Transcripts For CSPAN3 Honoring U.S. Veterans Since The Revolutionary War 20240713

A position occupied by general george washington. Founding in from 1783 until his passing on december 14, 1799. Today is november 11, 2019 which marks the 100th anniversary of veterans day in america. Originally known as Armistice Day and renamed in 1954 this is a day when we recognize the service of all u. S. Military veterans. We are delighted to mark this important day with a special event designed to salute americas veterans. Guestseased that our include a fellow north carolinian who is the veteran affairs secretary. The honorable robert wilkie. The society of cincinnati was the first veterans group. It is particularly fitting he will provide remarks. You will hear more about that in a moment. We are gathered here to listen to a distinguished panel of noted historians who will be ofcussing the experience American Veterans since the revolutionary generation more than 240 years ago. You towant to encourage return to Anderson House and visit us again to look at our special Museum Exhibition americas first veterans. It is behind me and the fireplace. The exhibit opened last week and will go until the spring of 2020. I am going to ask mark williams, chairman of the board of overseers of the American Revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati, to provide a very brief summary of who we are and what we do. Then to introduce our distinct secretary. [applause] thank you. The American Revolution was the worlds single most important achievement furthering selfgovernance in the past 1000 years. In may 1783 toward the end of the war the continental officers formed an organization with two primary purposes. First, they wished to perpetuate the remembrance of the American Revolution and the ideals for which they fought. Second, they wanted to perpetuate the mutual friendships which had been formed in the crucible of war. Of note, our organizations charger goes on to state the spirit of friendship extends to providing care for ones fellow combatants and their families. The first such expression in our history. In considering a name for the organization the officers were inspired by a famous roman lucius cincinnatus. He gave up his dictator authority to return to being an ordinary farmer. Hence the revolutionary war officers deemed inappropriate name for their organization to be the society of cincinnati. Cedeing authority 1783e obvious today but in it was nothing short of extraordinary. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Even afterwards there are numerous examples of the military remaining in control after successful revolutions. Napoleon, lenin, castro and others. Society isin the limited to a few thousand men because eligibility requirements consist of being the eldest male descendent of a continental officer with only a Single Person being able to represent that officer. I will come back to that. For the first 200 years of the societys existence most of the focus was on the fraternal purpose. That is because there was not much need to focus on the Mission Purpose as our nations founding was more celebrated through america than today. Schoolchildren routinely memorized the declaration of independence and the constitution. They learned of the sacrifice made by ordinary folks to secure independence, to establish our republic, to create our national identity, and to commit the new nation to ideals of liberty, equality, natural rights, civil rights, and responsible citizenship. Unfortunately, a couple of generations ago this became tarnished. Cincinnati leaders recognized they would have to start focusing more on the remembrance itshat vast event and associated ideals. Furthermore, they recognize the limited resources of only 3500 domestic members would not be enough to accomplish the enormous, yet vitally important, goals. As a result, society created the American Revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati. All whoity is open to share our patriotic passion. Magnificent as the revolutionary achievements were like in any human endeavor, the results of the war and the government that followed were not perfect. It failed to resolve slavery. Suffrage, and it did not address veterans rights. The trap of into presentism, the fallacy of judging the past by current standards, we must recognize that the revolution created an evolutionary process. That is the beauty of our heritage. While it did take us generations to grant revolutionary war veterans a pension the important fact is that we did so and that we were the first nation in the world to do so. If you have not had an opportunity to visit the museum, i strongly encourage you to do so. Tonight, i am delighted to introduce the secretary of veteran affairs. His background and accomplishments could take most of the evening but allow me to share a few. Officere son of an army and grew up at a fort. He is currently a colonel in the air force reserve. He has more than 20 years of federal service at the national and international level. He was an assistant secretary of defense for Donald Rumsfeld and robert gates as well as the senior director at the National Security council under condoleezza rice. Prior to that, he had extensive experience serving multiple congressmen. Outside the federal sector he has been a Vice President of Strategic Programming for a multibilliondollar Public Company focusing on largescale engineering and program management. Degreesally he holds , andwake forest, loyola master from georgetown, and masters from the Army War College and graduated from several military colleges. He has published articles in multiple military journals, has been awarded the highest noncivilian award of the thense Department Defense distinguished Public Service medal. Let me introduce you to the honorable robert leon wilkie. [applause] if i may take a line from casablanca, i am glad he is on our side now. [laughter] thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Do you mind . No, not at all. Reads the American Revolution institute. Thank you, sir. Thank you all very much. Ending to usderful at Veterans Affairs this day of days when we celebrate the 41 million americans who have put on the uniform since the first shot in Lexington Green in april of 1775. It is important for me to echo what was just said because it is an honor for me to be here amongst the keepers of the american flame. Againsto fight presentism. Struggled, as all humans do, with how to make the best of what has been given to them. It was Winston Churchill who said after a rather mixed academic career that i let the k i hit them hard when they did not know their history. This society was founded in newburgh, new york where one of , history ofevents armies of the west, was born. Gaetzne scoundrel named i want talk about him much were threatening to overthrow the order that gentlemen established. In the midst of chaos, up step george washington. He walked into the barn and he started to speak but he could not. He pulled out a piece of paper and tried to read that but he could not. He said forgive me gentlemen because i have grown almost blind and my hair has grown white in the service of my country. The tears begin to flow lead rivers that night and a few weeks later he was in a tavern in new york saying goodbye to the hamiltons. Henry knox the first president of the society and others who had borne the cause of American Freedom on their shoulders and it is those ancestors that we honor most tonight. Ideasocess of turning the of the American Revolution and the declaration of independence into Something Real require the most necessary ingredient in any fight soldiers. In those years, this fledging nation got a glimpse of the importance of the men, and women, who stand up to be counted. Payne, who1776 tom helped inspire the reading of the declaration of independence across the Continental Army by publishing common sense things were not going well that winter. British troops had pushed washington out of new york, new jersey, into pennsylvania and who wasmpted payne retreating with what was left of the dissolving army to write the First American crisis essay that december. You know the first line these are the times. It was a lesserknown appeal to the spirit of americans warriors. The patriot will shrink in the service of their country but he that stands deserves the love and thanks of man, woman, charity that is not conquered easily yet we have this consolation with us that the heart of the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. A few days later, washington crossed the delaware and routed the mercenaries under johan rall on that christmas day. A brilliant stroke that would infuse the american cause for years to come. America owes everything to those men and women who refuse to be known as the summer soldiers of the sunshine patriots. Author history as we have spoken of National Unity the real obstacle to moving forward the boundaries of freedom, and the only danger to america comes from within. That is not a new thought. Ronald reagan spoke of it often. s if you look at reagan thoughts if you look at reagans thoughts they are imbued with the relationship between two of the great masters of the revolution mr. Adams and mr. Jefferson. What independence was gained in government formed. Partisanship ripped the friendship that these men had formed. Thomas jefferson destroyed john adams. The net before the inauguration ,adams slipped out of washington broken