American Soldiers Research Articles

Beyond the Canvas: Art, Representation, and the Portrayal of Black American Soldiers

Beyond the Canvas: Art, Representation, and the Portrayal of Black American Soldiers

Nefarious Implications in Yasmina Khadra’s The Sirens of Baghdad

The research paper is mainly concerned with the projection of the nefarious implications as exposed in Yasmina Khadra’s The Sirens of Baghdad (2007). This novel depicts the evildoings of the American soldiers that have been practiced against the Iraqi people living in Iraq. They have committed nefarious yet shameful acts against the Iraqi individuals whom they consider their foes, whereas the latter are innocent and friendly people Evil has been an everlasting wrongdoing on earth since the creation of the world. It has been extremely embedded in the nature of man and is sure fought by good-natured people. It is no wonder to find a whole country like the United States practice evildoings against many and various nations, being the posterity of the tribes of the Vikings, Vandals, Gales, Danes and above all the Anglo-Saxons that invaded Britain, slaughtered its nation and settled in it in the fifth and sixth centuries AD and whose posterity are still oppressing other nations and invading countries all over the world. The research meticulously examines those nefarious actions made by the occupying American soldiers depicted in the titular novel, pointing out the bitter behavior of the Americans against the Iraqi nation as represented in The Sirens of Baghdad. Edward W. Said’s representations in his book Orientalism unfolds the Westerners’ crooked means in exploiting other nations, whose oriental perspective cannot be exempted from this study.

Deviant Cohesion and Unauthorized Atrocities: Evidence from the American War in Vietnam

Why do soldiers engage in unauthorized atrocities? This article explores this question by analyzing the use of postmortem mutilation by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. I show that such acts were remarkably frequent, despite being explicitly prohibited by military policy, and argue that individual-level variation in participation in such violence is explained by social dynamics within military units. Soldiers used mutilation mostly as a means of avenging enemy atrocities or deaths among comrades. Revenge motives were stronger when soldiers shared particularly strong social bonds. Whether these motives resulted in unauthorized atrocity, however, depended on the extent to which discipline was maintained within military units. In units characterized by “deviant cohesion”—strong social ties and weak discipline—informal combatant norms diverged from organizational policies and promoted unauthorized atrocities as a unit-level practice. Evidence for this theory comes from a combination of archival sources and survey data gathered from a representative sample of Vietnam War veterans. A case study of a single Army unit illustrates the mechanism implied by the theory.

Soldiers and Victims: David Abrams’ Fobbit

Objectives: This paper aims to examine David Abrams’ Fobbit (2012) in terms of its approach to victimhood and the concept of war victims in the context of the Iraq War in 2003. Methods: The analysis is divided into two main constructs: 'American Victims,’ which examines the novel's representation of American soldiers as victims of war and 'National Victims' which explores the portrayal of Iraqis as war victims. The concept of victimhood is essential to the war narrative because it preserves the right for retribution to the afflicted and assigns responsibility to the other party for the violations. One side is absolved and becomes a victim, while the other is depicted as capable of committing terrible acts. Results: Despite the novel’s attempt to portray the suffering of Iraqis and describe some of the effects of the war on their lives, it also makes them responsible for most of their misery. American soldiers, though partially responsible for some major mistakes, emerge as the most prominent victims of the war in the novel. Conclusions: The study reveals how the image of American soldiers as victims of war dominates the narrative, erasing any presence of others as victims.

