An Army Afire begins by describing the crisis conditions the U.S. Army faced amid the Vietnam War. These crises occurred on a global scale. In Vietnam, there were prison riots at Long Binh and an armed standoff between military police and soldiers at Dong Tam. In Germany, there was patrolling of enlisted barracks by armed commissioned and non-commissioned officers. On the homefront there were additional prison riots at Fort Riley, Kansas. Further strife at home included black soldiers refusing to deploy to Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention riots. Indeed, there was a litany of racial incidents throughout the military.[1] Bailey’s introduction grabs attention and creates anticipation.
An Army Afire is contextualized by the broader history of segregation and racism inherent in the ranks of the U.S. Army. The U.S. military, even in times of war, seemed to emphasize segregation more than effectiveness in warfighting. Indeed, during the Second World War, the U.S. military in Great Britain strictly enforced American segregation laws.[2] In An American Uprising, author Kate Werran describes the resulting friction between British and American authorities. Further, Werran examines how African Americans, who composed 10% of the force, constituted 80% of death sentences carried out during the Second World War in Europe and describes how deep seated segregation resulted in riots between white and black units.[3] Racial strife in the ranks was not unique to the Civil Rights Era.
Going back further, the establishment of bases throughout the American south exhibited racism on larger scales. There are the obvious examples of bases named after confederate leaders such as Bragg, Polk, and Benning, when those leaders betrayed their country, proved to be poor generals in war, and even worse human beings in peace.[4] In her book Homefront: A Military City and the American 20th Century, Catherine Lutz describes how Fort Bragg, established as a training camp in 1918 and named after Braxton Bragg, came into being only through the displacement of black farmers.[5] Lutz further describes how, in the 1950s, off-post business establishments could be blacklisted for price gouging but not for race discrimination.[6] It took over a century to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.
Bailey’s work continues this scholarship as she describes how the crisis the U.S. Army faced in the late 1960s did not occur in a vacuum. In Asia, the nation was engaged in the Vietnam War. In Europe, American servicemen stood across the Iron Curtain from the Warsaw Pact. On the home front, the military was beginning the transition from a conscripted to an all-volunteer force, and senior leaders understood that racial strife within the force would adversely impact recruiting and retention numbers. This larger context that Bailey outlines highlights how America’s military largely reflects society; in the late 1960s this was no different. America was a powder keg, and it took strong, clear, and sustained leadership to prevent a spark from turning into an inferno.
A feature of Bailey’s work is her insight into institutional innovation. Military innovation is more than changing how a force fights wars. Often, military innovation is about transformation in the institutional force. While the organization of an army might still be platoons, brigades, divisions, and corps, changing the social composition and demographics of the people inside those formations is a form of military innovation. The health, morale, and welfare of those people is paramount in creating and maintaining an effective fighting force.
Bailey describes what it takes to change the culture of large and hierarchical organizations. The foremost change is leadership. Bailey describes how senior military and civilian leaders understood their role in moving from desegregation to racial equality. Bailey points to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara who wielded his office to empower subordinate commanders with the ability to blacklist discriminatory off-post businesses. However, not all leaders embraced change. A military often resembles the nation or society it serves and in the Civil Rights Era there was no shortage of people in society and in government looking to preserve the status quo. From the moment Truman examined desegregating the armed forces, members of Congress looked for other ways to keep the military segregated.[7] These actions ranged from advocating for separate barracks to Senator Carl Vinson calling for the court-martial of commanders who blacklisted establishments.[8]