hearted. When both have retired jefferson to monticello and adams to quincy they began to speak once again through letters. As reagan reminded us in 1986 they wrote on every imaginable subject horseback riding, jefferson talking about sneezing as a cure for hiccups. Other subject for their. Ones, thef loved mystery of grief and sorrow, the importance of religion in the young country, and the final for the two old men country they helped found and loved so deeply. That carries me back jefferson said to the times when the set with difficulty and danger. We were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to men his right to selfgovernment. Oarring, always, at the but they way threatening to overwhelm us, yet, passing harmless by we rode through the storm with heart in hand. That was the last gift to us. A lesson in brotherhood, tolerance for each other, insight that would make america strong and great is a nation. When both died on the same day , 50 years after the declaration was signed, america had what many consider to be a divine sign. I mentioned earlier 41 million americans that war the nations uniform since the first volunteers. Some of our greatest heroes are those that insisted on wearing the uniform even when being told they were not wanted or needed. One of them was a scratch farmer from eastern tennessee. He would become the greatest hero of the First World War by prisoners132 german with just a small group of men. He was one of Many Americans called upon to do extraordinary things. Small, slight, be speckled farmer from jackson missouri that had never commanded anything but a plow. He lied and she did to get into the artillery lied and cheated to get into the artillery because he could not imagine his neighbors and friends going without him. He commanded the dizzy ds. They were the hardest Drinking Group of irishmen ever to stagger around. [laughter] he was a baptist leading people with names like maloney, driscoll, ofarrell. He wrote his future wife i dont know what will happen with the explosions hit in the clouds of gas come. On a day two horses were shot out from under him. One private looked at him trying to recover those thick glasses and said, harry truman dont scare with the damn. Regiment from harlem, new york known as the helem health fighters ll fighters. They were not allowed to enter the parade. When they reached europe, they were assigned to the french army because so american units would not fight with them. In the two years they were in western europe the Harlem Hellfighters suffered more casualties, earned more decorations and spent more time on the western front than any unit in the American Army. When they returned, the people righted a wrong. They led the parade up fifth avenue when the American Army came home. York, thatin ordinary man called upon to do extraordinary things. York became a voice not only for veterans but his nation and as the guns of europe began to slowly approach the shores of the United States again, some questioned why america could be tangled up in the problems of europe. Didnt we just fight the war to end all wars . York would echo Thomas Paynes remarks and explain precisely why america had to fight. Freedom liberty and and democracy are precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded to those people who fight to win them and keep fighting internally to hold them. When i am asked what animates our work at v. A. I say it is stories of these men and women who sacrificed everything for us. It was not always so. President lincoln set the tone for us during the civil war by challenging us to care for those who had borne the battle. Blocks from here, president lincoln we get on a horse, unaccompanied, and fellow ambulances to hospitals located just north of the white house. He would reach in to those ambulances and Start Talking to the soldiers, asking them how they were, what was going on, what could he do for them . I manyerans of world war years later did not experience what mr. Lincoln had hoped when he issued his proclamation in the second inaugural. That we hope for peace, fondly do we pray for it, that in order to ensure it would not only have to honor the soldiers who bore the battle, we have got to care for their families. Just a few blocks from here, in the early 1930s, veterans of world war i marched on this town. They were met with tanks. Franklin roosevelt was watching. Mistnt his wife into the to tell those troops that everything would be all right and that jane was coming. A young veteran who had served with york on the western front told the washington post, the army sent tanks and Franklin Roosevelt sent eleanor. [laughter] after world war ii is over that great veteran of the First World War came to the white house and understood the mistakes that have been made between the two great wars. Unlike the predecessors at the administration he called upon an, favorite missouri omar bradley, to take control. He administered 7. 5 million scholarships to college for americas veterans. He built 52 hospitals in two years and he pledged that america would never turn its back in the 20th century on those that had borne the battle. Once again we fell down. As mentioned i am the son of a combat soldier. My father was grievously wounded in the invasion of cambodia. He was a big man for his day but in40 pounds the day he was big. He spent a year at the Army Hospital in hawaii before he returned home. He weighed half of what he did. Only through the good graces of general Creighton Abrams was he allowed to recover. He returned to the division that alvin york served in in world war ii. I. Unitost decorated combat in the armed forces of the United States. Officerr, as a senior in that division, was not allowed to wear his uniform off post. That was not cambridge, massachusetts. That was fayetteville, north carolina. There were no welcome home parades, the culture said it was acceptable to dismiss and even criticize our soldiers who fight to defend liberty. Eeled from the crisis. I was in the company of the doctor of bob hope a few weeks ago as a dedicated our new cemetery in los angeles and i recounted to her a story that i remember experiencing with my mother. Phil donahue was on television and you know what he was doing . Who is running up and down the aisles with that microphone in hand. Bob hope was the guest. He spent about the first 20 minutes of the show trying to get bob hope to say that the soldiers of vietnam were somehow different from the soldiers bob hope entertained in the pacific in korea during that conflict. That somehow they were broken. Bob hope had enough. Foraid the soldiers i saw the same soldiers that i saw on sawawa, the same soldiers i at saipan, australia, the same soldiers i saw after the bulge. Is myremember after that mother yelling from the other room, god bless you, bob hope. Praisefinally people who the contributions of our warriors and know in our hearts their service is all we have to defend our way of life. While we can never thank them enough, we must continue to take historic steps to make sure we fight for those who fought for us. We have finally integrated the v. A. With americas Bladder Health care network. We are giving veterans the finally if we cannot provide what they need, we give them the opportunity to go into the private sector. For people like my father, after 30 years of serving, of being wounded, jumping out of , he no longer has to page ofound eight a 800 the record. Things ione two other believe are absolutely essential. Weve talked about history here. I will make reference to one of the more obscure successors to general washington. A fellow by the name benjamin harrison. Benjamin harrison is known for one thing he served in between do not successive terms of grover cleveland. That was his contribution. Benjamin harrison had served as a Major General during the civil war and he had seen death on an unimaginable scale. Troubledoubled, he was by the reports that continued to come in from the War Department that hundreds almost thousands of officers and men in the Frontier Army taking their lives with their own hands. That was the first cataloging of suicide by the United States government. Ladies and gentlemen, today 20 veterans take their lives each and every morning. Of those 20, 60 are not in our v. A. This is not a crisis just of those who wore the uniform. The leading cause of death for americas youth is not what it was when i was a teenager car accident. It is suicide. The new York City Police department is overrun with stories of veteran policeman ending their lives tragically. What we have promised this time is that we are going to take veterans because most americans understand, at some level, what veterans experience. What their fellow americans go through when they put that uniform on and when they take that uniform off. We are going to finally have our First National conversation about Mental Health, homelessness, and addiction. It is long past time that a problem we identified in the 1890s be addressed by the people of this nation and we are going to do that. [applause] to give you some historic perspective most of the veterans who take their lives are from my fathers generation. Lyndon johnson left washington, d. C. 50 years ago in january. That is how long their problems have been building. It is long past time that we address them. I want to leave you with a couple of stories. Stories that are important to me and i believe important to those i have served with and