Exploring anti-narratives of war and de-otherness in Brian Turner's “2000 Ibs” and “Alhazen of Basra”

The narrative surrounding the United States' decision to declare war on Iraq is a complex and multifaceted issue. The Bush administration did, indeed, make claims asserting a close connection between the Iraqi regime and global terrorism, aiming to shift the focus of the "war on terrorism" toward Iraq. This administration presented inaccurate information and narratives that ultimately led to the occupation of Iraq. Furthermore, the Western view of Iraqis as "the other" played a significant role in justifying the war. Brian Turner, influenced by these war narratives, participated in this controversial conflict. His engagement exposed him to the brutal realities of war and the flaws in its narratives. Consequently, he addressed these issues in his poetry, focusing on the anti-narratives of war and the deothering of Iraqis, as well as the deothering of some American soldiers in the eyes of Iraqis. This aspect has not been thoroughly explored in light of Said's Orientalism and Fanon's concept of "the Other." The article delves into these anti-narratives of war and the deothering processes evident in Turner's poetry, specifically examining "2000 Ibs" and "Alhazen of Basra." The study concludes that Turner's anti-narratives of war, presented in these poems, unveil the fallacies of USA war narratives. Moreover, it highlights Turner's efforts to challenge the deothering of some American soldiers stereotyped as invaders in the eyes of Iraqis and his attempts to deother Iraqis, countering portrayals of them as savages and primitives in the eyes of the American people.

“I Let Him Have It”: Sex, Anti‐Americanism, and Criminal Justice in Wartime Brisbane, 1942–44

With combat in Second World War shifting to the Pacific region after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the Allied General Headquarters was established in Brisbane, Australia, in July 1942. American military personnel in wartime Brisbane were subject to a two‐tier criminal justice system, with the US military claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction over all crimes committed by American troops in Australia. In practical terms, this meant that American soldiers rarely faced local justice, which contributed to existing tensions between the American contingent and the Australian public. Although Americans accused of crimes were typically transferred to US custody, this jurisdictional arrangement did not extend to cases where Americans were victims of crimes allegedly committed by Australians. This article draws on extensive historical research to examine one such case, wherein American soldier Robert L. Norwood was killed by Australian Alma Muriel Morgan. By focussing on this case from the investigatory phase, and through the court process, it is possible to garner insight into the American experience with the Queensland legal system during the Second World War and to consider whether anti‐American tensions (particularly around sex) unduly impacted on securing justice where Americans were victims of crime.

Were They Treated Equally? African American Soldiers in the United Kingdom During World War II

Were They Treated Equally? African American Soldiers in the United Kingdom During World War II

История Гражданской войны в России через призму public history. Сухановский А. Ф. Штык решает. War Diary. Фронтовой дневник. Архангельск: СК-Россия: СК-Столица. 2020. 485 с.

In modern conditions, it seems that the study of the Civil War and the dissemination of knowledge about it is possible using the potential of public history. The attention of professional historians is attracted by a book prepared by the organizer of the search movement A. Sukhanovsky, who has been leading a group of enthusiasts studying the places of battles with the interventionists in the North of Russia for twenty years. The interventionist forces here numbered more than 40 thousand people in 1919. The participants of the search group carried out excavations on the territory of the Arkhangelsk region for 20 years, participated in the creation of the military historical park "Yuryevsky Frontier", which is the only well-preserved complex of fortifications of the Civil War period in Russia. It is now part of the military historical park "Railway Front" in the battlefields of 1918-1919 on the Arkhangelsk-Moscow railway. The title of the book is connected with the decision of the American soldiers of the 339th regiment, who included the motto of the Russian infantry of the Northern Rifle Regiments "Shtyck reshaet" (in Russian) in their coat of arms. It was a manifestation of Americans' respect for the heroism and dedication of political opponents. The book consists of an introduction, six blocks of information ("Soldier's gray hair", "Romance of company "A", "Catching up with the wind", "Combat Patrol", "Russian scars", "Extraordinary adventures of the British in Northern Russia"), divided into 32 parts, which the author called ‘blockhouses’. The author translated and published the memoirs of foreign participants of the events in his book. Among them are the memoirs of Corporal of company "G" 339 of the American regiment J. H. Turnman, fighter pilot K. van der Spye, commander of infantry company "M" J. Moore, J. R. Singleton-Gates. The study presents a translation of a fragment of the book by D. York "The romance of Company A 339th Infantry ANREF". The author presented and interpreted the material historical sources discovered during the survey work. The revealed materials make it possible to recreate the life of combatants and civilians in extreme conditions of armed conflict. A. Sukhanovsky describes the experience of reconstruction of military events in the Russian North in 1918-1919. The review points out the shortcomings of the work in question: the refusal to prepare a bibliographic list, the lack of a description of the history of the photographs given in the publication, taken by Signal Corps USA employees.

