“Behind Every Good Soldier…”

1981 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Palmer

unexplored area in Australian research. Literature on the topic of military base-host community relations in specific is practically nonexistent, in Australia and elsewhere. Those case-studies which have been made (Barth, 1952; Hunter, 1952; Palmer, 1977) reveal that the military community represents a kind of foreign settlement in a civilian locality, that relations more often than not are uneasy and even exploitative in such matters as housing, and that the military style of life in general thwarts civil-military social integration.The communal nature of the military organisation in its own right has been noted by Kilmartin (1974; 444):“Military organisation may be thought of as communities in two senses: spatial and psychological. The latter means simply the affective bonds between members which occur as a result of common experiences, common goals and, in some cases, public antipathy or indifference ... The second sense in which military organisations are communal is in the form of more visible, spatial communities such as those residential communities on or near service bases and in barracks and training camps... These physical arrangements symbolize the relative impermeability of the (civil-military) boundaries — from either side.”How the wives and families of servicemen experience service lifestyle, military communalism and isolation from civilian host comunities is the concern of this paper.

Author(s):  
Rebecca Forgash

This chapter looks into strategies that military-Okinawan couples employ to navigate life across the fencelines and achieve acceptance for themselves and their children. It describes active-duty couples living in central Okinawa, especially young Okinawan women, who make use of military family services and successfully integrate into the U.S. military community. The stories in the chapter illustrate how couples struggle to balance commitments to the military, extended family, and local community that conform to American and Okinawan cultural expectations and contend with challenges to their relationship from both sides of the fences. It talks about factors that affect long-term chances for intimate relationships and popular attitudes toward military dating and marriage, biracial children, and broader formulations of Okinawan and U.S. military community. It also investigates several stories that demonstrate people engaging in intimate relationships across military fencelines that have the capacity to influence U.S. military–host community relationships and politics in even the most contentious locales.


2021 ◽  
pp. bmjmilitary-2020-001690
Author(s):  
Giles Nordmann ◽  
J Ralph ◽  
J E Smith

This paper examines the development and evolution of the deployed medical director (DMD) role and argues for the re-establishment of a formal selection process and training pathway. Recent deployments into new areas of operations, deployment of smaller medical treatment facilities (MTFs), the reduced numbers of deployments for clinicians, working with various multinational partners and both military and civilian organisations all pose specific problems for DMDs. The initial and then continued deployment of a secondary care role 2 MTF as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan illustrated some of these challenges. Although a novel operation, the broad categories of these new challenges were similar to the historical challenges facing the first DMDs in Afghanistan. Corporate memory loss may be unavoidable to some degree due to rapid turnover in appointments, particularly in single service and joint headquarters. However, individual memory and experience remains extant within the military medical deployable workforce. After the cessation of UK military deployed hospital care involvement in Afghanistan, the UK DMD formal training pathway ended. This paper argues for the re-establishment of a more formal DMD selection process and training pathway to ensure that organisational learning is optimised.


Author(s):  
Denis S. Lapay

The study is devoted to the Moscow Military Railway School activities in the command and control staff qualifying for the Special Corps of Railway Troops during its existence from 1932 to 1941. The relevance of the research is due to the lack of the issues of construction and training studies of the Special Railway Corps military personnel and the little studied aspects of command and control staff training in the Moscow Military Railway School during the period of Russian historiography. Factor analysis of justification of Railway School foundation historical necessity is carried out. We reveal the main activities of the military authorities, management and teaching staff of the school to train specialists for the Railway troops of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. The experience of deploying the material and training base of the military school within a limited time frame is analyzed. The specificities of the school’s variable staffing system are also noted. The background for the school establishment discontinuing is analyzed, and the conclusion is drawn that this reorganization in March 1941 on the eve of the Great Patriotic War is unjustified, as well as the need to restore historical memory of the school.


Vulcan ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-63
Author(s):  
Petter J. Wulff

The military community is a secluded part of society and normally has to act on the conditions offered by its civilian surroundings. When heavy vehicles were developed for war, the civilian infrastructure presented a potential restriction to vehicular mobility. In Sweden, bridges were seen as a critical component of this infrastructure. It took two decades and the experiences of a second world war for the country to come to terms with this restriction. This article addresses the question as to why Swedish tanks suddenly became much heavier in the early 1940s. The country’s bridges play a key role in what happened, and the article explains how. It is a story about how a military decision came to be outdated long before it was upgraded.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1174-1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Spieker ◽  
Tracy Sbrocco ◽  
Kelly Theim ◽  
Douglas Maurer ◽  
Dawn Johnson ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
OLEKSANDR PAHIRIA

