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The legend of the military homing pigeon Cher Ami has captured the public's imagination; but the story of this pigeon helping save the lives of the Lost Battalion is rife with inconsistencies and falsehoods. This article delves into archival records to retrace Cher Ami's life and deconstruct the myth about the bird. There is nothing conclusive linking the pigeon to the actions of the Lost Battalion. Cher Ami did survive severe wounds transporting a message, but exactly where and when are uncertain. The U.S. Army chose to link Cher Ami with the Lost Battalion's story to promote the contributions of the Signal Corps' Pigeon Service. The Smithsonian Institution preserved and displayed Cher Ami with benign indifference. The public treated the pigeon as a memorial, a place of remembrance and reflection on the heroism of the Lost Battalion and of the war's combatants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following World War I, the U.S. Army began drafting a comprehensive history of its wartime activities, including a section on chaplains, but by 1920 the project had fallen victim to a wave of budget cuts. What remained of the chaplains’ portion was an incredibly rich collection of letters, photos, and documents compiled by a group of chaplains tasked with writing the section. The author came across these little-used files, and he has used them as the basis to tell a part of the story of the priests, reverends, and rabbis who decided to serve both their nation and denominations in the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Communist Tet Offensive of 1968, General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, supposedly credited the Army-Navy Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) with having "saved the [Mekong] Delta" for the allied cause. The MRF drove enemy forces from key population centers and decimated the Viet Cong main force units that stood and fought them. But in August 1969, General Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland's successor, disbanded the MRF. Despite the MRF's impressive battle history, Army and Navy leaders never fully embraced the creation, development, or operational deployment of one of the few truly joint-service units of the Vietnam War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transformative military occupation aimed at the radical ideological change of an occupied country must exercise cultural control. The occupiers must complement repression with propaganda and censorship to create new narratives and prohibit those deemed undesirable. Do transformative military occupations carried out by dictatorships and liberal democracies differ in the way in which they handle information control? I argue that the mechanisms of cultural control used by the Third Reich in France (1940-1942) and by the United States in Germany (1945-1949), shared significant similarities in spite of the fact that their respective agendas were inspired by opposite ideological tenets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1880s, the U.S. Army established on-post canteens as a way of curbing excessive drinking in off-post taverns. Army officers supported the canteen concept, but when large numbers of citizen volunteers entered the army in 1898, the temperance movement, particularly the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), successfully advocated for the canteen's abolition. The ensuing public debate revealed contesting popular images of soldiers: innocent boys or adult men. The canteen debate focused the attention of Progressive Era activists on moral and social conditions in the army, and engendered a long debate over the role of the army in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision in 1965 to expand the U.S. Army's active force without a reserve mobilization quickly generated massive organizational turbulence. In this environment one unwilling soldier found an extraordinary opportunity to slip away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After World War II ended in 1945, U.S. Army intelligence agencies, especially the Counter Intelligence Corps, recruited former Nazi officials, war crimes suspects, and war criminals to collect information on communist party and Soviet activities in Europe. While studies have examined individual cases, this article seeks to establish the historical context of the early Cold War that set the framework for this intelligence exploitation. It also weighs the intelligence value of the Army's Nazi informants and reviews recruitment by other American and Allied intelligence services. Finally, it discusses the challenges of using ethical guidelines in recruiting secret agents, during the early Cold War and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests the veracity of the Revisionist thesis that the United States effectively won the Vietnam War in the years after Tet 1968. Since quantitative indicators could not accurately measure who was winning the "War in the Villages," it relies instead upon qualitative assessments made by U.S. Province Senior Advisors--the Americans best qualified to make such judgments. It is organized into three sections dealing with the key Revisionist claims that the Vietcong insurgency was defeated, the Saigon regime gained control of practically the entire rural population, and the South Vietnamese armed forces became capable of standing on their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "The U.S. Army's Transition to Peace, 1865-66" Clayton R. Newell and Charles R. Shrader examine the actions taken by the Union Army in the year following the Civil War to demobilize the victorious army of more than one million volunteers; reduce the number of personnel, scale back the operations, and dispose of surplus equipment, supplies, and facilities of the various staff departments; and recruit the units of the Regular Army up to authorized strength. They then proceed to discuss the new missions assigned to the Army's administrative and supply departments, including management of the Freedmen's Bureau; caring for the disabled veterans and the fallen; and assembling the official records of the War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard Vietnam War narratives often argue that the U.S. Army lost the war because it failed to learn and adapt to the conditions of an unconventional conflict. Based on a reappraisal of learning processes rather than on the outcome of the war, this essay argues that as an organization, the U.S. Army did learn and adapt in Vietnam; however, that learning was not sufficient, in itself, to preserve a South Vietnam in the throes of a powerful nationalist upheaval. A reexamination of the Army's strategic approach, operational experiences, and organizational changes reveals that significant learning did occur during the Vietnam War despite the conflict's final result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have generally assumed that the