Psychiatric Casualties during the Korean War: Focusing on American and Common Wealth Soldiers.

A crucial gap in the medical history of the Korean War is the history of psychiatry during the Korean War. War puts those who participate in it through physical and mental extremes, inflicting not only physical injuries but also psychological trauma and damage. However, studies of the medical aspects of the Korean War have been limited to topics related to physical injuries and their treatment, and there are no studies that systematically summarize the traumatic effects on the human mind thrown into the midst of the war, the consequences of these effects, and the medical efforts made to deal with these problems. As the Korean War was fought only five years after the end of the Second World War, the experiences and achievements of the Second World War were used in the Korean War. In terms of personnel, many of the soldiers who fought in the Second World War also fought in the Korean War. This continuity with the Second World War had both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, treatment and transport systems were quickly put in place to respond to the large numbers of soldiers with psychiatric problems on the front lines early in the war. This is an example of a positive use of the legacy of the Second World War. On the other hand, the negative side of the coin was the much higher frequency of psychiatric symptoms among veterans of the Second World War. This could be explained by the fact that the psychological trauma experienced on the battlefield during the Second World War remained latent and was reactivated in the Korean War as a kind of conditioned reflex. In addition, the brainwashing of prisoners of war and their subsequent psychological problems are also characteristic of the Korean War in the context of the Cold War. These psychiatric features of the Korean War will provide a useful historical example for understanding and helping those who are inevitably involved in war and suffer from mental distress.

פגישת חיילי הגדוד העברי ה-39 עם יהודי ארץ ישראל בתקופת המנדט

The article focuses on relations between the American volunteers of the 39th Battalion and the Jewish community of the Yishuv, one of the earliest encounters between the two groups following the Jewish migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two questions regarding the nature of this encounter are addressed here: 1. What was the attitude of the Jewish community to the Jewish Legions in general and to the American battalion in particular? 2. Were the American soldiers received with open arms or were they criticized for their behavior and conduct in the Yishuv, and why was the promise to settle them over a 13-year period accepted only after many of them had already left the country? Answers to these questions emerge from the Tel Hai incident of 1920 and the indifference expressed by the Yishuv community as a whole towards the American Jewish volunteers.

The Murder Death of Pang Hwa-il: Erasing American Violence, Producing Christian Allies During the Korean War

AbstractThis article examines one of the first court-martial of a US soldier for the murder of a Korean civilian. In December 1951, Pang Hwa-il died from injuries sustained at the hands of four American soldiers during a late-night search of a home he was visiting. Many acts of violence perpetrated by the US military against Korean civilians like Pang during the Korean War went unaccounted for. However, his death would receive public attention in the United States because he was the associate general secretary of the Korean National Council of Churches. Responding to public pressure, the US military eventually started an investigation approximately two months after the incident took place. By examining the circumstances surrounding Pang's murder, the subsequent trial, and its aftermath, this article challenges a standard characterization of the relationship among missionaries, Korean Protestants, and the US military during the 1950s as a close partnership. The American government, the military, and missionaries had all carefully cultivated a narrative that the US and a Christian South Korea were allies against communism. However, Pang, a Korean Christian leader, was killed by a US soldier, not a communist enemy. Furthermore, the US military's initial delay in bringing Pang's assailants to trial and the light sentence that was handed down shocked both Korean and American observers. As this incident reveals, the US military valued the lives of its Korean allies less than American lives, calling into question the American government's claims that it was working in partnership with South Koreans.

