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Explain the combat contract and apply it to World War I or World War II, and Korea or Vietnam
NO OUTSIDE SOURCES!! so do not come up with random dates and stats if its not stated by
the book
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the paper is very straightforward, please write a 7 pages paper (cover page and pictures do not count) explaining the combat contract and apply it to WWI or WWII with Korea or Vietnam wars using sources ONLY from Kindsvatter, Peter S. American Soldiers: ground combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Please only write this paper if you have read or will read the book. I don’t want a weak paper because the professor is a tough grader.
the book
Kindsvatter, P. S. (2003). American soldiers: Ground combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Lawrence, Kan: Univ. Press of Kansas
1072 The Journal of American History Decetnber 2003
work bas tended to buttress tbeories of innate
racial inequality but in tbe main. Tucker
writes, “obscure academics lacking any major
scientific acbievements and notable primarily
for their contributions to a string of racist and
neo-Nazi causes” (p. 210).
Daniel J. Kevles
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut
“Die Scbwarzen waren unsere Freunde”: Deut-
scbe Kriegsgefangene in der amerikaniscben Ge-
sellscbafi, 1942-1946 (“The blacks were our
friends”: German prisoners of war in Ameri-
can society, 1942-1946). By Mattbias Reiß.
(Paderborn, Ger.: Schöningh, 2002. 371 pp.
€ 4 0 . 9 0 , ISBN 3-506-74479-8.) In German.
This book focuses on tbe multiple ironies gen-
erated by tbe presence during World War II of
increasing numbers of German prisoners of
war (POWs) in tbe racial structure of a United
States segregated by law and custom. As con-
quered enemies, representing a regime tbat
came close to incorporating absolute evil, tbe
Germans stood in principle beneatb even the
lowest rungs of the American order. Germans
were also, particularly in the South, widely
used for the kinds of agricultural labor associ-
ated with blacks and organized on “black”
lines, in large work gangs. O n tbe otber hand,
as clearly identifiable members of tbe domi-
nant etbnic community, tbey were regularly
treated as “wbites” in situations involving seg-
regated facilities such as restaurants, toilets,
and railroad cars. According to Matthias Reiss,
German prisoners eventually were so readily
accepted by the American civil population
that the POW camps increasingly became a
means less of protecting Americans from tbeir
enemies than of keeping the two groups apart,
preventing the Germans from utilizing fully
the privileges that accrued to them because of
tbeir skin color.
Reiss concedes tbat more tban racial issues
were involved in tbis process. He makes tbe
case that, in contrast to 1917, the U.S. war
against Germany did not possess a strong,
popular ideological dimension. That made it
easier to integrate German POWs into the
American racial structure—particularly by
comparison witb tbeir Japanese counterparts,
defined as “otbers” in botb racial and ideolog-
ical terms throughout the conflict. Black
Americans by and large took tbe same ap-
proacb to German prisoners as their white fel-
low countrymen did, fraternizing with them
at every opportunity. Germans for their part,
despite the racist and totalitarian doctrines of
National Sociahsm, responded with similar
interest and curiosity—hence the book’s title.
Reiss’s hmited focus on race, however, leads
him to overlook other factors no less impor-
tant to the acculturation of German POWs.
Above all, they had nowhere to go. Escaping
from a work site often involved little more
than walking away, but the sheer size of the
United States rendered that activity pointless.
The big cities were far away, and even tbere
disappearing proved difficult. A few nigbts
outdoors were usually enougb to bring fugi-
tives into tbe open, seeking a ride back to cus-
tody.
Tbe pbysical circumstances of captivity in
turn created among tbe POWs a widespread
mentality of compliance, of making tbe best
of tbings until tbey sbould be able to return to
tbeir own society. Tbose prisoners wbo main-
tained a bostile distance were usually re-
stricted, by cboice or compulsion, in tbeir
contacts witb American civilians. Tbe norma-
tive behaviors of the rest appealed to most
Americans who had any encounters with the
POWS. They appeared as hard working, polite,
deferential—qualities appreciated in all young
men but associated especially closely with ap-
propriate black behavior. German POWs’
whiteness, in short, was not entirely a matter
of pigment. It was to a significant degree a
construction, combining tbe skin color of tbe
dominant group and tbe submissive behavior
ofthe subordinate one.
