highway, Suite 201, Fairfax, VA 22301. Phone: 703-207-9588. Web site: www.mcleague.org. Military Chaplains Association of the United States of America was founded in 1925 and has about 1,650 members. Address: P.O. Box 7056, Arlington, VA 22207. Phone: 703-533-5890. Web site: www.mca-usa.org. Military Order of the Purple Heart of the U.S.A., Inc., was founded in 1932 and currently has about 41,000 members. Although primarily composed of disabled veterans, it assists all veterans and their families with obtaining benefits, works to employ people with disabilities, and assists homeless veterans. Address: 5413-C Backlick Road, Springfield, VA 22151. Phone: 703-354-2140. Web site: www.purpleheart.org. Military Order of the World Wars was founded in 1919 and currently has about 10,500 members. Comprised of former officers, it promotes patriotic activities and assists in obtaining veterans’ benefits. Address: 435 North Lee Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Phone: 703-683-4911. Web site: www.militaryorder.net. National Amputation Foundation, Inc., was founded in 1919 and has about 1,100 members. Assists both veteran and civilian amputees through personal contacts and counseling and obtaining benefits. Address: 40 Church Street, Malverne, NY 11565. Phone: 516-887-3600. Web site: www.nationalamputation.org. National Association for Black Veterans, Inc., was founded in 1969 and has about 20,000 members. It is especially concerned with making veterans’ benefits and services available to low-income and black veterans. Address: P.O. Box 11432, Milwaukee, WI 53211. Phone: 800-842-4597. Web site: www.nabvets.com. National Association of County Veterans Service Officers, Inc., was founded in 1990 and has about 1,200 members. Between three-quarters and 90 percent of all veterans’ claims originate in local government offices. The officers who handle them have united to exchange information and provide better service. Address: 2200 Wilson
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Boulevard, Suite 102-530, Arlington, VA 22301. Phone: 910-592-2862. Web site: www.nacvso.org. National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs (NASDVA) consists of all the state directors of veterans affairs. Addresses of officers change yearly. Consult Web site: www.nasdva.net. National Veterans Legal Services Program was founded in 1981. Lawyers will take questionable decisions concerning benefits to the court and also advise other lawyers about the law on matters concerning veterans. Address: Box 65762, Washington, DC 20035. Phone: 202-265-8305. Web site: http://www.nvlsp.org. Navy Club of the United States of America was founded in 1938 and has about 5,200 members. It supports a strong navy and comradeship among naval veterans in addition to helping with veterans’ benefits. Address: 4627 Innsbruck, Ft. Wayne, IN 46835. Phone: 260-432-3188. Web site: www.navyclubusa.org. Navy Mutual Aid Association offers assistance with insurance and veterans’ benefits for naval veterans. Address: 29 Carpenter Road, Henderson Hall, Arlington, VA 22212. Phone: 703-614-1638. Web site: www.navymutual.org. Non-Commissioned Officers Association was founded in 1960 and has about 60,000 members. Address: P.O. Box 427, Alexandria, VA 22313. Phone: 703-549-0311. Web site: www.ncoausa.org. Paralyzed Veterans of America (see Disabled Veterans) was founded in 1947 and has about 21,000 members. Address: 801 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20006. Phone: 202-872-1300. Web site: www.pva.org. Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, Inc., was founded in 1958 and has about 4,800 members. Address: 2661 Wimbledon Point Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23454. Phone: 757-496-8991. Web site: http://www.pearlharborsurvivorsonline.org/html/events.htm. Polish Legion of American Veterans, USA was founded in 1920 and has about 10,000 members. Address: P.O. Box 42024, Washington, DC 200015. Phone: 203670-2677. Web site: www.plav.org. Swords to Plowshares, a veterans’ rights organization founded in 1974, routinely helps over 1,500 homeless or low-income veterans in the San Francisco area. It also provides communal housing in which some veterans live and tries to find them jobs. Address: 1060 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Phone: 415-252-4788. Web site: http://swords-to-plowshares.org/. The Retired Enlisted Association was founded in 1963 and has about 87,000 members and 14,000 in the auxiliary. It seeks to secure benefits for enlisted personnel and
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their dependents and to improve the quality of life for enlisted personnel. Address: 909 Washington Street, Suite 301, Alexandria, VA 22314. Phone: 800-338-9337. Web site: www.trea.org. United Spinal Association, formed in 1946 by paralyzed veterans, has about 10,000 members. It has successfully lobbied for veterans’ benefits but works for all Americans with spinal cord injuries. Address: 75-20 Astoria Boulevard, Jackson Heights, NY 11370. Phone: 718-803-3782. Web site: www.unitedspinal.org. United States Submarine Veterans of World War II was founded in 1955 and has about 3,600 members. Address: 6505 Camino de Luna, Rancho Murieta, CA 95683. Phone: 916-354-2811. Web site: www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/7660. Veterans Assistance Foundation, Inc., (see Veterans’ Housing) was founded in 1994 to assist homeless veterans and help them find housing. Address: P.O. Box 109, Newburgh, WI 53060. Phone: 262-692-6333. Web site: www.veteransassistance.org. Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States was founded in 1899 and currently has about 2,000,000 members and 650,000 auxiliary members. Address: 406 West 34 Street, Kansas City, MO 64111. Phone: 816-756-3390. Web site: www.vfw.org. Veterans of the Vietnam War, Inc./Vets. Coalition was founded in 1980 and has about 15,000 members. It assists homeless veterans, service personnel overseas, incarcerated veterans, and helps Vietnam War veterans obtain benefits. Address: 805 South Township Boulevard, Pittston, PA 18640. Phone: 503-670-9740. Web site: www.vvnw.org. Vietnam Veterans of America was founded in 1978 and has about 45,000 members. It provides assistance for veterans and their families and tries to create a positive image of Vietnam War veterans. Address: 8605 Cameron Street, Suite 400, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Phone: 301-585-4000 Web site: www.vva.org. Women’s Army Corps Veterans’ Association was founded in 1946 and has about 1,800 members (see Women Veterans, World War I to the Present). Address: P.O. Box 5577, Fort McClellan, AL 36205. Phone: 256-820-6824. Web site: www .armywomen.org.
Bibliography
NOTE ON WEB SITES This bibliography does not include every work cited in the encyclopedia, but rather those which will be most useful for researchers of American veterans. Web sites for veterans’ organizations may be found in Appendix II and under the entry Women Veterans, World War I to the Present. Web sites for monuments, memorials, and museums follow the entry for each in Appendix I. The National Park Service (www.nps.gov) has an excellent Web site for each park, as does the American Battle Monuments Commission (www.abmc.gov) for those monuments and sites it manages. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (www1.va.gov) is a fount of information on items from federal veterans’ benefits and hospitals to the history of veterans. See two outstanding items in particular: ‘‘Former American Prisoners of War,’’ www1.va.gov/vetdata/docs/POWCY04Final4-7-05forweb.doc, and ‘‘History of the Department of Veterans Affairs,’’ www1.va.gov/opa/feature/history/index.asp. Additional veterans’ benefits, including veterans’ preference for jobs, vary from state to state and may be consulted on the respective Department of Veterans Affairs Web sites. The House (www.veterans.house.gov) and Senate (www.veterans.senate.gov) Committees on Veterans Affairs hold hearings on issues pertaining to veterans and include testimony from veterans and their organizations as well as government officials and other interested individuals.
GENERAL WORKS Andrews, Owen, and Cameron Davidson. Arlington National Cemetery: A Moment of Silence. Washington, DC: National Trust for Historic Preservation Press, 1994.
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AFGHAN AND IRAQ WARS Amaya, Hector. ‘‘Dying American or the Violence of Citizenship: Latinos in Iraq.’’ Latinos Studies 5 (2007): 3–24. Buzzell, Colby. ‘‘The Best Years of Our Lives. Esquire 145 (March 2006):206–15. ———. My War: Killing Time in Iraq. New York: Putnam, 2005. Caplan, Paula J. ‘‘Vets Aren’t Crazy—War Is. Tikkun 22 (September/October 2007): 44–49. Corbett, Sara. ‘‘The Permanent Scars of Iraq. ’’ New York Times Magazine, February 15, 2004: 37–38. Deahl, Martin. ‘‘Smoke, Mirrors, and Gulf War Illness.’’ Lancet 365 (February 19–25, 2005): 635–38. Fahim, Kareem. ‘‘Veteran Town.’’ Village Voice 50 (January 25, 2005): 28–30. Goodman, David. ‘‘Breaking Ranks.’’ Mother Jones 29 (November/December 2004): 48–55. Hedges, Chris, and Laila al-Arian. ‘‘The Other War.’’ Nation 285 (July 30–August 6, 2007): 11–31. Hefferman, Tim. ‘‘Ten Numbers on the State of Iraq War Veterans.’’ Esquire 145 (March 2006): 212–13. Hoge, Charles W., Jennifer L. Auchterlonie, and Charles S. Milliken. ‘‘Mental Health Problems, Use of Mental Health Services, and Attrition from Military Service after
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GULF WAR Atkinson, Rick. Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Bernstein, Dennis, and Thea Kelley. ‘‘The Gulf War Comes Home.’’ The Progressive 59 (March 1995): 30–36. Carnye, Caroline P., Tomoko R. Sampson, Margaret Voelker, Robert Woolson, Peter Thorne, and Bradley Doebbeling. ‘‘Women in the Gulf War: Combat Experience, Exposures, and Subsequent Health Care Use.’’ Military Medicine 168 (August 2003): 658–60. Fahey, Dan. ‘‘The Final Word on Depleted Uranium.’’ Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 25 (Summer 2001): 189–200. Greenberg, Daniel S. ‘‘US Gulf-War Syndrome Studies Prove to Be a Growth Industry.’’ Lancet 349 (March 29, 1997): 931. Helmer, Drew A., Mindy E. Flanagan, Robert Woolson, and Bradley N. Doebbling. ‘‘Health Services Use Among Gulf War Veterans and Gulf War-Era Nondeployed Veterans: A Large Population-Based Survey.’’ American Journal of Public Health 97 (December 2007): 2145–48. International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons. www.icbuw.org. MacFarlane, Gary, J. Matthew Hotopf, Noreen Maconochie, Nick Blatchley, Alison Richards, and Mark Lunt. ‘‘Long-Term Mortality Amongst Gulf War Veterans: Is There a Relationship with Experiences During Deployment and Subsequent Morbidity?’’ International Journal of Epidemiology 34 (2005): 1403–8. MacKensie, Debora. ‘‘The Disease That Never Was?’’ New Scientist 184 (November 6–12, 2004): 8–11. Miller, Alexandra C., ed. Depleted Uranium: Properties, Uses, and Health Consequences. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2007.
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KOREAN WAR Biderman, Albert. March to Calumny. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Millett, Allan. The War for Korea, Vol. 2. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Data on Veterans of the Korean War. Washington, DC: Department of Veterans Affairs, 2000. Weintraub, Stanley. ‘‘How to Remember the Forgotten War.’’ American Heritage 51 (May/June, 2000): 100–106.
SPANISH-AMERICAN AND PHILIPPINE WARS Donald, Aida. Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Basic Books, 2007. Hendrickson, Kenneth. The Spanish-American War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. Johnson, Edward A. History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest. Raleigh, NC: Many Books, 1899. http://manybooks.net/authors/johnsonea.html. Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders. New York: Scribners, 1899. www.bartleby.com/51. Silbey, David. A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
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VIETNAM WAR Allen, Robert. The Dioxin War: Truth and Lies about the Perfect Poison. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Aronow, Fred, et al. (The Winterfilm Collective). Winter Soldier. Harrington Park, NJ: Milliarium Zero, DVD with bonus footage, 2006; first released in 1972. Burkett, B. G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas: Verity Press, 1998. Card, Josefina. Lives After Vietnam: The Personal Impact of Military Service. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1985. Dai, Le Cao. Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2006. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007. Dai, Le Cao, Diane Niblack Fox, and Khuyen Nguyen. Agent Orange in the Vietnam War: History and Consequences. Hanoi, Vietnam: Vietnam Red Cross Society, 2000. Dougan, Clark, et al. The Vietnam Experience: A Nation Divided. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Doyle, Jack. Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & The Toxic Century. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004. Ezell, Edward Clinton. Reflections on the Wall : The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Griffiths, Philip Jones. Agent Orange Collateral Damage in Viet Nam. London: Trolley Press, 2004. Hass, Kristin Ann. Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. Hunt, Andrew. The Turning. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: Pocket Books, 1976. Kulka, R. A., et al. Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation: Report of Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990.
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Waters, W. W., and William C. White. B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. New York: John Day, 1933. Webb, Robert N. The Bonus March on Washington, DC, May–June 1932: American Veterans Demand Cash Payments Due Them. New York: Watts, 1969. Weber, Gustavus A., and Laurence F. Schmeckebier. The Veterans’ Administration: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1934. Wolford, Roy A. ‘‘The Tuberculosis Problem in the Veterans Administration.’’ Chest 9 (1943): 274–80.