those i have watched growing up. The first is from the greatest of airborne warriors, matthew bunker ridgeway. General ridgeway led the Allamerican Division to victory in north africa and sicily. General eisenhower tasked him with preparing the Airborne Assault on hitlers fortress. It was general ridgeway command of the allamericans screaming eagles and the red devils. The night before dday he could not sleep. He fell out of his caught he was so restless. Cot he was so restless. He reached for his bible and turns to the battle of jericho. That was the most ferocious battle in the history of the hebrew people. Promise, io gods will not fail thee or forsake the. Reagan awarded him the president ial medal of freedom. Said heroes, they are needed. Great men stepped forward when courage seems in short supply. That is what we are about. Not failing or forsaking. Forward whenpped courage seems in short supply. Of 1776the warriors stepped forward to create a new dawn for the west. Finally, we turn to the man whose greatest hero was the man we see above us dwight eisenhower. When president eisenhower was inaugurated he was told on day a president iald yacht. He thought that was an indulgence unworthy of a democracy of war and he ordered it scrapped. There was one officer in washington, d. C. Whose orders eisenhower cannot countermand. His wife said keep it. But only take it out with soldiers. Five months after eisenhower was inaugurated you know the kabuki dance that was about to take place. The president pulls up to the pier at the Washington Navy yard, the secret service deploy to separate the president of the United States from his troops, and is only a five star general halt do eisenhower yells, get behind me, i know these men. There were 40 korean war soldiers. Most of them were missing limbs. The others were horribly disfigured and eisenhower ordered those who could to stand at attention. Hose who could did he said you have a Standing Order for me you never put your uniform away. You look to remind your fellow citizens why they sleep soundly at night. That is what we are about. Sake,ver fail, nor for the ordinary men and women called upon to do these extraordinary things. Who stepped forward when kerch seems in short supply and when courage seems in short supply. They remind us what the cost of freedom is. That is why the work of the society is so important. To provide us with a link to the earliest times the founding of this poo republic. They took on the mightiest empire the world had seen. Capable inhat was 1776 of launching an Expeditionary Force over 3000 miles of ocean with 30,000 troops and they did it. They persevered and they set the world on fire just as tom paine predicted they would. And part of your inheritance to keep the flame of their memories alive. Dont, it will not be a foreign power that dips its foot in the ohio or scales the rockies. It will be us who have brought experimenthis great that is the last best hope of man. I thank you for this high honor. I thank you for being here on veterans day and for remembering million who have taken up arms since those farmers stood at Lexington Green and fought back the greatest force on the planet. Thank you all and god bless you. [applause] that is a hard act to follow but we will do our best. My name is jack warren. Our society opened an expedition i opened a door so you could see. Firstcalled americas veterans and traces the experience of war veterans from the end of the revolutionary war through the 1860s when the very last veterans of the American Revolution died. All of them over 100 years old by that time. The exhibition includes remarkable treasures and that is why you need to come back and see it or see on the program is done this evening. It includes the original 1792 biography of Deborah Samson one of the first recognized women combat veterans in American History. She disguised herself as a man easier when you just had to draw your hair uptight. Uniform,a cotton until was a massachusetts soldier, and was wounded in battle near tarrytown, new york. She took two musket balls in her thigh. If anybody tells you women dont make tough warriors, deborah did not want to be discovered. She dug one of the musket balls out of her leg by herself. She carried the other in her leg until the day she died in 1827. It was there when she gave birth to three children after the war. She was granted a disability 1792 under the law establishing the pensions when the federal government was established. Her life story told in the First Edition is a great treasure. Another great treasure is the badge of military merit. Youve all heard of the military merit even if you dont know it. It is a purple cloth emblem about the size of a half dollar. It is the First Military decoration bestowed upon enlisted men for conspicuous service. George washington established it in1782 and it was revived 1932. We refer to it as the purple heart. There are only two reputed original purple hearts surviving. One of them is in the adjacent room. Dont miss it. Those are really not the great treasure. Doors son i opened the you could see into the room, and see the face of a very old man. That is the real icon of this exhibition. It is a painting by john nagel. He was a distinguished philadelphia portrait painter of the Second Quarter of the 19th century. He painted this painting and called it a pensioner of the revolution. It portrays an elderly veteran who nagel encountered on a cold night in december 1829 on the streets of philadelphia. The man was living in a makeshift shelter. This sounds familiar doesnt it . And he wasached him actually on his way to a friends house for dinner. He approached the man and engaged in conversation which was difficult because the man spoke poor english. He was an immigrant from germany. Nagel learned his name was joseph winter and he had come before th the revolution had settled where he was a weaver. He had joined the American Forces and served in the Continental Army during the revolutionary war. Bymarried, had children, but 1829, his children were dead, his wife was dead. Weaving requires digital dexterity, good eyesight, and those had faded by 1829. He could do no more work and so he lived in the streets of philadelphia. A homeless veteran. That painting is the oldest portrayal of a homeless veteran in American History. Perhaps in the history of the world. We have all seen that image but we see it in photographs. The painting is a reminder that the problems of veterans are not new. They are not easily solved. The challenges they face our challenges that they faced in the generation of the revolution. Challenges they face today and that we must deal with. Are someese challenges domestic of the revolution survive in different ways today. Tonight, are joined by a distinguished panel that have worked on the experience of American Veterans. They explore how experiences were peculiar to the circumstances of their establish but also to some common themes. They have been waiting very patiently off to the side. Let me introduce them to you. Brian matthew jordan, is the assistant professor at sam houston state university. [applause] he is a cultural historian of the civil war and its aftermath. He is also the author of marching home. Our next panelist is Stephen Ortiz who is associate professor of history at binghamton university. [applause] he is the author of beyond the and the editor of veterans policies, veterans politics. A new perspective on veterans in the modern United States. Finally miranda, you have been very patient. Works at the smithsonian. [applause] her Research Includes reserve forces history, womens history and the g. I. Bill. She served in the National Guard since 2002 including deployment to iraq and the horn of africa. Re our veteran of the evening so thank you. [applause] the veterans of the revolutionary war faced challenges associated with demobilization and reintegration into civilian life. Those are 21st century ways of describing it. Demobilization and reintegration many faced challenges with disabilities, financial distress, poverty and homelessness. Only after the passage of several decades did our nation fully honor, celebrate, and memorialize the service of revolutionary war veterans. My assumption is their experience to patterns were repeated to varying degrees in the aftermath of Major Military actions of the 19th and 20th century. That is what i hope we can talk about. Before we dive in, perhaps each of you will tell us about your own work and what you see as important about this theme for understanding American History more broadly. I will begin with professor jordan. Book is a social history of the men who won the civil war but could not bear what followed. Thatous scholarship argues Union Veterans returned home from the civil war, slipped into hibernation during which they refuse to speak or think about the war. The implications were enormous. That we slumbered from the radical promises and that bill yank was complicit in the bargain that achieved reconciliation at the expense of a reckoning with the war. What my scholarship has done is a different approach and suggests a myriad of ways in which the war continued to annex the lives of veterans every day. Not only did they tend to a staggering litany of physical, psychological and emotional scars, they also returned home to a northern civilian society. They had reached no consensus about the war, their participation in such violence, the meaning of emancipation. To