Studies of the military that deal with the actual experience of troops in the field are still rare in the social sciences. In fact, this ethnographic study of an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Force is the only one of its kind. As an officer of this unit and a professional anthropologist, the author was ideally positioned for his role as participant observer. During the eight years he spent with his unit he focused primarily on such notions as "conflict", "the enemy", and "soldiering" because they are, he argues, the key points of reference for "what we are" and "what we are trying to do" and form the basis for interpreting the environment within which armies operate. Relying on the latest anthropological approaches to cognitive models and the social constructions of emotion and masculinity, the author offers an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that drive the men's attitudes and behavior, and a rare and fascinating insight into the reality of military life.

Feuer has fine-tuned our understanding of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection by unearthing and publishing for the first time an illuminating combat diary. . . . Serious students of American military history will appreciate the opportunity to compare nearly a century of changing interpretations with a most valuable primary source. The editor of the "Bilibid Diary," Feuer has once again rendered conspicious service to the historical profession.

" Barry F. Machado Professor of History Washington and Lee University "

The story of the Old Army as revealed through the eyes of Colonel Jacob Kreps, this book dramatically portrays life in action with the U.S. Infantry on the Western frontier, in the Spanish-American War, and in the Philippine Insurrection. Drawing on the first hand accounts preserved in the diary of Kreps, who served for more than 30 years with the U.S. Twenty-second Infantry Regiment, A. B. Feuer details the hardships endured by the soldiers in combat action.

Feuer recounts the experiences of the distinguished U.S. Twenty-second Infantry Regiment beginning in 1883. He also discusses numerous other U.S. Army units--infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering, medical, quartermaster and signal--and offers important data on the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Some of the accounts, such as that of the Pasig River battle and the Mindanao campaign, fill in missing chapters in the chronicles of war history. This book, which includes original maps and photographs, is valuable to anyone interested in military history.

This is the story of that small band of women who wore U.S. Marine uniforms during the Korean War. These women are a "lost generation" of women Marines who stepped into the breach between two wars and preserved the opportunity to be a Marine for those who were as yet unborn. They were, in fact, a "thin green line"--and they stood fast, just like Marines are taught to do.

The One Night Stand Series broadcasts from 1943 to 1965 made the United States Armed Forces Radio Service the biggest music producer the world has ever known. Played over both military and civilian radio stations in many countries, most Armed Forces Radio Service rebroadcasts were sheer entertainment but they kept memories of home alive for American Service men and women around the globe. The 30-minute One Night Stand transcriptions included live broadcasts or remotes from all the popular ballrooms and hotels in the United States. Every type of band such as Hawaiian, Latin, novelty, sweet, dance, swing, jazz, large, small, black, and white was represented. Found here is the Regular Series up to 1001--to round off a mastering week. The Fill Series and the Popular Music Replacement Series, also found here, ran concurrently with the main series. A small number of transcriptions missing from the official libraries have not been included but otherwise compilers Harry Mackenzie and Lothar Polomski have gathered together every available shred of information for this exhaustive volume. Besides a history of the Armed Forces Radio Service and the Regular, Fill, and Popular series, the book contains a list of unidentified programs, five separate appendixes, and two indexes. The book begins with an extensively researched history of the Special Service Division of the Armed Forces that oversaw the production of the transcribed broadcasts and facilitated their distribution globally. Included here is a detailed discussion of the methods and materials of transcription and reproduction as well as a history of the American Forces Network: its spread and current status. Then follow the discographies for the Regular Series, Fill Series, Popular Music Replacement Series, and Unidentified Programmes. Five appendixes contain information such as location addresses, a directory of bandleaders, themes, and commercial issues by country of origin. There are also two separate band indexes. This is a singular reference for anyone seeking information about the music of the World War II and post-war eras.

Between September 1939 and June 1940, the British Expeditionary Force confronted the German threat to France and Flanders with a confused mind-set, an uncertain skills-set and an uncompetitive capability. This book explores the formation's origins, the scale of defeat in France and the campaign's considerable legacy.

The gender barrier that stood for nearly two centuries at the United States Military Academy was toppled in 1976. Based on more than one hundred interviews, thousands of pages of Academy documents, and a wide array of secondary sources, this is the first comprehensive history of what the admission of women at West Point meant for the Academy, for the Army, and for the United States. The story of how West Point prepared for the precedent-setting arrival of women has never before been thoroughly told. Given the current interest in the role of women in the armed forces, and the attention focused on The Citadel and VMI when they admitted women, this is a topical story that will appeal to a general audience.