WORLD WAR II Auster, Albert. ‘‘Saving Private Ryan and American Triumphalism.’’ Journal of Popular Film & Television 30 (Summer 2002): 98–105. Bellafaire, Judith Lawrence. The Women’s Army Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1993. ———. The Army Nurse Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1994. Bennett, Michael J. When Dreams Came True: The G. I. Bill and the Making of Modern America. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1996. Bunker, John. Heroes in Dungarees: The Story of the American Merchant Marine in World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Campbell, D’Ann. ‘‘Servicewomen of World War II.’’ Armed Forces and Society 16 (1990): 251–70. Daws, Gavin. Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. New York: Morrow, 1994. Dunnigan, James F. The World War II Bookshelf. New York: Citadel Press, 2004. Durand, Arthur A. Stalag Luft III. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Duus, Masayo Umezawa. Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. Elder, Glen H., Jr., and Elizabeth Clipp. ‘‘Wartime Losses and Social Bonding: Influences Across Forty Years in Men’s Lives.’’ Psychiatry 51 (1988): 177–98. Fabors, Alex S. ‘‘Filipino-American Military Service in World War II.’’ In The Filipinos, edited by Michelle E. Houle. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Gambone, Michael D. The Greatest Generation Comes Home: Veterans in American Society. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2005. Gerber, David A. ‘‘Blind and Enlightened: The Contested Origins of the Egalitarian Politics of the Blinded Veterans of America.’’ In The New Disability History: American Perspectives, edited by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Humes, Edward. Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005. Janofsky, Michael. ‘‘Veterans Gather to Dedicate World War II Memorial.’’ The New York Times, May 30, 2004. Jones, John Bush. Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Homefront, 1939–1945. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2006. Knox, Donald. Death March. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
Bibliography Litoff, Judy Barrett, and David C. Smith, eds. We’re In This War, Too: World War II Letters from American Women in Uniform. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Marling, Karal Ann, and John Wetenhal. Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. McCann, F. D. The Brazilian American Alliance 1937–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. ———. Soldiers of the Pa´tria. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Mettler, Suzanne. Soldiers to Civilians: The G. I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Meyer, Leisa D. Creating G. I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women’s Army Corps. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Moore, Arthur R. A Careless Word—A Needless Sinking: A History of the Staggering Losses Suffered by the U.S. Merchant Marine, Both in Ships and Personnel, during World War II. Kings Point, NY: American Merchant Marine Museum, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, 1983–1998. Morı´n, Rau´l. Among the Valiant: Mexican Americans in WWII and Korea. Los Angeles, CA: Borden, 1963. Olson, Keith W. The G. I. Bill, the Veterans, and the Colleges. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1974. Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie. A Legacy Greater Than Words: Stories of U.S. Latinos & Latinas of the WWII Generation. Austin, TX: U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project, 2007. Ross, Davis R. B. Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Tyler, Robert L. ‘‘The American Veterans Committee: Out of a Hot War and Into the Cold.’’ American Quarterly 18 (1966): 419–36. Walwik. Joseph. ‘‘Paul Robeson, Peekskill and the Red Menace.’’ In Paul Robeson: Life and Legacy, edited by Joseph Dorinson and William Pencak. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004.
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Index
document, 525–526 in Grand Army of Republic, 10–11 (illustration), 194–195 memorial to, 13 (illustration) in politics, 312 women in 455 African American veterans, Korean War, 14–15 African American veterans, memorials, 433, 589, 591, 592, 594, 597, 602, 607, 611, 613, 616, 621, 629, 632, 634, 645, 663, 667, 672, 673, 687, 694, 697, 700, 705, 708 African American veterans, Spanish-American War, 15–16 document, 534–536 oldest veteran, 309 African American veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq War, 16–20, 433–434 African American veterans, War of 1812, 7 African American veterans, World War I, 20–23, 150, 223, 390 document, 536–544 African American veterans, World War II, 23–28, 223, 459
Absolute Power (film), 167 Adams, John, 320, 353, 368, 662 Adams, Samuel, 353, 546 Adjusted Compensation. See Bonus Afghan War, 1–2, 329, 416, 427, 439, 453 Afghan War veterans, xxxv, 1–5 benefits, 101, 363 document on post-traumatic stress disorder among, 578–581 document on suicide among, 581–584 film, 170 Hispanic veterans, 228 illustration, 240 and Iraq veterans, 237–241 medical and psychological problems, 3–4, 328–330, 399, 405, 441, 463 memorials to 616, 620 Soviet veterans, 396 African American veterans, American Revolution and War of 1812, 5–7, 348 (illustration) African American veterans, blind, 102–103 African American veterans, Civil War, 7–14, 111, 124, 139, 277, 312, 345 725
726
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Index
African American veterans: and American Indian veterans, 39 in American Legion, 59, 68 benefits, 95–100 buried at Arlington National Cemetery, 81–86 in film, 164, 165, 170, 174 as heads of Department of Veterans Affairs, 397–398 and Hispanic veterans, 225–228 housing, 231 and Japanese American veterans, 251 nurses, 454, 457 at Peekskill Riot (1949), 312–313 African Methodist Episcopal Church, 13 Agent Orange, xxxvi, 28–33 (illustration) and American Legion, 60, 68 compared with Gulf War illnesses, 212 and disabled American veterans, 151 in film, 170 and Veterans Administration, 393 and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 416 and Vietnam War veterans, 425, 440, 452 document, 575–578 Air Force, 3, 63, 91, 110, 261, 269, 277, 282, 290, 567, 568, 577, 705 African Americas, 17, 18, 24, 26 American Indians, 54, 572 Hispanic, 226, 228 memorials, 589, 590, 592, 594, 601, 602, 604, 605, 608, 610, 616, 620, 622, 626, 631, 637, 649, 650, 654, 657, 660, 670, 673, 684, 899, 697, 700, 702 women, 261, 458–459, 461, 465 Al Qaeda, 1, 340. See also Afghan War; Taliban; Terrorism, Terrorists Alabama, 23–25, 27, 222, 279, 461 memorials in 587–589 Alaska, 42, 43, 47–49, 128 memorials in 589–592 Allensworth, Allen, 12 Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 227
Ambrose, Stephen, 268 American Civil Liberties Union, xxxiv, 181, 257 American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, 160 American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, 33–34, 83, 276, 338, 345, 706 American GI Forum, 225, 229, 706 American Gold Star Mothers, 34–35, 71, 419, 421, 424 memorials to 607, 628 American Gold Star Wives, 707 American Indian Movement, 44–47, 53–54 American Indian veterans, xxix, 35–47, 347 American Revolution, 37 in Arlington National Cemetery, 83 Civil War, 38–39, 49 documents, 533, 548, 562, 572–575 in film, 161, 167, 172, 173 Gulf, Afghan, and Iraq Wars, 46–47, 55–56 at Iwo Jima, 83, 248 Korean War, 44, 52–54 and music, 294–295 memorials, 607, 617–620, 625, 628, 648, 650, 654, 656, 660, 671, 684–685, 689, 696, 703–704 Scouts (Buffalo Soldiers), 48–49 Spanish-American War, 39, 49–50 traditions and values, 35–37, 47–48 Vietnam War, 45–46, 54–55, 562 War of 1812, 37–38, 48, 445–446 World War I, 39–41 World War II, 41–44 (illustration), 50–52 American Indian veterans, individuals, 47–56 American Indian Wars, xxix, 45, 49–50, 309 memorials, 588, 92–595, 617–618, 634–635, 629, 635, 648, 650, 661, 671–672, 674, 689, 703, 704
Index War of 1812, 445–446. See also French and Indian War American Legion, xxii, xxiii, xxxiii– xxxv, 57–69 (illustrations), 706 and African American veterans, 19, 22, 58–59 alleged plot to take over United States, 116 and American Indian veterans, 36 benefits, 61–62, 97–100 bonus, 60–61, 105–107 books about, 67 and Smedley Butler, 116 and Coast Guard veterans, 127, 130 community service, 66–67, 130–134 compared with American Veterans Committee, 69 compared with AMVETS, 71, 357 compared with Cincinnati, 488 compared with Veterans of Foreign Wars, 411–416 document, 556–558 formation, 57–58, 356, 401, 469–474 and gay/lesbian veterans, 177 and government preference, 330, 332 and Hispanic veterans, 224 and homeless veterans, 234 (illustration) internal subversion, 63–66 and Iraq War, 244 and Japanese Americans, 251 and Jewish veterans, 253 and Douglas MacArthur, 277 membership, 58–59, 359, 395, 463 and memorials, 590, 624 and Merchant Marine veterans, 282 military preparedness and national security, 62–63 at Peekskill Riot (1949), 312–313 in politics, 324, 325 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), 61–62, 99–100, 233, 362 and tubercular veterans, 380 and veterans’ housing, 233 and Vietnam Memorial, 419, 421
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and women, 462 American Legion Auxiliary, 59, 68, 133–134, 463, 706 American Medical Association, 3, 12, 30, 204 American Psychiatric Association, 430 American Servicemen’s Survivors Guide, 74 American Veterans Committee (AVC), 28, 69–70, 86, 463, 473 American Veterans for Equal Rights, 179–180 American Veterans of Foreign Service, 318 American War Mothers, 35, 70–71, 104 AMVETS, xxii, xxxv, 71–73, 133, 164, 178, 242, 357, 474, 704 Anderson, John H., 12 Andersonville, Georgia, prisoner of war camp, 119, 197, 336–337, 383 memorial, 612 Anti-War Veterans Associations, 73–77. See also Vietnam Veterans Against the War; African American veterans, Vietnam War to Iraq Antoine, Caesar, 12 Apess, William, 48 Arizona, 23, 42, 51, 56, 91, 284, 439, 574 memorials, 592–595 Arizona, USS. See Pearl Harbor Arkansas, 23, 1134, 275, 398, 477 memorials, 595–597 Arlington National Cemetery, xxii, 53, 71, 72, 75–87, 126, 135 (illustration), 137, 146, 171, 181, 208 (illustration), 246–248, 253, 388, 393, 401, 424 Battlefield Preservation, 89–91, 324. See also Bunker Hill Monument; Gettysburg National Cemetery; Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Armistead, James, 6 Armistice Day, xxxi, 64, 151, 400–402 (illustration) document, 545–549. See also Veterans’ Day
727
728
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Index
Arnold, Benedict, 354, 605, 635, 664 Arnold, ‘‘Hap,’’ 83, 458 Article 99 (film), 173 Articles of War, 177 Association for Service Disabled Veterans, 153 Association of Hispanic American Wives and Mothers, 225 Athens, 500–502 Atlanta, Georgia, 27–28 Atomic bombs, 164, 276, 397, 559 memorials, 660, 700 Augusta, Alexander, 12 Australia, 56, 125, 142, 159, 179, 276, 330 Aylett, William, 344 Bad Day at Black Rock (film), 165 Baker, Newton W., 358, 457, 542 Baker, Vernon, 26 Ballad of Andy Croker (film), 167 Banyaca, Thomas, 42 Barclay, Thomas, 354 Barron, Samuel, 378 Barton, Clara, 455 memorial, 642 Battlefield Preservation, 89–91 Baum, Carolyn, document, 578–581 Beach, Edward Latimer, Jr., 267 Beatty, John, 265 Bell, Bernard Iddings, 470 Bellavia, David, 272 Benefits, xxi–xxiii, xxviii–xxix, xxxiii– xxxvii, 91–102, 490, 551, 559, 571, 573, 576, 706–710 African American veterans, 18, 26 American Legion, 60, 68 American Veterans Committee, 69 blinded veterans, 103–104 Brazilian veterans, 110 Civil War veterans, 122, 137, 314–316 disabled veterans, 148–152 Filipino veterans, 160 gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender veterans, 178
