The American Enlisted Man

The American Enlisted Man TIIE AMERICAN El The Rank and File in Today’s Military Charles C. Moskos, Jr. Russell Sage Foundation, New York 1970 U766 jritXo Publications of Russell Sage Foundation Russell Sage Foundation was established in 1907 by Mrs. Russell Sage for the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. In carrying out its purpose the Foundation conducts research under the direction of members of the staff or in close collaboration with other institutions, and supports programs designed to develop and demonstrate productive working relations between social scientists and other professional groups. As an integral part of its operations, the Foundation from time to time publishes books or pamphlets resulting from these activities. Publication under the imprint of the Foundation does not necessarily imply agreement by the Foundation, its Trustees, or its staff with the inter¬ pretations or conclusions of the authors. © 1970 by Russell Sage Foundation Designed by Bennett Robinson Printed in the United States of America by Connecticut Printers, Inc., Hartford, Connecticut Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-96113 Standard Book Number: 607-8 Contents ix Acknowledgments 1 Chapter 1: Images of Enlisted Life 37 Chapter 2: The Enlisted Man in the “New” Military 64 Chapter 3: The Enlisted Culture 78 Chapter U: The Overseas Serviceman 108 Chapter 5: Racial Relations in the Armed Forces 134 Chapter 6: Behavior of Combat Soldiers in Vietnam 157 Chapter 7: The War and the Gi 166 Chapter 8: The Emergent Military Establishment 183 A Personal Statement 188 Appendix 1: Military Pay Grades and Rank Titles 190 Appendix 2: The NORC Manpower Survey Sample 193 Tables 231 Notes 249 Bibliography 263 Index vii Acknowledgments Many men who have served in the armed forces have thought at one time or another how they would like to write a book about the military. This wish came true for me only because of the unanticipated and generous assistance I received from numer¬ ous persons. John B. Spore, senior editor of Army magazine, by desig¬ nating me as a correspondent allowed for my virtual complete access to American soldiers throughout the world. But more important, Spore’s personal blend of humanistic values and informed understanding of the military organization have greatly influenced my own thinking. It has also been through the concern of John Spore that other researchers of the military establishment have been advised and have been able to carry out their work. The dedication of this volume to Spore, a former enlisted man himself, is belated acknowledgment of the debt social science owes him. Roger W. Little was the first person to encourage me pro¬ fessionally to get on with the study. Since then I have relied exorbitantly on Little’s remarkable insights on the sociology of the military in all phases of the writing of this book. Through¬ out the preparation of this study, I have argued with and learned much from Morris Janowitz. His own landmark work on the armed forces and society continues to be a model for my own efforts. Philip M. Timpane, staff assistant for civil rights, Depart¬ ment of Defense, gave counsel and made data available on racial matters in the armed services. My dealings with military personnel at all levels was made possible by the extraordinary cooperation of military information officers and noncom¬ missioned officers, men who perform a difficult task with both efficiency and good humor. In particular, I was fortunate in Vietnam to make a friend of Master Sergeant (now retired) ix Acknowledgments Donald Pratt. In the proverbial manner of the noncom, Pratt was always able to arrange transportation and other material amenities to suit the needs of the moment. For their valuable suggestions to improve the manuscript, I am indebted to Howard S. Becker, Joseph A. Blake, Thomas R. Brennan, Robert C. Carroll, Hugh F. Cline, and Esequiel Sevilla, Jr. Renate Ayers not only efficiently typed a manuscript given to her in bits and pieces, but was also able to correct many of my malapropisms. The basic financial support for this study was given by the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society spon¬ sored by the Russell Sage Foundation. The Inter-University Seminar is an ongoing enterprise that seeks to encourage sustained and systematic studies of military institutions, a research area commanding the interests of too few social scientists. A 1965 field trip to Germany, Korea, and Vietnam was made possible by a travel grant given by the University of Michigan. In 1966 and 1967, the Council for Intersocietal Stud¬ ies of Northwestern University made funds available for travel and research expenses to the Dominican Republic and return trips to Germany and Vietnam. It should also be noted that a major portion of the initial