Soldiering, Army

Author(s):  
John Sheffield

When our truckload of recruits stopped in the small parking lot just outside the headquarters building of the Detached Enlisted Men’s List at Fort Eustis, Virginia, during World War II, I saw Sheffield nonchalantly resting his elbow on the laid-down tailgate of another army truck. To me he looked an exotic, swarthy skin, dimpled chin, and long sideburns, back in the days when most Regular Army sergeants wore their hair butch style. In his gray-green fatigues, he was a mustachioed Spanish don. I was frightened. Not my kind. For the last two weeks of my new life I had been sensing that I was square, and he was obviously all rounded and loose. We had to jump down from the truck. Calculating the distance to the ground, I wondered if with backpack and heavy duffle bag I would be able to land gracefully. I made it without stumbling, but the jolt to my spine unnerved me further. Sheffield didn’t line us up and call us to attention as I expected, but simply said, “O.K., you guys, follow me to the barracks.” He took us to the first building in the row and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to show you how to make your bunks. In the meantime, draw your blankets and sheets at the supply room.” In those first minutes at a permanent post, every act and word struck me in the face as the beginning of a series of actions that might end with my death in battle. At the time, I had no idea that Sheffield understood that most of us were feeling as awkward as we ever had in our lives. Not until months later did I realize that without clock or written schedule, Sheffield was timing our lives so we would learn at a pace we could handle. He had absented himself so we would have time to examine our digs, use the latrine, stretch out on our mattresses, and renew our courage. He was not a proper non-commissioned officer trying to break our spirit so that we would thoughtlessly obey all commands, including the one to advance under fire.

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Andrea Borsari ◽  
Giovanni Leoni

The article consists of two parts. The first part (§§ 1–2) investigates the indiscriminate and absolute remembering and forgetting of everything, hypermnesia and amnesia as the extreme terms that research has used and uses for the different phenomena of memory, both in individuals and in social and political forms. In the face of these shifts it is thus indispensable to re-establish a critique of the paradoxical effects of memory aids and, at the same time, to seek new forms of remembrance that by mixing an experiential dimension and public sphere refocus the attention on the connection between latency, tension and experiential triggers of involuntary memory and on the ability to break through the fictions of collective memory. On this basis, the second part of the article (§§ 3–4) analyses how the experience of political and racial deportation during World War II drastically changed the idea of memorial architecture. More specifically, the analysis deals with a kind of memorial device that must represent and memorialise persons whose bodies have been deliberately cancelled. The aim is to present and analyse the artistic and architectonic efforts to refer to those forgotten bodies, on the one hand, and on the other hand to point out how for these new kind of memorials the body of the visitor is asked to participate, both physically and emotionally, in this somehow paradoxical search for lost bodies, offering oneself as a substitute.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652199214
Author(s):  
Kim Schoofs ◽  
Dorien Van De Mieroop

In this article, we scrutinise epistemic competitions in interviews about World War II. In particular, we analyse how the interlocutors draw on their epistemic authority concerning WWII to construct their interactional telling rights. On the one hand, the analyses illustrate how the interviewers rely on their historical expert status – as evidenced through their specialist knowledge and ventriloquisation of vicarious WWII narratives – in order to topicalise certain master narratives and thereby attempt to project particular identities upon the interviewees. On the other hand, the interviewees derive their epistemic authority from their first-hand experience as Jewish Holocaust survivors, on which they draw in order to counter these story projections, whilst constructing a more distinct self-positioning to protect their nuanced personal identity work. Overall, these epistemic competitions not only shaped the interviewees’ identity work, but they also made the link between storytelling and the social context more tangible as they brought – typically rather elusive – master narratives to the surface.


Author(s):  
Dr Rose Fazli ◽  
Dr Anahita Seifi

The present article is an attempt to offer the concept of political development from a novel perspective and perceive the Afghan Women image in accordance with the aforementioned viewpoint. To do so, first many efforts have been made to elucidate the author’s outlook as it contrasts with the classic stance of the concept of power and political development by reviewing the literature in development and particularly political development during the previous decades. For example Post-World War II approaches to political development which consider political development, from the Hobbesian perspective toward power, as one of the functions of government. However in a different view of power, political development found another place when it has been understood via postmodern approaches, it means power in a network of relationships, not limited to the one-way relationship between ruler and obedient. Therefore newer concept and forces find their way on political development likewise “image” as a considerable social, political and cultural concept and women as the new force. Then, the meaning of “image” as a symbolic one portraying the common universal aspect is explained. The Afghan woman image emphasizing the historic period of 2001 till now is scrutinized both formally and informally and finally the relationship between this reproduced image of Afghan women and Afghanistan political development from a novel perspective of understanding is represented.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Merwyn S. Johnson