Jimmy Carter, Vietnam, and the Rhetoric of Gratitude: Antecedents to the Noble Cause

Abstract The study of the Vietnam War and American presidential discourse has followed a somewhat meandering path. The Vietnam discourse of Jimmy Carter remains the most poorly understood of the late Cold War presidents. Throughout the 1970s, Carter participated in, and at times led, the national debate over the federal government's responsibility to Vietnam veterans. He spoke of a debt of gratitude that the American people owed to the war's veterans. As president, parts of his domestic agenda prioritized Vietnam veterans, leading him to preside over commemorative events for the war's veterans on several occasions. During his time in elective office, he alternatingly defined the purpose of the war in Southeast Asia as preserving the American way of life, promoting democracy, or defending liberty and freedom. Carter practiced an ethics of remembering that sought to redeem the American soldier, to erase the divisiveness of the past, and to “delegitimize and marginalize anti-war opinions.”1 Despite the obvious importance of both his discourse and his actions, Carter's Vietnam War rhetoric has received very little attention.

VIETNAM WAR: REDRAWING OF LOADS THROUGH THE WORKS OF TIM O’ BRIEN’S THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

War and memory are interrelated and it represents a verisimilitude approach through the presentation of distinction among legitimate history, intellectual history and the military histories of the war (written history of armed forces, journalist). In the history of War, there are natural tendencies of legitimate historians to hide the discursive history of war (from ground zero) from the ordinary people. Most of time, the physical and psychological pain of battalions during the war , their agony, trauma and frustrations are not penned down and people of the nations(defeated and triumph nations) are unaware of the true history of ground zero. In this paper, I would like to analysis American War on Vietnam through the work of Tim O’Brien. Vietnam War is also known as “War against the Americans to save the Nation” or “American War in Vietnam”. Tim O’Brien is an American novelist and he contributes in the war. He has ranked as a sergeant in military. His semi-autobiographical novel, Things They Carried points out his experiences in the Vietnam War. It is an empathetic, as well as, fictional account of nonfictional story of American soldiers through the jungles of Vietnam. It is a story of loss and love, guilt and fear. In War, soldiers carry their necessary things (physical objects) like matches, Morphine, M-16 Rifles and Candy. After the War, they bring grief, terror, guilt, confusion and the brutality of War as a return gift. After life of War, each soldiers’ physical loss underscores under emotional loss. In this memoir, Tim O’Brien delineates how soldiers carry heavy physical and psychological loads in the War.

Racial Hierarchy and Jurisdiction in U.S. Status of Forces Agreements

Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) establish when and how the domestic laws of host governments are applied to American soldiers. Why does the United States share jurisdiction under some SOFAs but not others? I argue that U.S. SOFAs project a racialized conception of host state capacity for governance over American troops on foreign soil. It is through the notion of “capacity” that non-white host partners are stereotyped as possessing inferior courts and legal values. The United States is less likely to share jurisdiction with non-white majority host countries. I motivate my argument with primary accounts of racial discrimination in debates over U.S. SOFA policy. Then, I code U.S. SOFA jurisdiction and estimate its determinants. The results suggest that the United States imposes concurrent jurisdiction to govern its interactions with predominantly white host states, allowing these peer countries to try U.S. personnel, while withholding this same right from most non-white host partners, ceteris paribus. I conclude with a discussion of implications for understanding international law and security from its racial underpinnings.

Sound Citizenship: Hearing and Speech Disabilities in World War I

AbstractThis article discusses speech and hearing disabled Americans’ claims to citizenship during World War I, and the ways American policymakers sought to rehabilitate American soldiers treated in the U.S. Army Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech—or those classified after the Section’s closure as deaf, hard-of-hearing, or “speech defective.” Ultimately, I argue that one’s aural communication abilities were indicators of worthiness in American society and that this was especially the case during World War I, when tensions about speech and hearing heightened within and outside of the Deaf community due to significant pressures placed on Americans to show support for the war. Such pressures also shaped the experiences of American soldiers treated for speech and hearing disabilities after 1918, by suggesting that their service to the United States could not be complete until they were successfully rehabilitated through lip-reading training. To be able to aurally communicate signified the veterans’ sound citizenship in a literal and a metaphorical sense.