ayank comes home society that wants to remember a war he did not fight. A war that northern civilians remember was not the war that he had fought. He finds himself adrift needing urgently to explain and contextualize his own experiences. I think the lessons and larger implications are really important. Perhaps,y he could, get over what he had seen and experienced at antietam. What he could not get over was the way in which northerners wanted to swiftly embrace reconciliation. They wanted to move quickly beyond they wanted to frame the story. Authorityto maintain over those experiences. He wanted to maintain position of custodian over the wartime mission and that was an ongoing battle. Thank you for having me here. Aboutearch and writing the role of veterans and their organization like this one although i tend to focus on 20th century organizations like the veterans of foreign wars and American Legion. The American Legion celebrating their centennial this week. I focus on the way those organizations and the veterans within them have played an active role in political life. A previous book i dealt with ways be the bonus march that we spoke about. They have been very active participants in the creation of the ways in which americans handle veterans policies and benefits. That is a misconception americans have always been unbelievably generous with veterans benefits. They have been unanimously supported and what seems to have been the case for a very long time is that veterans had to battlesd wage intense to get the benefits they think they deserve. That is the focus of my research. Thank you for having me here. It is a great honor. My research into veterans started out when i was serving as in afghanistan were historian for the army. I thought, this will be simple. It is an operational story. I was charged with writing demobilization sections and garden reserve. Seeing in this era there were not clearcut lines of being at war and being at home. Serving,ere routinely commonly three tours of duty, and now we are getting up to 5, 6, 7. As much as i would like to keep it within the military history perspective i really did have to look at what was happening between the mobilizations which really pulled me into looking at that veterans experience. Particularly how people were framing it in the modern era coming back into service. Whether active duty or reserve. In that research it really guided me back many generations before to kind of look at different iterations of veterans programs and benefits, reintegration, and how they evolved for the Current Service member. If you are looking at Current Events right now, a lot of the topics we will talk about tonight are very timely. These are patterns that start as early as the American Revolution. I would like to begin because this theme is really important to understand the experience of veterans of the revolution. It is equally important for later conflicts. What happens to veterans in the times of mobilization . Professor jordan, you have tipped your hand a little bit. From surprised to learn the brief remarks you made have similar that experience was to the experience of revolutionary war veterans. In both cases my expectation is that most modern americans would think that the victors of the revolutionary war and the victors of the union army were men who could expect to get free lunch in america for the rest of their lives. Heroes from the instant they went home. In the case of the revolutionary war, this most definitely was not the case. The army was discontented because it had not been properly paid. Most of the men were discharged and given debt certificates by the Continental Army which were not worth much. They sold immediately for a few pennies on the dollar. That was how they managed to get the money they needed to get home or by basic close. That was it. Communities home to which had been divided by war. Particularly in large parts of the country of new york and the south were loyal as him had been common loyalism had been common. Not only had they suffered financially at the end of the war and promises not been fulfilled but they did not find themselves as welcome as we would like to think they were. The same experience for Union Veterans. A very similar experience with the one exception. 1. 5 million men would call them selves Union Veterans after the civil war. It is an enormous scale. Process ofl demobilization is efficient. Demobilizeden be just a couple of months after. That is choreographed by the quartermaster general. No one really anticipates the social problems that will accompany people might say demobilization. The Christian Commission did such marvelous work during the war but they shuttered their headquarters. To navigatee left their way home by themselves. So much of this goes to the classical republican citizen soldier ideology. We want you tot any authority or distinction as you return home. That is very palpable in many of the speeches delivered at ceremonies welcoming Veterans Home and demanding they get on with the work of their lives. There is not that link to understand how they as far as the world war i veterans, i dont think there was ever since the u. S. Was not prepared to reintegrate them into society. The government had looked at the civil war pension systems and civil war veterans process. During the war, they had set up a clear bureaucratic approach to integrating veterans in terms of health care, Vocational Training, employment services. But they were scattered amongst a bunch of different federal agencies. Public health service, vocational services. The army does quite a bit of this. We are speaking in washington now. We know how that scattering of bureaucratic goals cannot lead to the results necessary. Despite the fact that world war i veterans were the targets of legislation to ease the transition, it overwhelmed what the government expected. This will lead to the creation of the Veterans Bureau that will consolidate all of these approaches. Again this is not something the government is quick to address. What the government is not quick to address is the American Legion and the officials of the American Legion who pressure congress, the veterans of foreign wars and the American Legion will set up a very important part of washington which they will set them up right after world war i. They become part of the congressional world of testimony and of Button Holding congressional members to push for the type of changes necessary to reintegrate world war i veterans into american life. It is definitely a struggle, despite the fact, again, no country was as prepared to deal with that struggle as the u. S. Government was circa 1918, in that time period. It is not an easy answer, what demobilization is like in the global war on terror. On the one hand, we have had the advantage of having 18 years to work on it and i have tried a lot of different approaches, which i think is one of the first things you see in this time. In this period, roughly the same number of gulf war veterans as iraq war veterans, at the same time. You try different methodologies for how to do this. The other thing i would bring up is that it is possible to demobilize, where in an emergency we can have a Service Member from combat into their living room in 24 hours. That can happen. Even where previously it would have taken how long to even get you back from europe to the states, plus the demobilization. So you will see this pattern where we spend anywhere from four days to two weeks, may be upwards of a month, to send someone back home. And there have been a few different complications of that. Especially if we knew these wars would have lasted that long, we would have done demobilization differently. Early reports coming out of these around 2004 were showing about 40 of soldiers demobilizing were already medically unfit for the next deployment. But the mindset was, we wont need them for the next deployment, that is ok, we can push them off active duty or back to their units and they will have time to recover. You see that time factor in just the scale, but you can also see how there was a better infrastructure for this generation of veterans, these strong lobbyist groups with a stronger v. A. , and so many living veterans from other conflicts who didnt want to see the same thing happen again. If i could share an experience from my deployment to iraq, when we got back, a whole unit, we landed in new jersey, snow on the ground, and there was a group of Vietnam Veterans there waiting for us and they made us breakfast. We had a chaplain come up and he was like, you are going to spend about two weeks demobilizing. I will tell you why. I was in vietnam. It took two days for me to get home and i looked down one day in my mothers home and i realized the dirt under my fingernails was from vietnam. So you are going to be a little bored, but we are going to get you back on the right time zone, see a doctor, see a dentist before we send you home. That was during the era where you were spending about two weeks demobilizing. At this point for a lot of individuals it is two or three days and that is usually at the persons request, because at this point it is so common to go out, and those services are available, they can walk into the v. A. , they dont necessarily have to do that when they are coming back from that deployment. I would like to pick up on something, and what we have not mentioned is the very successful demobilization of world war ii veterans. One