Green Berets Research Articles

More resilience, more Green Berets: A quantitative analysis of the effects of Functional Imagery Training during British Army Commando training

More resilience, more Green Berets: A quantitative analysis of the effects of Functional Imagery Training during British Army Commando training

Alien in Its Own: Borrowings in the New Russian Phraseology

The article is devoted to the problem of borrowings in the new Russian phraseology. With all the wary attitude towards direct lexical borrowings, phraseological borrowings are not critically evaluated either by society or by linguistic purists. The reason for this is that, unlike borrowed vocabulary, foreign phraseological units, as a rule, are formed by tracing, i.e. literal translation of their components. This makes their imagery transparent and recognizable. The modern Russian language, after political and other changes in the 90s of the last century, was enriched with many phraseological cripples. Some of them are periphrastic turns denoting certain spheres of life that were previously alien in Soviet society. Expressions of military subjects (mostly journalistic style) also belong to this kind of turnovers: star wars, nuclear club, nuclear umbrella, scorched earth tactics, etc. This includes the names of the belligerents: green berets; red berets; blue helmets etc. The thematic group of calques from English, one way or another connected with the characteristics of power, bosses, is represented in Russian by idiomatics with vivid imagery. Such is the group of phraseological units adopted by the Russian language with the carpet component: call someone to the carpet; be on the carpet; go / go to the carpet, etc. An analysis of the phraseological neologisms of the political and banking spheres is also proposed.

Helen of troy on the indiscretion

Helen of troy on the indiscretion Maria Zoccola (bio) ihe said have you ever been north before and i hadn't.ii winter sewed me into her lungs. i felt each gust,each gasp. iiimy husband, he'll bomb squad. he'll sniffer dog.he'll fly in the army. he'll call up the fuzz.he'll swat team, he'll fire truck, he'll ambulance.i'll wake up one morning to green berets. but he doesn't. ivi'll tell you what it was. it was a blank space. it was the shape of that blank space. its ridges and valleys. [End Page 59] Maria Zoccola Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer with deep roots in the Mississippi Delta. She has writing degrees from Emory University and Falmouth University. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Learn more about her work at mariazoccola.com. Copyright © 2022 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents

ACTIONS OF THE US AND SOUTH VIETNAM SPECIAL DIVISIONS ON THE "HO CHI MINA TRAIL" IN 1961-1967. BASED ON THE MEMOIRS OF AMERICAN WAR PARTICIPANTS

The article devoted to the analysis of the actions of special forces of US and South Vietnam during 1961–1967. One of the main tasks of these units during Vietnam war – destruction main objects of «Ho Chi Minh Trail» in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The work is built with the assistance of a memoir – translations memories combatants in South Vietnam and Laos, soldiers and commanders of Army of US, South Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The materials housed in the monographs of American and Vietnam researchers of the Indochina conflict, 1960–1970-s.In the early 1960s, in the setting of active infiltration teams of PAVN from DRV administration of USA adopted decision to send to Indochina units of special forces (Green Berets). Many of the military personnel who served in Vietnam belonged to 5th and 7th Special Forces Groups. Some Green Berets were assigned to the U.S. Military Assistance Command’s Studies and Observation Group (SOG) for making top secret intelligence operations and helped train the South Vietnamese special forces (LLDB). The most Green Berets defended South Vietnam’s border from infiltration from DRV. Apart from Green Berets, special units of the US NAVY were also active in South Vietnam. The main task of the special forces of the NAVY was the blockade of all waterways supplying partisans from North Vietnam and Cambodia by means of ambushes, sabotage, laying of mines and raids on bases of PAVN. In 1965-1967s mixed teams of Green Berets and LLDB conducted long-range reconnaissance missions into Laos and directed air strikes against the «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The U.S. aircraft bombed the «Ho Chi Minh Trail» daily, targeting areas based on electronic detection devices and intelligence gained by covert teams that infiltrated the area. However, these efforts could not slow down the movement of troops of PAVN, supplies southward along the «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The author paid attention to the creation units of special forces as part of army units of US Army situated in South Vietnam during 1965–1967. Special attention is paid by the author to the analysis secret operations of Green Berets against «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The author concluded that the special forces of USA and South Vietnam failed to achieve the set goals.