Hispanic veterans, 226, 229 Iraq veterans, 241–244 Korean War veterans, 258 Merchant Marine veterans, 282 Mexican War veterans, 287 non-commissioned officers, 305 for post-traumatic stress disorder, 328–330 Revolutionary War veterans, 346–352, 367 and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 413–417 and Vietnam War veterans, 431–432 War of 1812 veterans, 446–44 and women veterans, 457–460 World War I veterans, 324–325, 366 World War II veterans, 361–363, 473–474. See also Bonus March; housing; preference in government employment; Servicemen’s Readjustment Act; Veterans Affairs, Department of; veterans’ homes; veterans’ hospitals Bering Sea Patrol Veterans Association, 128 Best Years of Our Lives (film), 163–164 Biddle, Nick, 7 Big Lebowski, The (film), 174–175 Bilbo, Theodore, 27 Billy Jack films, 167 Birdy (film), 171 Birth of a Nation (film), 161 Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union, 17 Black Panther Party, 17 Blackenstein (film), 167 Blaine, James G., 273, 323, 515 blind veterans 26, 55, 102–104, 150– 153, 363 Blinded Veterans of America, 102–104, 707 Blue Star Mothers, 35, 71, 104–105, 707 Bogart, Humphrey, 165 Bonus, xxiii, 97–99, 105, 162, 325, 469–471 and American Legion, 60 Patman Speech on 549–553
Index and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 387, 413–416 (illustration) Bonus Expeditionary Force. See Bonus March Bonus March, 98–99, 105–109 (illustration) and Smedley Butler (illustration) 115, 162, 232–233 document, 558 and Douglas MacArthur, 275–277 Borda, Joseph, 254 Born on the Fourth of July (film), 172– 173, 374, 409, 425, 429–431 Bowden, Mark, 271 Boxer Rebellion, 84, 114, 317, 373, 411 Boys Scouts, 131, 356 Boys State, 131 Bradley, Omar, 392–393, 473 Brady, James, 269 Brady, Matthew, 186 Brando, Marlon, 164–165 Brazil, veterans in, 138–139, 353, 454 Brazilian Expeditionary Force veterans, 109–111 Britain, 6 in American Revolution, 6–7, 37–38, 221, 222–223, 304, 333, 346–347, 352–354, 484, 486–498 Gulf War, 211, 213 Korean War, 276 pensions in, 315–216 War of 1812, 7, 264, 268, 281, 320– 321, 335–336, 444–446 women veterans, 454, 456, 457 World War I, 22, 35, 80, 301–302, 358–359, 364, 371, 412, 468, 544–548 (documents) World War II, 64, 82, 124–125268, 281–282, 338, 616 British Honduras, 140–142 Bronze Star, 25, 110, 227, 266, 307, 374, 429, 459, 461–462, 572 Brooke, Rupert, document, 544–545 Brown, Jacob, 38 Brown, Jesse, 397–398 Bryan, William Jennings, 81, 317
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Buchanan, James, 322 Buckles, Frank Woodruff, 310 Buffalo Soldiers, 9, 39, 86 memorial, 309, 592, 629–630 Bullard, Robert, 21 Bunker Hill Monument, xxii, xxix, 111– 114, 343, 347, 541–545, 643–644 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 41, 46, 53 Burke, Aedanus, 368 document, 498–500 Burke, Edmund, 397 Burnside, Ambrose, 324 Burr, Aaron, 320, 354 Bush, George H. W., 300, 309, 320, 371, 395, 311 memorial, 689 Bush, George W., xxxv, xxxvi, 56, 202, 207, 209–210, 242, 278, 310, 326, 340, 365, 371, 399, 410, 411, 416, 425, 429, 442, 452, 577 Bush, Laura, 56 Bush, Solomon, 252 Bussey, Charles, 15 Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 8, 324, 634 Butler, Smedley, 66, 106, 114–116 (illustration), 414 Butler, William Orlando, 321 Buzzell, Colby, 272 Caesar, xxvii, xxviii, 488, 556 California, xxiii, 5, 19, 26, 52, 65, 128, 153, 155, 159, 181, 227, 248, 251, 303, 311–312, 325, 398, 404, 409, 433–434 memorials, 597–604 Calley, William, 423, 450 Cambodia War veterans, 117–118 Cambodia, 29, 117–118, 339, 423 Cameron, Simon, 323, 455 Cammermeyer, Margarethe, 178 Canada, 119, 132, 179 Civil War veterans move to, 123–124, 141, 158 Gulf war and, 1, 211 Revolution and, 334
729
730
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Index
War of 1812 and, 320, 335, 445–446 Cancer, 147, 408 and Agent Orange, 29–32 in Gulf War, 215, 569 and Korea War, 257 and World War II, 397 Capitol, U.S., xxviii, 71, 76, 112, 113, 153, 378, 425–428 (illustration), 428, 448, 546–547 and Bonus Army, 107–109 Capra, Frank, 25 Caputo, Philip, 270 Carney, William, 11 Carter, Jimmy, 302–303, 332, 371, 394, 419, 455 Carter, Rosalyn, 419 Casablanca (film), 165 Casey, Thomas L., 449 Casualties: Afghan War, 1–3 American Revolution, 349, 364 Civil War, xxx, 94, 182, 349 Gulf War, 207, 213, 396 Iraq War, 239, 241, 243 Mexican Expeditions, 284 Philippine War, 311 Vietnam War, 227, 430, 575 women, 460 World War I, xxxii, 21, 40, 42, 359 World War II, xxxiv, 233, 281 Caswell, Richard, 320 Catherine the Great, 354 Catholic veterans, xx, xxiv, 40, 65, 68, 84 Catholic War Veterans of the United States of America, 118–119 Catholics, 107, 139, 140, 141, 317, 317, 322, 325, 448 Catto, Octavius, 12 Catton, Bruce, 264 Cavazos, Richard, 227 Center for Military History, 14 Centralia, Washington, incident, 64, 469 Chamberlain, Gordon, 472 Chamberlain, Joshua, 323–324
memorial 637 Chandler, Clarence, 418 Chaplains: African American, 12, 13, 22 American Indian, 48, 574 American Legion, xxxiv, 708 American Revolution, 348 Catholic, 118 Civil War, 519 disabled American veterans, 151, 152 memorials, 671, 683, 700 United Confederate Veterans, 36 World War I, 548 World War II, 338. See also Military Chaplains Association Cherokee Indians, 39, 46, 50, 52, 54, 597, 599, 533 Cheyenne Indians, 44, 50, 295, 630, 674, 675 Children: benefits for, 76, 148, 152, 235, 314, 361, 448, 463 genetic damage, 30, 32, 202, 211 and veterans’ welfare work, 22–23, 66, 104, 132–133, 274, 305, 384, 417–418, 463 China Gate (film), 165 China, 33, 114, 131, 166, 175, 256, 275, 326. See also Boxer Rebellion Chips (war dog), 443 Chisolm, Shirley, 19, 452 Choctaw Code Talkers, 42, 50, 51, 55 Cimino, Michael, 160,169 Cincinnati, Society of the, 92, 201, 291, 305, 320, 339, 343, 349, 366–370 document, 485–490, 497 Cincinnatus, xxvii, xxxvii, 320, 366, 486, 487 Citizenship: and African Americans, 9, 20–21, 535, 542–544 and American Indians, 36, 41, 48, 49 and Filipino Americans, 169–160 and Hispanic Americans, 222–223, 226, 228 and Japanese Americans, 249–250
Index and military service, xxvii, xxx–xxxi, 63, 66, 69, 72, 132, 486 Civil Rights 17, 64 African American, 17, 27, 28, 147, 158, 254, 312–313, 434 American Indian, 424, 45, 50, 53 Hispanic American, 226 Japanese American, 249–250 Civil War veterans, xxix, xxx, xxxxii, xxxv, 119–123 African Americans, 7–11 (illustration), 13 (illustration), 35 American Indians, 38–39, 49 benefits, 89–96 buried at Arlington National Cemetery, 75–79, 401, 545 compared with American Legion, 59 documents, 499–510, 523–531 films about, 160–162 gay veterans, 177 Hispanic veterans, 222 housing, 230–231, 389, 402–405 Jewish veterans, 252–253 literature, 264–265 Memorial Day, 278–280 (illustration) memorials, 587–588, 595–599, 605, 607–608, 612–615, 621–629, 631–632, 634–637, 640–642, 644–645, 647–653, 656, 658–660, 665, 668–670, 672–673, 678, 682–683, 685–688, 691–692, 695, 68, 700–702 mental illness, 363 music, 299–300 (illustration) oldest veterans, 309–310 prisoners of war, 336–337, 341 reunions, 343–345 (illustration) Theodore Roosevelt and 355–356 women veterans, 454–456. See also Civil War Veterans Overseas; Confederate veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations; Dodge, Grenville Mellen; Early, Jubal; Gettysburg National Cemetery; Grand Army of the Republic;
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Logan, John; Military Order of the Loyal Legion; Union ExPrisoners of War Association Civil War veterans overseas, 123–126. See also Confederate veterans in Brazil; Confederate veterans in Latin America Civilian Conservation Corps, 109 Clark, Joseph, 52 Clark, Mark, 251, 254 Cleland, Max, 326, 394 Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam, 451 Cleveland, Grover, xxxi–xxxii, 12, 95, 315, 323 document, 523–525 Clinton, Bill, xxxv, 6, 85, 153, 178, 204, 211, 216, 244, 250, 326 document, 565–567 Coast Guard, 3, 707 African Americans, 21, 25 dogs, 443 Hispanics, 226 main entry, 126–130 memorials, 590, 606, 622, 659, 683 women, 457, 459, 466 Coast Guard Tug Association, 130 Coast Guard veterans, 21, 25, 85, 126– 130, 226, 443, 457, 459, 466, 707 memorials 590, 606, 622, 639, 656, 659, 683 Cody, ‘‘Buffalo Bill,’’ 39 Cold War, 59, 65, 111, 201, 210, 228, 237, 244, 416, 567. See also Russia; China College education for veterans: African American, 17, 190, 27, 538– 539 American Indian, 53, 54 post-World War II 358–359, 362– 363, 431–432 World War II, xxxiv–xxxvi, 61, 69, 101, 182, 362, 431–321, 474, 554–556 (document) Colorado, 120, 127, 285, 317, 444, 574 memorials, 604–605
731
732
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Index
Columbus, New Mexico, 274 Comanche Indians , 44, 50, 51, 56, 295, 688 Coming Home (film), 169 Common Sense, xxiii, 74 Communism, veterans against, xxxiii, 64, 70, 118, 165, 166, 277, 416 Community service of veterans’ organizations, xxiii, xxxiii–xxxvii, 130–134, 366 American Legion, 59, 66, 69, 474 AMVETS, 71, 73 Grand Army of the Republic, 181 Hispanic veterans, 229 homeless veterans, 234 (illustration), 581–583 American Indian veterans, 574. See also, Russell, Harold Concerned Citizens Inquiry, 450–451 Confederate Veterans Associations, 134–138 (illustration). See also Confederate veterans; United Confederate Veterans Confederate veterans in Brazil, 138–139 Confederate veterans in Latin America (excluding Brazil), 139–143 Confederate veterans, xxx, xxxii, 9, 11 American Indian, 39 in Arlington, 76, 77, 79 associations, 134–139 (illustration) and battlefield preservation, 90, 283 benefits, 84–97 documents, 511–523 films, 160–162 at Gettysburg, 182–189 Hispanic, 222 housing, 231, 404–405 Jewish, 252 literature, 264–265 and Memorial Day, 201, 279–280 (illustration) memorials, 588, 595–597, 599, 608, 611, 613–614, 622, 631–635, 642, 650–653, 660, 669–670, 682–683, 685, 688–6889, 691–694, 698 and Mexican War veterans, 287
music, 193, 196 pensions, 314–316 in politics, 322–324 prisoners of war, 334, 335–337, 340 reunions, 343–344 women veterans, 454–455. See also Civil War veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations; Confederate veterans in Brazil; Confederate veterans in Latin America Congregation of American Sisters, 40 Congress, U.S.: and African American veterans, 9, 11, 16, 18, 19, 22, 26 and American Indian veterans, 41, 42, 43, 47–50 and American Legion, 58–66, 332 and Arlington National Cemetery, 78–86 and Civil War veterans, xxxi, 94–96, 185, 192–193, 198–200, 231, 179, 300, 314–316, 323, 403–405 congressmen as veterans, xxiii, xxxv, 11, 22, 48, 49, 155, 273, 278, 324–325, 327 document, 477–480, 482–485, 523–525 and Korean War veterans, 100–101, 233, 257, 259 and Mexican border and World War I veterans, xxxii, 34, 35, 41, 70, 71, 96–99, 105–109, 132, 134, 147, 150, 151, 222, 231, 232, 325, 380, 387–388, 408, 413–416 (illustration), 470, 473 and Mexican War veterans, 93–94, 287–288, 321 and post-Vietnam War veterans, 101, 147, 152, 178–180, 212, 214, 233, 242, 280, 302–303 and Revolutionary War veterans, xxvii, xxix, xxx, 92–93, 304–305, 308, 319–320, 346–349, 367, 369, 370, 389 and Vietnam War veterans, 19, 32, 101–102, 117–118, 233, 325, 241,