of the reasons was, the g. I. Bill paved the ground in 1944 for the readjustment into american life, and that demobilization process. It is not a coincidence that the g. I. Bill had more or less American Legion authorship. Basically, the American Legion writes the g. I. Bill because that is the generation of world war i veterans that were intent to not have the same level of a system being overwhelmed, of poor readjustment, whether it be from unemployment to the Great Depression. You name it, they were intent not to have that replicated with the world war ii generation. The year before they write the g. I. Bill, they open their doors to world war ii veterans and start pushing for a g. I. Bill. So that crossgenerational veterans attention ends up being a really important part of the veterans story of readjustment over time or of not readjustment when it comes to Vietnam Veterans not feeling adequately prepared for coming home. So these cross generation things are very powerful, and what is handed off from one cohort to the next matters a great deal. There is an enormous difference between the four wars the three of us represent and the modern conflict, and that is, our wars ended clearly. They had closure. Korean war veterans, we can contest that. I would lump korea in with vietnam, it was much more ragged. Whatever the flaws of the way in which the government handled the resolution of the revolutionary war or the civil war or world war i or world war ii, we know that they came to an end. You guys got parades. Mine did not. But there was a moment of closure and group identity, which i think is lacking for veterans of these almost interminable conflicts. It would be very difficult, those of us who teach history, when did the conflicts in afghanistan begin and end . We would expect you to give us fort to sumter and sumter and appomattox. That has to effect the way veterans are perceived, and their own experience. They do not represent a single coterie in the way those of earlier wars do. Is that fair . Americans really like the idea of a citizen soldier, picking up and serving your country. We also love the idea of the military profession. We are trained, regulated, and especially the all volunteer force, military is stretched out longer. We hold these ideals in very high stature and they dont necessarily always get along with each other. Doing your twoyear stint is not the same as doing 20 years, getting a pension. With these wars going on so long, we are moving more into that where we have so many people, where they are veterans still in uniform and serving in some fashion. It pulls at that idea of whether they are still serving their country. ,lets turn for a few minutes we are entering some Dark Territory here, disability, financial need, distress and poverty, the origin of pensions of various kinds. In the englishspeaking world they go back to elizabethan laws, essentially that is their root, that when disabled soldiers were sent home from the battlefields of england or europe and they were in the english army, if they had been disabled, crippled in the war, if they had lost a limb, the government made a commitment to support them. But it looks at least to a historian like a commitment to keep them off the local poor roles and not impose them on the poor relief system. And that is the great grandfather of all military pension systems. And even into the debate about revolutionary war pensions in the early 19th century, when revolutionary war veterans were in their 50s and 60s and this debate was heating up, it is mostly a debate about relieving poverty, and not so much one of providing veterans with compensation, just compensation for duty faithfully rendered. There is a big change in america in the 1820s over that issue. It is the first big pension debate in American History that produces the pension act of 1832, the first General Service pension. But even thereafter, there is a residual sense that this is not something earned, but something given. Im wondering how, as that died, for Union Veterans of the civil war, when they begin drawing pensions, is there a sense of popular resentment, misunderstanding . Union veterans were keen students of history and understood the resistance they would face in fighting for a pension. James mccormick dalzell, private that fought with the 116th of ohio, wrote one of the early biographies of john gray, the last surviving revolutionary war pensioner, so they connected their experiences to those early debates over revolutionary war pensions. They understood what they would face. And in the space of their veterans organization, the grand army of the republic, they begin to articulate a strikingly modern notion. The argument make gar campfires that pensions were debt of gratitude that took honor, and they would sue for a definition of who was entitled to a pension. Initially there were pensions for folks who were missing arms and legs as a result of battle, a pension of eight dollars a month and officers up to 30 a month. Activism overir time, over the late 19th century, you get pension legislation. Over time, the late 19th century, you get pension legislation, the 1890 pension legislation that you get a disability pension for anyone honorably discharged. They are the first to articulate how this notion that there is a special relationship between the federal government and veterans, and they do that in the space of the gar, and the gar itself, when those pensions are inadequate, the gar is doing a lot of the work of poverty relief. Loyaltyty, charity and were there three hallmarks. They are paying for costly medical procedures, the government refuses to pay. There burying soldiers and poppers grades, they are heating soldiers homes for the winter. So once you get this pension labyrinth, it is still maybe not enough. Interestingly, the world war i era legislation looked at what brian suggested and said, we want none of that because it has been corrupt, incredibly expensive, and what we will do is give pensions to serviceconnected disability, absolutely. We will help veterans with Vocational Training and unemployment services, get them reintegrated, but we are not doing a pension. Not. Again, what they ultimately do is pass what is known as adjusted compensation, known colloquially as the bonus, which then leads to the bonus march. But a pension was seen as completely young the pale of a progressive era, cost and efficiency minded bureaucrats were interested in doing in the early 20th century. However, something did change a great deal, and pensions were seen not just as poverty relief , but as oldage poverty relief. And between 1919 and 1945, and there is the Social Security act of 1935, and that changes the conversation of pensions, because oldage pensions that were seen as only for veterans now become part of american life, with federal involvement in oldage pensions. That changes the nature of the conversation going forward. So the g. I. Bill doesnt deal with old age pensions, Social Security is there. However it does deal with forwardlooking things like education and home loans and Small Business loans and veterans preference and all these things to help veterans reintegrate, but not pensions. You were going to bring up the words new deal, think looking at the original g. I. Bill it makes a lot of sense in the context of a new deal program where government is expanding rapidly, getting into a lot of new areas of american life, whether it is transportation or oldage care and even medical care. When you move into the allvolunteer force, there were conversations early on where a lot of famous economists were like, what if we could make military service marketbased . A young Milton Friedman was there, and they wanted bonuses and they were like, we need to make this entirely marketbased. But the idea that you would have enlistment bonuses and Retention Bonuses and, should combat arise, you would get a combat bonus, but not as much on the social service side of things. That idea did not work well, so bonuses were never responses responsive enough to what was happening both in the life and health of the department of andnse as an Organization Also what was happening in the civilian economy. So anyway, we dont do the combat bonus anymore. In other ways, we really do, because it is really expanded, we get paid much better and get a lot of these other services in the military that you didnt use to, whether it is family care or health care. But you also have to look at how other countries have structured this. I was talking to a canadian officer and we were looking through their military costs and i was, that is a lot cheaper, because you dont pay for college and dont pay for health care because anyone gets that. So we have structured things differently in america and those Services Become military expenses, Like Health Care for military families or tuition assistance, and to an extent some of these bonuses as well, but we dont do the same, spend two years in, you get a victory bonus. I think a lot of people would be satisfied by that idea, but hasnt been the way that we have done it. The Veterans Service organizations have continued that level of care in their local immunities. So when you ask about pensions really being poverty relief, it was a way for Veterans Services organizations to operate, first get charitable lay but also connections to employment and connections to Small Business ownership and these other ways that are in effect poverty relief, all these things