The Military and Society : The Proceedings of the Fifth Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, 5-6 October 1972

By January of 197 1, when planning got underway for the symposium
whose proceedings are reproduced in this volume, many Americans-in
uniform as well as out of uniform-weren’t liking what they were seeing
in the mirror. The war in Vietnam was taking its toll, reminding one of the
statement attributed to General George C. Marshall to the effect that
“a democracy cannot stand a Seven Years’ War.” The younger generation
-loosely defined as those born after Hiroshima-was “turned off’ on the
war and the military establishment alike. Those attending college led the
fight on many campuses to disestablish R.O.T.C. programs. The implications
of the Morrill Act of 1862 (let alone its terms) were not what was
bothering them: it was the war, My Lai, and The Draft. In their classrooms
they listened to the revisionist, New Left historians and political
scientists call into question the entire basis of American foreign policy
since 1945, in some cases since the founding of the Republic