Többnemzeti Különleges Műveleti Repülő Program létrehozása a helikopterszemélyzetek kiképzése érdekében

Léteznek olyan, a világ bármely pontján telepíthető és távoli területeken, mostoha körülmények között alkalmazható katonai csoportok, kisalegységek, amelyek úgy is képesek feladatot végrehajtani, hogy nincs rádiókapcsolatuk a parancsnoksággal. Ők a speciálisan felkészített és kiválasztott különleges műveleti katonák – a „zöldsapkások”. Szolgálatukat önként vállalják kemény, bizonytalan környezetben. Ők a katonai vezetők legfőbb eszközei a nem hagyományos hadviselésben. A különleges erők a múltban és a jelenben egyaránt létfontosságú műveleteket hajtottak, hajtanak végre. Tevékenységük támogatására azonban elengedhetetlenül szükség van a légierő speciálisan felkészített forgószárnyas egységeire. A tanulmány rövid áttekintést nyújt a különleges műveleti forgószárnyas képességről, illetve a szakirodalomról. Tárgyalja a magyar különleges műveleti légi képesség kialakításának körülményeit. Írása végén a szerző javaslatokat fogalmaz meg a nemzeti különleges műveleti légi képesség kialakítását biztosító kiképzéssel kapcsolatban.
 KULCSSZAVAK: különleges műveleti légicsoport (SOATU), különleges műveleti repülési program (MSAP), kiképzés, különleges műveleti erők regionális komponensparancsnoksága (R-SOCC), H145M helikopter, Zrínyi 2026 Honvédelmi és Haderőfejlesztési Program

Peace through Suffering: Human Resilience and Viet Nam War Literature

Peace through Suffering: Human Resilience and Viet Nam War Literature Erin R. McCoy (bio) The Viet Nam1 War (1955–1975) marked a turbulent time in American culture. The othering of the enemy coupled with America’s status as a victor in World War II colored lenses of political, cultural, and social views in post-war America. But a perpetual victor America was not, and the Viet Nam War brought undue division and despair to the nation’s identity and psyche that lasted decades. In a 1980 address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Ronald Reagan referred to the United States’ aversion to war as a product of “Vietnam Syndrome,” where a “noble cause” was marred by the propaganda-fueled aggression of the North Vietnamese (Reagan). According to Reagan and others, the nation’s trepidation regarding entering into conflict stemmed from a guilt-like hangover from the Viet Nam War experience. Though a common thread in war literature is individual and collective suffering, how these are expressed in literature about the Viet Nam War is simultaneously unique to its situation and common in its commentary on the continuity of war as a part of the human experience. What unites literature of the experience of the Viet Nam War are shared themes of human suffering and the quest for individual peace. In his survey of the Viet Nam War legacy, Nothing Ever Dies, Viet Than Nguyen’s opens with the observation, “All wars are fought twice; the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory” (4). American Literature About the Viet Nam War The bulk of early United States literature about Viet Nam either analyzed the failures of the French or criticized American involvement in the war. Prior to the Viet Nam War, Graham Greene’s 1955 novel, The Quiet American (published on the eve of American involvement in Viet Nam), made pointed references to early American involvement in France’s Indochina Wars. The book’s primary tension is between a British journalist and American CIA operative over the affections of a girl named Phuong; however, that tension acts as an extended metaphor of the incoming American experience in the country, an experience characterized by frustration, cruelty, and suffering. Books about Viet Nam published during the war, like Bernard B. Fall’s Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina (1961) and Hell is a Very [End Page 155] Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (1966), focused on the many failings of French colonialism. They did little in regard to representing Vietnamese people or culture. Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night (1968) detailed the October 1967 March on the Pentagon. He had already penned his treatise Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967), stoking anti-war fires in the United States. Noam Chomsky added fuel to the anti-war fire with American Power and the New Mandarins(1969), as did John Rowe with Count Your Dead (1968). At the same time, more traditionally patriotic and battle-centered works, like Robin Moore’s The Green Berets (1965), also sold well during the early years of the war. A notable exception to the 1960s-era literature about the war is Michael Herr’s Dispatches (1968). Herr’s book is one of the first journalistic accounts of the war, and it is a chaotic, hazy read. The journalist’s memories and renderings of the war are bleak--he makes clear that in its earliest stages, the war made little sense to those reporting on it. Herr also offers a window into Vietnamese culture. More urgently, his unique inside/outside perspective on the war warns readers about the emotional suffering that would become the Viet Nam War’s legacy. Because the Viet Nam War continued into the 1970s, as did conflicts at home regarding the United States’ involvement in it, individuals who had been part of the war began to write about it while it continued. As a result of the emergence of empirical storytelling, Viet Nam became less of a war and more of a country to American readers. Increasingly, there appeared more “front line,” or first-person accounts from Viet Nam written by those who had directly...