Janda explains how and why female cadets were admitted to West Point and how they responded to the challenge of confronting 175 years of all-male Academy tradition. He argues that neither feminists nor Congress forced the Academy to change standards for women, and that Academy leaders were pioneers in exploring the implications of bringing women into formerly all-male military academies. "Stronger than Custom" also examines the sacrifices made by the first women cadets at the Academy, each of whom confronted an array of personal and professional hurdles on the road to graduation. When 62 of the original 119 women who entered the Academy in 1976 graduated four years later, they did so in triumph.

A lavishly illustrated military and social history of the forces in Germany, published to coincide with the winding down of the operation in 2019-20. The book is split into decades and covers important military strategy, political events such as the Berlin Airlift and the fall of the Wall, but also the experiences of British soldiers and the increasing integration of British troops and the German population, and their domestic and family lives.

Having evolved over the past two and a quarter centuries to become the premier military force in the world, the U.S. Army has a heritage rich in history and tradition. This historical dictionary provides short, clear, authoritative entries on a broad cross section of military terms, concepts, arms and equipment, units and organizations, campaigns and battles, and people who have had a significant impact on Army. It includes over 900 entries written by some 100 scholars, providing a valuable resource for the interested reader, student, and researcher.

For those interested in pursuing specific subjects further, the book provides sources at the end of each entry as well as a general bibliography. Appendixes provide a useful list of abbreviations and acronyms and a listing of ranks and grades in the U.S. Army.

The Knight's Cross (Ritterkreuz) was one of the highest decorations given for extreme acts of valour to all ranks of the German armed forces during the Second World War. Few awards captured the respect and admiration of the German public as the Knight's Cross - it was the greatest honour one could achieve. In the perilous and close-knit world of the U-boat crews the award of the decoration to their captain was an event of particular pride and sometimes it was even added to the boat's insignia. In all, there were 123 recipients, including their commander-in-chief Karl D nitz, and Jeremy Dixon's highly illustrated book is the ideal guide to all these men and their wartime service. A graphic text accompanied by almost 200 archive photographs describes the exploits of each of them, including those who received the higher grades of the award. Full details are given of their tours of duty, the operations they took part in, how they won their award, how many ships they sank and their subsequent careers.

Based upon a wide range of historical and literary sources, Swordsmen is a scholarly study of the military experiences of peers and gentlemen from the British Isles who volunteered to fight in the religious and dynastic wars of mainland Europe from the English intervention in the Dutch war of independence in 1585 to the death of the soldier-king William III in 1702. This apprenticeship in arms exposed these aristocrats to the chivalric revival, the military revolution and the values of neostoicism, and revived the martial ethos of the English aristocracy and reinvigorated the martial traditions of the Irish and Scots. This remilitarization of aristocratic culture and society was completed by 1640, and provided numerous experienced military officers for the various armies of the civil wars and, subsequently, for the embryonic British army after William III committed the Three Kingdoms to the armed struggle against Louis XIV during the Nine Years War. Service in mainland European armies also exposed swordsmen from the British Isles to a fully developed cult of duelling which hampered official efforts to divert aristocratic aggression from feuding and private war to the more rational military and political objectives of the modern state, subverted military discipline and delayed the process of professionalization of the officer corps of the British army.

This overview explores the use of black people, either through coercion or enticement, in the armed forces of predominantly white societies in times of crisis when the supply of white soldiers was exhausted or when whites refused to fill the ranks of a wartime army. A chronological review, the study begins with references to Biblical armies and ends with the technological environment of the modern world, looking at how blacks were employed, exploited or rewarded for their service over the centuries. While the balance sheet is mixed, military institutions have proven to be leaders in integration and equality for blacks both in the United States and in Europe. Inequality still exists in the modern American military; however, the authors contend, it is more likely to be based upon educational disparities than on the color of a soldier's skin.

