Chapter 3
Meeting the Players
In This Chapter
Calling the shots
Fighting the wars
Carrying on at home
Like any good drama, U.S. military history has a cast of characters. In studying the topic, you find that nearly every American is somehow involved in the story of our wars, from mighty generals to lowly field hands. Almost everyone has had a role to play, whether starring or as an extra. Some did the fighting. Some served in the armed forces but functioned in a support role, never hearing a shot fired in anger. At home, some Americans found prosperous wartime jobs. Others descended into financial ruin, losing homes, farms, and property that could never be replaced. Hovering above the chaotic squall of war were the civilian leaders who set wartime policies and objectives. The best of them, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, provided a steady hand during trying circumstances.
In this chapter, I take a look at the leaders, both civilian and military, who have made key wartime decisions. I explain why Americans have joined the military, who has done the real fighting in wartime, and how the military is set up. Finally, I show you how Americans on the home front have been affected by our wars.
Leading the Charge
Two kinds of leaders call the shots for Americans in time of war: civilian officeholders (politicians) and generals. The job of these high-level leaders is to think about the big picture: Why are we fighting? What do we hope to achieve? What is the best way to coordinate our war effort? How can we fulfill our war aims in the fastest way possible at the least cost in blood and treasure?
In doing their jobs, leaders constantly think about strategy and tactics. There is a distinct difference between the two.
Strategy has to do with why a war is fought. Politicians tend to make strategic decisions.
Tactics are about how a war is fought. Generals and other military leaders lower in the chain of command often make tactical decisions.
For instance, in World War II, when the U.S. fought a two-front war in Europe and the Pacific, American strategy for victory was to defeat Germany first, then deal with Japan. Why? American leaders believed Europe was of primary importance to America’s interests, and that Germany was the most dangerous enemy they faced. With that Germany-first strategy in place, the main American tactic for victory was to wear down Germany with a protracted air, sea, and ground campaign. Winning battle after battle, American tactical triumphs eventually produced the strategic aim of defeating Germany first.
Tactical victories in battle don’t always equate to strategic victory in war. In other words, one side can consistently defeat its opponent on the battlefield, but not win the war. The American Revolution is a good example of this. The American patriots won very few tactical victories in pitched battles against the British. They didn’t have to, though. Over time, simply through their mere ability to avoid total defeat, they wore down the British and eventually fulfilled the patriot side’s strategic aim of independence.
Keeping tabs on the generals: Politicians
Americans strongly believe that elected civilian leaders should control the military, not the other way around. The president of the United States functions as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. That makes the president the superior officer of even the highest-ranking generals. So, the president, congressmen, and other civilian leaders such as Cabinet members set policy, make strategic decisions, and order the soldiers to carry them out. This gives the politicians tremendous responsibility for making life-and-death decisions. The ultimate burden, of course, rests with the president. James Madison, who directed the War of 1812, was the first wartime president. George W. Bush, who presided over invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, is the most recent.
Setting policies for the forces: Generals
The highest-ranking, most senior officers in the armed forces are generals. The naval equivalent of a general is an admiral. Generals have commanded anywhere from a few thousand soldiers in the Revolutionary Era to hundreds of thousands in the 20th century. These senior leaders do, at times, make strategic decisions, but primarily their job is to implement the strategic policies handed down to them by civilian leaders. To do this, generals devise tactics that they hope will produce victory:
During the Mexican-American War, Gen. Winfield Scott’s aim, as given to him by his superior, President James K. Polk, was to persuade Mexico to cede much of the southwest to the United States. Scott chose to do this with an invasion of Mexico itself. By boldly maneuvering his army, employing artillery wisely, and attacking at key moments, he eventually captured Mexico City. The result was the fulfillment of American war aims. (Chapter 10 details Scott’s campaign.)
In World War II, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s civilian masters assigned him the task of invading German-occupied Europe. He put together a massive, multinational, combined arms force of air, land, and sea forces that overwhelmed German defenders in Normandy, France. This hastened the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. (Chapter 16 tells of the Normandy invasion.)
During the Gulf War, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s mission was to push Iraqi military forces out of Kuwait. To do so, he devised elaborate tactics. For nearly six weeks, he wore down the Iraqi troops with constant air attacks. Then, when he set his ground forces in motion, he surprised the Iraqis by attacking their vulnerable western flank, crushing them, and forcing their retreat from Kuwait. (Chapter 20 has more on Schwarzkopf’s tactics.)