12 More Books Every Green Beret Should Read: An Annotated Bibliography

In 2018, three Special Forces personnel published an annotated biography called “12 Books Every Green Beret Should Read”. The authors’ purpose was to provide new members of Special Forces a concise reading list that would expand their knowledge of unconventional warfare. This version focuses on the development of mid-career officers, warrant officers, and noncommissioned officers with multiple years of operational experience. Like the original work, the idea of this recent version is that mid-career green berets would read one book per month over a year-long period to better prepare themselves for planning and executing challenging UW operations.

John Wayne's World: Israel as Vietnam inCast a Giant Shadow(1966)

Melville Shavelson'sCast a Giant Shadow(1966) stands alongside Otto Preminger'sExodus(1960) as one of the most notable Hollywood films to center on the founding of Israel. In this paper I argue thatCast a Giant Shadowis less concerned with the peculiarities of the nascent stages of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and instead functions as an unabashed endorsement of American military interventionism in foreign conflicts at a time in which the United States was dramatically escalating its military presence in Vietnam. The film is positioned as the second installment in an unofficial trilogy of overtly propagandistic pro-interventionist cinema produced by John Wayne's production company Batjac in the 1960s, alongsideThe Alamo(1960), Wayne's directing debut, and the notoriously jingoistic pro-Vietnam War filmThe Green Berets(1968). My analysis of this largely overlooked entry in the Wayneoeuvreultimately reveals how Israel enabled Wayne to effectively put his art at the service of his political beliefs.

From Army service to physician to patient

From Army service to physician to patient William L. Freeman If my experience were a script for Clint Eastwood, the title would be, "The High-5, the Good, & the Bad." I have not experienced what some other vets unfortunately have, " . . . , & the Ugly." After graduating from college and my 2 ½ year stint in the Peace Corps in Colombia, and during the early U.S. buildup in Vietnam, I volunteered for the US Army and the Army's Special Forces ("Green Berets"), received intensive one year training as a Special Forces Independent Duty Medic to function as a physician where there was none, and was in Vietnam for two one-year tours. My four years of service did not result in any need for health care after discharge in December, 1968. My experiences as an Independent Duty Medic in Vietnam did, however, result in a strong desire to be a real physician. After completing the premed science requirements, I was accepted by the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, Seattle, in September 1970, and then UW Family Medicine Residency. Part of that Residency included two months on the Internal Medicine [End Page 90] Service of the Seattle VA Hospital that was affiliated with the UW. The Director of that Service, who was also the Attending Physician with whom we residents met every day, was one of the most humane Attending Physicians I had during my three year Residency. He taught and practiced not only medical science but also compassionate medical caring for the VA's patients. After residency in 1977, I entered the Public Health Service (PHS), specifically the Indian Health Service. PHS is a "Uniformed Service," and thus I was eligible to receive care at military and VA hospitals. Fast forward to 1998. That year I was found to have a slightly elevated PSA test—"Prostate-Specific Antigen," indicating possible prostate cancer—during episodic medical care for other reasons at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda while on temporary duty nearby. I went to the combined university + VA hospital near my permanent duty station in the Southwest. The faculty-doctor had a reassuring patient-doctor manner. The six prostate needle biopsies were done in late July by the Urology Chief Resident there—he had just started his year as Chief Resident. The results included one biopsy lost and the others inconclusive. I asked to be seen by the Prostate Cancer Program at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a program with a superb reputation. The doctor I saw there instilled confidence—and did 13 prostate biopsies with great skill. The biopsies were read by the Walter Reed pathologists; they disagreed among themselves on the interpretation and thus sent the biopsies to the next-door Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the premier pathology institute whose readings were the gold standard in pathology. Final diagnosis: early prostate cancer. I had to decide which possible treatment to do: surgery (prostatectomy to remove the whole prostate); radiation therapy (kill the prostate and its cancer by radiation from outside the body); brachytherapy (insert several radioactive small pellets to kill the prostate and its cancer from the inside); or "watchful waiting" (follow PSA tests, to do an active treatment only if the PSA progressed higher). I, was 57 years old; my wife Carolyn and I decided against "watchful waiting." I visited a physician in charge of each type of active treatment. The first was the head of urological surgery at the same university + VA hospital in the Southwest. He maintained no eye contact with me, staring at my medical chart as he recited his information non-stop for me (i.e., what the prostatectomy would be, its recovery time, and why it would be the best treatment option for me). I did not go back. Instead, regarding the surgical option, I met with the urological surgeon at Walter Reed who had done my 13 biopsies; I then met with the doctor in charge of Radiation Therapy at Walter Reed. Both visits had a more gratifying doctor-patient interaction. A pioneer of brachytherapy treatment for prostate cancer and research about its results had recently moved from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to...