are, but often conducted more through the organizations and locally than they are as a federal pension. Secretary wilkie talked and we gave him a hearty round of applause when he talked about an Energetic Initiative to do with veteran homelessness. I invited everybody to look at this portrait during my opening remarks, at this portrait of a homeless revolutionary war veteran on a shelter on the streets of philadelphia. Im sure tonight, a makeshift homeless shelter on the street in philadelphia, one might assume they are a homeless veteran. We meet them on the streets. They have a cardboard sign, and whether they are authentic veterans are not, they are claiming the status of veterans because they feel that a veteran has a claim on our, on what . On our generosity . On our gratitude . This seems to be an unresolved question, during our entire history we have been struggling with it. The thing i learned so far, the more time passes, the more these things stay the same. We have many of the same issues today that we had in 1820. Is that fair . Do you feel we have made dramatic progress . In some respects, in infrastructure issues, we have made progress. Civil war veterans did not have the Veterans Administration to return to. They only had a nation pension bureau. So in infrastructure we have come a long way in dealing with veterans issues. What we havent done so good of a job in doing is realizing the deeper, more intellectual issues about the meaning of service, and what that entails. Do veterans, should they continue to have authority over the history of their war . What does that look like . What does acknowledgment and recognition look like . Those are questions that are much more difficult for us to answer. We have had no national, meaningful conversation about rituals of reintegration. For civil war veterans, it was finding a space to share their war stories, honestly and urgently, finding respectful audience where they could mix and contextualize their experiences. That is so much more important to veterans, or as important as infrastructure issues, and that is the piece that has been difficult for us to get at as a nation. It is difficult, and part of the problem is the Veterans Bureau, the Veterans Administration, Veterans Affairs is very keen to say that, if men and women go into combat and come back, we have the tools to reintegrate them into civilian life, and quite simply, that is not always the case. But that ethos of rehabilitation has been a difficult one. Yes, we are sending people into combat, and many will be coming back and be able to lead Productive Lives. The percentage of veterans who lead normal, Productive Lives is very high. So when we focus on the homeless that is not a normative experience. We have said that when we send men and women into conflict, we have the professional skill, the national will to make that right and the professional skill, the national will, have not always been commensurate to that challenge. So this problem persists, and i dont know if there is a good answer. I know many collective endeavors, starting in the vietnam era, with the veterans centers, many of these communitybased approaches to these challenges appear to be the best way to go. We also have this structure of hospitals and what have you, so to balance out those economic has been difficult. There is an attempt to put more into communitybased efforts, but again, the national whalen the national will and the professional skill has not always been there and able to deal with these challenges. At least from what i have seen, we have a tendency to focus on the end of the road, whether homelessness or suicide or permanent disability. What i have seen really improve over the last decade is the willingness to address a problem before it hits that point. So, looking at factors like who needs consistent Mental Health care, who is a disabled veteran who can still work but needs help with that, who was underemployed, who looks like they have a nice life, they are not homeless yet but it is a day to day struggle. Those programs are gaining a lot of momentum. I think that will be the future, where this is going, but it is harder to get people passionate about programs like that. And i think that within a lot of these veterans communities, they are getting more understanding, but over time there has been an issue, are we the ones who give service, are we the pillars of the community who run the fourth of july parade, or are we the ones that need the charity . And looking within organizations and perhaps the communities to see who does need that care early on. Let me reach a happier place, but just as complicated, which is how we come to celebrate, honor, or in your thinking, take control of the memory, of war and the service of soldiers who hold that close to themselves, in the early decades, certainly, after their service. We see it in the work we did on this exhibition, looking at the earliest published memoirs of ordinary soldiers of the revolution, which i think are some of the earliest published memoirs of enlisted men probably ever published in the world, in which they talk about their experience. And they all say at some point, im going to tell you about something, i know you think you know the story of the American Revolutionary war, but you dont. If you werent there, you cant really grasp it. I can only give you in these few pages a pale approximation of what this experience was like. Then they try to convey the harrowing experience of war, and you can see at this point in the 1820s and 30s, they have a strong proprietary sense about that story. It is their story. But by the 1830s and 1840s as they grow older, at least society seems to have a greater inclination to remember fondly, to memorialize their service, you see the first monuments, and that is a pattern replicated over and over again, and it takes decades for a society to reach that place. Is that fair . Fair in thet is case of the civil war. By 1913, the 50th anniversary of gettysburg, 1938, you get reunions at gettysburg, veterans ready to reconcile, but i would point out that kind of simmering beneath the surface were lingering sectional animosities, and many of the most grievously wounded and injured veterans had already passed away and indeed many would die within a decade of appomattox. Veterans of the union believed they were to be the custodians of their history. They felt a greater urgency to write, to record, to talk about their experiences. I will give you one example, 24yearold daniel eldridge, who fought with a New Hampshire regiment, brought home a souvenir from a battle, a piece of lead wedged in his arm. The first thing he does when he gets home in 1865 is to begin work on a memoir, what he believes at first will consume no more than a dozen pages, but write, toy needs to understand and conceptualize his experience, his injury. And daily work on that memoir, by 1867, brought it to more than 600 pages, including hundreds of battle maps. He is writing through his pain with every new word sending currents of pain traveling up that limb as that rebel lead is pressing on his tendons. They had a need to record. Republic meeting halls became museums, reliquaries of artifacts, battlefield relics. Veterans would collect regimental histories. They would hold reunions simply to swap war stories, they published in newspapers in every major city not just to engage in the work of charity, but to engage in this active recording what they had done, for themselves and for posterity. That is a tough one because world war i veterans were pretty active right after the war in terms of commemorations, building of statues, building of stadiums, all kinds of different monuments to the world war i cause. Even the creation of the American Legion as a monument to Wartime Service is an active memory production. So they are active early on. The world war ii generation takes some time. I would point to one difference between the world war i and world war ii generations. The meaning of the war for the world war ii generation was never in doubt, but what world war i meant was very much questionable for those who came back from france. What was it exactly they were fighting for . How should it be commemorated . How should fighting in the trenches be remembered, as victimhood, sacrifice, valor . There are options there and veterans and their organizations worked very hard to put their stamp on what the meaning was for them, right away i think, whereas you hear stories from the world war ii generation, they all came back, went to school and they all had kids. That was their active commemoration, to forget about it, to leave the Great Depression and world war ii behind and get on with a productive, successful life. The world war i generation was different, not to mention at all the way this was addressed in terms of literature. So the lost generation novelists and poets immediately start working on what the were experience was like, trying to understand and shape the memory of that war. So they are two very different qualitative experiences based on the types of conflicts, the generations involved, and the ability to go to school and start having kids that the world war ii generation had, thanks to the g. I. Bill. I dont have a lot to say on what the global war on terror memorials will be like, but the first are starting to come up, but i can give you a little about my daily commute. Those of you who have lived in washington, you see most of those