Dennis E. Sbowalter
Colorado Gollege
Golorado Springs, Golorado
Tbe G! War against Japan: American Soldiers in
Asia and tbe Pacific during World War II. By
Peter Scbrijvers. (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 2002. xvi, 320 pp. $45.00, ISBN
0-8147-9816-0.)
Book Reviews 1073
American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the
World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. By Petet S.
Kindsvattet. (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 2003. xxiv, 432 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-
7006-1229-7.)
Drawing extensively on wartime letters, un-
publisbed personal memoirs, diaries, and
questionnaires completed by vetetans, Peter
Scbrijvers compiles a rieb and compelling cul-
tural and social bistory of Ametican service-
men and -women serving in Asia and tbe Pa-
cific during World War II. His broad
panorama includes personal testimonies and
narratives ftom all the military brancbes de-
scribing tbe diversity of wartime experiences
ftom frontline rifiemen trying to live out a sin-
gle day to supply clerks stuck for montbs ot
years on end in tbe lonely backwaters of tbe
Pacific, India, ot Cbina. Tbis is not a fashion-
able “memory study,” but a fresh account de-
rived ftom contemporary first person desctip-
tions and impressions of the phenomena of
modern, total war in the mid-twentieth cen-
tury. To place these testimonies in the larger
context, the autbor supplements the personal
and impressionistic versions of a militaty soci-
ety at war in Asia and the Pacific with judi-
cious teliance on secondary sources and offi-
cial U.S. military histories.
For analytical purposes, Scbrijvers organizes
bis book into tbree main sections. Part 1 exam-
ines the conceprion of the American C.I.’s of
the Asia-Pacific theaters of war as another fron-
tier to be evaluated, tamed, and Ameticanized.
As be vividly demonstrates in part 2, tbe fron-
tier terrain, witb its multitudinous cultures
and peoples, proved resistant to American con-
trol, producing among C.I.’s a sense of frustra-
tion “fiowing ftom tbe region’s oppressive
wilderness, tbreatening demographics, and im-
penetrable mentality” (p. ix). Part 3 plumbs
the escalating fury unleashed by a modern, in-
dustrialized society against an unforgiving en-
vironment and foe. Beyond the personal rage
of flesh and blood unleashed in wartime
loomed the impersonal industrial violence that
developed geometrically duting the war.
Schtijvers’s analysis is fitst rate throughout
the volume and avoids monocausal ot simplis-
tic explanations to account fot the rage and
barbatity tbat cbaracterized tbe war against Ja-
pan. Beyond the physical and mental tribula-
tions, the harsh environment, and the “acti-
mony springing from cultural and tacial
competition” (p. 220) lay the psychological
mechanisms triggered by combat itself. War-
fare corrodes tbe human spirit, and as Schrij-
vers suggests “every new step on the path of
batbarization could be justified as nothing
more than retaliation in kind” (p. 221). Add
to this the impetsonal dimension of industrial
violence, and “amidst the numbing escalation
of destruction ftom land, sea, and ait it took
time for the extraordinary fury of the atomic
bombs to stand out” (p. 260).
Scbtijvets provides a deep and rieb textute
of tbe overall context and expetience of total
watfate as exptessed by tbose Ameticans who
participated in the defining process. The a
War against Japan does what first-rate histoty
is supposed to do; it evokes the spirit of the
age and the impressions of the ordinary men
and women who lived tbrougb it. If, as Scbrij-
vers reminds us, modern industrial warfare is
so complex an event that attempts to sanitize
it are as inadequate as those to brutalize it, is it
possible or even wottbwbile for a bistotian to
write about tbe expetience of battle?
Peter S. Kindsvattet’s ambitious study an-
swets tbat question. It is at once nattowet than
Schtijvers’s, being focused on soldiers in com-
bat, and more expansive by analyzing battle-
field conduct in the fout major wars fought by
the United States ftom 1917 to 1972. Kinds-
vatter asks what motivates a soldiet, in James
Jones’s wotds, to “‘go out into dangerous
places and get himself^shot at'” (p. xii). To an-
swer the rhetorical question, he telies exten-
sively on “published fiction, memoirs, and his-
toties by combat veterans” (p. ix), all of it
familiar to military bistory specialists. Wbat
sets American Soldiers apart is Kindsvatter’s ex-
cellent melding of secondary soutces and bat-
tle litetatute into a cobetent and insigbtful ex-
planation of men in battle. It is good to bave
tbis distillation of bistory and litetatute witb
its thought-provoking interpretations in a sin-
gle volume.