New military femininities: humanitarian violence and the gendered work of war among U.S. servicewomen

This article examines ‘military femininity’ in new gendered forms of labor employed by the U.S. military in the post-September 11 wars. Between 2003 and 2013, when women were technically banned from direct assignment to ground combat units, the U.S. military deployed all-female counterinsurgent teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. In various forms, these teams searched Iraqi women at checkpoints and in home raids, provided medical assistance to Afghan women and children, and participated in highly combative special operations missions alongside Army Rangers and Green Berets in Afghanistan. Recent literature on the gendering of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan focuses mainly on the teams’ deployment of humanitarianism and affect as weapons of war, while older feminist critiques analyze women’s marginalization within military institutions. This article reconceptualizes military femininity, departing from the prevailing marginalization and humanitarian frameworks. Drawing on military and policy documents, first-hand observations of military trainings, and interviews with military trainers, I show how women were integrated into ground combat through the promotion of certain gender essentialisms, such as feminine domesticity, alongside military violence. A new form of military femininity has emerged that eschews humanitarian rhetoric, and instead emphasizes servicewomen’s lethality.

Special Forces Know-Howw and British Indirect Rule: Operationalizing Institutional Change

In the early 1900’s, the British military in India was spending approximately 3 billion per year (in current U.S. dollars) on an army consisting of roughly 60,000 British military personnel and 120,000 native soldiers for an average of 17,000 USD per man (Digital South Asia Library, 2013). In 2012, the U.S. military spent 117 billion (in current U.S. dollars) on 90,000 U.S. troops and 390,000 local security forces in Afghanistan for an average of 240,000 USD per man (Cordesman, 2012; NATO, 2012). By 1893, the English ruled a continent with ten times the population of Afghanistan and accomplished this with less than 900 British civil servants (Easterly, 2006). These resources and capabilities extended British hegemony from India through Afghanistan to reach Iraq and Africa (Onley, 2009). When comparing performance at the macro-level, the British did far more with far less while the American effort produced the opposite. For U.S. nation-building, more resources meant less production. The on-going tragedy in Iraq is a current, but not isolated example of what happens when developed nations quit paying the bills of their well-intended expeditions. In dealing with the Pashtun tribes which span the Afghan and Pakistani border, the British Raj and the U.S. government faced similar challenges yet have organized differently. The British took a bottom-up approach to institutional change organized about the Political Officer. The Political Officer’s ‘know-how’ of institutional change employed a combination of cultural acumen, vested social capital, and the accumulation of relational currency to ‘earn’ indigenous cooperation through intrinsic incentives. This ‘know-how’ for institutional change also exists within U.S. Army Special Forces Regiment (USSF or SF) and has found similar success in Afghanistan. These ‘Green Berets’ develop influence without presence throughout their area of operations by employing the bottom-up approach of Unconventional Warfare to institutional change. The Special Forces bottom-up approach to tribal engagement has found success in Afghanistan, but has been unable to break through an organizational glass-ceiling to pursue strategic opportunities. In Afghanistan, the U.S. has taken a top-down approach in which impersonal bureaucracies ‘rent’ indigenous compliance through bribery and coercion. The problem facing a theory of exogenous institutional change exists between our ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’. Our main argument is that British organization around the Political Officer and the capabilities of the Green Berets present a new combination for an organizational form that can successfully guide institutional change. We need a civil-military element that is solely responsible for exogenous interventions aimed at institutional change. This element must have two essential features. First, the team must be vested with the autonomy and authority of the frontier British Political Officer. The second feature of this civil-military element requires an Unconventional Warfare-like organizational paradigm and the retention of a SFODA’s military attributes.

