that diplomacy is availablee co. but exhib40 and it's 40% off during the conference. exactly. and when you go down there a lit sticker, because you are going to go buy it out, please msure l site and buy because it is very important that we support it's very important that we buy books and we educate as many people who are possible during this time and i will say, really, can we just ithis by celebrating emily this phenomenal panel and this phenomenal class. well, joining us on american history tv is beth bailey, a professor at the university of

kansas and lawrence, the author of this book, an army of fire how the us army confronted its racials in the vietnam era. we'll talk about that in a minute. but dr. bailey, what do you teach atus military history, occasionallyry, nder and sexuality, which was my previous incarnation before i became milary history. how did you get into military history? i hate say it, but it was ly a television commercial army recruiting commercial. advertising post-cold war pre 911. and realow do sell the army when supposedly is the end of s all resolved they were selling the army as social good as you know taking tentially problematic forsk society and helping them become the people tthld be helping them not disappoint their third grade teacher or their motr, whomever who

believed in all along. and i got fna commercial and thought would write about the army as sl. who also a historian you can't just write aboutials you're going to write about the army. you have to understand the army. so i spent several years trying to get to that. and the military historians were really w so i had a conversion moment. true. now, this many years later. the commercial is true. the way that commercials are ey take something that has enough of it to compelling and they find something that rete peoe they're trying to reach or people who influence the people they're trying to reach. but whatwererying to do at that moment was to sell the idea that thmy fulfilled a purpose, not simply to recruitso vote for congresspa

and to support and senators orsto they had multiple audiences. and in time when army is primarily doing operations, other war and humari peacekeeping missions instead of wars ty needed to think of. how do you pitch the army at a point when their budgets are beingthe're being downsized. and so providing a social good by creatin good citizens was one of the ways they tried to dothroughout our history. how much of that history includes a template. not much of the u.s. had traditionally relied on some form conri conscription, until the civil war,whenars broke out. and then it would go back very quickly to peacetime, regular force with the notion thtwas go.

and at the beginning of world iss speaking coming clearer and clearer that the united states is going to be movi into that conflict. franklin roosevelt creates the first peacetime draft in 1940, which was not received with a lot of support. itas breaking an enormously important. and then the assumption was after the war that the u.s. was going to go back the same kind of smaller volunteer force. but it wasn't able to fl the ranks sufficiently in the face of the growing coldar. and so with a brief exception, the united s conscription from 1940 to 1973. but that's the only time during u.s. history outside of a war that the united states had, but it was long enough for it to ar seem. december 7

harbor. how big was the volunteer force that came in? well, i mean, over theourse of world war two, 6 million americans served so massive it was total war, but a lot more conscripted. ere conscripted. it was understood the best way to allocate what was then called manpower was through conscription, which would take into account all of needs of society. so people might have volunteered, were conscripted. now it's r point almost everybody is conscripted as opposed to volunteering. but that it wasn't because there was a lack of volunteering. who knows how that would work out? beth bailey were there separate men and black men? there were units for white men and black men and they were can t. i mean, conscription was handled locally and so the draft boards would be representative of

locals. so societies that by law were segregated societies that had a greater and lesser degrees of racial discrimination and prejudice that was reflected in they conscripted and how but the us military officially segregated its tops. how many african-americans do you know served in world war two? out of that 6 million to, you know? offhand? i don't know offso it's 1947. 1948. harry an executive order. what does he do? harry tran in 1948 issues an executive order that calls for the end of racial and calls for the enactment of equal in the us military he does not actually desegregate or integrate the military that order, but that's how it's understood, is that that's what's going to happen. doesn't finally happen until