Index 419–421, 424–425, 430, 432, 439, 450 and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 413–416 and War of 1812 veterans, 93, 321, 445–448 and World War II veterans, xxxiv, 26, 28, 33, 42, 43, 50, 99–100, 160, 233, 282–283, 312, 361, 408 wand women, 455, 457, 458. See also House Veterans Affairs Committee; Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Congressional Medal of Honor, 11, 15, 16, 22, 26, 48, 252, 319, 323, 372, 455, 546, 548, 572 memorials, 590–592, 595, 599, 604, 607, 609, 612–613, 615, 617, 624, 628, 630, 638, 648, 650, 664, 667, 674, 683, 686, 688, 689, 700 Congressional Research Service, 4 Connecticut, xxviii, 31, 102–103, 195, 308, 334, 384, 398, 405, 419 memorials, 605–607 Continental Army, xxvii–xxix, 6, 74, 92, 177, 222, 252, 263–254, 304–305, 319–320, 346–348, 353, 366–370. See also Revolutionary War veterans Conventions, veterans, xxxiv, 118, 129, 131, 151, 180, 311, 312, 318, 345, 324–325, 447, 520, 557, 559 and African American veterans, 22, 34, 35 American Legion, 63, 67, 68 AMVETS, 71–72 Confederate veterans, 135–137 Mexican War veterans, 287, 290 Spanish-American War veterans, 373–375 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 412, 416, 418 Cook, Hiram, 308 Cook, Nathan Edward, 309 Coolidge, Calvin, 60, 98, 105, 114, 370, 389, 401, 413 Coppola, Francis Ford, 171
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Cornplanter, 38 Cornstalk, 37 Court-martials, 12, 14, 15, 22, 25, 26, 116, 252, 270, 346, 412, 453 Craft, Francis, 40 Crane, Stephen, 265 Crazy Horse Memorial, 689 Crime, veterans and, 17, 19, 120, 168, 170, 173, 175 Crohn, Richard, 70 Croix de Guerre, 21, 390, 4457, 541 Crumb, Jan Barry, 433, 428, 430 Crump, Pleasant Riggs, 309–310 Cuba, 251, 277 in Spanish-American War, 15, 16, 114, 127, 165, 309, 318, 323, 355, 371, 372, 456, 534, 555–556 Curly (Indian Scout), 48 Curtin, Andrew, 184, 186 Custer, George A., 48, 58, 706 memorials, 630, 654, 664, 671, 674 Custis, George Washington Park, 447 Cutler, Manasseh, 348 Cutter’s Way (film), 169 Czech Legion, 358 Dames of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 292 Dances with Wolves (film), 162 Dartmoor Prison, War of 1812, 336 Daughters of the American Revolution, 145–146, 369, 371, 456, 627, 676 Daughters of the Confederacy, 135–137, 406, 511–514, 611, 615, 622 Davidson, Hunter, 143 Davis, Benjamin O., Jr., 24, 26 Davis, Benjamin O., Sr., 15, 25 Davis, Jefferson, 123, 137, 279, 287, 293, 337, 455, 512 memorials, 611, 634, 651, 652, 688, 694 Davison, Frederick, 18 Dawes Committee, 389 De Weldon, Felix, 246 Dead Presidents (film), 174 Dean, James, 4
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Index
Deathdream (film), 168 Decatur, Stephen, 378 Declaration of Independence, 80, 89, 201, 320, 370, 656, 657, 695 Decoration Day, xxxi, 200, 201, 279 (illustration), 526. See also Memorial Day Deer Hunter (film), 169 Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Services (DACOWITS), 461 Delaware, 406 memorials, 607–608 Delaware Indians, 37, 39 Dellums, Ron, 19 Deloria, Vine, Jr., 53, 54 Democratic Party, xxxi, 5, 12, 62, 96, 101, 109, 113, 134, 151, 191, 193, 243–244, 251, 273, 278, 287, 314, 315, 317, 320–326, 336, 392, 396, 447–448, 454, 495, 523–524, 558, 663 DeNiro, Robert, 168 Department of Defense, 18, 19, 147, 180, 181, 203, 212, 214, 221, 228, 229, 255, 318, 339, 409, 444, 580 Department of Labor, 99, 243 Depleted Uranium, 146–148, 204, 205, 213, 214 Derwinski, Edward, 394 Descendants of Mexican War veterans, 289 Desert Bloom (film), 164 Desert Shield, Operation. See Iraq War Desert Storm, Operation. See Gulf War Desertion, xxix, 9, 16, 37, 92, 123, 162, 195, 224, 265, 266, 269, 286, 364, 446, 454, 468, 524, 560 Dewey Canyon III, 424 Dewey, George, 300 memorials 303, 678 Dewey, Thomas, 313 Disabled American veterans, xxii, xxvii, 99, 147, 151–153, 164, 242, 330. 357, 362, 370, 397, 707
memorial, 660. See also Paralyzed veterans Disabled veterans, xxx, xxi, xxxiv, 148–154 African American 10 American Indian, 36, 55 and American Legion, 59, 60 American Revolution, 92, 347–353, 389, 491 Association for Service Disabled Veterans, 153–154 Catholic veterans and, 119 Civil War, 93–95, 199–200, 314–316, 389, 392, 402 Confederate veterans, 134, 136 in film 164 Gulf, Afghan, and Iraq Wars, 103–104 Korean Disabled Veterans Association for Agent Orange, 31 (illustration) Korean War, 101 main entry, 148–154 (illustration) Paralyzed Veterans of America, 153 veterans preference, 330–332 Vietnam War, 102 World War I, 97–98, 362–365 World War II, 99–100, 356–357, 361–362, 473. See also Russell, Harold Disaster relief, veterans and, 66, 133, 181, 409 Distant Thunder (film), 172 Distinguished Flying Cross, 15, 26, 227, 572 Distinguished Service Cross, 21, 26, 4223, 226, 250, 256, 310, 314, 458, 548 Distinguished Service Medal, 26, 115, 359, 387, 456, 599 Dix, Dorothea, 455 Dix-Hill Cartel, Civil War, 336 Dodge, Grenville Mellen, 154–155 Dole, Robert, 312, 326, 442, 629 ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’’ 178 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue
Index (association), 180 Dos Passos, John, 266 Doubek, Bob, 419–420 Dow Chemical, 29 Draft. See Selective Service Drew, Charles Richard, 24 Driver, William, 393 Duckworth, Tammy, 244 Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, document, 539–541 Early, Jubal, 10, 135, 140–141, 157– 158, 454, 522, 642, 668 Eastwood, Clint, 160, 167 Edmonds, Sarah, 454 Edwards, Reginald, 434 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 42, 83, 96, 189, 268, 277, 326, 370, 392, 393, 411, 458 memorials, 605, 615, 664, 679, 681 Ely’s Rebellion, 347 England. See Britain Environmental Protection Agency, 31, 577 Eskimo Scouts, 43, 48 Ethiopian Regiment, 6 Eustis, William, 353 Evans, Diane Carlson, 433 Evans, Francis, 442 Everett, Edward, 112 document, 500–506 Exodusters, 13 Ezekiel, Moses, 79, 135 (illustration), 253 Farragut, David, 222 Fayetteville, North Carolina, document, 511–514 Federal Board for Vocational Education, 380 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 253 Ferris, Mark, 311 Fick, Nathanael, 272 Fight for Freedom, 64 Filipino Naturalization Bill, 159
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Filipino-American veterans, 33, 34, 159–160 Film and veterans, 160–176 African Americans, 19, 25 the Alamo, 610 American Indians, 38, 51–56 and American Legion, 63 Civil War veterans, 103, 126, 140, 158–162, 225, 248, 293, 514, 611, 612, 645 Iraq War, 175–176 and John F. Kennedy, 84 Korean War, 165–167, 157 at memorials, 600, 610, 614, 616, 617, 619, 634, 639, 640, 642, 654. 666, 670, 679, 682, 687–690, 693–694, 698, 702 prisoners of war, 339 Vietnam War, 167–175, 334, 375– 376, 419, 421, 424–425, 429, 436–437, 452 World War I, 162–163 World War II, 163–165, 474. See also Russell, Harold; Stone, Oliver First Defenders (Pennsylvania, Civil War), 7–8 Fish, Hamilton, 22 Five Power Treaty, 301 Fleetwood, James, 12 Florida, 9, 15, 42, 129, 279, 327, 447 memorials, 608–610 Fonda, Jane, 19, 169, 423, 428, 451 Foote, Shelby, 264 Forbes, Charles, 60, 380, 389–391, 406– 407, 413 Ford, Henry Jones, document, 523–525 Ford, John, 161 Forrest Gump (film), 173 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 121, 24, 652 Forten, James, 7 Foster, Stephen, document, 499–500 Four Chaplains Memorial, 671 France: in American Revolution, 221, 367, 369, 498, 606, 611, 696, 681
735
736
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Index
documents, 538, 539, 542, 543, 546, 556 in Indochina, 166 in Mexico, 9, 140–141 and War of 1812, 336, 445, 446 in World War I, xxxii, 21–22, 51, 57, 62, 115, 148, 257, 379, 456, 457, 468 in World War II, 51, 565, 252, 280. See also Lafayette, Marquis de; Lafayette Escadrille Frankenheimer, John, 166 Franklin, Benjamin, xxiii, xxviii, 546, 662, 677 Fraske, Frederick, 309 Frazier, Charles, 265 Free Men of Color, Battalion of, 7 Fremont, John C., 125, 322 French and Indian War, 347 memorials, 635, 661, 656, 669, 675, 676, 696, 701 Friedan, Betty, 257 Fulbright, J. William, 559–560 Fussell, Paul, 267–269 Gabaldon, Guy, 224 Gardens of Stone (film), 171 Garfield, James, xxxi, 81, 193, 315, 322 Gates, John, 70 Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender veterans, xxi, xxxiv, 177–181 Georgia, 46, 74, 252, 324, 394 African American veterans, 6, 13, 22–24, 27–28 Civil War veterans, 89, 119, 124, 135–136, 161, 279, 324, 336, 383 memorials, 610–616 German Bund, 253 Germany, 18, 21–26, 40, 51, 62–64, 68, 80–82, 97, 178, 222–224, 250, 253, 281, 316, 334, 337–338, 412, 442– 443, 460, 468, 566 memorials to POW camps, 588, 595, 681. See also Nazis Geronimo, 38
Gettysburg Address (Everett), document, 501–505 Gettysburg Address (Lincoln), 186–187, 500–501 Gettysburg monuments, 189, 278, 612, 637, 678. See also Gettysburg National Cemetery Gettysburg National Cemetery, xxii, 181–190 Gettysburg Reunions, 343–345 (illustration), 557 Gettysburg, Battle of, 89–91, 157–158, 323–324, 545, 556 document, 500–506 Gillis, Thomas, 15 Glassford, Pelham, 107 Gleason, John, 393 Glory (film), 8, 13, 162, 645 Gnadenhutten Massacre, 37 Gober, Herschel, 398 document, 570–571 Going All the Way (film), 166 Gone With the Wind (film), 158, 161 Gordon, John Brown, 135, 324 Gordon’s War (film), 168 Gorman, Charles Nelson, 51 Gorman, R. C., 51–52 Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), xx, xxi, xxxi, 190–202 (illustration), 707 African Americans in, xxv, 10–11 (illustration), 79 and battlefield preservation, 89 compared with Cincinnati, 488 and Confederate veterans, 136–137, 155 Cutter Service in, 126 documents, 525–529, 557 and housing, 406 John Logan as commander, 273–274 Memorial Day and, 279–280 283 memorials, 621, 659, 665, 678, 702 and Mexican War veterans, 287 Music of, 294 (illustration) oldest veteran, 309 and pensions, 314–316 in politics, 322–324
Index reunions, 343, 449 (illustration) Theodore Roosevelt and, 355–356 and Spanish-American War veterans, 373 and veterans benefits, 95–96 Grant, Ulysses S., xxx, xxxi, 8, 49, 78, 119–120 (illustration), 121, 155, 193, 173, 187, 189, 292, 310, 322, 324, 370, 572 memorials, 598, 613, 614, 648, 651, 653, 665, 678, 685, 693–694 Grant’s Tomb, xxx, 666 Graves, William, 358 Gray, Carl, 393 Gray, John, 308 Great Britain. See Britain Greece, 500–502 Green Berets (film), 436 Greene, Nathanael, 346, 368–369 memorials, 663, 689 Grenada, 296, 396, 435, 572 Griffith, D. W., 160, 161 Grinnell, George Bird, 40 Guam, 371, 443–44 memorials, 616 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 74, 114, 239 Gulf War syndrome, xxxvi, 55, 60, 68, 202–206, 209, 211–215, 217, 416 document, 567–570 Gulf War, 202–219, 416, 463, 466. See also Gulf War syndrome Gulf War veterans, xxxv, xxxvi, 206– 219 (illustration), 214, 416, 463 African Americans, 20 American Indians, 46–47, 55–56 and American Legion, 58, 60, 68 benefits, 101 blind, 104 and depleted uranium, 146–148 disabled, 152 in film, 166, 175 Hispanic veterans, 227–228 illnesses, 202–206 and Iraq War veterans, 238, 241 and literature, 271–272
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memorials 607, 621, 650, 668, 689, 701 and music, 295 in politics, 327 prisoners of war, 339–340 and women 463, 466. See also Gulf War Syndrome Gutierrez, Jose, 228 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 113 Hale, Vasco da Gama, 102 Hamilton, Alexander, 177, 178, 304, 354, 420, 602 Hampton, Wade, 135, 324 Hancock, Winfield Scott, 189, 289, 322 Hanks, Tom, 437 Hard, James, 309 Harding, Warren G., xxxiii, 60, 80–81 (illustration), 97–98, 151, 324. 370, 380, 391, 401 (illustration), 413 Harlem Hellfighters (369th Infantry Brigade), 21–23, 542, 668 Harrison, Benjamin, xxxi, 193, 323, 524 Harrison, William Henry, 133, 320–321 (illustration), 445 (illustration) memorials, 624, 672 Harsh Times (film), 175 Hart, Frederick, 421 Hatfield, Mark, 452 Hatful of Rain (film), 166 Hawaii, 21, 47, 249–252, 280, 311–312, 456, 459 memorials, 616–617 Hawthorne, Nathanael, document, 495– 497 Hayes, Ira, 52, 83, 248, 295 Hayes, Rutherford B., 134, 193, 292, 322–323, 370, 521 Heineman, Larry, 271 Heisley, Newt, 340 Helicopters, 4, 85, 270, 327, 340, 451 memorials, 589, 595, 596, 608, 623, 626, 629, 647, 655, 667, 673, 674, 680, 681, 702 Heller, Joseph, 267
737
738
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Index
