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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Military life & institutions > General
For many soldiers, the end of military service signals a cruel and new beginning. Disposable Heroes illuminates the challenges facing many veterans, particularly African Americans. Rather than finding military service to be a path to equality and upward mobility, these veterans fight just to survive. The book draws on in-depth interviews and national survey data to show the ways America is failing many black veterans today. Author Benjamin Fleury-Steiner shares the remarkable stories of 30 veterans from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Their words illustrate the ongoing impact of explicit racial oppression such as Jim Crow segregation, white backlash against integration, and racially targeted criminal justice policies. The book traces the persistent role of racial inequalities in African American veterans' lives before service, during active duty, and particularly after military life. Taken together, the stories in Disposable Heroes paint a compelling story of hope, struggle, and survival. Disposable Heroes makes a powerful case for ending America's longstanding "war at home"-enduring unemployment, deficient health care, and substandard housing-that continue to plague many urban African American communities in the United States today, with particular attention to challenges of African American veterans.
Both harrowing and redeeming, this is the history of a unique 'adoption' system. The book tells how, for generations, local families, grateful for the sacrifice of their liberators from Nazi occupation, have cared for the graves of over 10,000 US soldiers in the cemetery of Margraten in the Netherlands, keeping their memory alive.
The Order of the Knights Templar, whose original purpose was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, was first given its own Rule in 1129, formalising the exceptional combination of soldier and monk. This translation of Henri de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule is derived from the three extant medieval manuscripts. Both monastic rule and military manual, the Rule is a unique document and an important historical source. It comprises the Primitive Rule, Hierarchical Statutes, Penances, Conventual Life, the Holding of Ordinary Chapters, Further Details on Penances, and Reception into the Order. There are details of clothing, armour and equipment; instructions on conduct while on campaign; information on the daily life of members of the order and on the discipline which made it a formidable fighting force. The Rule evolved over almost 150 years of the Order's history, and is thus a dynamic piece of work, showing how the Templars adapted to political change and formulated their disciplinary code. An introduction gives the historical background to the Rule and summarises the various sections. An appendix by MATTHEW BENNETT discusses the military implications.
The period between World Wars I and II was a time of turbulent political change, with suffragists, labor radicals, demagogues, and other voices clamoring to be heard. One group of activists that has yet to be closely examined by historians is World War I veterans. Mining the papers of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion (AL), Stephen R. Ortiz reveals that veterans actively organized in the years following the war to claim state benefits (such as pensions and bonuses), and strove to articulate a role for themselves as a distinct political bloc during the New Deal era. Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill is unique in its treatment of World War I veterans as significant political actors during the interwar period. Ortiz's study reinterprets the political origins of the "Second" New Deal and Roosevelt's electoral triumph of 1936, adding depth not only to our understanding of these events and the political climate surrounding them, but to common perceptions of veterans and their organizations. In describing veteran politics and the competitive dynamics between the AL and the VFW, Ortiz details the rise of organized veterans as a powerful interest group in modern American politics.
This book examines Pakistan's nuclear behaviour from the 1950s onwards against the background of the emerging global non-proliferation system. The author probes the broader questions of the extent to which Pakistan's conduct was factored into the global non-proliferation regime and why that regime failed to constrain Pakistan's choice to go nuclear. The book goes on to argue that in order to fully understand Pakistan's nuclear policy, the Indian case must also be considered. Therefore, this book provides a comprehensive scholarly account of the history of both India's and Pakistan's technological developments leading to their decision to develop nuclear weapons and confront the NPT constraints. The question of nuclear proliferation by Pakistan's most prominent scientist, Dr A. Q. Khan, its nuclear behaviour after the disclosure of this proliferation case, and the recent development of counter-proliferation measures at a global level are all analysed in this volume. The security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the question of the state's reliability within the ranks of the global community remain hotly debated issues. Pakistan and the New Nuclear Taboo offers the compelling argument that a new nuclear taboo against proliferation has emerged to prevent nuclear risks regionally and globally: since 2004, it is argued, Pakistan has played a key role in helping to establish this new nuclear taboo against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The 'three models' approach adopted here provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date theoretical perspective on Pakistan's nuclear behaviour and helps illuminate nuclear policy dynamics and the role of international institutions in regulating the conduct of states in other regions as well.
The public services and care being provided to our veteran citizens are rapidly changing due to the increasing number of veterans that live in our cities. There are more veteran citizens now living in America than ever before, and the veteran population is becoming ever more diverse. For this reason, cities throughout our nation are expanding their public services in scope and scale, as well as enhancing the quality of existing services. This volume documents these rapid developments in order to help our veteran citizens and supporting communities understand the evolving, dynamic, and innovative services and care that are increasingly available to them.
You know about MI5. You know about MI6.