1954. and in fact, the secretary of received of his position because hey after after the executive order. so there wasnd what happened in 1954. graally a korea a jump started the actual integration of the military because of the demands of combat. and by 1954 it was just before we felt that it actually reached that point. there was a small article in the new york times sort of announcing that the us military is now fully desegregated or but would it be fair to say that vietnam this ties into your book, an army of fire was the fully first fully integrated war that the us fought it the first waatts beginning with a fully integrated force and the

military made a big poifthat the military emphasized the successfully integrated at that moment. and you know, in e initial years it seemed like things were pretty well in terms of racial integration. i mean, there certainly continuing prejudice and scrimination and there were certainly conflict among white and black soldiers. at happened compared what was going on in civilian society. the said look we're doing really well. leaders said i see only one in tt saudi olive drab military a sign of how well th things were going. whitney young was the leader of the national urban league, said it's a disgrace that. black men in vietnam by greater dignity on the front lines in vietnam than they find in civilian society. there was a sense that even though it wasn't complete, even though there were flaws, the military, the sign of what america could aspire be in terms of racial integration and what

were some of the issues that they did face? i mean, what happened is in 1968, simmering following the assassination, martin luther king and the the widespread racial violence that was taking in the united states in general started break out in the us army. so in 1968, even as their in the streets during the democratic convention in chicago along been jail i's a racial uprising of black prisoners overtake guards the prison the fellow prisoners and guards seize control of the jail. the the head of the prison who had a ph.d. in penology. he was a reformer. he thought he had great rapport with the people who were imprisoned. there. he wanted to try to talk to them. they beat him. he never recovered from brain. they killed a white■ private, seized control of the prison. i mean, this just kept going on, spilling out of fights and barracks and bars.

it got to the point in west gean where, junior officers and ncos said they go into the barracks unless they were armed. national, international incidents. w crisis and it got to the point where the chief staff of the army and the secretary the army said if racial and racial conflict in the army had gotten bad, that it threatened the possibility of fulfilling its mission of national defense and had to do something about it, which was not the story they expected to be telling. what did they do about it? uh, they tried pretty much anything they could think. r it was. it was a problem that had been cropping up, so had been trying decisions and ad hoc programs. the first thing they did was, the secretary of the army, stanley razor, out before the associat he said, we can't be colorblind anymore because color blindness was the solution that the army

haie take in getting past the race consciousness of segregation and. in many ways it was it was well-intended. ns on forms theyracial thought would somehow undermine people's e trted equally such. but he said, know you don't you don't lose somebody's racial experience and identity by just them in and olive drab uniform. we've got to take race into. and also it a notion that what was happening was that olive drab i see only one color colorblindness default w instite standard haircut was referredwa. where the military justice system was almost all whitrms n and it was highly disproportionately black in termof prisoners. so got rid of race and they said this priority you've got to do something. and they tried a whole of things. they tthey tried education and

training. they tried dealing post discrimination. they tried affirmative action. they military justice reform and they tried questions of, cultural symbolism, which was something that was really important to the young men at the time, such as i've a young black mand be able to wear an afro. they saw it as a symbol of black the army hired of the famous black barber and sent him around the world teaching. hair, to cut black afros and stng pple extra for them. they came forward and said, we can solv problem. yeah, it isn't right. we look at ourselves and what we have things aimed at white soldiers. we have country music, don't have soul music. we cry life magazine. we don't carry ebony. you're right. ou look our shelves at christmas time, all the dolls are white. what about the black families? and so they did what the army

does. they did intensive studies and they wrote reports, and they came up with a list of hundreds and thousands items that had to be kept in stock that were aimed, quote, ethnic consumers and black consumers. and it had an impact because what soldiers and their families could get what they wanted more. but it also had an impact on black businessesau it was the third or the fourth largest retail outlet in the world. and so know if if the packs the the system decides that they're going carry your record, suddenly you're going to if they decide they're going to carry your afro kickr afro. shame. it's a huge boost to black businesses. so, you know, that win weird thing. even as my lai i front pages of newspapers, less th aft hamburger hill. a survey at fort carson found that 21% of soldiers thought hair their issue. how they could wear their hair.