Students’ Challenges in Translating Poetry

This article drawn from the local tracking study of how college students perceive the process of translating poetry. The aim of this study is to investigate the students’ challenge in translating poetry. The current study based upon the benefit of understanding poetry to build harmony in the society. Writers used descriptive qualitative research as the design of this study. The subject of the study were the sixth semester students of English Education Department of Universitas PGRI Semarang who had passed the Translation 1 subject and join the Translation 2 at the present time. The population of this study was 143 students in sixth semester. Writers then chose 20 students as the sample of this study. Students were assigned to translate English poem entitled ‘Huesca’ into Indonesian. The poem was written by John Conford, an American soldier who was endured on World War. After the assignment project, they were asked to respond the questionnaire related to the process of translating the poem and problems encountered. The finding revealed that most of students admitted that their biggest problem in poetry translation is associated with the linguistic difference. It refers to grammatical differences (source language and target language), lexical choices and meaning ambiguity. There were many factors behind the problems that encounter students in translating the English poem into Indonesian. Factors related to the culture, the use of figurative language, and the different structure between original poem and the target language are considered as main hindrances in translating literary works. The educational implication of the study is that our students need to be familiarized with literary works and its process of translation. However, since this study was only held in 2 months and had limited participants, the result of the study cannot be generalized. Further research, therefore, need to conduct by other researcher in order to get broader insight toward the theme

Development of Air Defence in the United States between 1917 and 1945

The article presents the results of academic research focusing on the origins and development of anti-aircraft artillery in the United States which was to guarantee the safety of American soldiers fighting in the First and Second World Wars. The findings of this study confirm that, in the early days, knowledge of the phenomena occurring in the air dimension of armed struggle was primarily empirical. As early as 1916, Alexander Graham Bell warned of the possibility of air raids on the United States. Over the next 25 years, experts conducted research into air defence, which became crucial in its subsequent development. The basis for the development of air defence was the emergence of a new weapon at the end of the First World War, i.e., anti-aircraft artillery. Basing on the experience of the United States from the First World War in the interwar period, air defence began to be seen in terms of a system whose main task was to detect and destroy enemy aviation, attacking troops, civilians and facilities at the rear of the front.
 Considering the outlined problem scenario and the subject of the research, it was assumed that the aim of the article will be to discuss the stages of the development of air defence in the United States in the years 1917–1945 and the experience of US anti-aircraft artillery gained on the fronts of the First and Second World Wars.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum: Looking Back & Thinking Forward

Abstract: This essay offers a brief history of the Oklahoma City Terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on 19 April 1995, when a truck bomb planted by a former American soldier, Timothy McVeigh, exploded near the building, killing 168 people, including 19 children. It then describes the early commemorative ceremonies taking place on the site, and the gradual transformation of these commemorative efforts into an initiative to create a permanent museum and memorial to honor the victims and to inform visitors to the museum about what occurred that terrible day. The museum and memorial is known today as the Oklahoma National Memorial and Museum. The attack that inspired it remains the worst domestic terrorism attack in US history.

Beauty Borne out of Chaos: Molding a Surgical Subspecialty Through the World Wars.