Leviticus 18:5b ( the one doing them shall live in them) offers a prism through which to view the idiom of Scripture—the distinctive dynamics and theology of the Bible. The verse pinpoints the interplay between God's doing-and-living and ours. At issue is whether the commandments reflect a “command-and-do” structure of life with God, which maximizes a quid pro quo dynamic between God and us; or do the commandments delineate a “covenant place where” we abide with God and God with us, as a gift of shared doing pure and simple? The article traces Leviticus 18:5b through both Old and New Testaments, to show how pervasive it is. The main post-World War II English translations misstate the verse at every turn, in contrast to the 16th-century Church Reformation, which understood the verse and the issue under the topic of Law and Gospel.


Author(s):  
Zaid Ibrahim Ismael ◽  
Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali

Nowhere is American author Shirley Jackson’s (1916-1965) social and political criticism is so intense than it is in her seminal fictional masterpiece “The Lottery”. Jackson severely denounces injustice through her emphasis on a bizarre social custom in a small American town, in which the winner of the lottery, untraditionally, receives a fatal prize. The readers are left puzzled at the end of the story as Tessie Hutchinson, the unfortunate female winner, is stoned to death by the members of her community, and even by her family. This study aims at investigating the author’s social and political implications that lie behind the story, taking into account the historical era in which the story was published (the aftermath of the bloody World War II) and the fact that the victim is a woman who is silenced and forced to follow the tradition of the lottery. The paper mainly focuses on the writer’s interest in human rights issues, which can be violated even in civilized communities, like the one depicted in the story. The shocking ending, the researchers conclude, is Jackson’s protest against dehumanization and violence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-138
Author(s):  
C.P.F. Luhulima

AbstractThailand’s borders with Myanmar, Laos, Cambodiaand Malaysia have been established through amapping process within the framework of theTreaty of Westfalpha. Since the England andFrance left Southeast Asia after World War II,Thailand questioned its borders with itsneighbouring countries and since then the borderissue between Thailand and her neighboursbecame the major issue. The attempts to resolvethe border conflict between Thailand andMyanmar have been conducted through“constructive engagement”, and through her policyof “changing battlefields to market places”. TheASEAN approach has been employed in her borderconflict with Cambodia. Cambodia’s attempt toinvolve the UN Security Council has been respondedby the Council to involve ASEAN in its resolution.The failure of the ASEAN approach made Cambodiato submit the issue to the ICJ in The Hague in April2011. On November 11, 2013 ICJ decided thatPreah Vihear and its surrounding area belong toCambodia. The source of the conflict with Malaysiawas not primarily about border, but it was apolitical complaint. The rebellion at the border areawill thus not terminate until the Thai authoritiesunderstand the complaints of the Muslim-Malaysat the border area. The ASEAN mechanism toresolve the inter-state conflict consists of bilateral,trilateral approaches, through the High Council andthe United Nations. The application of stepsbetween Thailand and its neighbours are thebilateral, trilateral steps and the one through theInternational Courtof Justice in The Hague.Keywords: Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Kamboja,ASEAN, Dispute Settlement Mechanism AbstrakBatas Kerajaan Thailand dengan Myanmar, Laos,Kamboja dan Malaysia dibentuk melalui prosespemetaan di dalam kerangka Traktat Westfalia.Ketika Inggris dan Prancis mengundurkan dirisesudah Perang Dunia II, Thailand mempersoalkanperbatasannya dengan negara-negara tetangganya,sehingga perbatasan menjadi pokokpermasalahan. Sengketa dengan Myanmar diupayakanpenyelesainnya melalui “constructiveengagement”, dan dengan kebijakannya “changingbattlefields to market places”. Pendekatan ASEANdigunakan untuk menyelesaikan konflik denganKamboja. Pelibatan Dewan Keamanan PBB dijawabdengan meminta kedua belah pihak melibatkanASEAN. Kegagalan pendekatan ASEAN menyebabkanKamboja mengajukan kasus ini ke ICJ padaApril 2011. Pada 11 November 2013 MahkamahInternasional di Den Haag memutuskan bahwaCandi Preah Vihear dan wilayah sekitarnya adalahmilik Kamboja. Permasalahan dengan Malaysiabukanlah masalah perbatasan antara keduanegara melainkan keluhan politik, sehinggapemberontakan di perbatasan tidak akan berakhirsampai penguasa Thailand memahami keluhanorang-orang Muslim-Melayu di perbatasan.Mekanisme ASEAN untuk mengatasi sengketaantarnegara anggota terdiri dari langkah bilateral,trilateral, melalui pembentukan Dewan Tinggi danmelalui lembaga hukum PBB. Yang di-terapkandalam kasus sengketa perbatasan antara Thailanddan negara tetangganya ialah pendekatanbilateral dan trilateral serta melalui LembagaPeradilan PBB.Kata kunci: Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia,Kamboja, ASEAN, Mekanisme PenyelesaianPerselisihan