In January 1966, navy nurse Lieutenant Kay Bauer stepped off a pan am airliner into the stifling heat of Saigon and was issued a camouflage uniform, boots, and a rifle. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she said of the weapon. "I'm a nurse." Bauer was one of approximately six thousand military nurses who served in Vietnam. Historian Kim Heikkila here delves into the experiences of fifteen nurse veterans from Minnesota, exploring what drove them to enlist, what happened to them in-country, and how the war changed their lives. Like Bauer, these women saw themselves as nurses first and foremost: their job was to heal rather than to kill. after the war, however, the very professional selflessness that had made them such committed military nurses also made it more difficult for them to address their own needs as veterans. Reaching out to each other, they began healing from the wounds of war, and they turned their energies to a new purpose: this group of Minnesotans launched the campaign to build the Vietnam Women's Memorial. In the process, a collection of individuals became a tight-knit group of veterans who share the bonds of a sisterhood forged in war. Kim Heikkila is an adjunct instructor in the history department at St. Catherine University, where she teaches courses on U.S. history, U.S. women's history, the Vietnam War, and the 1960s.
This book develops a new approach to the analysis of civil-military
relations by focusing on the effectiveness of the armed forces in
fulfilling roles & missions, and on their efficiency in terms
of cost. The approach is applied to the United States using
official documents and interviews with policy-makers. In addition
to analyzing the impact of defense reform initiatives over the past
thirty years, the book includes the recent phenomenon of
"contracting-out" security that has resulted in greater numbers of
contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military
personnel.
This book develops a new approach to the analysis of civil-military
relations by focusing on the effectiveness of the armed forces in
fulfilling roles & missions, and on their efficiency in terms
of cost. The approach is applied to the United States using
official documents and interviews with policy-makers. In addition
to analyzing the impact of defense reform initiatives over the past
thirty years, the book includes the recent phenomenon of
"contracting-out" security that has resulted in greater numbers of
contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military
personnel.
When Winston Churchill delivered his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in 1946, he mentioned two words now engrained in Anglo-American terminology - 'special relationship'. Nowhere is the 'special relationship' more evident than in the scores of airfields used by the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. Today, just a handful remain in active service. Yet they continue to bind the United Kingdom and United States together. US Air Force Bases in the UK examines the history and continuing use of modern-day British airfields by the US Air Force. It also chronicles the many others that survived the Second World War, but not the passage of time. While most have been reclaimed by agriculture, one thing that still endures is the 'special relationship'. This book retraces its concrete paths.
The candid, poignant, unforgettable writing of the young girl whose own life story has become an everlasting source of courage and inspiration.
A Nation of Veterans examines how the United States created the world's most generous system of veterans' benefits. Though we often see former service members as an especially deserving group, the book shows that veterans had to wage a fierce political battle to obtain and then defend their advantages against criticism from liberals and conservatives alike. They succeeded in securing their privileged status in public policy only by rallying behind powerful interest groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, and the American Legion. In the process, veterans formed one of the most powerful movements of the early and mid-twentieth century, though one that we still know comparatively little about. In examining how the veterans' movement inscribed martial citizenship onto American law, politics, and culture, A Nation of Veterans offers a new history of the U.S. welfare state that highlights its longstanding connection with warfare. It shows how a predominantly white and male group such as military veterans was at the center of social policy debates in the interwar and postwar period and how women and veterans of color were often discriminated against or denied access to their benefits. It moves beyond the traditional focus on the 1944 G.I. Bill to examine other important benefits like pensions, civil service preference, and hospitals. The book also examines multiple generations of veterans, by shedding light on how former service members from both world wars as well as Korea and the Cold War interacted with each other. This more complete picture of veterans' politics helps us understand the deep roots of the military welfare state in the United States today.
In a period characterised by an unprecedented cultural engagement with the past, individuals, groups and nations are debating and experimenting with commemoration in order to find culturally relevant ways of remembering warfare, genocide and terrorism. This book examines such remembrances and the political consequences of these rites. In particular, the volume focuses on the ways in which recent social and technological forces, including digital archiving, transnational flows of historical knowledge, shifts in academic practice, changes in commemorative forms and consumerist engagements with history affect the shaping of new collective memories and our understanding of the social world. Presenting studies of commemorative practices from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, War Memory and Commemoration illustrates the power of new commemorative forms to shape the world, and highlights the ways in which social actors use them in promoting a range of understandings of the past. The volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, history, cultural studies and journalism with an interest in commemoration, heritage and/or collective memory.
Following the success of his #1 New York Times bestseller Make Your Bed, which has sold over one million copies, Admiral William H. McRaven is back with amazing stories of bravery and heroism during his career as a Navy SEAL and commander of America's Special Operations 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 1963 at a French 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, humorous, and full of valuable life lessons like those exemplified in McRaven's bestselling Make Your Bed, Sea Stories is a remarkable memoir from one of America's most accomplished leaders.