research expenses of this study was paid for out of my own pocket. Finally, and most important, deep thanks is due to those men of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, and First Infantry Division with whom I lived during the field research. The otherwise nostalgic memory of the comradely reception these soldiers accorded a visiting professor is over¬ come by the fact that some never lived to return home. It must be stressed that the usual caveat that the author alone accepts responsibility for the interpretations and con¬ clusions is especially relevant in this study. Indeed, I doubt if there is another person who would be in complete agreement with what I have written. x Images of Enlisted Life God must love enlisted men, He made so many of them. —an anonymous Gi Whatever God’s feelings on the matter, this parody of Lincoln’s remark accurately captures the commonness of the enlisted experience. Of some 3,500,000 American men in uniform in 1969, over 3,000,000 were serving as enlisted men. Of the over 26,000,000 living Americans who are veterans of military serv¬ ice, at least 23,000,000 were enlisted men. Put another way, about one-half of all adult American males have been in the armed forces with close to 90 per cent of them spending their entire military service in the enlisted ranks. It is not surprising, then, that the American enlisted man has come to form a durable image in our culture. Like other stereotypes, popular portrayals of enlisted men, such as the heroic fighting man or the happy-go-lucky garrison soldier, distort as much as they reveal. But enlisted stereotypes also offer a valuable and even necessary insight into the makeup and operation of the military establishment. For an overview of how the enlisted man has fared as a social type takes us part way in understanding the role of the rank and file in the mili¬ tary system as well as telling us much about the enlisted man’s position in American society. Nearly all images of enlisted life, historical and contem¬ porary, share in common a portrayal of men isolated from civilian controls and expectations. This aspect of the enlisted stereotype—the fully institutionalized quality of military life— goes back at least to the nineteenth century and undoubtedly has antecedents much further removed in time. But it is more in the changes of enlisted images, rather than in the conti¬ nuities, that we begin to discern significant ways in which 1 The American Enlisted Man variations in the structure of military organization and shifts in the nature of civil-military relations have affected the en¬ listed experience. And these changing stereotypes often high¬ light many of the more detailed findings given in the later chapters. Even in the relatively short time since the start of the Second World War, one can observe four different and more or less discrete portrayals of the enlisted man. The first period includes the years immediately preceding World War II, the actual war years, and the years immediately following the con¬ flict. A second period begins with the Korean War (1950) and ends in the middle 1950s. This is followed by a Cold War period which for our purposes can be dated from the middle 1950s through the early 1960s (although, of course, the Cold War historically speaking predates the Korean War and persists into the present). The current or Vietnam period starts from about 1964 and continues into the time of this writing (1969). In each of these periods, the mission of the military required different emphases. This in turn resulted in different kinds of modal enlisted experiences and corresponding changes in portrayals of enlisted men. These image shifts have been somewhat uniform even though coming from vantage points as diverse as movies, novels, cartoons, the writings of social commentators, and social science analyses of survey findings. World War II. In 1939 there were approximately 340,000 men in the armed forces of the United States. By June, 1941—six months before Pearl Harbor—American mobilization was well under way and military strength reached 1,800,000 men. Once the United States entered World War II the largest military force in our history was rapidly established, and by the close of the war in 1945 over 12,000,000 persons were in uniform. Following the war’s end, there was a considerable drop in military strength as demobilization proceeded apace. In 1946 there were 3,000,000 persons in the armed forces, and from 1947 to 1950 the figure hovered around 1,500,000. The years of mass mobilization in World War II, however, shaped many of the images of military life that still persist. 2 Images of Enlisted Life A perennial staple in our mass culture has been the drama¬ tization of the war exploits, either real or imagined, of the American serviceman.

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