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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Military life & institutions > General
Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper was a former slave who rose to become
the first African American graduate of West Point. While serving as
commissary officer at Fort Davis, Texas, in 1881, he was charged
with embezzlement and conduct unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman. A court-martial board acquitted Flipper of the
embezzlement charge but convicted him of conduct unbecoming. He was
then dismissed from the service of the United States. The Flipper
case became known as something of an American Dreyfus Affair,
emblematic of racism in the frontier army. Because of Flipper's
efforts to clear his name, many assumed that he had been railroaded
because he was black.In The Fall of a Black Army Officer, Charles
M. Robinson III challenges that assumption. In this complete
revision of his earlier work, The Court-Martial of Lieutenant Henry
Flipper, Robinson finds that Flipper was the author of his own
problems. The taint of racism on the Flipper affair became so
widely accepted that in 1999 President Bill Clinton issued a
posthumous pardon for Flipper. The Fall of a Black Army Officer
boldly moves the arguments regarding racism--in both Lt. Flipper's
case and the frontier army in general--beyond political
correctness. Solidly grounded in archival research, it is a
thorough and provocative reassessment of the Flipper affair, at
last revealing the truth.
Trust in media and political institutions is at an all-time low in
America, yet veterans enjoy an unmatched level of credibility and
moral authority. Their war stories have become crucial testimony
about the nation's leadership, foreign policies, and wars.
Veterans' memoirs are not simply self-revelatory personal
chronicles but contributions to political culture-to the stories
circulated and incorporated into national myths and memories.
American War Stories centers on an extensive selection of memoirs
written by veterans of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
conflicts-including Brian Turner's My Life as a Foreign Country,
Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor, and Camilo Mejia's Road from ar
Ramadi-to explore the complex relationship between memory and
politics in the context of postmodern war. Placing veterans'
stories in conversation with broader cultural and political
discourses, Myra Mendible analyzes the volatile mix of agendas,
identities, and issues informing veteran-writers' narrative choices
to argue that their work plays an important, though underexamined,
political function in how Americans remember and judge their wars.
"War is often prosecuted in conjunction with other services, as
also with para-military forces. Indian Army is also involved in
safeguarding disputed borders along mountainous and high altitude
terrain. Such deployment often leads to clashes arising out of
political decisions and military compulsions. India is also facing
two nuclear nations; one of them operates below the thresh-hold,
yet there can be nuclear weapons use. The Army is also employed in
aid to civil authority, natural calamities and disaster management.
The human role will continue to predominate, as such, identifying
ingredients that constitute a soldier's potential becomes
necessary. The study of Psychology for the Soldiers seems not
adequately carried out, at least on the surface, for selection,
training, allotment of trades; and eventually for leadership,
tactics, strategy and operational employment. This book aims at
initiating more study and research on the subject. "
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