The Military and Society

By January of 1971, when planning got underway for the symposium whose proceedings are reproduced in this volume, many Americans-in uniform as well as out of uniform-weren't liking what they were seeing in the mirror. The war in Vietnam was taking its toll, reminding one of the statement attributed to General George C. Marshall to the effect that "a democracy cannot stand a Seven Years' War." The younger generation -loosely defined as those born after Hiroshima-was "turned off' on the war and the military establishment alike. Those attending college led the fight on many campuses to disestablish R.O.T.C. programs. The implications of the Morrill Act of 1862 (let alone its terms) were not what was bothering them: it was the war, My Lai, and The Draft. In their classrooms they listened to the revisionist, New Left historians and political scientists call into question the entire basis of American foreign policy since 1945, in some cases since the founding of the Republic. The middle generation-those born during the Great Depression and with sharply etched memories of life in this country during World War II-was not immune to the general feeling of despondency. The older generation-those who were adults at the time of the Munich settlement --seemed least affected, if only because it was they who were being blamed for everything that seemed to have happened. Within the professional, long service officer corps there was more hard thinking going on than most civilians would have thought.