but even though senior leaders thought the best way to approach this is by thinking about education or leadership, you know, young black soldiers, young white soldiers as well thought the cultural symbolism mattered in their daily lives. enormous sum now. so beth bailey for the majority, thet or the whole of the vietnam war, the majority of soldiers were conscripted with some volunteers.is a correct st? no. there were a lot of drafmotivat. so people who knew that they were likel blunteering had morel over their terms of so the majority of americans service personnel were not in and majority of those people in vietnam were not in combat. the united states had a major worldwide during this period. there was, you know, cold war were really high in the 1960s. and of amount.

so, yertainly were conscripted. but because of there was mong, s sense. what was the racial makeup of the army or ar that? black soldiers served is slightly higher percentages. it was more. 12 13% when the population was about 10.5%. the conflict station is where they served and. blacks men tended have less education than white men and therefore ended up more likely to be in the infantry rather than in positions technical demands and higher education. why was t the educational system that they wereom south was poor. there was legal. jim crow is just over. by 1968. it hasn't been long at all. and in that, the army leaders

recognized the reasons for this. but what it led to was initially a vietnam, a much higher disproportionately higher death rate for african-americans which, you know when recognize as theare th despised skin of soldiers but it had a powerful effec on black americans who were seeing disproportionate death rates of their own. there was a very powerful sense during this period the draft wasn't fair and in fact, it wasn't, which is one of the reasons that there is a move to d't support a system is so clearly unfair to the majorimer. so president nixon's decision it depends on who you're talking ixon announced during the in 1968 that he intends to end the draft. as trying to appeal to young people who were increasing anti draft and antiwar. but most people believe he was actually going to dot.

and he did. the military was highly resistant. they had no idea how they were going to ever feel, especially the army, because it's the biggest it has the left with clear identity, had no idea how they were ever going to feel all those boots. certainly that changed, but yet it was it was a perfect storm because there was support from all parts of aca society for ending the draft. aside from the military had to guhey re going to do that. they had to recruit 20 to 30000 le stop and think about that. the army now is fng to recruit 65, 70,000 a year. and they had to recruit those huge numbers at a time when there was not much respect for the military in the wa failing war at a time when youth culture was highly anti-authority. and so there was there was a fair amount of panic, but also in terms of trying to think what some of that creativity the military leaders decided that

they going to start thinking you're on the gates commission, which was the president's commission on how to create the all volunteer force that nixon's up just thought of economic humans or econom because they didn't even mention women. they they. we them and in the labor market that'll be. and what army leaders doing is saying our market as such. yes. have to go into the market but we're going think more creatively about what a■ and so we're going to turn to marketing. we're going to turn to advertising we're going to try to motivate people through those emotional and irrational forces that the the economist who were the staff for the gates commission really didn't taly it it was still a struggle. the factors that influenced people's choices were not fully susceptible to a good army. and the important to be all you can be.

well, the army advertising initiallytruged. by the late 1970s, this is the. there was this one great postcard that said, it's not perfect, but it's not bad. okay. . so be all you can be. was forward looking. people cheered when. they heard it. the recruiters were happy. it was an amazingly sss and they just brought it back. right. so it last l time. got to the point where it was wallpaper.uesshey've got a new generation. they brought it back. 65 to 70000 per year is what the armyrewhat the armed forces say they need right now. how close are getting? not close. it it's it's every service. ithe army that's

struggling this time and the air the air force supposed to bee gg just a given. the marines, it's supposed to be evybody's struggling. and why that? there are a lot of reasons. partlys opensity, partly it's fewer people want to serve. qualified to serve.e who a and a lot of that has to do with anabout body weight, body mass standards about medication, things, you know, many, many of kinds of things, impact. ger issues is americansn society are ever more removed from those who serve in the military. part of it has to do with the base closures that created bases and family support that pulls people more more and more within a military even as families need that support. so the people who are to tend to volunteer are people from

military families who increasingly have become kind of a military caste and people who live in towns and, cities where there is a lot of military presence is increasingly in the south. buter americans, not only part of families who have a history of, but even encounter people who are serving in the military. that's of the reasons theoretically at least, that propensity to serve is dpping. america army making the all volunteer force is beth bailey book from 2009. her most army confronted its racialwe appreciate you spendina little time with us here on