• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The George G. Marshall Lecture in Military History The Duality of the American Military Tradition: A Commentary •ir Edward M. Goffman* The second George C. Marshall Lecture in Miliiary History was jointly sponsored by the George C. Marshall Foundation and the Society for Military History. It was delivered on 31 March 2000 at the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. The purpose of the lecture series is to honor the accom- plishments of a distinguished scholar in the field of military history; to demonstrate to members of the historical profession and the gen- eral public the relevance of military history and the contributions of its practioners; and to commemorate the interest in history of George C. Marshall (1880-1959), former U.S. Army Chief of Staff (1939-45), Secretary of State (1947-49), and Secretary of Defense (1950-51). EVERAL years ago, an ad man called from Milwaukee to ask me to Scheck out an advertisement that he had just written. Rather than call- ing up images of scantily clad maidens or cute infants, he wanted to exploit the American military tradition to encourage people to purchase his product. The blurb he read to me included a list of five or six famous American battles. 1 have forgotten all but one—Dunkirk—because that, understandably, struck a jarring note. When I told him that Dunkirk was not an American battle, he pressed me at length. Why wasn't it? Weren't there American participants in it? and so on. I held my ground until he finally hung up. I never saw the finished ad but, a few days later, I received in the mail a coffee cup with the logo of the ad agency embla- zoned on its side. I tell this story not to point out the difficulty in changing a made-up mind or to boast of having received a token compensation for my exper- " I wish to express my appreciation to Jerry M. Cooper, Conrad C. Crane, Paul J. Jacobsmeyer, and Timothy K. Nenninger for their help. Thu Jfivmul o/Míliíí f>4 (Outohcr 21)001: <J(>7-H() © Sociuiy for Military History * 967 EDWARD M. COFFMAN- tise (a rare occurrence as we historians all know), but to illustrate the rather shaky grasp that Americans have of their country's military tradi- tion. As one might expect, the Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Gommittee in August 1940 demonstrated a firmer grasp of this tradition when he tried to calm the fears of those Americans who were concerned about the condition of our armed forces after the German army had taken France out of the war. Senator Robert R. Reynolds of North Carolina emphasized that Americans are different from other peoples because "our boys learn to shoot from the time they put on knee pants." By way of illustration, he pointed out that the mountaineers in his state "draw a bead on a squirrel a hundred yards away and aim at the right eye ... [if they hit him in the body,] they think that is unsportsmanlike." Why should we be worried about the German blitzkrieg? He went on to say: "I am not. .'afear'd' of Hitler coming over here, because if he does, he will get the worst licking he ever had in his life, because our boys have been trained to shoot."' Aside from his assumption that the United States would not become involved in World War II unless invaded, and his obvi- ous lack of understanding of modern warfare. Bob Reynolds certainly showed a clear understanding of a basic tenet of the American military tradition—that the citizenry could be depended upon to defend this country. And, of course, they have throughout our history. Since World War II, many Americans have relied too much on the movies for their knowledge of military tradition. After all, John Wayne did fight, on the screen, heroically from the Alamo, through the Givil War and Indian wars, and as a sailor, soldier, and marine in World War II before he finally wound up in the Special Forces in Vietnam—all without ever actu- ally being in the service. If the fans paid close attention to his roles, how- ever, they should have noticed that in several of his films he was not an amateur civilian springing to arms to save the day, but a long-serving pro- fessional soldier, sailor, or marine. It is unlikely that Wayne's sympathetic portrayals of the hard-bitten, old Cavalry Captain Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and the relentlessly tough Marine Sergeant Stryker in Sands of Iwo Jima caused any of his viewers to re-examine whatever notions they had about the American military tradition. But, at least, these characters did point up a different aspect of that tradition. Indeed, there is a duality of the American military tradition. Russell F. Weigley, the distinguished historian who has written so much and so well on the American Army, succinctly explained why in his History of the United States Army: "A history of the United States Army must be, however, a history of two armies. Inheritance from England, geography, and democratic ideology have given the country two: a Regular Army of 1. Quotations are from a iengtiiy exeerpt of Reynolds's speeeh in Louis Smith, American Democracy and Military Power: A Study of Civil Control of the Military Power in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 252. 968 * THE JOURNAL OF =^ The Duality of the American Military Tradition professional soldiers and a citizen army of various components variously known as militia. National Guards, Organized Reserves, seleetees."^ Wars naturally dominate the military tradition. Significant issues are involved, large numbers of the populaee are in uniform, lives are at stake, and the sacrifices are great. In peacetime, veteran organizations and other patriotic groups dedicate themselves to eommemorating the wars. In both the professional service and the eivilian eomponents, regiments perpetuate this memory with the battle honors on their colors, their dis- tinctive insignia, and some, after World War I, with the Fourraguerre and, after World War II, the Presidential Unit Citation. In this essay, I intend to show how the history of these two armies has been interwoven with tension and cooperation in the process of giv- ing life to their traditions through World War 11.-^ The civilian military tra- dition has always been predominant. After all, it is not only the oldest, but also more Americans have participated in it. From the beginnings of colonization in the early seventeenth century, the English who made the first settlements assumed that fighting was a possibility. Since there was no professional army at hand, they called upon their own knowledge of the militia system in England to organize their defense." The strengths of this approach were that the system fit their need for local defense and it was much less expensive than maintaining a large group of full-time men at arms. Besides, even if they could have afforded it, there was an inher- ent fear of such a force. The weakness was that over the years, the con- cept of obligation to serve, upon which the system depended, lost its sharp edge. 2. Russell F. Weigley, History of the Urüted States Army (New York: Macmilian, 1967), xi. In his To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modem America (New York: Free Press, 1987) on page 266, John W. Chambers, II qualiñes this deñnition by say- ing that the two armies are a small standing army peacetime force and the much larger temporary wartime army. 3. This essay will deal with the Regular Army, the National Guard, and the Army Reserve rather than the regular and eivilian eomponents of the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard. The Army has been the largest professional force over the years while the militia has the longest heritage of any military service. 4. For the eolonial period, I have depended upon Douglas E. Leach, Arms For Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America 1607-1763 (New York: Macmillan, 1973) and his Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans 1677-1763 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986); John Shy, Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965) and his A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Indepen- dence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), Chapter 2; John K. Mahon, History of the Militia and the National Guard (New York: Macmillan, 1983), Chapters 1 and 2; and Jerry M. Cooper, The Militia and the National Guard in America since Colo- nial Times: A Research Guide (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993), Chapter 3. MILITARY HISTORY * 969 EDWARD M. COFFMAN- Anyone who surveys the history of the eolonial militia quiekly beeomes aware of the importance of localism. After all, local defense was the primary reason for the system. As the need for sueh an effort beeame less real, local interest understandably declined. The system itself varied from eolony to eolony with those whieh had more tightly organized com- munities naturally having a more organized militia. The seventy-odd men of Captain John Parker's company who gathered on Lexington Green on 19 April 1775 were aeting in defense of their eommunity against the British regulars who eame down the road toward them. While the redcoats quickly swept this opposition aside, the rest of the day became very long indeed for those regulars as militiamen rallied at Concord and along their route baek to Boston to snipe at them.' The Revolution thus began and the militias of other New England eolonies joined their Massaehusetts com- rades to besiege Boston.

Load more

  15

Copy Link