The article examines one of the little-studied aspects of the subversive operation of Poland and Hungary against Carpatho-Ukraine, namely the military cooperation between the Carpathian Sich and the Czechoslovak Army and security agencies (StOS, gendarmery, state police, and financial guard) in the protection of the borders of the autonomous region against attacks by Polish and Hungarian saboteurs in fall 1938 – early 1939. Drawing on Czech and Polish archival materials, as well as memoirs, the author establishes the role of Czechoslovak officers in the provision of arms, ammunition, and training for the Carpathian Sich units, as well as in their engagement in joint intelligence and counter-sabotage activities in the border areas with Poland and Hungary. Such actions produced a joint Czech-Ukrainian response to the undeclared "hybrid war" waged by Poland and Hungary against Carpatho-Ukraine, which final aim was to establish a common frontier in the Carpathians. Despite its largely secondary (auxiliary) function in this operation, the Carpathian Sich members were able not only to demonstrate efficiency in the fight against Hungarian and Polish militants but at the same time to become a source of information for the Czechoslovak intelligence. From the point of view of the Czechoslovak command's interests, the Carpathian Sich served as a "non-state actor," who was trying to counter-balance the enemy's non-regular formations. The mentioned military cooperation marked the first stage in relations between the Carpathian Sich and the Czechoslovak military that started in the first half of November 1938 and ended in mid-January 1939 with the nomination by Prague of Czech general Lev Prchala as the third minister in the autonomous government of Carpatho-Ukraine. For the Carpathian Sich, the cooperation with the Czechoslovak security agencies produced their first combat experience and served as the source of replenishment of its scarce arsenal. Keywords: Carpatho-Ukraine, Carpathian Sich, sabotage, Poland, Hungary, "Lom" operation.


Author(s):  
J. Chernykh ◽  
O. Chernykh

Analysis of the foreign experience of the organisation and reformation of the armed forces in other countries, with the respective systems of military education being an integral part, reveals the specific national aspect of such activities in each country. In the meantime, there are some general methodological approaches used in military pedagogic practice across different countries of the world to be practicably considered and applied. The article examines the experience of officers’ training for the armed forces of the Republic of Hungary. The article provides information on the existing network of military educational institutions for the officer training of tactical, operational and strategic level of military command. Requirements for admission to military educational institutions for the officer training of different levels of training has been given. The terms of military specialists’ training on tactical, operational and strategic level have been defined. The analysis of the content of officer training for different armed services of the armed forces and different levels of military administration has been conducted. We used the system of the general scientific methods of theoretical and empirical research, in particular, the theoretical-methodological analysis of the problem and the relevant scholarly resources, systematization and generalization of the scientific information pertaining to the essence and content of the set objectives, monitoring of the existing system of military specialists training in the Armed Forces of the republic of Hungary, scientific generalisation, the general scientific methods of logical and comparative analysis, systems approach, peer review, analysis and interpretation of the obtained theoretical and empirical data. The general structure of the National University of Public Administration, the Faculty of Military Sciences and the training of officers is shown, as well as the main tasks that are solved by the institutes and training centers that are part of it are identified. An analysis of the concept, structure, goals, content and technologies of officers’ training in the armed forces of the Republic of Hungary shows that the military education system reflects the current stage of development of the armed forces, as well as the national cultural specificity of the country. Education and training of officers is carried out on the basis of national cultural and military tradition. The main direction of officers’ training is their fundamental military and professional training in both the military and civilian fields. The content of the officers’ training is based on two military education levels. Each level of military education ends with a certain level of qualification. It is possible to distinguish the general tendencies of development of the higher Hungarian military school: improvement of the quality of applicants’ selection, individualization of training of cadets and trainees, stabilization of their number at the present level; further informatization of the educational process, introduction of multimedia learning tools. Certainly, the positive elements of the experience of the Hungarian army can be used in the training of officers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces under the conditions of gradual transition to the recruitment on a contract basis.


Author(s):  
Katherina S. Sullivan ◽  
Jessica Dodge ◽  
Kathleen McNamara ◽  
Rachael Gribble ◽  
Mary Keeling ◽  
...  

Lay Summary There are approximately 16,000 families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) service members in the U.S. military, but very little is known about how accepted they feel in the communities in which they live. This study begins to address this question by considering the perspectives of LGBT service members, which they shared both in response to an online survey and in interviews. Findings suggest that many service members believe their spouses and families are accepted by their chain of command. However, a smaller but important group continued to express concerns about their family being accepted in their military community. Many service members appear concerned that family services available to them through the military are not appropriate for LGBT families. Altogether, this article highlights the need for more research to understand the well-being and needs of this group.


Author(s):  
Simon James

From the junction of H and 8th Sts, which gave access to the twin main axes of the military base zone on the plateau, H St led S to the bulk of the civil town and ultimately to the Palmyrene Gate, the steppe plateau W of the city, and the roads W to Palmyra and NW up the Euphrates to Syria. The fourth side of the crossroads followed a curving course SE, down into the inner wadi, then snaking through the irregularly laid-out old lower town to the now-lost River Gate, portal to the Euphrates and its plain. Of most immediate significance is that the Wadi Ascent Road also linked the plateau military zone with what can now be seen as another major area of military control, in the old Citadel, and on the adjacent wadi floor. The N part of the wadi floor is now known to have accommodated two military-built temples, the larger of which, the A1 ‘Temple of the Roman Archers’, was axial to the long wadi floor, which in the Roman period appears to have comprised one of the largest areas of open ground inside the city walls. This is interpreted as the campus, or military assembly and training ground, extension of which was commemorated in an inscription found in the temple. In 2011, what is virtually certainly a second military temple was found in the wadi close by the first, built against the foundation of the Citadel. This is here referred to as the Military Zeus Temple. Behind the Temple of the Roman Archers was a lane leading from the Wadi Ascent Road to the N gate of the Citadel. It helped define a further de facto enclosure, effectively surrounded by other military-controlled areas and so also presumed to have been in military hands. The Citadel itself, while in Roman times already ruinous on the river side due to cliff falls, still formed part of the defences. Moreover the massive shell of its Hellenistic walls now also appears to have been adapted to yet more military accommodation, some of it two storeys or higher.


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