buildings were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and if you would have walked through that area at the end of world war ii, you would see the capital, Natural History museum, a bunch of government buildings, and part of that plan is that we were going to have a Great War Museum on the mall. This gets set up after world war i, and we are going to have this great place to show our technology, tell the story of our military servicemembers, and that gets interrupted by world ii including taking some of the equipment back so it can be used again. By the time it is time to build this again, it is the vietnam era at the appetite for National War Museum on the mall is not there. And it takes great forms now in the Aerospace Museum and some of the others but what is , interesting is that up until that point, the National Mall was not an area for war memorials. Then you get the vietnam memorial, and that sparks the Korean War Memorial in the world war ii memorial. There are a couple of things that are interesting about that. We have these great memorials and monuments on the mall, but we dont necessarily have the information and understanding. There are wonderful military museums across the services, excellent military histories in those museums, but we dont have the same place where you go and learn. On the other hand, these monuments are very much veteran driven. And they take different forms, vietnam being one of the most famous, a place of healing. By the time the world war ii generation came around and the energy for that memorial is built up, it is monumental and a place of reflection. So we have the National Mall being this beautiful place where there is discussion about war, but very much crafted by the people who served in those wars. And is all of you should probably know, there is still a hotly contested plan for some kind of world war i memorial. And when people say, there is no world war i memorial, i always say yes, in washington there is not a National Memorial on the mall. There is a memorial to washingtonians who died in the war, but not a federal one. But there is in kansas city, commemorated in 1921, and in indianapolis, a rich, rich memorial space for world war i that was created immediately after. These were built in the 1920s. So the world war i memorialization is diffuse, and it is not in washington. It is everywhere, but nowhere, essentially. And quite beautiful in europe, the American Battlefield Monument Commission overseen by general pershing, the three primary world war i memorials in france, which is quite staggering. I want to thank the three of you for being with us tonight. [applause] i want to give the audience an opportunity to ask questions. You can cover anything from 1775 to present. We might be here a long time. Is this working . You have two professors up there and somebody who served. Thank you for serving. To the professors, what do your students think of the military and what do your colleagues think of the military . And after the answer, what can you do to change that . [laughter] so brian teaches at an institution that has a large veteran population, and is better poised to answer the question. Suny binghamton is a place that was very much antiwar in the 1970s, very strongly antiwar. I have heard many stories from Vietnam Veterans who went to school there and had a horrible time. So the institution has a reputation as being inhospitable to military history. I think that has changed profoundly since 9 11. There were upwards of 55, a lot, of binghamton alum that were in the towers when they came down, and i think that changed the understanding of what war and subsequent military service means to the students in particular. We also have a large jewishamerican population, many of whom either plan to serve or will serve in Israeli Defense forces, so their understanding of military service is informed by that perspective. So i think what used to be a rather typical liberal, left, left antiwar campus has changed. There are some not particularly interested in military history, but my esteemed colleague Diane Sommerville just won to book prize on the American Civil War and the suffering of people in the civil war. We have a good subset of people, and a colleague howard brown teaches and writes about the french revolution and talks about violence and war. So that storyline of academia being antiwar or antimilitary, in the years when i have been involved with it, i remember when i started doing the topics of veterans, gettering peculiar stares from people, why would you do that . But that has changed dramatically. Your followup question is, what should we do to change that . I think that change is underway as we speak. I would echo steve, sam houston state has a veterans population. Have a veterans resorts Resource Center on campus. At graduation we give stoles to veteran students to identify them as veterans. There is a veterans graduation ceremony. We do a lot to support our veterans. My colleagues as well support military history. In our graduate program in history, so we are doing a lot of positive things at sam houston state. In academia as a whole, im now coeditor in a book series with the university of massachusetts press, which brings together work from across academic disciplines on veterans issues, so there is a real sense that veterans studies is becoming a discipline. So i think the change is in the academy. Thank you for coming. My question is for dr. Warren, about the American Revolution. You mentioned the government wrote ious to the continental soldiers and then the soldiers sold them. My question is about afterwards, when speculators who bought these bonds, and hamilton wanted them to be honored as contracts, and madison and his supporters wanted the government to help these veterans who sold them for pennies on the dollar. How was the tension resolved . It was resolved in favor of the speculators. When the Continental Army disbanded, almost everyone was paid with continental debt certificates. And almost all those men were penniless, so they almost had no choice but to negotiate them immediately with someone who would pay them in cash, so almost all those debt certificates wound up in the hands of speculators, not that within the soldiers, what would be referred to as their original holders. When the hamilton funding system establish the Economic System of the new federal government being debated in congress in 1789, 1790, 1791, a recurring theme is dont we need to do justice to the original holders, to soldiers . But in some cases, civilians for whom similar debt certificates were issued when their cattle or produce were taken from them. There was a practical problem. Washington considered this, discussed it with his cabinet, that there was almost no credible records at that point of how those debt certificates had been issued. Most had been issued in great haste, and a lot of the records were held at the state level if they existed at all. And actually tracking down those original holders would have been extremely difficult. Hamilton had been a serious advocate of veterans rights in congress in the 1780s and said, if we do not pay off people who have invested in what are, in fact, very questionable securities of the United States, if we dont pay them off, we will destroy the credit of the United States. And this was not an easy argument for hamilton to make. He felt he was paid by the dispossessing of ordinary soldiers of their pay, but he couldnt see any other way to establish the credit of the United States. And it was done. Im not making any excuse, it was done on the back of soldiers who had secured american independence. And they wound up fighting for the remainder of their lives, and the debate about doing justice to the original holders fueled the pension debates of and 20s and leading up to the pension law of 1832, the first universal Service Pension law, it was that, look, we didnt pay these people properly when they were young men. At least those who have survived and now in their 60s and 70s, certainly we can pay them now, when the government has plenty of money. In 1832, the income of the u. S. Was four times the national budget. Can you imagine such a thing, only needing to spend one fourth of the money the government takes in in revenue . So at that moment the u. S. Was extraordinarily flush, and so did this when at the time it was regarded as a remarkable thing, but only for that small number of men who survived. As many as 250,000 americans served in arms during the revolutionary war, which pales beside those of later wars, but so did our population, that was a large percentage of american men. Something like 35,000 men lived to claim pensions under the law of 1832, and those were the only ones to whom that kind of justice was ever done, and even then belatedly. Good evening. I have been a naval officer for 10 years, but spent 15 years collecting oral interviews of world war ii veterans. Ive noticed an interesting paradox as i have talked to both my peers in service and those who served 70 years ago, and that is that there is a cohort we are familiar with, who were traumatized and suffered with the horrors of things they witnessed on the battlefields. But theres also a cohort on the opposite end of the spectrum, who suffer with anguish because they were unable to serve in a sphere of the war that directly impacted victory, or what we conceive of as victory. Throughout history, have we treated combat veterans differently