American generals have sometimes chosen unsuccessful tactics. During the Vietnam War, America’s strategic aim was to prevent non-Communist South Vietnam from being destroyed by Communist North Vietnam and a Communist insurgency known as the Viet Cong. To attain the objective of securing South Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland built up American troop strength and tried to wear down the enemy through attrition, by pursuing large battles in which the U.S. could bring to bear its enormous firepower. The enemy responded with guerrilla tactics, avoiding big battles, inflicting losses on the Americans through hit-and-run fighting, drawing out the war, year after year. The U.S. casualties that ensued, along with the lack of tangible results, wore down American political support at home. The Communists ultimately triumphed in South Vietnam. (Chapter 19 covers this largely unpopular war.)
Doing the Grunt Work
Soldiers are the men, and more recently the women, who fight America’s wars. The word soldier has a dual meaning. In a generic sense, it can refer to all of those who serve in the armed forces. More specifically, the word soldier often means those who serve in the United States Army. Those who serve in the Navy are known as sailors. Air Force personnel are called airmen. Members of the United States Marine Corps are called Marines. (Chapter 4 explains each branch of the service in more detail.) In this section, I’m referring to the larger, more generic term of soldier.
Who are these people called soldiers?
From colonial times through the present, millions of Americans have served in the armed forces, in time of war and in time of peace. That’s obviously a big group of folks, so it’s impossible to generalize about who they were or are. It’s fair to say, though, that young men — sometimes very young — have done the vast majority of the fighting (see Figure 3-1), mainly because women were excluded from the armed forces until only recently.
Almost all warriors in U.S. history have been men. Because of societal beliefs that the military was not for women, few even served in the armed forces before World War II. From World War II through Vietnam, thousands of women served, but always in noncombat jobs. That changed after Vietnam when women began serving as combat aviators, intelligence specialists, and as crewmen aboard warships. Even now, though, women are still excluded from ground combat units and Special Operations forces.
The military has generally been dominated by Caucasians because, at times, racial prejudice barred African Americans from seeing combat or even serving at all. Beyond these basic facts, you can best understand something about the people who have worn a military uniform by considering the soldiers’ backgrounds and why they join the military.
Figure 3-1: Young Marine recruits are reflective before beginning a grueling three-day exercise, known as the “Crucible,” capping their boot camp experience.
© Peter Turnley/Corbis
Assembling a mixed bag of just plain folk
In American history, soldiers have come from all over the country. Northerners have fought alongside southerners, westerners with easterners, and so on. Over the broad sweep of American history, no region, ethnic group, or race can claim to have predominantly served more than any other groups in the armed forces. However, at times, some regions or groups have stood out:
Southerners and westerners mostly populated the Army’s ranks during the War of 1812. This was because the war was popular in the South and the West, but not in the Northeast.
In the period before the Civil War, service in the armed forces was very unpopular with most Americans. No draft existed. Serving in the Army or the Navy promised a Spartan existence with poor pay in desolate places. Thus, most American men shunned military service. So, who served? From 1815 through 1860, the Army’s ranks were dominated by European immigrants who had few other options but the military. At any given time during those years, more than half of all enlisted soldiers were foreign-born.
In the Civil War, one out of every three white southern men of military age became a casualty. This meant that, in the South, service in the Confederate Army was nearly a universal experience for young men. In the North, though, only about half of all eligible men served in the Army.
From the Civil War onward, large numbers of African American men served in the armed forces. Some 86,000 black men served in the Union Army during the Civil War. About half of them were ex-slaves, and the other half were free-born men from the North. From the Civil War through World War II, African American soldiers almost always served in segregated, all-black units under the control of white officers.
In the early 20th century, white southerners dominated the officer ranks of the United States Marine Corps.
In both world wars, no particular region, race, or demographic group was predominant in the armed forces.
During both the Korean and Vietnam wars, small-town, working-class white men under the age of 21 were slightly overrepresented in the Army and Marine Corps ranks.
Officers have tended to come from more educated, affluent backgrounds than enlisted men. This was especially true in the 19th century.
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, a momentous, long-overdue measure that changed the military forever by mandating desegregation of the armed forces. Specifically, it said that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religious or national origin.” It took several years to implement this order throughout the vast U.S. armed forces. The last segregated unit was abolished in 1954. Desegregation did more than bring some semblance of social justice to the military. It also led to an infusion of African American manpower into combat units, enhancing the effectiveness of American fighting forces.
Serving their country for a variety of reasons
Americans have joined the armed forces for myriad reasons, from coercion to idealism. In 1917–1918, and from 1940 through 1973, the draft was the law of the land. This meant that nearly all able-bodied young men were subject to at least two years of military service. So millions of Americans entered the military because they had to. The only other time in American history that men entered the armed forces against their will was during the Civil War, when both sides employed the draft. In that case, the draft didn’t really yield much manpower for either side. The vast majority of those who did the fighting, both North and South, were volunteers.