American Soldiers is arranged thematically,
with each chapter cattying its subject ftom
World Wat I through the Vietnam Wat.
1074 The Journal of American History December 2003
Chapter 1, for example, examines why men
enlisted or accepted being drafted, and it finds
similar motivations and preconceptions about
warfare in all four confiicts. Subsequent chap-
ters deal with the individual soldiers’ or
marines’ reaction to battle, their ability or in-
ability to cope with the environment, and in-
sightful analysis of the motivations that kept
them in harm’s way when all ordinary instincts
suggested fiight.
By pulling together fragments of accounts
drawn from over a half century of American
warfare, Kindsvatter demonstrates the conti-
nuity of the combatant’s experience of war, the
repetition of soldiers’ behavior, and the con-
stant need to relearn previously hard-gained
experience, which suggests the difficulty com-
bat veterans encounter when passing along
their personal narratives. Like Schrijvers, he
concludes that a variety of motivations con-
spire to make soldiers go forward into battle.
Racial hatred may be one, but it is not the sole
reason to fight and kill. Others include basic
survival, vengeance, adventure, enjoyment in
dealing with stress, and the obvious but often
overlooked satisfaction, sense of accomplish-
ment, and pride of the soldier who took a
deadly job seriously and did it well.
Both authors develop and analyze the com-
plex, multiple, and often simultaneous moti-
vations of the C.I. at war. Both break down
the stereotypes of combat and warfare that
have been perpetuated into national myth.
Read together, the two accounts offer the
reader a new appreciation of the social conse-
quences of warfare from the eyes of partici-
pants, not distant observers. For a complex so-
cietal grouping such as the armed forces, their
conclusions should not be surprising, but they
are ones that constandy need restating. These
books do that in superb fashion.
Edward J. Drea
Fairfax, Virginia
The Hidden Campaign: FDR s Health and the
1944 Election. By Hugh E. Evans. (Armonk:
Sharpe, 2002. xviii, 202 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-
7656-0855-3.)
This addition to the literature on Franklin D.
Roosevelt is a worthy and well-written study
by Hugh E. Evans, an eminently qualified and
experienced physician. It focuses primarily
upon Roosevelt’s health during the last
months of his life, and it provides a brief treat-
ment of FDR’S medical history and some gen-
eral observations on the life expectancy of the
twentieth-century president.
When Roosevelt assumed the presidency in
1933 he was in excellent health except for the
partial paralysis resulting from the polio attack
in 1921. The first known evidence of decline
in Roosevelt’s health was a very high blood
pressure reading in 1937 and results of an “ab-
normal” EKG (electrocardiogram) in 1941.
Thereafter until 1944 during the stressful days
of World War II “the president’s hypertension
progressed without even minimal treatment as
noted in available records” (pp. 37-38).
The person Evans found most responsible
for ignoring these warning signs was the pres-
ident’s personal physician, Ross T. Mclntire.
Finally in early \9AA, under pressure from
worried staff and family members, Mclntire
invited Howard G. Bruenn, an internist and
cardiologist, to examine Roosevelt. Bruenn
then became Roosevelt’s primary physician
untU the president died in April 1945. Bruenn
was sworn to secrecy and reported only to
Mclntire. Bruenn’s diagnosis: hypertension,
congestive heart failure, and bronchitis. He
recommended hospital confinement, digitali-
zation, a strict diet, and weight reduction.
Mclntire responded, “‘You can’t do that. This
is the President of the United States!'” (p. 46).
Roosevelt was not hospitalized, and Evans es-
timated that the probability of Roosevelt sur-
viving a fourth term was low.
Nonetheless, Roosevelt ran in 1944 and
was elected to a fourth term. The president’s
performance in his “Fala” speech and his cam-
paign appearance in New York in the rain
seemed to dispel any public concerns, and
most press coverage on the president’s health
depended primarily upon Mclntire, who
“‘isn’t a bit worried about him'” (p. 80). This
despite a blood pressure reading in September
1944 at the second Quebec Conference that
ranged from 180/100 to 240/130! Roosevelt
died not long afi:er the Yalta Conference in
April 1945 of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
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