Hemingway, Ernest, 163, 266 Henry, Patrick, xxviii Heroes (film), 168 Heroes for Sale (film), 162 Herron, Lee Roy, 438 Higgins, Edward J., 118 Higley, Harry, 393 Hines, Frank, 27, 380, 391–392 memorials, 103, 408 Hispanic American veterans, xxi, xxv, 221–230, 708–710 in American Revolution, 222 blind, 102 in Civil War, 222 in Korean War, 226 in Vietnam War, 226–228 in War on Terror (Afghanistan, Iraq), 228–229 in World War I, 222–223 in World War II, 223–226 Hitler, Adolf, 64, 207, 210, 566 Hobby, Ovetta Culp, 458 Hoffman, Pincus, 102 Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, 187–188, 694 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, document, 525–531 Home of the Brave (film), 175 Homeless veterans, 396, 402, 405, 440, 463, 708, 710 and AMVETS, 73 Civil War, 9 and disabled American veterans, 152, 233–235 documents, 571, 581–583 and post-traumatic stress disorder, 328. See also Housing Homestead Act, and veterans, 13, 39, 120, 230 Hood, John Bell, 8 memorial, 639 Hoover, Herbert, xxxiii, 60, 65, 99, 105– 109, 116, 232, 275–276, 414, 540, 553 Hoover, J. Edgar, 65, 256 Hoover, Richard, 103
Hopi Indians, 42, 50, 51, 56 House Veterans Affairs Committee, 211, 395, 567, 570, 578 Housing, 230–235 for African Americans, 17, 21, 27, 28 and American Veterans Committee, 69 and AMVETS, 72–73 as benefit, 100, 101 and Catholic veterans, 118 and Hispanic veterans, 226 and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 415 World War II veterans, 471–474. See also Homeless veterans Howard, John Eager, 320, 639 Howe, Oscar, 52 Huebner, Andrew, 272 Hughes, Charles Evans, 301 Hull, Anne, 441 Hummison, Amos, 184 Hunter, Duncan, 5 Hunton, Addie W., document, 536–541 Hussein, Saddam, xxxvi, 202, 207, 210, 326 Huston, John, 160, 165 Hutchins, William, 308 Hyde, Henry, 244, 421 I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (film), 162 Illinois, 19, 21, 31, 33, 37, 191, 224, 244, 273–274, 279, 283, 288, 309, 318, 337, 395–396, 408 memorials, 33, 617–620 Independence Day, Fourth of July, xxiii, xxxii, 54, 172, 189, 285, 308, 340, 343, 349, 503, 527 Independence Hall, xxix, 447 memorial, 677 Indian Defense League of America (IDA), 50 Indian Runner, The (film), 173 Indiana, xxxii, 26, 122, 133, 195, 280, 345, 447, 525–526 memorials, 623–626 Indians. See American Indian veterans
Index Inouye, Daniel, 249–251, 280 Integration of armed forces: African Americans, xxxv, 7, 10, 14, 22, 25–27, 59, 96, 195, 231, 254, 357, 408, 434, 611 American Indians, 36–38 women, 216, 460 Iowa, 21, 53, 69, 121, 130–131, 278, 375, 458 memorials 283, 591, 626–628 Iraq. See Gulf War; Iraq War Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America, 4–5 Iraq Veterans Against the War, 74, 75 (illustration), 244 Iraq War Veterans, 237–246 African Americans, 20 American Indian, 37, 46–47, 56, 574 and American Legion, 58 benefits, xxxvi, 101–102 burials at Arlington National Cemetery, 87 and depleted uranium, 146–148 disabled, 152 documents, 578–579, 582–584 and film, 170, 175–176 Hispanic, 228–229 homeless, 233–235 (illustration) housing, 233–235 literature, 271–272 memorials, 587, 595, 600, 607, 616, 620, 633, 648, 684, 700, 701 mental health of, 4, 262, 329–330 music, 295–297 prisoners of war, 328–330 problems compared with Afghan veterans, 2–3 and Veterans of Foreign Wars, 427, 428, 439, 453 and Vietnam War veterans, 427, 428, 439, 453 women veterans, 463, 467 Iraq War, xxxv, xxxvi, 2–3, 236–234, 410, 416, 425–427 (illustration), 429, 441, 444, 453, 463, 474 Ironside, Edmund, 358
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Iroquois Indians, 36–39, 49–50 memorial, 656 Isbell, Thomas, 50 Islam, 228, 271, 335 Islam, Nation of, 17 Israel, 179, 254, 330 Italian American War veterans, 707 Italy, 26, 40, 63, 80, 109–110, 116, 250– 251, 266, 282 Iwo Jima Memorial, xxii, 52, 83, 246– 248 (illustration), 295, 421, 606, 625, 691, 702 Iwo Jima, Battle of, 51, 52, 209, 224, 282 Jacket, The (film), 175 Jacknife (film), 172 Jackson, Andrew, xxx, 7, 113, 320–321, 444, 446–448 memorials, 588, 633–634 Jackson, Thomas, ‘‘Stonewall,’’ 140, 157, 287, 521 memorials, 611, 688, 693–695 Jacob’s Ladder (film), 173 James, Daniel ‘‘Chappie,’’ 15, 18, 84 Jamison, Roscoe C., document, 539 Japan, 276–277 and American Prisoners of War, 338, 357, 397, 414, 443, 444, 456, 459, 471, 547, 591 as enemy in World War II, 25, 33–34, 42–43, 51, 82, 159, 266–268, 282, 310–311 memorials to those who fought against, 591, 610, 612, 616, 640, 667, 689, 700 Japanese American veterans, 26, 52, 224–226, 249–252 (illustration), 265 memorials to, 617, 700 National Japanese American Memorial, 252 Japanese American Veterans Association, 251 Jefferson, Thomas, xxviii, xxix, 46, 320, 325, 353, 368, 445 memorial, 641
739
740
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Index
Jewish veterans, 252–254 and American Legion, xxxiv, 65, 68 at Arlington Cemetery, 76 blind, 102 and Bunker Hill Monument, 113 in film, 164, 166 Jewish War Veterans of America, 253–254, 397, 708 memorials to 641, 682, 700 in World War II, 338 Jewish War veterans, 312 Jim Crow. See segregation Johnny Got His Gun (film), 163 Johnson, Andrew, xxx, 9, 158, 192–193, 337 Johnson, Donald, 393 Johnson, Edward A., document, 534– 536 Johnson, Henry, 21 Johnson, Kathryn M., document, 536– 541 Johnson, Louis, 62, 302, 325 Johnson, Lyndon B., 86, 152, 325, 339, 370–271, 393, 411, 427 Johnson, Troy, 55 Jones, James, 266 Jones, John Paul, 353–354, 537, 640– 641, 655, 681 Jones, Robert E., 543 Junauska Zouaves, 39 Junior baseball, 131 Kansas, 13, 39, 120, 401–402, 411 memorials, 309, 628–631 Kean, William, 14 Kendrick, Bayard, 103 Kendrick, Frederick, 115 Kennedy, John F., 72, 83–84, 86, 277, 325–326, 375, 411 Kennedy, Ted, 424 Kentucky, xxix, 25–26, 161, 172, 286, 320, 370, 384 memorials, 631–633 Kerry, John, 326, 425, 439, 452 document, 559–563 Key Largo (film), 165
Kilmer, Joyce, document, 544–545 King, Rufus, 320 Kiowa, Indians, 44, 50, 54, 56, 295 Kipper, John, 16 Kizer, Kenneth, 409–410 Knights of Columbus, 67, 151 Know Nothing Party, 448 Knox, Henry, 304, 305, 320, 366, 484, 485 memorial, 664 Korean Disabled Veterans Association for Agent Orange, 31 (illustration) Korean War Memorial, 258 (illustration) Korean War, xxx, 74, 444, 451, 474 Douglas MacArthur and, 275–276, 326 Korean War veterans, xxxv, xxxvi, 255– 259, 345, 395 African American, 14–15, 18 American Indian, 44, 52–54, 572, 576 in American Legion, 58 buried at Arlington, 80–84, 401 benefits, 100, 362–363, 393, 406, 431, 432 disabled, 152, 362–363 documents, 572, 576, 579 film and, 164–169, 171, 174 Hispanic, 224–226 housing, 233 literature and, 269–270 memorials 258 (illustration), 587, 591, 595, 599, 602, 607, 609, 615, 617, 621, 624, 627–629, 638, 641, 643, 647, 659, 660, 665, 670, 674, 675, 680, 683, 686, 687, 689, 699, 701–703 prisoners of war, 338–339 women veterans, 461, 464, 467 Kovic, Ron, 172–173, 374, 409, 425, 429–431 Ku Klux Klan, xxxiv, 27, 28, 62, 65, 134, 136, 161, 194, 195, 313, 434 document, 514–517 Kubrick, Stanley, 257
Index Kuwait, xxvi, 56, 202, 207, 209, 211, 213, 215, 271–272, 439, 568 Lafayette Escadrille, 162 memorial, 606 Lafayette, Marquis de, xxix, 6, 112, 343, 349, 326 memorial, 639 Lakota Indians, 38–40, 46, 50–55, 162, 371, 295 memorials, 630, 650, 671, 684 Lane, Mark, 451 Lane, Sharon Anne, 462 Last Samurai (film), 125 Laswell, Howard, Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How, xxviii Latimer, Lewis, 11 Laughlin, Tom, 167 Laurens, John, 177 League of Women Voters, 333 Lebanon, 435 Lee, Fitzhugh, xxxii, 324 Lee, George Washington Custis, 78 Lee, Robert E., 49 and Arlington National Cemetery, 76–77 as Confederate veteran and symbol of the ‘‘Lost Cause,’’ 119, 121, 135, 137, 142, 157–158, 183, 275, 279, 320 as Mexican War veteran, 287, 289 Legal Issues of veterans, 4, 74, 111, 112, 153, 231, 243, 244, 282, 333, 412, 429, 659, 709 African American veterans, 12, 17, 27, 31 American Indian veterans, 41, 53 gay and lesbian veterans, 178–181 Legend of Bagger Vance (film), 163 Levy, Asser, 252 Levy, Uriah Phillips, xxix, 252 memorial, 641, 700 Libby Prison, 383 Liberty ships, 25, 303, 455 memorials, 603, 640
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Library of Congress, xxvii, 231 Lieber, Francis, 337 Lifton, Robert Jay, 261–262, 330, 423, 430–431 Lin, Maya, 420–421 Lincoln, Abraham, xxxi, xxxi, 46, 77, 81, 94 Gettysburg Address, 186–187, 192, 193, 291–292, 309, 321–322, 500–501, 543, 545, 588 memorials, 208, 419, 475 (illustration), 608, 620–621, 627, 632, 648, 651, 671, 672, 678, 700 Literature and veterans, xxxii, 262– 273 African and Arabian expeditions, 271 Anti-War, 19 American Indian, 53–56 American Revolution, 263–264 Civil War, 264–265 Gulf and Iraq Wars, 271–272, 409– 437 Korean War, 269 Mexican War, 264 Spanish-American War, 265–266 Vietnam War, 270–271 War of 1812, 264 World War I, 266 World War II, 266–269. See also O’Brien, Tim; Swofford, Anthony; Melville, Herman; Whitman, Walt; Kilmer, Joyce Little Big Horn, Battle of, 48 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 356 Logan, John, 10, 191, 200, 273–274, 279, 323 memorial, 621 Lombardi, Jane, 462 Longstreet, James, 324, 454 Lopez, Jose, 224 Lord, Walter, 264, 268 Lorwey, Henry Berry, 49 Lossing, Benson, 263 Lost Cause, 10, 39, 136–137, 141, 145, 157–158
741
742
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Index
document, 517–521. See also Early, Jubal; Confederate veterans; Confederate Veterans Associations Louisiana, 7–13, 113, 116, 135–136, 279, 404, 518, 543 Love Canal, New York, 29 Lowery, Lou, 246–247 LSD, 257 Lynch, Jessica, 340 MacArthur, Arthur, 82, 159, 275, 317, 604 MacArthur, Douglas, xxxiii, 82, 99, 105, 108, 159, 275–277, 294, 326, 357, 370, 414 memorials, 595, 616 Mack, Daniel, 23 Madison, James, 320, 335, 368, 445, 448 Mailer, Norman, 267 Maine, 323, 324, 354, 402, 449 memorials, 535–638 Maine (battleship), 372 (illustration) Maines, George, 104 Malle, Louis, 171 Malmedy Massacre, 338 Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (film), 164 Manchurian Candidate, The (film), 166 remake, 175 Mankin, Helen Douglas, 28 Mansfield, Edward, document, 497–499 Mansfield, Gordon, document, 572–574 Marine, The (film), 175–176 Marine Corps Hymn, 377 Marine Corps League, 419, 708 Marines, 114–116, 284, 295, 377–378 Afghan War, 3, 5 in Civil War, 126, 194 dogs in, 443 in Gulf War, 207, 216, 228, 272, 375–376 in Iraq War, 175, 228, 244, 272, 340 Korean War, 15, 269–270 memorials, 246, 590, 591, 596, 601, 603, 620, 622, 628, 647, 659, 667, 702
in Russian Expedition, 358 Vietnam War, 15, 21, 31, 117, 168, 226–227, 270, 329 (illustration), 374, 419, 427, 429, 431, 434, 438 War of 1812, 7 women in, 457, 510 World War II, 42, 43 (illustration), 51, 52, 55, 102, 108, 223–225, 246–247, 472 (illustration) Marshall, George C., 327, 605, 695 Marshall, John, 416 (illustration), 448 Marshall, Thurgood, 14, 85 Martin, Alberta, 315 Martin, Edward, 325 Martinez, Jose, 224 Maryland, xxix, 4, 7, 9, 12, 18, 27, 79, 90, 401, 453 memorials, 638–643 (illustration) Massachusetts, 5, 33, 48, 162, 286, 287, 316, 324–325, 333, 357, 354, 383, 451, 470 54th Massachusetts, 8, 11, 162 documents, 491, 526, 559 memorials, 13, 635, 643–647 Massie, Nathaniel, 349 Masuda family, 251 Mathias, Charles, 420 Matlovich, Leonard, 179 Mayer, William Erwin, 257 McAfee, Mildred, 459 McCain, John, 244, 270, 277–278, 326– 327, 339, 370, 439 McCarran-Walters Immigration Act, 252 McCarthy, Joseph, 118, 166, 256, 326 McClellan, George, 124, 1913, 289, 322 McConaughy, David, 185 McConnell, Viola, 461 McCullough, David, 263 McDougall, Alexander, 304 McGaa, Ed, 55 McGovern, George, 452 McKinley, William, 155, 159, 193, 292, 323, 324, 354–355, 370, 535–536 memorial, 642 Meade, George Gordon, xxx, 183