from noncombat veterans . And now with an all volunteer force, do we continue to draw that distinction, and is that the healthy answer for those volunteering to serve . As far as the distinction between combat and noncombat veterans, some of that comes down to the work that was done. There was a discussion over whether Industrial Workers would have access to the g. I. Bill and it was decided no. But that was one of those moments where there were military officers there supervising it and their daily conditions were about the same as the war workers, and one group got the benefits and one group didnt. Coming into it now, i also have met some of these individuals who feel somehow their service didnt justify access to the benefits. I see this a lot particularly with female veterans, where their concept of what they were allowed to do in their service, they feel doesnt equate to what somebody who had a more combatfocused profession did. So even when they are struggling, they are not going to the veterans organizations to ask for help. I have encountered this issue quite a bit, particularly in the 20s after the American Legion was founded. The American Legion was specific, you had to be a member of the military in world war i, but not necessarily a soldier in combat in france. That meant that half of the members were called stayathome soldiers. So there was intraveteran conflict over how to advocate for policies that were expensive, when you knew that roughly two and a half of the 4. 5 million had not seen combat. That is why there was a larger federal effort to address serviceconnected disability and really focus on that, and not on larger veterans policies. So yes, it can be a rather contested who is a real veteran and who is a true veteran can be contested. I have not found the same level of anguish that you have for those who were not on the front lines, or what they deem to be frontline service. I think there is a way to conceptualize military service of any sort, recognizing that you are part of a large machinery where all is necessary. I would argue that there are fewer people actually in combat compared to the number of people in combat positions, that it is awfully hard to tell these other 90 of the people, your service doesnt matter. I have not personally found that level of anguish. What that might be is the success of american propaganda during world war ii, we are all doing our part no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. That is my best answer. But those differences amongst veterans were real, and had a real impact on the g. I. Bill for Vietnam Veterans, because they bill to think of a g. I. That would just prioritize the Vietnam Combat soldiers and marines. And everyone said, wait a minute, we have military personnel stationed all around the globe, how are we going to give them more than the guys serving in west germany . In order to pay for it for all veterans of the vietnam war era, the relative benefits were far less significant than the benefits for world war ii veterans. But this debate over who is really serving, those were pronounced even in the vietnam era. We see this manifested over the debate over whether there should be a specific class of warions for x prisoners of after the civil war. The grand army of the republic, the great pension lobby, many posts will Petition Congress to oppose a specific pow, prisoner of war pension, because they believe they are somehow less of a veteran than a combat veteran. Many pows, x pows, folks who survived in places like andersonville, are making appeals for pensions on what they call mental aberration or exposure, and it is more difficult to document but it is interesting to see these notorious pension lobbyists actually coming out and opposing that specific legislation, which i think is an index of the situation for civil war soldiers. Somewhat tangential to the other gentleman who just asked a question, my father and his brothers served in combat in world war ii. We went in the early 1970s to an all volunteer army, in which i served as a noncombatant. We have had a volunteer army since the early 1970s. We havent declared war, i believe, since 1941, and we have relatively interminable conflicts with, to some, dubious reasons. Do you think these things have affected the perception of the military and the military career amongst the majority of people now, who do not have a relative or a friend in uniform . If anything, when they do surveys of which Government Agencies americans like, the military always comes up as most trusted, most professional. And a lot of how that happened is through professionalism. Although we havent had a declared war, people have felt protected by the military, and military personnel in general are getting good training, good education. They come back to their communities with some form of citizenship that is recognized and valued by their communities. Right now we are seeing a bit of a pedestal effect on military service. As far as problems to have, i think we will take that over our veterans being ignored, but that can cause a bridge of misunderstanding where we dont always think of a Service Member being one of us in our community. That they are somehow other and set apart. Bill of 1944e g. I. Is one of the most important pieces of legislation to impact 20thcentury United States. The creation of the all volunteer force is one of the most impactful things in the history of this country, in ways it has redefined citizenship, redefined what the countrys commitment to service and war can mean. In the early years, you in esteem thehigh military is held, that is from the nadir of the 1970s when the all volunteer force pulled those numbers up high over time. But for all of us it is something to think about very seriously, to be fighting in wars done by all volunteers in our name. So even the house of representatives does not declare war, and the people do not declare war. So i find as a historian, i will continue to go back to 1973 in that moment as something that was a tectonic shift in American Public life, american cultural life, and that we will continue to bear that weight for some time. That is the last word. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] i think we have some refreshments. You are watching American History tv, covering history cspan style with archival films, lectures and College Classrooms and museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend Teaching Museum tours and programs onto the presidency, the civil war and more. Heres a clip from a recent program. Certainly lots of women and men were opposed to given women the right to vote because of how it might change the family dynamic, but that wasnt the only reason that antisuffragists were opposed to this. We have this section of this how race cames at into the discussion and the debate. The arguments were used on both sides of the suffrage movement, not only for or against given women the right to vote but also for doing so through a constitutional amendment. We have this fascinating postcard from the Georgia Association opposed to newmans suffrage and i will read a couple of the arguments that the card makes to vote against suffrage because universal suffrage wiped out that disenfranchisement of the negro by state law and because White Supremacy must be maintained. It makes pretty clear that the southern states, especially because they had been able after the 15th amendment ratification, the end of reconstruction had been able to implement measures disenfranchised a lot of africanamerican men, and they feared giving women the right to vote would undermine that. Women were actually the first to pick at the white house. We have borrowed this banner from the National Womans Party as well as this great footage showing them marching as well as a silent sentinel standing outside the white house to call attention to suffrage, to embarrass the president and callout hypocrisy of the United States going to war during world world the war to make the safe for democracy while women at home still did not have their full citizenship rights. , picketingsentinel outside the white house during the war. The Wilson Administration did not respond kindly to their activities. As the u. S. Mobilized for war and began to ramp up engagement in that conflict, the silent sentinels were harassed and some were arrested and also jailed. Here that talkts about that story, their imprisonment for peacefully protesting for their rights. Sentinelshe silent were not necessarily popular with mainstream suffragists or with many members of the American Public, they were nevertheless appalled that these women were imprisoned for peacefully demonstrating for their rights. You can watch this and other programs on our website. Cspan. Org history. Bookshelf,tory cornell west talks about the book in which he profiles leaders Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther king jr. , malcolm topamax and ida b. Wells. We have recorded his remarks at the 2015 book fair on the campus of miamidade college. Juan hello, my name is one yes renatos juan diaz granados. And i have, i am happy to introduce two very special guests today. Dr. Cornel west is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual, a professor of philosophy and christian practice at Union Theological seminary and Professor Emeritus at princeton university. He also taught at yale, harvard and at the university of paris. He graduated magna cum laude from harvard and obtained his a