How does religion affect the lives of professional soldiers? How does religion shape militaries, their organization, procedures, and performance? This volume is the first to address these questions by comparing religious symbols and practices in nine countries: Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, India, the United States, and Turkey. The contributors explore how and why soldiers pray, the role of religious rituals prior to battle, the functions that chaplains perform, the effects of religion on recruitment and unit formation, and how militaries grapple with ensuing constitutional dilemmas.
Historian Chris Bray (a former soldier) tells the sweeping story of military justice from the institution of the American court martial in the earliest days of the Republic to contemporary arguments over how to use military courts to try foreign terrorists or soldiers accused of sexual assault.
Millions of Soviet soldiers died in the "war of annihilation"
against Nazi Germany but millions more returned to Stalin's state
after victory. Mark Edele traces the veterans' story from the early
post-war years through to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. He
describes in detail the problems they encountered during
demobilization, the dysfunctional bureaucracy they had to deal with
once back, and the way their reintegration into civilian life
worked in practice in one of the most devastated countries of
Europe. He pays particular attention to groups with specific
problems such as the disabled, former prisoners of war, women
soldiers, and youth.
This collection of essays investigates such diverse vehicles for war commemoration as poems, battlefield tours, souvenirs, books, films, architectural structures, comics, websites, and video games. Drawing on essayists from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Israel and the United States, this work explores the evolution from traditional to contemporary forms of war commemoration while addressing the fundamental question of whether these new forms of memorial are meant to encourage the remembering or the forgetting of the experience of war, as well as what implications the process of commemoration may have for the continuation of the modern nation state.
Praise for In Peace and War "A comprehensive, balanced, and compelling history of a
first-class educational institution, and of the complex history it
services." "A great read . . . an accurate and absorbing depiction of an
institution I was proud to lead for seven years. The authors truly
grasped the unique character of the Academy." "Evokes memories of the earliest challenges in establishing a maritime institution where future success embodies the Academy's motto acta non verba." --Rear Admiral Lauren S. McCready, Kings Point Professor and Head of Engineering, 1942-1975 "Much more than an institutional history . . . a fascinating and
informed portrait of the individuals and philosophies behind Kings
Point." "Well-written and meticulously researched . . . . A must-read
for any maritime history buff." "The best description of the merchant marine in the last
seventy-five years, and the best account of why Kings Point became
so important to our national security and economy."
This is the first comparative, cross-national study of the participation of women in the armed forces of NATO countries. Along side an analysis of this key topic stands a critique of existing theoretical models and the proposal of a revised analytical framework. Unlike previous works this new study employs mixed-methodological research design combining quantitative and qualitative data - a large N-analysis based on general policies and statistical information concerning every country in the sample with more in-depth case-studies. This volume includes original empirical data regarding the presence of women in the armed forces of NATO countries, proposes an index of 'gender inclusiveness' and assesses the factors that affect women's military roles. The book also presents two new key case studies - Portugal and the Netherlands - based on both documentary sources and in-depth interviews of both men and women officers in the two countries. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, gender and women studies and military history.
This book gives the reader a straightforward and continuous survey of the history of the French Foreign Legion. By outlining the Legion's vicissitudes, victorious campaigns, epic marches, heroic and sometimes hopeless stands, dirtiest combats and dramatic defeats, but also by briefly placing the Legion back in the historical background of France, and by describing its development, organization, uniforms, equipments and weapons, the author hopes to dispel myths, and try to give a true and accurate picture of what the French Foreign Legion has been from 1831 until today. There are well-researched, detailed line drawings throughout.
As provider networks on military bases are overwhelmed with new cases, civilian clinicians are increasingly likely to treat military families. However, these clinicians do not receive the same military mental-healthcare training as providers on military installations, adding strain to clinicians' workloads and creating gaps in levels of treatment. Families Under Fire fills these gaps with real-world examples, clear, concise prose, and nuts-and-bolts approaches for working with military families utilizing a systems-based practice that is effective regardless of branch of service or the practitioner's therapeutic preference. Any civilian mental-health practitioner who wants to understand the diverse needs of military personnel, their spouses, and their families will rely on this indispensable guidebook for years to come.
The book explores the nature of Chechen society and Chechen ethno-psychology, the emergence of Chechen nationalism, and the predominantly violent relationships between Russia and the Chechens throughout modern history in order to better explain the most recent periods of confrontation. It concentrates on the second Russo-Chechen campaign and subsequent terrorist attacks in Moscow and Beslan and the spreading of violence throughout the North Caucasus. The book draws on extensive research and includes an introduction by Anatol Lieven. This is the first book to assess the most recent violence in Chechnya in the wider context of cultural, social and political changes in the North Caucasus and Russia. The study enlightens such key phenomena for understanding the ongoing violence as the North Caucasian version of Jihadism, Caucasophobia and Chechenophobia in contemporary Russia, paying attention to Moscow's controversial policies of Normalisation in Chechnya. The author also investigates the situation of Chechen resistance and the expansion of the conflict into the neighboring areas of the North Caucasus. |
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