Foreign Language Training Transfer: Individual and Contextual Predictors of Skill Maintenance and Generalization

Foreign language proficiency is a critical skill in which many U.S. military personnel receive extensive training. However, very little research has examined the factors associated with the successful transfer of this training. This study therefore investigates the impact of individual and contextual variables on two different types of foreign language skill transfer measures in a military context. Archival data were analyzed from 133 U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) teams, including 919 Soldiers who had completed job-required foreign language training. Results indicate that initial skill acquisition had a positive impact on both the maintenance and generalization of language skills. The posttraining time interval between training and transfer measurement was negatively associated with skill maintenance, suggesting significant skill decay over time. The team context also accounted for significant variability in skill transfer, and the team mean skill level moderated the relationship between individual initial skill and subsequent generalization to job performance.

'We Fear Naught but God'

The aura of mystery and secrecy, which surrounds special forces throughout the world, ensures a ready market for books on such units. The exploits of the British Special Air Service (SAS) and the US Green Berets, romanticised in films and novels, have contributed to this in no small way. In South Africa we have seen books appear on the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts, but until recently nothing of significance has been published on the South African special forces. Then the somewhat encyclopaedic, though hardly definitive, The Silent War by Peter Stiff appeared in 1999. Had on its heels has come Paul Els' softcover, We Fear Naught But God.

War Crimes and Vietnam: The "Nuremberg Defense" and the Military Service Resister

We have attempted to establish first that the international laws of warfare are part of American law, and have argued that these laws, when taken as prohibitions of specific methods of waging war, are a practical and effective means of controlling unnecessary suffering and destruction. Second, we have analyzed these laws as they apply to treatment of prisoners of war, aerial bombardment of nonmilitary targets, and chemical and biological warfare, and have marshalled a portion of the available evidence that American forces commit war crimes in Vietnam. Third, we have discussed the defenses of tu quoque, reprisal, military necessity, superior orders, ignorance of the law, and duress, and have concluded that a service resister can state a valid claim that his service in Vietnam may place him in substantial danger of being responsible for commission of war crimes. Finally, we have maintained that in-service and possibly draft resisters raising a “Nuremberg defense” have standing, and raise questions which are both ripe and justiciable. Tags: International Laws of Warfare, War Crimes, Vietnam War, Nuremberg Defense, Military Service Resister, Tu Quoque, Reprisal, Military Necessity, Superior Orders [pg1055]*** The case of Captain Howard B. Levy—the Green Beret “Medic” CaseFN1—at first seemed like hundreds of similar cases involving American servicemen being prosecuted for resistance to military orders involving Vietnam. Captain Levy had refused an order to teach dermatology to Special Forces (Green Beret) medics in the United States who were preparing for service in Vietnam, on the ground that his teaching would be “prostituted” by the Green Berets who in his opinion would commit war crimes once they arrived in Vietnam. The law officer for the military court, surprisingly, and on his own initiative, thereupon called for a private session in which he would hear evidence on the “Nuremberg defense”—the charge that the Green Berets were committing war crimes in Vietnam and that the government cannot constitutionally [pg1056] place a soldier against his will in substantial jeopardy of becoming implicated in such crimes. This decision by the law officer lifted Levy's case out of the ordinary and gave it historical significance. After hearing the evidence, the law officer ruled that none of it was admissible in open court. The net effect was to suggest to the public that an American military court was willing to be open minded about the introduction of a war-crimes allegation but that such a defense in fact had no intrinsic merit. A closer look at the law officer's ruling reveals otherwise. The law officer held the proffered evidence inadmissible not on the merits but because it was strictly irrelevant to Captain Levy's own circumstances. Although there was testimony in the private session that Green Berets were engaging in criminal activity in Vietnam that violated international laws of warfare, there was no evidence that the medics among the Green Beret troops were themselves engaged in war crimes or that their medical training was being prostituted by being utilized in criminal activity. FN2 While narrowly conceived, this ruling is reasonable inasmuch as Captain Levy was not himself in danger of serving in Vietnam as a member of the Green Berets, and his particular medical expertise, taught in this country, could only serve to ameliorate whatever wartime crimes they might commit. Thus the Levy case may have been the weakest possible situation to introduce a “Nuremberg defense.” On the other hand, the case does stand for the important precedent that a war-crimes defense is available, in relevant circumstances, to in-service resisters.

