American Military Experience

By Brian Ransom

I've always been terrified of war. When I was six, I would worry about suddenly being drafted and sent to Laos or something. And if I wasn't fretting about girls or homework in middle school, I was biting my nails over the imagined possibility that my Midwestern neighborhood of boring two-story houses would become the target of missiles from halfway across the world. (Side note: Around this age, I also thought NATO was the name of a knockoff Nabisco wafer.)

But now that I've gotten older, I've found it harder and harder to ignore how America factors into global conflicts — especially because I'm majoring in journalism. So in the spirit of BE A BETTER PERSON 2014, an initiative I just decided to create for myself, I'm going to try to learn more about war and other things I'm scared of (Komodo dragons, failure, pickles, et cetera). The American Military Experience seems like a good place to start. Whether it be about one person or many, each book in the series aims to connect readers to the human stories at the heart of war.

A Civilian in Lawton's 1899 Philippine Campaign collects the writings of twenty-two-year-old Robert Dexter Carter, who served in Manila as a civilian quartermaster clerk during the Philippine-American War. Through his letters to his family, he provided a vivid picture of army life in Manila—the sights, the smells, and his responses to the native culture. In addition to his letters, his diary, and several related articles present a firsthand account of the historic voyage of the United States Army Transport Grant through the Suez Canal to Manila in early 1899. Carter’s writings not only tell of his sometimes harrowing experiences but also reveal the aspirations and fears of a young man not quite sure of his next steps on life’s journey. Enhanced by photographs from collections at the Library of Congress and the Military History Institute, as well as many of Carter’s own whimsical drawings, the book will appeal to armchair historians and scholars alike.

As World War II dawned in Europe, General George C. Marshall, the new Army Chief of Staff, had to acknowledge that American society—and the citizens who would soon become soldiers—had drastically changed in the previous few decades. Almost every home had a radio, movies could talk, and driving in an automobile to the neighborhood soda fountain was part of everyday life. A product of newly created mass consumerism, the soldier of 1940 had expectations of material comfort, even while at war. In American Girls, Beer, and Glenn Miller, historian James J. Cooke presents the first comprehensive look at how Marshall’s efforts to cheer soldiers far from home resulted in the enduring morale services that the Army provides still today.

 Dogface Soldier, the first authoritative biography of one of the most significant U.S. Army generals in World War II, explores Lucian K. Truscott’s career through his three decades in the Army and defines his roles in key operations. In 1943, Truscott received the Distinguished Service Cross for valor in action in Sicily. He also received the Army Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, and the Purple Heart. Truscott was not only respected by peers and “dogfaces”—common soldiers—alike but also ranked by President Eisenhower as second only to Patton.

On November 18, 1944, the end of the war in Europe finally in sight, American co-pilot Lieutenant Lee Lamar’s B-24J Liberator Bottoms Up crashed after being hit by German fire. He was captured the next day and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at a stalag on the Baltic Sea. More than sixty years later, Croatian archaeologist Luka Bekic discovered the wreckage of the plane and felt compelled to find out the crew’s identities and fates. In The Final Mission of Bottoms Up, Dennis R. Okerstrom chronicles, through Lee Lamar’s experiences, the Great Depression generation who went on to fight in the most expensive war in history. This absorbing, alternating account chronicles the story of the young men who flew Bottoms Up on her final mission, of Lamar’s trip back to the scene of his recurring nightmare, and of a remarkable convergence of international courage, perseverance, and friendship.

During World War II, the United States drafted 10.1 million men to serve in the military. Of that number, 52,000 were conscientious objectors, and 12,000 objected to noncombatant military service. Those 12,000 men served the country in Civilian Public Service, the program initiated by General Lewis Blaine Hershey, the director of Selective Service from 1941 to1970. Despite his success with this program, much of Hershey’s work on behalf of conscientious objectors has been overlooked due to his later role in the draft during the Vietnam War. Seeking to correct these omissions in history, Nicholas A. Krehbiel provides the most comprehensive and well-rounded examination to date of General Hershey’s work as the developer and protector of alternative service programs for conscientious objectors. Archival research from both Historic Peace Churches and the Selective Service makes General Lewis B. Hershey and Conscientious Objection during World War II the definitive book on this subject.