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Antic

This article analyzes how the ideological discourse of the Croatian fascist movement (the Ustaša) evolved in the course of World War II under pressures of the increasingly popular and powerful communist armed resistance. It explores and interprets the way the regime formulated its ideological responses to the political/ideological challenge of the leftist guerrilla and its propaganda in the period after the proclamation of the Ustaša Independent State of Croatia in 1941 until the end of the war. The author demonstrates that the regime, faced with its own political weakness and inability to maintain authority, shaped its rhetoric and ideological self-definition in a direct dialogue with the Marxist discourse of the communist propaganda, incorporating important Marxist concepts in its theory of state and society and redefining its concepts of national boundaries and racial identity to match the communists’ propaganda of inclusive, civic national Yugoslavism. This massive ideological renegotiation of the movement’s basic tenets and its consequent leftward shift reflected a change in an opposite direction from the one commonly encountered in narratives of other fascisms’ ideological evolution paths (most notably in Italy and Germany): as the movement became a regime, the Ustaša transformed from its initial conservatism, traditionalism (in both sociopolitical and cultural matters), pseudo-feudal worldview of peasant worship and antiurbanism, anti-Semitism, and rigid racialism in relation to nation and state into an ideology of increasingly inclusive, culture-based, and nonethnic nationalism and with an exceptionally strong leftist rhetoric of social welfare, class struggle, and the rights of the working class.


1969 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Tulchin

Argentine neutrality during World War II with its suspicious leanings toward fascism has become a cliché in inter-American relations. As far as the United States was concerned at that time, the Argentine Republic was the black sheep of the hemispheric community, the only nation that failed to cooperate wholeheartedly in the crusade against the Axis. The famous State Department “Blue Book,” so conveniently published prior to the Argentine general elections of 1946, spelled out the aid and comfort the Nazis had derived from Argentina's neutrality. By only the narrowest margin did Argentina avoid being drummed out of the hemispheric organization and barred from membership in the new United Nations.It seems strange, therefore, to recall that it was the Argentine government that first suggested, in the spring of 1940, that the nations of the Western Hemisphere discard the posture of traditional neutrality in the face of the spreading conflagration in Europe, on the grounds that it was anachronistic and did not protect their interests.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Montgomery

AbstractShortly following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an American mobile exploitation team was diverted from its mission in hunting for weapons for mass destruction to search for an ancient Talmud in the basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police (Mukhabarat) headquarters in Baghdad. Instead of finding the ancient holy book, the soldiers rescued from the basement flooded with several feet of fetid water an invaluable archive of disparate individual and communal documents and books relating to one of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world. The seizure of Jewish cultural materials by the Mukhabarat recalled similar looting by the Nazis during World War II. The materials were spirited out of Iraq to the United States with a vague assurance of their return after being restored. Several years after their arrival in the United States for conservation, the Iraqi Jewish archive has become contested cultural property between Jewish groups and the Iraqi Jewish diaspora on the one hand and Iraqi cultural officials on the other. This article argues that the archive comprises the cultural property and heritage of the Iraqi Jewish diaspora.


Author(s):  
Lucas E. Morel

Lucas Morel’s “‘In a Strange Country’: The Challenge of American Inclusion” interprets Ellison’s 1944 short story as a civics lesson for a republic struggling with the legacy of race. The story follows a black Merchant Marine, Mr. Parker, during World War II as he recovers from a mugging by white American servicemen while on shore leave in Wales. Ellison presents a lesson of civic inclusion by showcasing a “black Yank” being rescued by Welshmen. Parker witnesses how his Welsh hosts transcend class conflict through a common devotion to music, which he likened to the racially mixed “jam sessions” back in America. Herein Ellison articulates the obstacles and pathways to black American citizenship—a reminder that “the land of the free” requires one not only to be “brave” in the face of majority tyranny, but also good-humored, self-disciplined, and hopeful as one seeks full participation in the American regime.


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