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Marching Home Again
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15222 |
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BOOK WORLD
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8 / 1989 |
4,217 Words |
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Charles Wheeler
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THE WAGES OF WAR
When America's Soldiers Came Home--
From Valley Forge to Vietnam
Richard Severo and Lewis Milford
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989
437 pp., $21.95
It is generally acknowledged that Vietnam veterans received shameful treatment upon returning to these shores. Ambivalence if not outright hostility was the norm, a far cry from the delirious reception awaiting World War II veterans who fought this nation's last "good war."
In the two hundred years from the American Revolution to Vietnam, this nation's sons have fought ten wars, including the fratricidal conflict over slavery. Richard Severo and Lewis Milford make the case that the civilian cold shoulder after Vietnam was the rule for all of America's wars, World War II being the exception.
A large part of this book focuses on Vietnam and, specifically, on the controversy surrounding Agent Orange. The authors acknowledge that the impetus for this book was a determination to unveil their "special knowledge about the shameful role of the government" in the Agent Orange matter. But more about that later.
A fledgling nation
The book's most engaging chapters describe the period just after the American Revolution when a fledgling nation struggled to come to terms with its citizen soldiers who had prevailed over the British. When the war began, Congress offered food, clothing, and land to its fighting men. The promise of one hundred acres to enlisted men and five hundred acres to officers "did not seem extreme to those who were determined to get the British out." However, by war's end few official welcomes were lavished on the men, and congressional promises turned to parsimony.
With the British defeat at Yorktown more than a year old, Gen. George Washington in 1783 still commanded a force of 9,000 men and 550 officers. He was concerned because the revolution had reached an awkward stage: "not lost but not quite won, not threatening but not quite over, and certainly not paid for."
The issue of war debt hung heavy, with large sums owed both to veterans and to financiers in America and Europe. Congressman Alexander Hamilton believed that the first priority was to pay back the financiers, thus establishing the young nation as a future credit risk. However, the veterans were unswayed by such logic and, recruiting Gen. Alexander McDougall as envoy, sent a petition to Philadelphia. The plainspoken Scotsman told the Congress that there would be "a convulsion of the most dreadful nature," unless the army received what was due.
General Washington was deeply concerned about the matter, writing in January 1783:
The Army, as usual, are without pay; and a great part of
the Soldiery without Shirts; and tho the patience of them
is equally thread bare, the
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