Indeed, when you take the whole span of U.S. history into account, American military personnel have generally been volunteers. Their motivation for joining, of course, varied by the individual, but there have been some common reasons:
Economics: The military offered such enticements as a steady job, land, pensions, educational benefits, health benefits, and loans.
Escape: Some have joined to escape bad family situations, dead-end lives, boring hometowns, or even criminal prosecution.
Idealism: Many Americans have joined out of sheer patriotism, a desire to serve the country, and in time of war, to fight for freedom. Idealism was a potent motivator during the Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, and the Global War on Terror.
Peer pressure: Men often enlisted in the armed services because their buddies were doing it. In some cases, such as the Civil War and World War II, communities exerted great pressure on young men to sign up.
Adventure: Quite a few Americans have joined the armed forces in hopes of experiencing adventure. This was especially true for those who served in the Indian Wars of the 19th century, along with those who fought in the Spanish-American War and nearly every war since World War II.
Ranking the soldiers
In the U.S. military, there are basically two groupings of rank — commissioned officers and enlisted personnel.
Officers are the leaders and managers. They hold commissions given to them by Congress. They comprise, on average, about 7 to 10 percent of each armed service. Their job is to think, plan, lead, and inspire. Throughout the military’s history, they have generally received higher pay, better uniforms, better food, special privileges, and better treatment in general. Officer ranks range from second lieutenants at the very bottom of the scale to full generals at the top.
Enlisted personnel comprise the great majority of the military. They are the doers who carry out the real work, whether that means driving a truck, standing guard, or storming an enemy-held beach. Throughout history, enlisted men have done most of the fighting and dying.
Enlisted ranks vary from private at the bottom to command sergeant major, the highest-ranking enlisted man. The real leaders in the enlisted ranks are the sergeants (the Navy calls them petty officers). These sergeants are like supervisors. They carry out the orders they receive from commissioned officers. In combat, sergeants are usually the real leaders and the best soldiers. An army is only as good as its sergeants.
Supporting the front line
One of the realities of modern war is that well-equipped and well-trained frontline fighting forces require vast amounts of support from those who are behind the lines. Somebody has to take care of administration, keep the records, organize the war effort, cook the food, build the roads, man the ships, and move the supplies. This has especially been true for the U.S. because the American war-making philosophy has been to expend materiel (weapons and supplies) rather than manpower. Americans value the importance of the individual, so they are usually reluctant to suffer large numbers of casualties.
What this means is that the majority of American servicemen have functioned in fairly safe, noncombat roles, working to support the minority who did the real fighting. These supporters performed vital jobs, but they didn’t see any action. This has particularly been true from World War I onward, when Americans fought overseas and could afford to send fewer men into actual combat.
During that same time, the American aversion to casualties grew, as did the importance of technical services such as the Air Force, which could only function with large numbers of technicians, mechanics, and other specialists to keep a relatively small number of planes and combat aviators in the air. The same was true for the Navy, which required major maintenance, repair, and technical know-how to keep its own ships and aircraft in operation. Even the Army came to be dominated by noncombat soldiers who worked in a variety of jobs such as finance, transportation, administration, civil engineering, and supply. The only exception was the Marine Corps, which remained true to its combat-first ethos. However, the Marines have always been heavily dependent upon other services for logistical support.
In World War II, for every American soldier on the front line, about five were in rear areas, working in support jobs. Quite a few support troops never even deployed overseas. In Vietnam, this “tooth to tail ratio” was at least seven-to-one. During the Gulf War, the ratio grew to almost ten-to-one.
Fighting on the front line
The traditional job of combat troops is to face danger, defeat the enemy, and fulfill America’s wartime objectives. From the days of the Revolution to the war in Iraq, this is what American warriors have done. They fly airstrikes, sally forth in submarines or on surface warships, or shoot it out with America’s enemies on the ground. Nowadays, the terms we use to describe them are trigger pullers, grunts, or those at the tip of the spear. In bygone days, they were known by many other monikers such as minutemen, Billy Yanks, Johnny Rebs, doughboys, fighter jocks, and dogfaces. Basically, all these terms simply refer to those who do the actual fighting and dying. Their dangerous jobs have required supreme courage and sacrifice. And, don’t forget, they’ve almost always been the minority of those who serve in uniform. In wartime, everyone in the military and, to some extent, even on the home front, exists to support them.
Here’s a quick look at the main combat components that make up each branch of the military:
Air Force: Bomber crewmen, fighter pilots, reconnaissance pilots, pararescuemen, medics, ground security detachments, and special operations personnel.
Navy: Crewmen on surface warships and submarines; fighter pilots and other combat aviators; medics; and Special Operations forces such as highly trained SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) operators.
