The Civilian Army

This one has a processors stamp on the back dating this print from the "Week of August 29, 1955", putting it somewhere in between Korea and Vietnam.  Since it's almost impossible to put a date on the beginning of the Vietnam War-did it start before U.S. involvement, the arrival of trainers, the first troops in the field, the Gulf of Tonkin incident-we'll just say a lot closer to Korea.

So, here's a fun fact about the U.S. Army in the 1950's.  After the end of World War 2, it was assumed by many Americans that the draft would come to an end, and everyone could go on with their lives with no fear of being called up.  But that wasn't to be.  Fear of Soviet aggression, the perceived need to keep an occupying force in Europe and Japan, kept the military in need of fresh troops, so the draft continued apace.  Never popular, it didn't take long for the whole issue of deferments to come up.  In 1950, with the backing of many in the academic community, the army decided that college students, based on their grade point average, could avoid conscription.  Needless to say, the A students could stay at home, while those with a sold C risked  a quick trip to basic training.

One of the few academics to argue against a deferment system of any kind was Harvard President James B. Conant.  He thought universal service for all 18 year olds was preferable.  In his writings he made a whole host of points, but what it all got down to was that if we were to have a military and if it was necessary to defend the country, than it was undemocratic that that burden should fall on some, and not on everyone.  Conant lost the argument.  By the time Vietnam came along, there were so many deferments that we had effectively divided the country into two categories: those who were worth saving and those who were disposable.

I was from a small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania, and I was in the disposable pool of Americans.  I got lucky. January 23, 1973, my 18th birthday, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, ending American involvement in Vietnam.  (There were no Americans in combat when Saigon fell in 1975.) The draft ended not long after that, and my assumption that I'd get swept up and sent to southeast Asia was proved wrong.

This is the last of the photographs from the military memorabilia envelope.  Sort of.  I do have a couple of press clippings, one with a picture, but if I decide to post it, it will be on my Fair Use blog.  I've already published a couple of documents from this collection, but I haven't felt the obligation to put them all on line.  Maybe they'll show up some day, maybe not.

Gold Star Mothers

How's this for a happy bunch of people?  I really like the guy in the front row with the baby doll and the lap sitting on the right.   But when I first saw these two photos, it wasn't the party action that caught my eye.  It was the star banner in the background.  In 1918, at the recommendation of the Women's Service Committee, American women were authorized to wear a black armband with a blue star for every child in the military and a gold star for every son or daughter who had died.  Banners were also made using the same design. On June 4, 1928, twenty-five women residing in Washington, D.C., started Gold Star Mothers, Inc., as a service organization providing comfort to the mother's of dead servicemen.  During World War 2 and Korea, Gold Star Mothers distributed banners with the traditional blue star, gold star configuration.  They were usually hung in the front window of the serviceman's home, so that people walking down the street could see who was serving and who had sacrificed their lives.  This photo shows a single blue star, and since the people in these photos look late forties, early fifties, the banner could be a hold over from World War 2, or current for the forgotten conflict, Korea.  I was born in 1955, in a small town in Pennsylvania, and a lot of people still hung blue and gold star banners in their home.   One other bit of info, a gold star banner wasn't limited to combat deaths.  During World War 2, as an example, more American soldiers in the North Africa campaign died from heat, than from combat.