Elite fighting forces: from the Praetorian Guard to the Green Berets

Elite fighting forces: from the Praetorian Guard to the Green Berets

Burying Culpability: The Killing Fields (1984), Us Foreign Policy, and the Political Limits of Film-Making in Reagan-Era America

Burying Culpability: The Killing Fields (1984), Us Foreign Policy, and the Political Limits of Film-Making in Reagan-Era America

A Deepening Disbelief: The American Movie Hero in Vietnam, 1958-1968

AbstractThree important films reveal changing American attitudes toward the Cold War in Southeast Asia in the years of growing U.S. involvement there: Joseph Mankiewicz's The Quiet American (1958), George Englund's The Ugly American (1963), and John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968). All three feature idealistic American heroes fighting communism in Vietnam – and, in the later two films, fighting American ignorance and apathy as well. Using some two dozen reviews in a wide range of periodicals, including daily newspapers outside of New York and Los Angeles, this article finds a growing skepticism about the mythology of the Cold War in Vietnam. Critics in 1958 supported the mission of fighting communism and the methods outlined in the film, but knew little about Vietnam. In 1963, critics were more pessimistic about America's methods and prospects in Vietnam but still overwhelmingly supported the mission. By 1968, a collapse of America's Cold War consensus became obvious as critics panned The Green Berets, a remarkable box-office success, deriding the filmmaking but also rejecting the film's ideology and even questioning the struggle against communism. We thus see a fundamental erosion of American belief in its own Cold War mythology just as the country was venturing deeper into war in Southeast Asia.

The Big 89 Rewind

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. There is a website devoted to the history of the station: ⟨http://www.wlshistory.com⟩. There are also three books that are indexes of the WLS record popularity charts from 1960 to 1990 (Smith Chicago). 2. Wade's co‐host is his wife Roma, who goes by only her first name on the air. 3. I remember hearing Wade tell a joke in the 1980s about the singer Cher that involved the juvenile and offensive pun “Buster Hymen.” In the 1990s Wade often spoke in favor of execution by electric chair (which he affectionately nicknamed “old Sparky”). On occasions when an appeal by a death‐row prisoner was in the news, Wade would advocate that we should “fire up old Sparky.” 4. It should not go unnoted that WLS also played various right‐wing songs in 1965 and 1966, including Jan Berry's “The Universal Coward” (an answer to “Universal Soldier”) and Barry Sadler's “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” To that I say bravo—let as many views as possible be heard. Shamefully, however, WLS refused to play Barry McGuire's 1965 protest song “Eve of Destruction,” a Number One hit on the national Billboard record popularity chart (Whitburn Whitburn, Joel, comp. 1983. Joel Whitburn's Top Pop 1955–1982, Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research. [Google Scholar]). 5. Rush Limbaugh is the most popular right‐wing talk radio host in the United States. Sean Hannity is probably better known for his right‐wing TV talk show Hannity & Colmes (co‐hosted with liberal Alan Colmes) but also has a radio talk show, which is heard on WLS. Martina McBride is a country rock singer whose song “Independence Day” approvingly tells the story of a wife who murders her abusive husband. Hannity uses the lyric “Let freedom ring” from the song, but none of the arguably feminist story line. Bill Cunningham is a right‐wing talker who insists on saying “Barack Hussein Obama,” complete with middle name, whenever referring to the presidential candidate. The Limbaugh promo uses the tune and arrangement of a passage from Robert Palmer's song “Addicted to Love,” but with the lyric changed to “Addicted to Rush.” 6. The last and longest‐running left‐wing host, Nate Clay, was fired in early 2008, allegedly for budgetary reasons. Clay, an endearing but ineloquent broadcaster and one of the few black “personalities” on WLS, had occupied the Sunday “graveyard shift” of midnight to 4 a.m.—probably the least desirable time to be on the air and a time conducive to frequent pre‐emption for “transmitter maintenance.”