Marine Corps and Army: Cavalrymen, artillerymen, engineers, demolitions specialists, helicopter crewmen, medics, tank crewmen, antiaircraft troops, infantrymen, and a variety of highly trained Special Operations forces.
What was it like to be an American ground combat soldier in World War II? In a word, dangerous. Almost two-thirds of the Americans killed in that war were ground combat troops. Over the course of the war, ground units routinely suffered 100 to 200 percent casualty rates. That meant if a soldier was in combat long enough, his chances of getting hit were certain. Combat soldiers lived in the elements, dealing with extreme heat, extreme cold, and everything in between. They ate prepackaged rations rather than hot food. Commonly, they went months without a bath or a shower. A man’s existence consisted of going forward into danger, fighting the enemy every day. If he survived, he could only look forward to doing it all over again the next day. Ground troops usually didn’t have tours of duty. This meant they were on the front lines for the duration of the war. Only life-threatening illnesses, mental breakdown, or wounds offered a way off the front line. Most combat soldiers yearned for safer jobs. Nonetheless, they developed a fierce pride in their status as warriors, as well as a deep disdain for the support troops who were safe and warm, far behind the front lines.
Living on the Home Front
The U.S. military is merely a product of the society it protects. All the supplies, all the monetary support, all the political direction, and even the moral support that military forces require come from civilians on the home front. At times in U.S. history, the home front has been marred by war, as during the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, and of course, the Civil War (mainly for the South). More commonly, from the Spanish-American War through the present, the home front has been far away from overseas battle fronts, safely distant from the realities of war. In fact, one can argue that, since the late 19th century, the main mission of the U.S. armed forces has been to shield the home front from the fires of war. Even so, American civilians have inevitably been affected by the wars their country fights, no matter whether those wars have been fought close by or thousands of miles away.
Politicking in the homeland
One of the great myths of U.S. military history is that politics cease in times of war. They don’t. If they ever did, the United States would no longer be a free country. Debates about taxes, budgets, national policies, and prospective new laws have always taken place, even in the midst of war. The same is true for elections. Abraham Lincoln was proud, for example, that, even in the middle of the Civil War, the North held a fair presidential election in 1864. No war has ever stopped a congressional or presidential election.
Of course, wartime politics have often been dominated by furious debates over the wisdom, importance, and even morality of whatever war we happened to be fighting at the time. Nearly every war in American history has sparked some level of opposition. In fact, throughout American military history, political debate and bitter disagreements in times of war have been so common as to be routine.
During the Revolution, the Continental Congress was a viper’s nest of political infighting. The main bone of contention was the power of the states versus the power of national authorities. Moreover, anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the American people wanted to remain loyal to Britain. New Englanders stridently opposed the War of 1812, mainly because it hurt their trade with Great Britain. Many northerners were dead set against the Mexican-American War because they believed it was a southern plot to acquire more slave territory. During the Civil War, both Abraham Lincoln in the North and Jefferson Davis in the South dealt with large numbers of serious antiwar political opponents. From 1900 to 1904, members of the Anti-Imperialist League spoke out against the Philippine-American War. One of the most eloquent voices of the League was author Mark Twain. World War I was a popular war, but about 15 percent of the population opposed it. Nearly every post–World War II conflict has led to significant opposition, the most obvious example being Vietnam. As a rule of thumb, the longer an American war drags on, the more unpopular it becomes.
Keeping the home fires burning
Almost all Americans were deeply affected by the early wars in American history, especially the Revolution and the Civil War. While most wanted little more than to be left alone to raise families and tend their farms, they couldn’t escape the war. The Revolution pitted neighbor against neighbor, sometimes in guerrilla fighting, as patriot sympathizers battled those who were loyal to the British. Soldiers of both sides stole farmer’s crops, burned their homes, and appropriated goods from merchants. The Civil War was a traumatic experience too, felt to the core by most Americans, especially white southerners who lost homes, property, land, and at times, dignity. The war certainly affected one other major group of civilians — slaves. As Union armies overran the South, ex-slaves began new lives as free men and women. Northerners saw their cities grow dramatically, creating a burgeoning industrial world around them.
The wars of the post-20th-century period were not quite as traumatic because they were fought overseas. But, even so, civilians were affected economically, culturally, and politically by all of them, particularly World War II. During that war, civilians dealt with rationing and shortages of such items as sugar, tobacco, and gasoline. The war also led to significant racial reform, almost total employment, decades of subsequent prosperity, and the rise of California as the most populous state. Of course, these wars deeply affect those who have loved ones overseas in the military. Wartime deployments have compelled young lovers to marry, parents to send care packages, and civilians, in general, to rally around their flag.
In order to conserve gasoline and keep tires from wearing out, the national speed limit during World War II was 35 miles per hour.