40% off during the conference. exactly. and when you go down there and it has a little sold out sticker, because you are going to go buy it out, please make sure to go on to the cornell site and buy because it is very important that we support each 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 all in this 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

racial crisis in the vietnam era. we'll talk about that in a minute. but dr. bailey, what do you teach at duke? mainly military history. us military history, occasionally history, gender and sexuality, which was my previous incarnation before i became convert to military history. how did you get into military history? i hate say it, but it was actually a television commercial army recruiting commercial. they were advertising post-cold war pre 911. and really how do sell the army when supposedly is the end of history and it's all resolved they were selling the army as social good as you know taking men who were either at risk potentially problematic for society and helping them become the people that they could be helping them not disappoint their third grade teacher or their mother, whomever who believed in all along. and i got fascinated by that commercial and thought would write about the army as social.

and at some point my husband, who also a historian you can't just write about commercials, you're going to write about the army. you have to understand the army. so i spent several years trying to get to that point. and the military historians were really welcoming. so i had a conversion moment. was the commercial true. now, this many years later. the commercial is true. the way that commercials are true. they take something that has enough of it to be compelling and they find something that resonates either the people they're trying to reach or people who influence the people they're trying to reach. but what they were trying to do at that moment was to sell the idea that the army fulfilled a purpose, not simply to recruits. they were trying to get into boots, but to the taxpayers to vote for congress representatives and senators allocate budgets and to support or question spending so they had

multiple audiences. and in time when the army is primarily doing operations, other war and humanitarian and peacekeeping missions instead of wars they needed to think of. how do you pitch the army at a point when their budgets are being cut, they're being downsized. and so providing a social good by creating good citizens was one of the ways they tried to do. throughout our history. how much of that history includes a template. not much of the u.s. had traditionally relied on some form conscription, not federal conscription, until the civil war, when when wars broke out. and then it would go back very quickly to a peacetime, regular force with the notion that it was going to be quite small. and at the beginning of world war two is is speaking coming clearer and clearer that the united states is going to be

moving into that conflict. franklin roosevelt creates the first peacetime draft in 1940, which was not received with a lot of support. it was 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 fill the ranks sufficiently in the face of the growing cold war. and so with a brief exception, the united states, 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 start to seem. december 7th, 1941, pearl harbor. how big was the volunteer force that came in? well, i mean, over the course of

world war two, 6 million americans served so massive it was total war, but a lot more conscripted. they were 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 after a certain 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 conscription for white men and black men? there were units for white men and black men and they were can sit. 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 troops. 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 offhand. so it's 1947. 1948. harry truman makes an executive order. what does he do? harry truman 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. it doesn't finally happen until 1954. and in fact, the secretary of the was more or less received of his position because he refused

to desegregate the army after after the executive order. so there was and what happened in 1954. how it gradually a korea a jump started the actual integration of the military because of the demands of combat. and by 1954 it was just a a 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 integrated. 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 war that was fought from its beginning with a fully integrated force and the military made a big point of that. the military emphasized the extent to which it was successfully integrated at that

moment. and you know, in the initial years it seemed like things were pretty well in terms of racial integration. i mean, there certainly continuing prejudice and discrimination and there were certainly conflict among white and black soldiers. but what happened compared what was going on in civilian society. the said look we're doing really well. leaders said i see only one color in that saudi olive drab civilian leaders pointed to the military a sign of how well 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 in vietnam explodes. there'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 germany where, junior officers and ncos said they go into the barracks unless they were armed.

national, international incidents. it was a crisis and it got to the point where the chief staff of the army and the secretary the army said if racial violence 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. i mean, it was. it was a problem that had been cropping up, so had been trying ad hoc decisions and ad hoc programs. the first thing they did was, the secretary of the army, stanley razor, out before the association of the us army, and he said, we can't be colorblind anymore because color blindness was the solution that the army had tried to take in getting past the race consciousness of segregation and. in many ways it was it was

well-intended. they got rid of racial designations on forms they thought would somehow undermine people's ability to be treated equally such. but he said, know you don't you don't lose somebody's racial experience and identity by just putting 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 defaulted white an institution and where the standard haircut was referred to a white wall right. where the military justice system was almost all white in terms of implementation ation and it was highly disproportionately black in terms of prisoners. so got rid of race and they said this is a priority you've got to do something. and they tried a whole of things. they tried leadership. they 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 man wanted be able to wear an afro. they saw it as a symbol of black identity and black pride. the army hired of the famous black barber and sent him around the world teaching. local barbers how to cut black hair, to cut black afros and stopped charging people extra for them. they came forward and said, we can solve this problem. yeah, it isn't right. we look at ourselves and what we have are things aimed at white soldiers. we have country music, don't have soul music. we carry life magazine. we don't carry ebony. you're right. if you 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 businesses because 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 do well if they decide they're going to carry your afro kick or afro. shame. it's a huge boost to black businesses. so, you know, that was kind of a weird thing. even as my lai is still on the front pages of newspapers, less the six months after hamburger hill. a survey at fort carson found that 21% of soldiers thought hair was 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. an enormous sum now. so beth bailey for the majority, the vietnam war or the whole of the vietnam war, the majority of soldiers were conscripted with some volunteers. is a correct statement? no. there were a lot of draft motivated volunteers. so people who knew that they were likely to be drafted and by volunteering had more control over their terms of service. so the majority of americans service personnel were not in vietnam 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 what going on in west germany mattered an enormous amount. so, yes, people certainly were conscripted. but because of there was more volunteering, if that makes sense.

what was the racial makeup of the army or the armed forces at 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 with higher technical demands and higher education. why was that? because the educational system that they were coming of often in the south was poor. there was discrimination and it was segregation. i mean, 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 they started to change the despised skin of soldiers but it had a powerful effect 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 an all volunteer force, because don't support a system is so clearly unfair to the majority of americans. so president nixon's decision in 1973 was greeted with, it depends on who you're talking about. so nixon announced during the in 1968 that he intends to end the draft. he was trying to appeal to young people who were increasing anti draft and antiwar. but most people believe he was actually going to do it. 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 american society for ending the draft. aside from the military had to figure out how they were going to do that. they had to recruit 20 to 30000 people a month and stop and think about that. the army now is failing 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 wake of a 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 economic men really, because they didn't even mention women. they they. okay, we'll just raise how much 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 market means. 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 take sufficiently into account, but 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. yes. well, the army advertising initially struggled.

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. really. so be all you can be. was forward looking. i. people cheered when. they heard it. the recruiters were happy. it was an amazingly successful campaign. and they just brought it back. right. so it lasted a long time. got to the point where it was wallpaper. now they guess they've got a new generation. they brought it back. 65 to 70000 per year is what the army are, what the armed forces say they need right now. how close are getting? not close. it it's it's every service. it's not just the army that's struggling this time and the air force is not supposed to have to struggle. the air force supposed to be just a given. the marines, it's supposed to be

a given. everybody's struggling. and why that? there are a lot of reasons. partly it's propensity, partly it's fewer people want to serve. partly it the people who are qualified to serve. and a lot of that has to do with standards about body weight, body mass standards about medication, things, you know, many, many of kinds of things, impact. but one of the larger issues is americans in 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. but because fewer and fewer 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 dropping. america army making the all volunteer force is beth bailey book from 2009. her most recent an army of fire how the us army confronted its racial crisis in the vietnam era. we appreciate you spending a little time with us here on good morning, everyone. my name, happy saturday.