Index memorial, 678 Means, Russell, 46 Meigs, Montgomery C., 77, 79 Melville, Herman, document, 506–509 Memorial Day, xxiii, xxxi, 35, 80, 200, 247, 273–274, 278–281 (illustrations), 340, 348 (illustration), and Veterans of Foreign Wars/Poppies, 413, 414, 417, 478 (illustration), 602, 629, 699 (Confederate Memorial Day) Men, The (film), 164–165 Merchant Marine veterans, 3, 25, 55, 58, 63, 128, 281–283, 374, 555 memorials, 589, 591, 600, 609, 626, 629 Merry, John Festus, 283–284 Metzler, John, 83–84 Metzler, John, Jr., 85 Mexican border expeditions, 1865– 1900, 9, 86 Mexican Expeditions, veterans of 1914– 1917, 114, 284–285, 412, 413, 532 memorial, 688 Mexican War veterans, xxix, xxxi, 76, 80, 86, 286–290 (illustration) benefits for, 92, 94, 95, 137, 230, 446, 517, 702, 76, 157 documents, 496–499 memorials, 592, 598, 605, 621, 629, 686–687 oldest surviving, 309 in politics, 321–322, 355–356 Mexican War, Descendants of veterans of the, 289 Mexican War, National Association of Veterans of the, 287 Mexican-Americans: in Civil War, 42, 55, 167, 171, 173, 222–225 in Iraq, 228 in Vietnam, 227 in World War II, 223–225 Mexico, 9, 50, 86, 223, 284–285, 412–413 Confederate veterans in, 140–142
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Miami Purchase, 349 Michener, James, 269 Michigan, 24, 104, 359, 413, 418, 424, 450 memorials, 647–649 Milam, Ron, 438 Miles, Nelson, 355, 630 Military Chaplains Association, 290–291 Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), 155, 283, 291–292, 323, 355 Militia, xxix–xxx, 6, 7, 37–38, 43, 63, 93, 123, 158, 193, 222, 252, 284, 288 (illustration), 301, 347, 370, 446 memorials, 596, 621, 632, 644, 646, 650, 658, 662, 680, 684, 698 Miller, Doris, 25 Mills, Robert, 448 Minnesota, 649–51 Miranda, Francisco, 221 Missing in action: Civil War, 192 flag, 340–341 general, 76, 81 Gulf War, 339 Iraq War, 340 Korean War, 338 memorials, 592, 596, 607, 620, 622, 630, 633, 638, 648, 649, 666, 678, 689, 703 Philippine War, 50 Vietnam War, 152, 170, 339–340, 398, 416, 430, 432, 563–564, 575, 706 World War I, 26, 85 Mississippi, 10, 23, 26, 27, 90, 119, 279, 404 memorials, 651–652 Missouri, 58, 71, 140, 411, 416, 431, 507 memorials, 652–654 Monroe, James, 355 memorial, 694 Monsanto, 29 Montana:
743
744
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Index
memorials, 617–619, 654 Montgomery, G. V. ‘‘Sunny,’’ 1984 GI Bill, 101, 330, 395 Moore, Harold, 270 Moravians, 37 Morgan, Jones, 309 Moultrie, William, 320 Movement for a Democratic Military, 19 Mulzac, Hugh, 25 Murray, Dabney Herndon, document, 517–521 Music and veterans, 293–297 African Americans, 18 American Indian, 40, 53, 54 Civil War reunions, 137, 201 Civil War veterans, 293–295 (illustration) country music, 295–296 disabled veterans, 154 (illustration) memorial, 622 popular music, 296–297 Vietnam War, 295–297, 499–500 War of 1812, 445 (illustration) Mutinies, xxvvii, 8, 9, 26, 224, 304, 346, 349 documents, 477, 483, 484, 517 My Lai Massacre, 261–262, 375, 423, 450–451 Naranjo, Michael, 55 National Archives: veterans pressure to build, 132, 187 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 27 National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War, 287–289 National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, 235 National Guard, xxxv, 33, 57, 63, 71–74, 178, 229, 238, 242, 253, 284–285, 290, 419, 474, 532 in Afghan War, 2–5 and African Americans, 12, 17 and American Indians, 43, 50, 53
memorials, 589, 590, 595–597, 600, 605, 608, 620–621, 630, 632, 634, 646, 648, 650, 658, 668, 678, 680, 684, 698 National Park Service, 90, 113, 189, 665, 692 National Urban League, 19 National Women’s Trauma Recovery Home, 463 Native Americans. See American Indian veterans Navajo Indians, 40 Code Talkers, 42, 43 (illustration), 50–52, 244 memorial 641 Naval Asylum, 402 Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, 18 Naval Memorial, Normandy Beach, 303 Naval Order of the United States, 299– 303 Navy, 3 African Americans, 7, 8, 11, 15, 17– 19, 21, 25 American Indians, 50, 52, 53, 55 Civil War, 222 Confederate, 124, 142 Hispanics, 224, 226–228 investigation of homosexuals, 177 Jews, 253–254 Korean War, 269 John McCain in, 270, 277 memorials, 590, 591, 602, 609, 614, 620, 622, 631, 639–641, 644, 647, 651, 659, 665–666, 672, 677, 681, 694, 696, 698, 701–702 Mexican War, 294 Revolutionary War, 354, 370 Spanish-American War, 354, 373 Tripolitan War, 271 War of 1812, 445–446 women, 129, 216, 456–460, 466 in World War I, 98, 387
Index World War II, 102, 362, 384, 443, 474. See also Naval Order of the United States: Submarine veterans Navy Cross, 25, 76, 224. 227, 267, 457 Nazis, Nazism, 68, 82, 164, 253, 261, 414, 474. See also Germany Nebraska, 444 memorials, 645 Negro Soldier, The (film), 25 Nevada, 397 memorials, 655 New Hampshire, 320, 321 memorials 636, 637, 656–657 New Jersey, 6, 24, 256, 312, 343, 346 Agent Orange Project, 30 memorials, 657–660 New Mexico, 52, 222, 223, 284 memorials, 33, 152, 660 New York (city): Civil War veterans, 12, 124–125, 155, 189, 193 in film, 166, 168, 171, 174 Jewish veterans, 253 Revolutionary War veterans, xxvii, xxix, 6, 7, 92, 334 Vietnam War veterans, 261 World War I veterans, 21, 62, 69 World War II veterans, 6, 69, 10–3, 118 New York (state), xxix and Agent Orange, 30–31 Civil War veterans, 39, 49, 119, 120, 121, 184, 179, 323, 324 oldest, 308–309 Peekskill riots, 213–23 Revolutionary War veterans, 304, 305 War of 1812 veterans, 38 World War I veterans, 38 World War II veterans, 65 Newburgh Conspiracy, xxxiv, 304–305, 319, 347, 348 document, 477, 481–482 memorial 664 Newcomb-McGee, Anita, 145, 456 Nicaragua, 114
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Nichols, Denise, document, 567–570 Nichols, Lucy, xxiii, 195 document, 525–526 Nicholson, Garth L., 204 Nicholson, Jim, 399 Nightingale, Florence, 454 Nimitz, Chester, 25 memorials, 616, 689 Ninth US Cavalry, 15, 20, 24, 534, 630 Nixon, Richard M., 83, 300, 302, 325– 326, 359, 374–375, 417, 424–425, 429, 452 Non-Commissioned Officers Association (NCOA), 305–306 Normandy Invasion, 25, 43, 51, 268, 346, 399 document, 656–657 memorials, 399, 600, 663, 667 North Carolina, 24, 39, 420 document, 511–549 memorials, 667–670 North Dakota: memorials, 670 Nova Scotia, 7 Nurses: African American, 25, 145, 178, 413, 416, 464, 465, 473 American Indian, 40 Civil War, 195, 454–456 Hispanic, 225 Korean War, 461, 525 memorials, 433, 631, 672, 702, 703 Revolutionary War, xxvii, 351, 454, 570 Vietnam War, 169, 173, 461–462 (illustration) World War I, 116, 354, 407 (illustration), 456–457, 547 World War II, 456–457, 459–460, 466 Nye, James, 447 O’Brien, Tim, 271, 307–308 Obama, Barack, 1, 181, 243, 244, 278 Occupational therapy, document, 578–581
745
746
|
Index
Oglesby, Richard, 190 Ohio, xxix, 12, 21, 37, 65, 92, 104, 318, 327, 348, 369, 372–373, 391, 446–447 memorials, 671–673 Oklahoma, 39–40, 47, 404–405 memorials, 674 Oldest Surviving veterans, 308–310 O’Neill, ‘‘Tip,’’ 325 Oregon, xxxiii, 105–106, 281 memorials, 619, 675 Owen, Edgar Thomas, 309 Paine, Thomas, xxiii, 74 Paine, Tom (modern author), 272 Palm Center, University of California Santa Barbara, 181 Panama, 114, 282, 296, 467, 572 Panama Canal, 277, 355, 441 Paralyzed veterans, 151–153, 242, 297, 374, 429, 709, 710 Parker, Ely, 49 Parral, Battle of, 274 Paths of Glory (film), 257 Patman, Wright, 106–108, 414 document, 549–553 Patton, George S., 108, 284, 371 memorials, 600, 633, 664, 679, 695 Pawnee Indians, 38, 44, 49–50 Peake, James, 399 Pearl Harbor, 25, 41, 46, 72, 254, 266, 268, 357, 380, 394, 408, 414, 565 memorials, 616–617, 627, 629, 703 Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, 311–312, 345–346, 709 Peary, Robert Byrd: memorial, 637 Peekskill (New York) Riot, xxxiii, 65, 66, 312–314 Peer, William, 450 Pellington, Mark, 166 Penn, Sean, 173 Pennsylvania, xxiii, xxvii, 12, 38, 65, 92, 120, 244, 278, 317–318, 323, 325, 334, 344, 346, 373, 387–388, 408, 411, 414, 423, 436
document, 483–484 memorials, 652, 657–660 Pensions, Bureau of, 93, 97, 389, 392 Pensions, Civil War, xxviii, xxix, xxxi, xxxiii, 314–316 African American veterans, 5, 10 American Indian, 38–39 Civil War, 94–97, 122–123, 137, 191–193, 199–200, 323–324, 356, 383, 402, 523–525 disabled veterans, 148, 149, 199, 300, 332, 367, 442 Mexican War, 287 Revolutionary War, 92, 93, 348, 353, 367, 389, 480–481 Spanish-American War, 371, 412, 413 Tripolitan War, 378 War of 1812, 448 women veterans, 454–455 World War I, veterans, 60, 97, 132, 363–365, 380, 406, 413, 417 World War II, veterans, 361, 473. See also Benefits Pentagon, 83, 86–87, 205, 208, 212– 213, 215–216, 227, 416, 430, 461 Perot, Ross, 420 Perry, Matthew Calbraith, 125 memorial, 640 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 7, 446 memorial, 640, 641, 672 Pershing, John J., 3, 468 (illustration) Philippine War veterans, 16, 39–40, 79, 82, 96, 127, 159, 275, 317–318, 371, 373, 391, 411, 413 memorials, 620, 627, 650, 678 See also Spanish-American War veterans Philippines in World War II, 33–34, 43, 51, 82–84, 159–160, 267, 276– 277, 282, 310, 338, 456, 459, 471 memorial to prisoners of war in, 612 Pickett, LaSalle, 188, 344 Pickett’s Charge, 182, 188, 343 Pierce, Franklin, 288 (illustration), 321
Index document, 495–497 Piestewa, Lori, 56 Pilgrimages (to European battlefields), 22, 34–35, 345–346, 433 Pinckney, Charles Coatesworth, 320, 353 Pitcher, Molly, 454 Platoon (film), 436 Plessy, Homer B., 12 Plummer, Henry, 12 Poetry: Civil War, by Herman Melville, 506– 510 by Joyce Kilmer, 396, 397, 544–545, 709 by Walt Whitman, 510–511 World War I, by African Americans, 536–541 Polish and Polish-American veterans, 78, 82, 372, 395, 397, 498 memorial 667 Polish Legion of American Veterans, 318–319, 396, 397, 709 Politics, veterans in, 319–326 Afghan War, 5 American Revolution, 319–320, 348, 353, 368 Civil War, 322–324, 523–525 Iraq War, 243–244 Korean War, 395 Mexican War, 321–322 Vietnam War, 326–327, 394, 439, 452 War of 1812, 320–321 (illustration), 445 (illustration) World War I, 324–325, 387 World War II, 325–326. See also Logan, John; McCain, John; Roosevelt, Theodore Polk, James K., 243, 264, 285–286 Pollock, William, 49 Pontiac’s War, memorial, 676 Poor, Salem, 5 Poppies, 413 Populus, Vincent, 7 Post-traumatic stress disorder, xxxvi, 2,
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19, 122, 152, 172, 173, 203, 241, 262, 396, 441, 327–330 (illustration) compared with shell-shock, 363–366 in veterans’ hospitals, 406–410 Vietnam War veterans, 430–431 Post-Vietnam syndrome, 262, 328, 425, 430, 431 POW/MIA Recognition Day, 340 Powell, Colin, 20, 178, 309, 327, 396, 439 Powwow Highway (film), 172 Pratt, Richard, 40 Preferences in government employment, xxiii, 90, 200, 325, 331–333 documents, 571, 578–581 Prescott, William, 5 President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Veterans, 442 Presidio, The (film), 172 Priest, Dana, 441 Prisoners held by United States, 18, 72 Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA)76, 152, 333–341, 706 Civil War, 119, 187, 279, 336–337, 518, 519, 533 Iraq War, 340–341 Korean War, 8–9, 255–257, 338–339 memorials, 592, 607, 612, 615, 616, 622, 628, 648, 663, 681, 692, 697 North Africa-Barbary War, 334 Revolutionary War, 3–4 Vietnam, 152, 170, 270, 339–340, 416, 425, 437, 437 War of 1812, 335 women, 459 World War I, 337–338 World War II, 33, 281, 338. See also Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association Private Soldiers and Sailors Legion, 469–470 Profiteers, World War I, 120, 552 Prohibition, xxxiv, 62, 67, 155 Pterodactyls, Order of the, 128 Public Health Service, 380, 389, 406
747
748
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Index