Heroes and Patriotism

Heroes and Patriotism Lawrence Suid and Michael S. Shull Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard The Hollywood War Machine Paradigm Publishers, 2006. $75.00; 276 pages. Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard have not produced a scholarly study, but rather have written a polemic which accuses Hollywood of creating and perpetuating a martial spirit in the American people: "Our research and writing has been motivated by a deep revulsion against the ongoing militarization of American society, culture, politics, and foreign policy." They put the blame on contemporary filmmakers for producing movies that glorify heroes and foster patriotism. In fact, no director or producer or writer whom reviewer Suid has interviewed during more than 30 years of research in Hollywood ever said they had made a pro-war movie. Moreover, no film portraying the Vietnam War, except perhaps The Green Berets, attempted to justify or glorify the conflict. We Were Soldiers Once saluted the bravery of the soldiers but certainly not the war. And even John Wayne denied making a pro-war movie, however disingenuous the claim might seem. If the film industry harbors right-wing conservative patriots as the authors claim, they have the obligation of basing their arguments on serious scholarship. However, they do not cite one primary document or original interview, instead using only secondary, printed sources, or statistical data. (They would have been well served if they had read reviewer Suid's review of David Robb's Operation Hollywood, which contained a multitude of egregious errors of facts and interpretations. Despite his claim that the Pentagon censored Hollywood films, which it does not, Robb demanded that Film and History not publish Suid's review. Enough said.) In any case, the use of only secondary sources might have been legitimate, given the superficial nature of their work except for one significant problem. Journalists and serious scholars do not have the luxury of committing even a single substantive mistake before losing their credibility. Unfortunately, the authors have filled their book with egregious misrepresentation of fact and inaccurate citation of sources. John Wayne does not star in Battle Cry as the authors state. U-571 is not an "abandoned German U-Boat" in the film of the same name as the authors describe it in their Filmography. Lee Marvin's unit did not become POWs in The Big Red One, instead, fighting to the very end of the war. Where are discussions of Go Tell the Spartans and Casualties of War, two of the best movies about the American experience in Vietnam? And why include The Searchers? It has nothing to do with the militarization of Hollywood. Nor does it portray the Indian wars of the 19th century. As they read the book, the reviewers, on occasion, wondered if they had seen the same movies the authors discussed. Imitation may well be the sincerest form of flattery and reviewer Suid appreciates that the authors told him they liked Guts & Glory and had read it from cover to cover. However, he wishes that they had read it more carefully and while he appreciates that they cited him extensively, once six out of seven footnotes in sequence, he does wish they had rendered his narrative accurately. Likewise, the authors could have benefited from a careful reading of reviewer Shull's Hollywood War Films, 1937-1945. Boggs and Pollard write that Let There Be Light "crossed the cinematic line when it showed the battlefield experience in all its gory details. Alarmed at this transgression, the War Department prevented the film from appearing, shelving it behind a curtain of secrecy even while the critics, who had managed to see it, praised it and advocated its distribution." Further, the authors claim that the military "was far too enraged at Huston's work to permit its showing to armed-services personnel or the general public." For this account, they cite reviewer Suid's Guts & Glory on page 129. [End Page 99] In fact, the film contains no portrayals of combat. Actually, on page 205 of his book, Suid writes that the military had directed Huston to make Let There Be Light to show that "psychological effects of their combat experiences" were just as "severe as any physical wounds...

Six, Franz Alfred

Franz Alfred Six, though he had a low profile within the Nazi regime, was a university dean, a senior officer in the Reich Security Service, leader of an Einsatz unit, a diplomat and a leading Nazi ideologue. He was sentenced at Nuremberg for war crimes, then freed and recruited into the Gehlen organization where he is said to have taken part in the insertion of agents into eastern Europe, helped foment the Hungarian Uprising, assisted with the creation of the Green Berets and later trained Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion. His career trajectory raises awkward questions about how de-Nazification was undermined by sections of Western intelligence, the role that Nazis played in post-war politics and about the very nature of the Cold War.