poor showing made by the South Korean military in the opening stages of the Korean War was inevitable and have attributed much of the blame for this to the U.S. Army advisory group in Korea, known colloquially as "KMAG." However, a closer look at the documentary evidence shows that KMAG was keenly aware of the South Korean military's shortcomings and was doing its best to correct them as war came. Although KMAG's program to improve the equipment and leadership of the South Korean military and to focus its efforts on conventional defense, as opposed to counterinsurgency activities, proved insufficient to stop the North Korean invasion, U.S. advisors did succeed in forging an infrastructure that allowed the South Korean army to survive and eventually to grow into a potent military force during the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the enlistment and service of specially organized "all-Indian Companies" within the U.S. Army from 1891 to 1897. Unlike previous units of Indian Scouts, these soldiers were organized, equipped, and trained as regulars, modeled on the success of Buffalo Soldier regiments and envisioned as a counterpart to the ethnically organized colonial forces of other imperial powers. These companies were inspired and sustained by arguments about Native Americans' unique military capabilities. More importantly, they served as vessels for programs of progressive reform and assimilation and as projections of an emerging American imperial identity. Simultaneously, the soldiers in these segregated formations leveraged their service to obtain practical economic and legal opportunities, as well as to support their arguments for more meaningful social and civic participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major criticism of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War is that it suffered from a crisis in command, especially among officers above the company grade level. Most writing on this topic has centered on structural issues, such as post-World War II personnel policies. This article will examine this phenomenon between the Korean and Vietnam wars by comparing contemporary publications and retrospective critiques by veterans with internal Army sources, particularly service schools, the headquarters of the Continental Army Command, and Headquarters, Department of the Army. If a crisis in command existed between 1953 and 1965, did these organizations' leaders recognize it and address it? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Vietnam during 1966 and 1967, the United States Army expended nearly half of its artillery ammunition in unobserved Harassment and Interdiction (H&I) strikes. By June 1970, the army had nearly eliminated H&I. The reasons for this shift inform the ongoing debate over American strategy during the Vietnam War. Although both General William C. Westmoreland and his successor, General Creighton W. Abrams, emphasized that poorly applied firepower could cause collateral damage, neither leader viewed H&I as inherently counterproductive. Indeed, both leaders responded to budgetary pressures, rather than concern over civilian casualties, when reducing H&I. Neither reduced H&I fire as part of a radical shift in strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the life of Guy V. Henry, a legendary Cavalry officer of the Old Army of the U.S. Family background; Education; Early assignments in the Army; Rank promotions; His exploits during the Civil War; Career developments and deployments after the Civil War.

The 1792 reorganization of the United States Army into the Legion of the United States marked a significant transformation in the structure of American military forces. Designed for the exigencies of American conditions, the Legion represented an innovative experiment in combined arms warfare. This article examines the roots of the legionary concept, from the ancient Romans to eighteenth-century European military theorists, and suggests that the structure of the Legion of the United States may have been based on the writings of Colonel Henry Bouquet, a noted veteran of the Indian frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between German civilian workers and the United States Army in the Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War. Using archival and published sources, the article offers an entangled history of 'local national' employees and their role in maintaining the American presence in Central Europe. Beginning in the late 1960s, German labour unions began to challenge American labour policy. In doing so, they consistently argued for a more forceful assertion of German sovereignty. This labour relationship was therefore important for both the military history of the Cold War and for the development of German democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines debates over the requisitioning of real estate by the US Army during the decade after the end of World War II. Requisitioning quickly emerged as one of the most contentious issues in the relationship between German civilians and the American occupation. American policy changed several times as the physical presence of the occupiers shrank during the postwar period then expanded again after the outbreak of the Korean War. I show that requisitioning became a key site of contestation during the early years of the Federal Republic. The right to assert authority over real property served as a visible reminder of the persistent limits of German sovereignty. By pushing back against American requisitioning policy, Germans articulated an increasingly assertive claim to sovereign rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When, on 6 April 1917, the United States entered into the First World War, a wave of anti-German sentiment captured the nation. The Army was not immune from accusations of subversion. In 1917 Senator Miles Poindexter accused a high ranking officer named Carl Reichmann of being in league with Germany. Despite the support from officers such as Hugh Lennox Scott and John J. Pershing, Reichmann was not permitted a promotion to general or service in France. Although most senators supported the promotion, Poindexter was able to prevent a vote on the subject using internal Senate rules. The resulting notoriety Poindexter gained made him a viable Republican candidate in the 1920 election. Although the military did not prevail over Poindexter — thereby continuing the constitutional expectation of military subservience to the civil government — the forces sent to France were without a commander who had gained a scholarly understanding of modern warfare well before the actual conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores on the 111 Texas Rangers of the Callahan Expedition which began crossing the Rio Grande on October 1, 1855. It highlights the newspaper reports and documents containing the evidence of slave-hunting venture. It also cites the failure of the U.S. Army to pleas for help following the attacks of the Indians.