Puerto Rican veterans, 18, 21, 127, 131, 222–226, 318, 387 Puerto Rico, 29, 74, 3271, 406, 456 Puller, Lewis, Jr., 429 Purple Heart, Order of the, 76, 84, 224, 227, 250, 266, 307, 325, 326, 329, 361, 374, 393, 429, 708 memorials, 607, 609, 620, 659 Purvis, Charles B., 12 Puschner, Emma, 132, 463 Putnam, James C., 371 Pyle, Ernie, 43, 265, 268 memorial, 625 Quay, Matthew, 323 Queissner, Robert, 104 Querry, Ron, 55 Radio Pacifica, 424, 452 Rafferty, Max, 257 Rambo Films, 170 Ramsay, David, document, 477 Ray, Link, 54 Reagan, Ronald, 42, 80, 85, 296, 318, 359, 374, 394–395, 413 document, 563–565 memorial, 697 Reckner, James, 438 Red Cloud, Mitchell, 52 Red Cross, 24, 41, 133, 148, 163, 225, 266, 337, 339, 379, 455–456, 469, 706 memorial, 642 Red Rock West (film), 173 Red Scare, xxxiii, xxxiv, 23, 177, 470– 471 Redford, Robert, 163 Reed, Walter, 441 Republican Party: and Afghan War veterans, 5 and Civil War veterans, xxxi, 10, 91, 95, 96, 116, 124, 134, 158, 186, 191–194, 198, 273, 314–316, 322–324, 355, 373, 515, 524 and Iraq War veterans, 244 and Mexican War veterans, 287
and Spanish-American War veterans, 355, 373, 536 and Vietnam War veterans, 179, 277, 326, 371, 452, 439 and World War I veterans, 62, 107, 302, 324–325, 387–389, 390, 392 and World War II veterans, 325–326, 387, 442 Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), 73, 306 Reserves, 57, 63, 101, 124, 129, 290, 301, 318, 387, 469, 474 in Afghan and Iraq Wars, 2, 4, 5, 229, 238 women in, 124, 456–457, 459, 461 Resistance in the Army (RITA), 18 Reunions, 343–346, xxxii Civil War, 89, 90, 248, 188–189, 201, 289, 343–345 document, 556–558 pre-Civil War, 343 post-Civil War, 34, 128, 311, 345– 346, 425, 433. See also Conventions, veterans United Confederate veterans, 136–138 Revenue Cutter Service, U.S., 126 Revere, Paul, 354 Revolutionary War veterans, xxii, xxvii, xxx, 89, 90, 177, 346–349 African American, 5–7 American Indian, 37–38 benefits, 346–352, 367 disabled, 349–353 documents, 477–485, 490–491, 492–500 Hispanic, 221–222 housing, 230, 235 literature, 263–264 memorials, 587–588, 598, 603, 605– 607, 609–612, 615, 624, 627, 630–636, 639–646, 652, 655– 658, 661–665, 668–670, 672, 676–677, 680–683, 687–688, 691–697, 701
Index pensions, xxix 92, 93, 348, 353, 367, 389, 480–481 in politics, 319–320 reunions, 343 in Society of the Cincinnati, 366–370 and Vietnam War veterans, 423, 424, 450 women veterans, 413–414, 501. See also Bunker Hill Monument; Cincinnati, Society of the; Newburgh Conspiracy; Washington, George; Washington Monument Revolutionary War veterans, disabled, 349–353 Revolutionary War veterans, overseas, 353–354 Rhode Island, 12, 113, 177, 324 memorials, 651, 680 Rice, John, 53 Rickard, Clinton, 50 Rickover, Hyman, 254 Rivera, Horacio, 224 Rivers, Ruben, 26 Robertson, Alice M., document, 533–534 Robertson, Royal W., 108 Robeson, Paul, xxiii, 65–66, 312–313 Robinson, Jackie, 25 Robson, John, document, 521–523 Rogers, Edith Nourse, 457 Rome, ancient, xxvii, xxvii, 320 Rome, Italy, 118, 131, Roosevelt, Eleanor, 72, 458 Roosevelt, Franklin D., xxii, xxxv, 370, 388 (illustration), 392, 418, 444, 460 and African Americans, 24–25 and American Legion, 58–66 and Bonus, xxxiii, 99, 109, 232, 387, 414, 649 document, 554–556 and Filipino veterans, 159, 160 and literature, 268 and Merchant Marine, 58, 281 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), 100, 232–233, 361 Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 69, 70 Roosevelt, Kermit, xxxv, 591
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Roosevelt, Theodore, xxii, xxxv, 62, 324, 354–356, 370, 411–412 and African Americans, 15–16 and American Indians, 49–50 and Civil War pensions, 96 documents, 529, 531–535 and Jewish veterans, 253 and literature, 265 in politics, 243, 323–324 Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., xxxii, xxxv, 356, 369 Rosenthal, Joe, 246–248 Roudebush, Richard, 394 Rough Riders, 15, 355 memorials, 594, 687 Royster, Charles, 263 Rumsfeld, Donald, 243 Rushmore, Mount, 47, 611, 684 Russell, Harold, 72, 163–164, 356–357 Russia, 64, 124, 1128, 143, 146, 170, 338, 353, 365, 414, 472, 567. See also Soviet Union Russian Campaign of World War I, veterans, 357–360, 414 Saddler, Middleton, 16 Saint Jack (film), 169 Salem, Peter, 5 SALT Treaties, 302 Salter, James, 269 Salvador, Francis, 252 Sampson, Deborah, 453 San Juan Hill, Cuba, 15, 39, 165, 323, 255, 371, 373 Sanitary Commission, U.S. (Civil War), 121, 402 Saunders, William, 185 Savary, Joseph, 7 Saving Private Ryan (film), 437 Schwarzkopf, Norman, 327 Scorcese, Martin, 168 Scott, Emmet J., document, 542–544 Scott, Winfield, 121, 124, 285, 289, 321–322 document, 497–499 Scruggs, Jan, 419–420
749
750
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Index
Seacole, Mary Grant, 454 Segregation: African-Americans, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 12–22, 24–25, 27–28, 59, 68, 73, 86, 195, 231, 336, 345, 408, 542, 591 American Indians, 35, 26, 44 Hispanics, 226. See also integration of armed forces Selective Service (Draft), xxvi–xxviii, xxii, 101, 237, 239, 340 African Americans, 17, 20, 23–26, 282 American Indians, 36, 40–42, 45, 51 in Brazil, 109–110 Civil War, xxx, 38, 39, 193 Civil War Draft Riots, 193 and Filipino veterans, 159 and Japanese American veterans, 249 Revolutionary War, 6 Vietnam War, xxxv, 271, 297, 307 World War I, 20, 267, 320 World War II, xxxiv, xxxv, 178, 282 Selznick, David O., 160, 161 Seminole Indians, 40, 42, 48, 50, 55, 157 Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, 397, 581 September 11, Twin Towers, xxvi, 1, 46, 87, 101, 210, 237, 238, 244, 251, 295, 296, 479 Serna, Marcelino, 223 Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 180 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), 361–363 and American Legion, 61, 68 document, 554–556 and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 100, 232–244 for subsequent wars, xxxvi, 19, 100– 102, 258, 363, 416, 431–435 for World War II veterans, xxxiv– xxxvi, 226, 230–233, 251, 282, 392–393, 415, 471–474 Sestak, Joseph, 5 Seymour, Horatio, 191
Shades of Gray (film), 174 Shalala, Donna, 442 Shamrock Diamond, 29 Shatan, Chaim, 430 Shaw, Robert Gould, 13 memorials, 645, 700 Shays’s Rebellion, 347 Sheehan, Cindy, 156 Shell Shock, xxxiii, 150, 318, 363–366, 406. See also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sherman, William T., xxx, 77, 79, 119, 121, 202, 326, 337, 455 memorials, 155, 594, 687 Sherwood, Robert, 163 Shore, Kevin, 55 Sickles, Edgar ‘‘Dan,’’ 189, 324 Silver Star, 15, 26, 52, 76, 110, 226– 227, 325, 429, 444, 460, 572 Simpson, Kirke E., document, 545–549 Sinatra, Frank, 164, 166 Sing Sing prison, 120 Sioux Indians. See Lakota Indians Smalls, Robert, 11 Smallwood, William, 320 Smith, Al, 62, 324 Smith, Andrew, 15 Smith, Fred, 439 Smith, Genevieve, 461 Smith, Kirby, 137, 140, 158 Snow Falling on Cedars (film), 165 Society of the Cincinnati, 366–370. See also Cincinnati, Society of the Social Security, 242, 316, 362, 555, 558 Soldiers and Sailors Legion (World War I), 470 Somalia, 210, 237, 271, 570, 572 Some Came Running (film), 164 Sons of the American Revolution, xxxi, 370–371, 393 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, 292 South Carolina, 6, 11, 12, 18, 19, 22, 103, 212, 278–279 (illustration), 313, 320, 324, 368–369, 455 memorials, 603, 681–683
Index South Dakota, 46, 51–52, 131 memorials, 683–685 Southern Historical Society, 158 document, 517–521. See also Lost Cause Soviet Union, 1, 46, 64, 84, 276, 282, 301, 396, 414, 439, 606, 641. See also Russia Spain, 7, 74, 142, 155, 159, 221, 253, 312, 324, 353, 370, 371, 472, 498 memorial, 607–608. See also Spanish-American War veterans Spanish-American War veterans, xxxi, 105, 145, 159, 188, 371–374 African American veterans, 15–16, 309 (oldest veteran) American Indian veterans, 39, 49–50 and American Legion, 79–82 benefits for, 96–98, 404–406 Coast Guard, 126–127 documents, 531–536 literature, 285 Naval Order of the United States, 300–301 organization of, 410–412 Theodore Roosevelt and Rough Riders, 354–356 women and, 453–454. See also Philippine War veterans SPARS (semper paratus—always ready), 459. See also Women’s Coast Guard Reserve Sperry, Marvin Gates, 470 Spitfire Grill, The (film), 174 St. Gaudens, Augustus, 13 memorials, 645, 659 Stallone, Sylvester, 160 Stanley, Henry Morton, 125 Stanton, Edwin M., 8, 192, 193 Stapp, Andrew, 19 Stephenson, Benjamin Franklin, 190 Stewart, Roberta, 4 Stilwell, Joseph, 251 Stone, Oliver, 84, 160, 172–173, 374– 375, 429, 436 Stop-Loss (film), 176
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Stop Loss program, 3 Stowers, Frederick, 22 Stratton, Dorothy, 459 Strickland, Frank P., 417 Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, 17 Stunt Man, The (film), 169 Submarine veterans, 384–385, 710 memorials, 587, 596, 603, 606–607, 614–615, 617, 629, 640, 647, 649, 655–656, 658–659, 667, 670, 673–675, 679, 683, 698 Suicide, among veterans, document, 584–585 Sullivan Brothers: memorials, 591, 627 Sullivan, Eleanore, 461 Sultana, riverboat disaster, 119 Sumter, Thomas, 353 Sun Also Rises, The (novel and film), 163 Sutherland, Donald, 19 Swofford, Anthony, 209–210, 272, 375–376 Symmes, John Cleves, 349 Taft, Robert, 326 Taft, William H., 81, 82, 84, 326, 370 Taiaiake, Alfred, 55 Taliban, 1, 2, 296 Taps (song), 549 Tarantino, Tom, document, 584–585 Taxi Driver (film), 168 Taylor, Elizabeth, 420 Taylor, Van, 244 Taylor, Zachary, 123, 321 memorial, 688 Technical Training. See Vocational Education Tennessee, 90, 135–137, 279, 337, 432, 515, 517, 526, 573 memorials, 613, 682–685 Terrorism, terrorists, xxxiii, 1, 86, 221, 228, 237, 251, 261, 272, 196, 589. See also Afghan War; Al Qaeda; Somalia; Taliban
751
752
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Index
Texas, 9, 16, 23, 25, 42, 50, 56, 141, 158, 244, 279, 284–285, 299, 438, 459 memorials, 652, 670, 686–690 Thomas, George, 8, 273, 455 Thomas, William, 39 Tibbs, Calvin, 15 Tillinghast, Sarah, document, 513–514 Tillman, Pat, 4 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 80–85 (illustration), 401 (illustration) document, 545–549 Tomb of the Unknown Solider (Civil War), 77–78 (illustration) Tomb of the Unknowns. See Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Tompkins, Sally Louisa, 455 Touro, Judah, 113 Tracks (film), 168 Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), 180 Tripolitan War veterans, 377–378 prisoners, 385, memorials, 378, 644, 701 Truman, Harry S, 14, 26, 27, 53, 72, 250 (illustration), 276–277, 326–327, 357, 370, 392, 411 Trumbo, Dalton, 163 Tuberculosis, World War I, xxxi, xiii, 94, 150–151, 378–381, 406–408 Tucker, John Randolph, 142 Turner, Henry M., 13 Turner, James Milton, 12 Turnipseed, Joel, 272 Tuskegee Airmen, 24–26, 589 memorials, 602, 606, 615, 616 Twain, Mark, 123, 253 Tye, Colonel, 6 Tyler, John, 113, 320 memorial, 294 U.S. Servicemen’s Fund, 19 Ulee’s Gold (film), 174 Undefeated, The (film), 140, 142 Uniform Code of Military Justice, 178
Union Ex-Prisoners of War Association, 383–384 United Confederate Veterans, 134–139 (illustration) United Nations, xxxv, 63, 69, 43, 202, 281, 357 United States Submarine Veterans of World War II, 384–385 Uranium. See Depleted Uranium U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, xxvii U.S. Soldiers Home, 402 Usher, J. P, 314 USS Constitution (Old Ironside), 300– 301, 643–644 Utah, 285 memorials, 690–691 Valdez, Phil, 227 Van Zandt, James, 325, 387–388 (illustration), 414 Velazquez, Loreta, 454 Vermont, 119 memorials, 662, 691 Veterans Administration, xxxiii, xxvi, 388–394 and African American veterans, 19, 27 and Agent Orange, 30–32 and American Legion, 60, 68 and benefits, 97, 99, 101 and blind veterans, 102 and disabled veterans, 150–152 documents, 554, 561, 580 and gay/lesbian veterans, 180–181 and Gulf War veterans, 204, 211–251 and housing 299, 231 and Iraq War veterans, 241–242 and Korean War veterans, 257–258 and veterans’ hospitals, 406–410 and Vietnam War veterans, 416, 424, 430, 439, 440 and women veterans, 459–464 and World War I veterans, 380, 381, 388, 403, 406, 413–414