The chaos during the Great Wars provided the impetus for the genesis of modern plastic surgery. Collectively, the World Wars caused disfiguring injuries to thousands of American soldiers, which challenged their acceptance into society. The Wars, however, propelled 2 leaders in the field of plastic surgery-Vilray P. Blair and James Barrett Brown. These two American pioneers used their surgical acumen and artistic skills to heal the wounds of the soldiers. During World War I, the wounds of injured soldiers were often poorly managed by inadequately trained surgeons and dentists. Upon return to the United States, these soldiers underwent specialized treatment under Blair's supervision. During World War II, James Barrett Brown, a disciple of Blair, was appointed as a consultant in the war. He spearheaded the establishment of several plastic surgery centers in Europe. Upon his return from the War, he led the plastic surgery service at Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, PA, where thousands of soldiers were sent after their initial operations in the war zones. Care of war wounds served as an impetus for the development of new techniques in reconstructive and plastic surgery. These techniques included a delayed transfer of long pedicled flaps and split-thickness skin grafts. Through our archival research at the Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University in St. Louis, we provide evidence for how reconstructive surgical approaches were advanced during the Great Wars and helped restore some form of normalcy to the lives of the injured soldiers.

Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction by Gordon C. Rhea

Reviewed by: Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction by Gordon C. Rhea J. Brent Morris (bio) Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Gordon C. Rhea. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780-807176269. 200 pp., cloth, $29.95. Reconstruction was hotly contested even as the United States took the first steps to rebuild—physically and ideologically—in the midst of the Civil War. The historical memory of the era has been just as fiercely debated. In the middle of both fights has been the subject of Gordon C. Rhea’s newest biography Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction. In his own lifetime, Swails became one of the most prominent politicians and community leaders in South Carolina, yet he was largely forgotten after the South’s counter-revolutionary “Redemption” of the late nineteenth century. His name and life story have occasionally resurfaced as the historiography of the era continues to move away from the Dunning school, and Rhea’s biography now serves as the [End Page 101] most powerful reminder yet of the part played by Stephen A. Swails in America’s “new birth of freedom.” After a brief preface, Rhea introduces his subject to his readers with a precis of Swails’s early life. He then follows his subject through his service in the Civil War. Swails was among the first northern African Americans to volunteer to serve in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment and fought with distinction in that unit for the duration of the Civil War. He was quickly promoted to the regiment’s highest noncommissioned rank—first sergeant, the highest then available to an African American soldier—and eventually became the first African American in a combat role to be appointed a commissioned officer in the US Army. After the war, Swails worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau in South Carolina, where he built a reputation as a strong and effective spokesman for both Black rights and fairness and efficiency when dealing with whites in his district. This skillset helped launch him into the forefront of Reconstruction politics in the Palmetto State and earned him the reputation as the “political boss” of Williamsburg District. Swails represented Williamsburg District at the 1867 constitutional convention, where he served on two prominent committees, chairing one. Once the new state constitution was in place, Swails was elected to represent his county in the state senate (an office he held for eight years) as well as concurrently serve as county auditor. In May 1868, he represented South Carolina at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, where Ulysses S. Grant was nominated for the presidency. And when South Carolina cast its electoral votes for Grant, Swails was one of the state’s official electors (a role he would assume again in 1872). He was also elected the mayor of Kingstree and served as Republican Party chairman for the South Carolina First Congressional District, a state Republican executive committeeman, Williamsburg County’s representative to the state party convention, agent for the state land commission, commander of the state militia, and trustee of South Carolina College. Rhea attributes Swails’s success to several factors. As a Freedmen’s Bureau agent, he had developed close relationships with his county’s Black majority. His responsiveness to issues of housing, employment, and disputes over labor contracts had proven him an advocate for the Black voters of his constituency, and few voters would have not been aware of his role in coordinating the distribution of rations in the times of greatest need. He was a decorated war hero who had shed blood for his country and for the freedom of formerly enslaved African Americans, and his status as the first African American commissioned as an officer in the US Army gave him an unmatched level of prestige in the community. Formally educated, intelligent, Swails communicated effectively with constituents Black and white. Indeed, he also openly courted the white vote in [End Page 102] Williamsburg County and brought together an uncommon multiracial coalition of politicians from the Republican and Democratic Parties to facilitate the efficient governance of his constituency. Like...