Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Mutinies?

This is coolbert:

Again, from the comments of JS Bolton:

[My comments in bold as usual]

"If the above racial violence and mutinies diminished afterwards, this followed the timing and causal relation of the end of conscription."

At least in the case of the Kitty Hawk, those were NOT conscripts. The Navy and the Air Force all throughout the Vietnam War, DID NOT have to resort of conscripts. Draftees were not sought, and the number of enlistments in the Navy and Air Force was sufficient to meet the needs of those two respective services. The Army during the same period WAS heavily conscript. The Marines, did have to resort to limited conscription, but only of a very limited nature. Against the wishes of the Marine brass, but more or less mandated because of manpower requirements.

"This record of mutinies is worse than I thought."

At Dien Bien Phu, the French suffered from what was called INTERNAL DESERTION. Primarily on the part of North African troops serving in the French Army. A very high percentage of those soldiers from North African countries saw the hand writing on the wall during the first three days of the siege, just sat down, and did NOTHING further during the battle. The American troops in Nam fared better, but I think you could find numerous cases of lack luster, lackadaisical soldiering at the end of American involvement that bordered on behavior similar to what the North Africans did.

"Some mutinies on ships, or insubordination by minority conscripts, was presented in the retired military officers' amicus brief in the U Michigan cases."

Again, at least on the part of the Kitty Hawk mutiny, those were not conscripts. Some may have enlisted under pressure of being drafted. Sought out duty in the Navy as a way of NOT having to serve as an infantryman in Nam. In the case of the LBJ mutiny, I would guess a pretty high percentage of those "defying" authority were conscripts. What sort of percentage I have never seen any figures on.

coolbert.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well then, obviously the draft can't be the entire explanation.
Another part of the same general picture though, was the unpopularity of the war, which had the military taking a lower class of recruit. In some cases, it is said that, at that time, they even recruited out of the jails.
Young criminals could get charges dropped if they enlisted right then.
Maybe this happened only rarely, or even not at all, but the period of more and worse such racial incidents and mutinies is highly correlated with the draft and compromise of minimum standards regarding IQ, criminal records, psychological factors etc.
The rising % of black officers is not shown to be a factor making for any outbreak of better race relations.
the supreme court proceeded as if they had a case to this effect, when only assertion was offered.

2:12 AM

 

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