Latina/o Literature and War: Gendered Combat Zones

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariana E. Vigil
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
The Way

Latina/o literary engagements with war include a wide variety of texts that touch on more than a century of US militarism and encompass a broad range of genres and perspectives. This body of work includes memoirs by soldiers and novels set during various military conflicts (often based on the authors’ own experiences), as well as short stories, plays, poems, and essays that reflect on, question, and problematize Latina/o participation in war. Just as Latina/o individuals and peoples occupy a variety of positions vis-à-vis the US nation-state—as conquered and colonized populations, as internal “minorities,” and as migrants and refugees—so, too, have Latina/o texts that take up war reflected a variety of positions. Taking an expansive view of war that includes movements of military-backed annexation and colonization, this literature may include Latina/o literary and cultural engagements with the annexation of Texas in 1845, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), and the annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898. These topics sit alongside very different perspectives on US militarism such as those that reflect Latina/o experiences within the US armed forces in World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Central America, and Iraq. This literature, then, covers works that celebrate and oppose US military action. Although factors such as geopolitical setting, history, ethnicity, and nationality affect the ways Latinas/os have experienced and interacted with US militarism, gender, and sexuality have also played important roles in these articulations. Gender is a necessary category of analysis that facilitates a more nuanced understanding of the way individuals and communities experience war. Just as it is best not to assume that military service for Latinas/os has had a singular or constant meaning (such as an experience of bravery or pride), it is necessary to avoid approaching gender as synonymous with women. Thus a gendered analysis facilitates questioning of the way masculinity and femininity shape and are shaped by questions of violence, military intervention, and national cohesion.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

Militaries’ Organizational Cultures in a Globalizing World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Soeters
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Organizational Cultures ◽  
Military Organizations ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The Way

Organizational cultures in military organizations consist of symbols, practices, habits, hidden assumptions, and beliefs about what needs to be done, and what is appropriate and what is not, before, during, and after operations. Generally speaking, organizational cultures in military institutions are similar to those in any other work organization. Upon closer examination, however, it appears that the military’s 24/7, communal life outside society, its emphasis on hierarchy and discipline, and in particular its license to use large-scale force make it different. Relatedly, the way in which the military’s organizational cultures are created and recreated has aspects and emphases that are less common in conventional work organizations. Recruiting and socialization patterns of new organizational members in the military have been studied frequently because they are so distinctive in the armed forces. Military organizational cultures are not identical worldwide. Military organizations differ internationally, as military organizations are still strongly connected to their national backgrounds, including the languages, legal regimes, political atmospheres, and general ways of living in the many nations across the globe. National societies and their histories shape military organizational cultures in multiple ways. Dramatic experiences at the national level, for instance during World War II, may lead to a continuation or, just the opposite, the disruption of armed forces’ organizational cultures. Yet despite the differences, something of a world culture impacting on the use of force seems to emerge as well. In an era when international alliances carry out most missions, different national backgrounds influence strategic decision making and the way operations are conducted. Most of the time, national armed forces operate separately, in their own area (or time) of operations, sometimes guiding troops from smaller and less wealthy partnering nations. The coordination of actions between the various areas of operation is generally not very well elaborated. This applies not only to combat operations but also to peace missions. A full integration of national armed forces, such as in a United Nations security force or a European army, is an ideal that some may dream of, but it is still far from reality. The greatest degree of integration is likely to be found in international headquarters.

The Way to Waimanalo

Runaway ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Chaney
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Margaret Mead ◽  
Office Of Strategic Services ◽  
Morphology Learning ◽  
The Way

The narrative setting for this chapter is the new Oceanic Institute and its sister facility, Sea Life Park, in Waimanalo, Hawaii, in the early 1960s, where Bateson is studying the way dolphins communicate with each other. Among his colleagues – pioneers in dolphin training for public performance and ocean scientists with military contracts – Bateson was beloved but misunderstood. At issue was Bateson’s deep scorn for modern utilitarian science and B.F. Skinner behaviorism. The source of this scorn can be found in Bateson’s background: his youth in British naturalism and as the son of the founder of genetics William Bateson; his 1936 marriage to Margaret Mead, their work in Papau New Guinea and Bali, and their part, along with Ruth Benedict, in Boasian cultural relativism and the culture and personality school of anthropology; Bateson's anthropological morphology, learning theory, and concept of schismogenesis; and his black ops work with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II. In the aftermath of the war, the US government opened its doors to the social sciences to aid in its Cold War policies. Bateson’s marriage to Margaret Mead crumbled amidst his refusal to accompany her through these doors.

