Conservatism and Culture: The Transformation of the U.S. Army After Vietnam by Joseph D. Swinney Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Dirk Bönker, Supervisor ___________________________ Nancy MacLean ___________________________ Anna Krylova ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 i v ABSTRACT Conservatism and Culture: The Transformation of the U.S. Army After Vietnam by Joseph D. Swinney Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Dirk Bönker, Supervisor ___________________________ Nancy MacLean ___________________________ Anna Krylova ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 i v Copyright by Joseph D. Swinney 2019 Abstract This dissertation explores the revitalization of the U.S. army during the two decades following the Vietnam War. It questions how the army went from a nearly broken institution in the early 1970s to, arguably, one of the nation’s most respected institutions after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Through an examination of collections of articles published in the extensive military press of the period, collections of personal papers from both senior and lower ranking army officers, and historical files from the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, this dissertation shows that the army’s revitalization was fundamentally a transformation in the institution’s culture and conceptions of professionalism. After the Vietnam War, the army followed the nation in its conservative political turn. Particularly during the 1980s, members of the army appropriated much of the language and terms of the conservative political movement, and applied those terms to their understanding of military professionalism. The army’s cultural transformation was also about more than changes in military doctrine and schooling. The particular ways that members of the army came to understand warfare, the importance of the individual soldier, and so-called warrior values, all of which were formalized in the Airland Battle doctrine of the 1980s, also shaped how members of the army thought about social and cultural questions such as race, gender, and the institution’s values iv Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... vi Introduction: From the Jungle to the Desert ............................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Active Defense Doctrine, Transitioning to a New Institutional Culture 1973 to 1978 ............................................................................................................................................ 53 Chapter 2: Calibrating Performance and Purpose, Airland Battle Doctrine, Values, and the New Professionalism .......................................................................................................... 108 Chapter 3: Warrior Ethos and the German Model of Professionalism .............................. 160 Chapter 4: Race Relations in the Post-Vietnam War Army, Color-blind Narratives and a Welfare State ............................................................................................................................... 228 Chapter 5: Virtuous Warriors and the Army’s Professional Ethic ..................................... 289 Chapter 6: A Category Apart, The Woman Soldier from Integration to Exclusion ........ 334 Conclusion: Still in the Desert ................................................................................................. 387 References ................................................................................................................................... 397 Biography .................................................................................................................................... 433 v Acknowledgements No dissertation is the work of one person, and this one is no different. My first and deepest thank you is to my wife Liz, and my daughters Mili and Cora. You all have been an excellent source of support. I love you, and I appreciate your patience during these last three years. I have also been blessed with an amazing committee. My advisor, Dirk Bönker, was very patient as I learned something of the craft of writing. I thank him for his time and critiques that helped shape my thoughts into a passable dissertation. Nancy MacLean, Anna Krylova, and Adriane Lentz-Smith each brought their unique talents and perspectives to this work as well as my own personal development. Not only am I a better writer and historian because of each of your efforts, but I would like to think a better person as well. My eternal thanks. I started down this path largely because of the mentorship of Dean Nowowiejski, my seminar professor at the Command and General Staff Course. Dr. No, his career, and his faith have been a model for me these last few years. My further thanks to Carson Holloway, Kelley Lawton, and the staff of Duke’s Lilly Library where most of this dissertation was written. I must also acknowledge the army’s Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Fellowship that supported my graduate studies. And last, writers need good pubs, my thanks to the staff and the warm welcomes at the Glass Jug. vi Introduction: From the Jungle to the Desert A worn-out old copy of Anton Myrer’s Once an Eagle lies in a place of honor on my bookshelf. Originally published in 1968, the novel has been reprinted several times over, and was adapted into a 1976 television mini-series.1 It is a monster at over eight hundred pages, and its plot spans from the First World War through the 1960s. Once an Eagle lacks nuance. Its characters are one-dimensional, and the novel conceptualizes war as if it were a clearly delineated struggle between good and evil. But, given that Myrer wrote the novel during the height of the U.S. Vietnam War, that simplicity has been part of the novel’s charm. My copy of Once an Eagle is in dreadful shape and tired from use. Its pages are dog-eared and fading, and some of them hold to the binding with bits of super-glue and rusted staples. The cover has long since detached, and is now held in place with olive- drab duct tape. The book’s pages bear the crackly wavy water marks amassed from a hard life spent in the hands of careless readers and humid locations. I purchased the book as a Lieutenant nearly two decades ago. Since then, my copy of Once an Eagle has ridden in rucksacks, made its way across oceans in footlockers, and rested at the bottom of duffel bags. It smells like old tent canvas, a stale-sweet- mildewy aroma that is both pungent and oddly comforting. Sand and dust from half of 1 Anton Myrer, Once an eagle, 1st ed., (New York,: Holt, 1968). 1 the United States and more than a few countries wears its pages. I often loaned Once an Eagle to those around me; other officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers. During their breaks in reading, the casually splayed the book across stacks of radios in operations tents, or sometimes used it as a paperweight to hold fast the corners of a map. But they all read the book. My fellow soldiers read Once an Eagle partly because the story is good and partly because it offers a simple recipe for military life – “if it comes to a choice between being a good soldier and a good human being, try to be a good human being.”2 The book remains a clear recipe for professionalism, sound leadership, and ethical behavior. Through my decades of military life, Once an Eagle is something I have always carried. I am not alone. Once an Eagle has been on most of the army’s professional reading lists since the 1970s, read by countless American soldiers. The book was an instant classic among the membership – particularly the officer corps – of the army. The Command and General Staff Course curricula included the novel as required reading throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Once an Eagle is so well known to members of the army that it is featured in the titles of master’s degree theses, and its characters are shorthand for various types of officer personalities.3 2 Anton Myrer, Once an Eagle, (New York: Harper Torch an imprint of HarperCollins, 1968; repr., 2001), 1288. 3 Thomas H. Rendell, "Warriors to Bureaucrats: Why Officers Start out to be Sam Damon and end up Courtney Massengale" (Army War College, 2000).The lasting relevance of Once an Eagle is evidenced by its inclusion on the 2013 Chief of Staff of the Army’s reading list, see "The U.S. Army Chief of Staff’s 2 Once an Eagle follows the careers of two army officers from World War I through their service in Vietnam – referred to as “Khotiane” in the book. The protagonist, Sam Damon, is the quintessential stoic hero while the other, Courtney Massengale, is politically connected, career focused, and concerned only with power. Unlike Massengale’s blue-blooded West Point credentials, Damon was born into poverty on a small farm in Nebraska. He initially entered the army as a private,