African American soldiers played a significant role in the creation and expansion of the United States. The authors write about conquistadors who utilized blacks as soldier slaves. They recount the stories of the black men who fought during the Revolutionary War. They detail the experience of the Buffalo Soldiers in securing and protecting the western wilderness and follow the black soldier fighting alongside Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. From the decks of the battleship DEGREESIMaine DEGREESR to the Philippine Islands, from the hills of Vietnam and the deserts of the Middle East, and, finally, to the all-volunteer army, this book reveals the impact that black soldiers have made on American history.

When Oscar Booze entered West Point in 1898, the older cadets decided that he did not conform to their image of what a cadet should be. After four months of constant torment, including a beating in an organized boxing match, ridicule for reading his Bible, and the forced consumption of hot sauce in the cadet mess hall, he resigned. When Oscar died a year and a half later from tuberculosis of the larynx, his family claimed that the West Point cadets had killed their son by scarring his throat and creating a fertile field for the fatal infection. This is the story of the ensuing scandal that brought West Point under fire in the press nationwide.

Investigations following Oscar's death would reveal a long-standing pattern of cruelty that had become inextricably identified with the academy, related to notions of social Darwinism and initiation rituals popular at the time. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate considered closing the Academy in light of testimony by cadets in two separate investigations that revealed cruel and sadistic practices. Distilling startling accounts from trial transcripts, contemporary newspaper stories, archival records and correspondence, this book exposes a little-known chapter in the history of West Point.

With a focus on mental illness, Shell-shocked British Army veterans in Ireland provides the first in-depth investigation of disabled Great War veterans in Ireland. The book is a result of five years of researching previously untouched archival sources including psychiatric records of former patients otherwise closed to the public. The remit of the work contributes to various historiographical fields including disability history, the social history of medicine, the cultural history of modern war, the history of psychiatry and Irish studies. It also seeks to extend the scope of the First World War with an emphasis on how war-induced disability and trauma continued to affect large numbers of ex-servicemen beyond the official cessation of the conflict. -- .

This volume brings together a set of scholarly, readable and up-to-date essays covering the most significant naval mutinies of the 20th century, including Russia (1905), Brazil (1910), Austria (1918), Germany (1918), France (1918-19), Great Britain (1931), Chile (1931), the United States (1944), India (1946), China (1949), Australia, and Canada (1949).
Each chapter addresses the causes of the mutiny in question, its long- and short-term repercussions, and the course of the mutiny itself. More generally, authors consider the state of the literature on their mutiny and examine significant historiographical issues connected with it, taking advantage of new research and new methodologies to provide something of value to both the specialist and non-specialist reader. The book provides fresh insights into issues such as what a mutiny is, what factors cause them, what navies are most susceptible to them, what responses lead to satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusions, and how far-reaching their consequences tend to be.

Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45 explores the queer dynamics of war across Australia and forward bases in the south seas. It examines relationships involving Allied servicemen, civilians and between the legal and medical fraternities that sought to regulate and contain expressions of homosex in and out of the forces.

Admiral William H. McRaven is a part of American military history, having been involved in some of the most famous missions in recent memory, including the capture of Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, and the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.Sea Stories begins in 1960 at the American Officers' Club in France, where Allied officers and their wives gathered to have drinks and tell stories about their adventures during World War II -- the place where a young Bill McRaven learned the value of a good story. Sea Stories is an unforgettable look back on one man's incredible life, from childhood days sneaking into high-security military sites to a day job of hunting terrorists and rescuing hostages.Action-packed, inspiring, and full of thrilling stories from life in the special operations world, Sea Stories is a remarkable memoir from one of America's most accomplished leaders.

Essays throwing fresh light on what it was like to be a medieval soldier, drawing on archival research. The "long" fourteenth century saw England fighting wars on a number of diverse fronts - not just abroad, in the Hundred Years War, but closer to home. But while tactics, battles, and logistics have been frequently discussed, the actual experience of being a soldier has been less often studied. Via a careful re-evaluation of original sources, and the use of innovative methodological techniques such as statistical analysis and the use of relational databases, the essays here bring new insights to bear on soldiers, both as individuals and as groups. Topics addressed include military service and the dynamics of recruitment; the social composition of the armies; the question of whether soldiers saw their role as a "profession"; and the experience of prisoners of war. Contributors: Andrew Ayton, David Simpkin, Andrew Spencer, David Bachrach, Iain MacInnes, Adam Chapman, Michael Jones, Guilhem Pepin, Remy Ambuhl, Adrian R. Bell