John Useem and Governance Operations

2018 ◽  
pp. 199-238
Author(s):  
Montgomery McFate
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Successful Case ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Navy ◽  
Government Enterprise ◽  
The Military

This chapter concerns the wartime civil affairs experience of John Useem, a US Navy officer who became the military governor of a small island in Micronesia. While the post-World War II, military government established in Germany and Japan are often offered as examples of successful governance operations, the partially successful case of Micronesia better exemplifies the paradoxes at the heart of the military government enterprise. These issues which plagued the US military government in Micronesia, and which John Useem wrote about in the 1940s and 1950s, were the exact same issues that have plagued the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq more than a half century later. What happens when the policy of democratization is incompatible with the existing social order? What happens when American social norms conflict with the society they intend to govern? What happens when the core principle of military government non-interference cannot be implemented in practice and outright contradicts the imperatives of ‘nation building’?

Science with a Vengeance: How the US Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War II

Physics Today ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 77-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. DeVorkin ◽  
Bruce Hevly
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Space Sciences

Modeling the Complexity of the Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism Struggle

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Arney ◽  
Zachary Silvis ◽  
Matthew Thielen ◽  
Jeff Yao
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
United States Armed Forces ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Complex Mathematical Model

The United States armed forces could be considered the world’s most powerful military force. However, in modern conflicts, techniques of asymmetric warfare (terrorism) wreak havoc on the inflexible, regardless of technological or numerical advantage. In order to be more effective, the US military must improve its counter-terrorism (CT) capabilities and flexibility. In this light, the authors model the terrorism-counter-terrorism (T-CT) struggle with a detailed and complex mathematical model and analyze the model’s components of leadership, promotion, recruitment, resources, operational techniques, cooperation, logistics, security, intelligence, science, and psychology in the T-CT struggle, with the goal of informing today’s decision makers of the options available in counter-terrorism strategy.

Network-centric emergency response: The challenges of training for a new command and control paradigm

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lt. Col. Mark Stanovich, USMCR
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Response ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Impact

The last two decades have seen technological innovations that have revolutionized the collection and transfer of information, permitting access to and dissemination of massive amounts of data with unprecedented speed and efficiency. These innovations have been incorporated into virtually every aspect of modern society, from personal communications, to commercial and business processes, to governmental function and military operations. The concept of network-centric warfare (NCW) grew out of these new capabilities and has been a prominent topic in strategic and operational discussions in the US military since the late 1990s.In recent years, the concepts behind NCW have been increasingly applied to emergency response, particularly as responders prepare for an increasingly complex threat spectrum in a post-9/11 world. As emergency responders adopt the technological innovations and organizational concepts that enable network-centric operations, attention should be paid to the lessons learned by the US armed forces in the application of the network-centric approach to war-fighting. Emergency operations centers (EOCs), incident command centers (ICCs), and field personnel will require extensive training and experimentation to sort out the impact of this new technology. They must develop protocols and procedures to leverage maximum advantage, while avoiding the undesirable and damaging effects of that technology improperly applied. Because most emergency response organizations lack the vast training resources of the US military, they must be innovative and adaptable in taking advantage of every opportunity to train their personnel in the assimilation of this new technology.

History and Memory of Female Military Service in the Age of World Wars

2020 ◽  
pp. 469-497
Author(s):  
Karen Hagemann
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Front ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
War Powers ◽  
The Soviet Union

During the First and Second World Wars, women’s wartime service became increasingly important for the functioning of the home front and battlefront in Britain, Germany, Russia, the United States, and other war-powers. Hundreds of thousands of women served in the militaries of the belligerents during World War II. Scholars estimate that the percentage of women in the Allied armed forces reached up to 2–3 percent. The number of women in military service in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was especially high, but only in the latter were they officially enlisted as soldiers. Despite their numbers and importance, until recently, mainstream historiography and public memory have largely ignored women’s military service. This chapter takes a closer, comparative look at women’s wartime service in the Age of the World Wars in history and memory and explains the paradox that while it was increasingly needed, it has long been downplayed and overlooked in public perception and memory in all war powers and across the ideological divide of the Cold War.

Austrians into German Soldiers: The Integrative Impact of Wehrmacht Service on Austrian Soldiers during World War II

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 160-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Grischany
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
World War ◽  
German Armed Forces ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Army Service ◽  
German Reich

In March 1983, germany annexed the Republic of Austria, incorporating it into the Greater German Reich. Thereafter, about 1.2 million Austrians eligible for military service were draft ed into the German armed forces: the Wehrmacht. Although we know where largely Austrian contingents fought in World War II, little is known about what, if anything, set them apart from their Reich German comrades. Nor do we know much about their attitudes, their “mindset,” or their subjective experience of military service and war.1 Because we know so little about the attitudes of Austrian soldiers in the Wehrmacht, and since army service—in contrast to membership in the SS or NSDAP—was largely mandatory, it is still possible to argue that Austrians were unwilling soldiers, sacrificed in a war that was not theirs, and that discrimination by foreign rulers fostered an Austrian national consciousness.

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