In October 1915 from Fort Bliss Troops A, B, C, and D, First Squadron, Eighth Cavalry, deployed in the western part of the Big Bend District to Fort Hancock and Sierra Blanca. The squadron was led by Major George Tayloe Langhorne, who would become a legend in the Big Bend over the next four years. In Troop D was a new officer transferred from the Fifteenth Cavalry, Second Lieutenant George S. Patton Jr. As there were no other officers in Troop D when he joined, Lieutenant Patton temporarily commanded the troop, as well as had duties as the acting squadron adjutant, quartermaster, and commissary officer. Patton was stationed at Sierra Blanca for three months, from October 18, 1915, until January 20, 1916, when D Troop returned to Fort Bliss. Sierra Blanca was Patton's only station in the Big Bend but he led a number of difficult, lengthy patrols and became well acquainted with the rugged terrain of the region and wrote a significant number of letters detailing his Big Bend adventures. His wife Beatrice joined him for a visit and the two, although from very privileged backgrounds, got on well with the locals, becoming popular enough to rate a farewell dinner sponsored by the citizens. After returning to Fort Bliss, Patton was detailed to be an aide to Brigadier General John J. Pershing for the Punitive Expedition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the multitude of officers who served with the Tenth U.S. Cavalry and its African American "Buffalo" soldiers in the Big Bend, one of the most accomplished and incomparably well-connected was Lieutenant John Bigelow Jr. (1854-1936). This paper reviews the published and some unpublished biographical material, as well as the socio-cultural context of the life and career of this exceptional officer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive LSD testing was conducted by the US Army at Edgewood Arsenal and other locations from 1955 to 1967. A number of different reports have been produced describing the health effects of this testing, including the Veterans Health Initiative Report in 2003. By and large, these reports gloss over and minimize the short and long-term side effects and complications of this testing. However, the reports themselves document frequent, severe complications of the LSD. These side effects were regarded by the Army as having been directly caused by the LSD exposure. In view of the current resurgence of interest in hallucinogens within psychiatry, the sanitized version of the effects of LSD exposure on US soldiers needs to be replaced with a more accurate account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the United States Army Camp Gordon in Chamblee, Georgia, 13 miles northeast of Atlanta, from September 1917 through November 1918 during World War I. The camp was the training ground for both black and white soldiers and officers. It was home of the eighty-second division, a key force on the Western Front which included Alvin York of Tennessee, the most decorated soldier of World War I and the basis for the hero of the film "Sergeant York."

In 1908–1909, maritime commerce, fishing and traffic in the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines almost came to a standstill due to a surge in piracy and coastal raids that challenged US colonial rule in the area. The leader of the outlaws was a renegade subject of the Sultan of Sulu, a Samal named Jikiri. Together with his followers, Jikiri was responsible for the murders of at least 40 people in numerous raids on small trading vessels, pearl fishers, coastal settlements and towns throughout the archipelago. In spite of the concerted efforts of the US Army, the Philippine Constabulary and private bounty hunters, Jikiri was able to avoid defeat for more than one and half years, before he was eventually killed in July 1909. His decision to take to piracy was triggered by the failure of the US authorities to pay compensation for the loss of the traditional claims that many families in the Sulu Archipelago had to the pearl beds of the region, as stipulated by a law on pearl fishing adopted in 1904. The law was in several respects disadvantageous to the native population of Sulu and this – together with the high-handed behaviour of the local officers in charge of the Sulu district from 1906 – fuelled widespread discontent with colonial rule and led several of the leading headmen of Sulu covertly to sympathize with, and protect, Jikiri and his followers. This sponsorship combined with the general reluctance of the population to cooperate with the US military explains why Jikiri was able to defy the vastly superior US forces for so long. American officers at the time tended to attribute the depredations to the allegedly piratical nature of the Sulus, but this article argues that the so-called ‘decay theory’, first proposed by Raffles a century earlier, is a more appropriate explanation of this surge in piracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers literature and speeches written in response to the War on Terror and the Iraqi War, focusing on themes of sacrifice. Works considered include 2002 and 2003 speeches by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, online documents from both the British Ministry of Defense and U.S. Army, and "The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory" by Susan Mizruchi.

Of all the services, the [A]rmy had the most influence over early Cold War policy, primarily because of its occupational duties in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. Generals such as Lucius Clay in Germany, Douglas Mac Arthur in Japan, Mark Clark in Austria, and John Hodge in Korea presided over occupied territories as American viceroys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]