Index and World War II veterans, 362, 405. See also Veterans Bureau; Veterans Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of, xxii, xxiii, 393, 394–400 and Afghan veterans, 4 and African American veterans, 19 and Agent Orange, 32 and American Indian veterans, 47 and American Legion, 60 chaplains, 290–291 and disabled veterans, 147, 152–153 documents, 570, 572, 578, 584 and gay/lesbian veterans, 181 and Gulf War veterans, 203, 206, 211 and housing, 229 and Iraq War veterans, 241, 242 organizations authorized to represent veterans, 706–710 and post-traumatic stress disorder, 324 and veterans’ homes, 405 and veterans’ hospitals, 409–410 Veterans Bureau, xxiii, 60, 97, 150–151, 380, 389–392, 406, 407, 413–414. See also Veterans Administration Veterans Day, xxxi, 35, 80, 151, 290, 328, 340, 400–402, 417, 421 document, 585 Veterans for Common Sense, 74 Veterans for Peace, 74 Veterans History Project, 146 Veterans’ homes, xxx, 110, 95, 122– 123, 200, 230–231 389, 392, 402–406 Veterans’ hospitals, xxxiii, 406–410 and African Americans, 27 and American Indians, 35 community service at, 134, 246 and AMVETS, 72–73 and disabled veterans, 1522 and Filipino veterans, 160 and film, 173 and gay/lesbian veterans, 181 Korean War veterans, 408
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post-Vietnam War veterans, 395, 398–399, 409–410, 414, 568, 579 Vietnam War veterans, xxxvi, 409, 561–562 women veterans, 460, 463, 464 World War I veterans, 365, 380–381, 390–392, 403, 406–408, 413 World War II veterans, xxxiv, xxxvi, 362, 408–409, 473–474 Veterans of Foreign Wars, xxii, xxxiii, xxxvii, 345, 356, 359, 362, 410–417 (illustration), 710 and African American veterans, 22 and American Indian veterans, 45, 50 and Bonus, 99, 105, 387–388, 549– 551 and Coast Guard veterans, 127, 130 compared with other veterans organizations, 58, 69, 71, 73, 100 and disabled veterans, 150–151, 152 and gay/lesbian veterans, 178 and Gulf War veterans, 212, 214 and Iraq War veterans, 242, 244 and Japanese American veterans, 251 and Jewish veterans, 253 and Douglas MacArthur, 277 membership of, 58 and Philippine War veterans, 310–311 in politics, xxxiv and Russian campaign (World War I) veterans, 359 social service of, 133–134 and Spanish-American War veterans, 410–412 and Vietnam War veterans, 419, 424 and women veterans, 463, 474 and World War I veterans, xxii, xxxii, 387–388, 412–415 (illustration), 474 and World War II veterans, 362, 415– 416 Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary, 133–134, 418, 627, 710 Veterans of Foreign Wars National Home for Children, 388 (illustration), 417–418
753
754
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Index
Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University, 438 Vietnam Memorial (Washington, DC), 259, 418–422 (illustration), 432–433 document, 563–565 Vietnam memorials (other than in Washington, DC) 587, 592, 596, 598, 607, 608, 622, 627, 629, 633, 643, 647, 648, 651, 655, 658, 660, 666, 667, 675, 679, 687, 681, 699, 702– 704 Vietnam Veteran Outreach Centers, 409 Vietnam Veterans Against the War, xxvi, 73–74, 261, 345, 422–427 (illustration), 428, 430–431, 450–453 document, 559–563. See also Winter Soldier Investigation; Kerry, John Vietnam Veterans of America Legal Services, 439 Vietnam Veterans of America, 74, 425, 439, 710 document, 575, 578 memorials, 648, 655, 702 Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, 74 Vietnam War: compared with Afghan War, 2–4 compared with Gulf War, 206–212 compared with Iraq War, 238–241 Douglas MacArthur and, 277 Vietnam War veterans, xxxvi, 427–440 African American, 16–20, 433–434 Agent Orange in, 28–29 American Indian veterans, 45–46, 52–55 and American Legion, 58, 60 and AMVETS, 72 buried in Arlington National Cemetery, 80, 84–86 benefits, 101, 431–432 Cambodian veterans of, 197–198 Coast Guard veterans of, 127, 129–130 disabled veterans, 152–153 document, 575–578 dogs, 443–444
film, 163, 167–175, 334, 374–376, 419, 421, 424–425, 429, 436–437, 452 Hispanic American, 226–228 literature, 261–271 John McCain as, 277–278 music, 295–297, 435–436 organizations and legacy, 439–440 in politics, 326–327, 394 post-traumatic stress disorder, 327– 330, 430–431 postwar adjustment, 428–430 prisoners of war/missing in action, 277–278, 339–340 return to Vietnam, 438–439, and the Veterans Administration, 416, 424, 430, 439, 440 women, 434–435, 461–462 (illustrations). See also Agent Orange; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Vietnam Veterans of America Villa, Pancho, 50, 284–285, 296, 412 memorials, 598, 698 Virginia Military Institute, 135 (illustration), 253 memorial, 695 Virginia, xxviii, xxx, xxxiii, 6, 7, 190, 23, 76, 117–118, 188, 200, 279, 324, 313, 348, 384, 403–404, 417, 434, 446, 497, 506, 512, 521 Richmond, Virginia, xxxii, 6, 8, 140, 187, 188 memorials, 691–697 Vizenor, Gerald, 53 Vocational Education, xxxiv, xxxvi, 60– 61, 97–101, 151, 251, 258, 362, 373, 380, 389–390, 413, 458, 461, 539, 554, 705 Von Steuben, Baron, 347, 366, 485 memorial, 664 Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr., 267 WACS. See Women’s Army Corps Waldo, Daniel, 308 Walker, Mary Evans, 455
Index Wallace, Henry, 70 Walter Reed Army Hospital, 149 (illustration), 407 (illustration) memorial, 700 Walter Reed Hospital Scandal, 441–442 Walters, Daniel, 340 Waltz, Tim, 5 War crimes, 34, 337, 339, 424, 428, 450–452, 560 War dogs, 442–444 memorials 444, 589, 601, 622, 640 War of 1812 veterans, xxix, xxi, 378, 403, 444–448, 497, 499 African American, 5–7 American Indian, 37–38, 48 benefits, 93–95 literature, 264 memorials 588, 610, 625, 634, 636, 639–641, 644, 663, 668, 672, 677, 682 oldest, 308–309 pensions, 287 in politics, 320–321 prisoners of war, 335–336 War of the Triple Alliance (1865–1870), 142 War Risk Insurance, 97–98, 148, 151, 380, 389–390, 413 Warner, John, 420 Warren, Joseph, 494 memorial, 111, 114 Washington (state), 64, 178 memorials, 698 Washington, Booker T., 542 Washington, District of Columbia: memorials, 346, 369, 378, 399, 416, 420, 432, 563–656, 698–701 protests, 424, 428, 452–453, 560– 562. See also Bonus March; Vietnam Memorial; Washington Monument Washington, George, xxvii–xxx, 76, 92 343, 348, 353–354, 370 and African American veterans, 6 and American Indians, 38, 46 and Cincinnati, 366, 368
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documents, 477–485, 700 and politics, 319–320 Washington Monument, xxii, xxix, 369, 432, 448–450, 546, 563 Washington Monument, Baltimore, Maryland, 638–639 (illustration) Washington Post, 421, 441 WASPS. See Women Airforce Service Pilots Waters, Walter W., document, 106, 553 Watie, Stand, 39 Watson, Davis, 28 Watson, Tom, 22 Watt, James, 421 WAVES. See Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service—Navy Wayne, John, 140, 160–161, 248, 436, 474, 600 Webster, Daniel, xxix, 111–113, 321 (illustration) Wecter, Dixon, 472 document, 556–559 Weidman, Richard, document, 545–578 Weightman, George, 441–442 West, Togo, 398 Westmoreland, William, 419, 451, 596 Wheelock, Julia, 463 Whig Party, xxix, 113, 157, 287, 320– 322 (illustration), 447 document, 496–497 White Eyes, 37 Whitman, Walt, document, 509–511 Who’ll Stop the Rain (film), 169, Widows of veterans, 10, 35, 128, 163 burial, 76, 82 pensions, 38, 93–96, 148, 151, 199, 208, 304, 314–315, 344, 261, 373, 378 Wikoff, Camp, 371 Williams, Kayla, 272 Williams, Russell, 102 Wills, David, 185 Wilson, Woodrow, xxxii, 62, 80, 81, 97, 161, 189, 222, 243, 284–285 Winder, Richard Bruce, 264
755
756
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Index
Winter Soldier Investigation, 74, 330, 450–453 document, 559–563 Wisconsin, 39, 121 memorials, 681, 701–703 Women: American Indian societies, 41, 295 document, 511–514 honoring veterans, 134, 136, 188, 278–279 (illustration), 294 (illustration), 404, 405 raise funds for Bunker Hill monument, 112, 113. See also widows Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES, Navy), 128, 459, 460, 466 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS), 282, 458–459 memorial, 657 Women veterans: Afghan War, 4 American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, 33 American Legion, 58, 69, 67, 68 American Revolution, 453–445 American Veterans Committee, 70 Civil War, 454–456 community service, 133, 134 disabled, 148, 151, 152 Grand Army of the Republic, 195 Gulf War, 215–217 Hispanic, 225 Korean War, 461 and literature, 272 memorials, 589, 591, 594, 506, 599– 602, 622, 627, 631, 637, 641, 657, 667, 672, 673, 688, 697–698, 700, 703 in Navy and Coast Guard, 138, 130 post-Vietnam, 462–463 Spanish-American War, 40, 453–454 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 413 Vietnam War, 4125–427, 430, 342, 434–435, 461–462
Vietnam Women’s Memorial, 97, 146, 433, 462 (illustration) women’s veterans’ organizations, 465–465 World War I, 456–457 World War II, 456–461. See also Nurses Women veterans, World War I to the present, 456–466 Women veterans to 1900, 453–356 Women’s Army Corps (WACs), 458, 460–461 memorial, 665 Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association, 225, 466–467, 710 Women’s Coast Guard Reserve, 128, 459, 466 Wood, Leonard, 62, 324 memorial, 653 Woolson, Albert, 309 World Health Organization, 328 World War I veterans, xxii, xxxii–xxxv, 467–471 African American, 20–24 American Indian, 39–41, 50–51, 572 and American legion, 57–65 benefits, 96–99 Bonus, 104–109 (illustration), 387–388 burial at Arlington, 80–84, 87 burial at Gettysburg, 188 Smedley Butler and, 115–116 Coast Guard, 132 disabled, 148–150 documents, 536–561 dogs, 442–443 films, 162–163, 167 gay/lesbian veterans, 178 Hispanic American, 222–223 homes, 403–405 hospitals, 405–408 housing, 232 Jewish, 253 last surviving, 310 literature and, 266 lobby for National Archives, 132
Index Douglas MacArthur and, 275–276 main entry, 467–471 Naval Order and, 301 in politics, 324–325 preference in employment, 332 prisoners of war, 337–338 reunions, 345 shell shock among, 363–365 and Spanish-American War veterans, 373 Tomb of Unknown soldier, 401–402 tuberculosis among, 378–381 and Veterans Bureau/Veterans Administration, 389–392 women, 456–457. See also American Legion; Veterans of Foreign Wars World War II veterans, xxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, 320, 374, 375, 395, 434, 471– 476 (illustrations) African American, 23–28 American Indian, 41–44 (illustration), 51–52, 294 and American Legion, 57–65 and American Veterans Committee, 69–70 and AMVETS, 71–73 benefits, 99–100 blinded veterans, 102–104 burials at Arlington, 82–88 disabled veterans, 151–154 documents, 554–559 dogs, 443–444 Filipino, 159 films, 163–166, 168, 172, 174, 175 gay/lesbian, veterans, 178–179 Hispanic American, 223–226 housing, 232–233, 405 literature and, 238, 266–269 Japanese American, 251 Jewish, 253 compared with Korean War veterans, 255–257
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Douglas MacArthur and, 276 main entry, 457–461 Merchant Marine, 281–212 music and, 296 reunions, 345 memorial to, 346, 476 (illustration) Naval Order, 300–303 in politics, 325–326 preference in government employment, 332 prisoners of war, 338 and post-traumatic stress disorder, 329–322 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 361–363, 431 shell shock, 365 and Veterans Administration, 392– 393 and veterans’ hospitals, 408–409 and Vietnam War veterans, 427–429, 432. See also American Legion; AMVETS; Disabled American veterans; Veterans of Foreign Wars Wounded Warrior Outreach, 74 Wyeth, John, document, 514–517 Wyler, William, 163 Wyoming, 83 memorials, 703–704 Yeltsin, Boris, 338 Yon, Michael, 271 Yorktown, Battle of, xxviii, xxix, 112, 304, 369 memorial, 696 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 468 Young, Whitney, 19 Zimmerman Telegram, 223 Zinneman, Fred, 164, 166
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