A West Point graduate and son of an army officer, Conrad S. Babcock details the changes he witnessed in the U.S. Army over the course of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent decades. In Reminiscences of Conrad S. Babcock, Babcock’s original manuscript has been shortened by Robert H. Ferrell into eight chapters that illustrate the tremendous shift in warfare in the years surrounding the turn of the century. Until now, Babcock’s account has only been available in the archives of the Hoover Institution, but with the help of Ferrell's crisp, expert editing, this record of army culture in the first decades of the twentieth century can now reach a new generation of scholars.

Clarence Ransom Edwards is a vital figure in American military history, yet his contribution to the U.S. efforts in World War I has often been ignored. Most accounts focus on the disagreements he had with Pershing, who dismissed Edwards from the command of the 26th (“Yankee”) Division just weeks before the close of World War I, without placing the conflict in context. Michael E. Shay presents a complete portrait of this notable American and his many merits in Revered Commander, Maligned General. This long-overdue first full-length biography details the crucial roles Edwards filled before World War I: Adjutant-General with General Lawton in the Philippine-American War, first chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, and commander of U.S. forces in the Panama Canal Zone.

The 92nd Division of the U.S. Army in World War I has long-been remembered as a military failure; however, the division should have been historically significant—it was the only African American division of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. In Unjustly Dishonored, Robert H. Ferrell asserts that the 92nd actually performed quite well militarily, performing better than any other division in Pershing’s Second Army. Through use of newly discovered records at the National Archives and the Army’s personal records, Ferrell frames the 92nd’s reputation against cultural context, historical accounts, and social stigmas.

Project9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II by Dennis R. Okerstrom is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Allied joint project to invade Burma by air. Beginning with its inception at the Quebec Conference of 1943 and continuing through Operation Thursday until the death of the brilliant British General Orde Wingate in March 1944, less than a month after the successful invasion of Burma, Project 9 details all aspects of this covert mission, including the selection of the American airmen, the procurement of the aircraft, the joint training with British troops, and the dangerous night-time assault behind Japanese lines by glider.  New book available June 2014.

Spring/Summer 2014 Catalog!

Our Spring/Summer 2014 catalog is here!  With fourteen new books, three new in paper, and eighteen new Ebooks there is certainly something for every reader. http://press.umsystem.edu/pages/catalogs/UMP_catalog_SP14_web.pdf Communities of Death: Whitman, Poe, and the American Culture of Mourning Adam C. Bradford To 21st century readers, 19th century depictions of death look macabre if not maudlin--the mourning portraits and quilts, the postmortem daguerreotypes, and the memorial jewelry now hopelessly, if not morbidly, distressing. Yet this sentimental culture of mourning and memorializing provided opportunities to the bereaved to assert deeply held beliefs, forge social connections, and advocate for social and political change. This culture also permeated the literature of the day, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. In Communities of Death, Adam C. Bradford explores the ways in which the ideas, rituals, and practices of mourning were central to the work of both authors.  ~June  Byline, Richard Wright: Articles from the Daily Worker and New Masses Edited by Earle V. Bryant A writer perhaps best known for the revolutionary works Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright also worked as a journalist during one of the most explosive periods of the 20th century. From 1937 to 1938, Wright turned out more than two hundred articles for the Daily Worker--the newspaper that served as the voice of the American Communist Party. Byline, Richard Wright, edited by Earle V. Bryant, assembles more than one hundred of those articles plus two of Wright's essays from New Masses, revealing to readers the early work of an American icon.  ~June  What Wars Leave Behind: The Faceless and the Forgotten J. Malcolm Garcia In What Wars Leave Behind, J. Malcolm Garcia reveals the stories of the people left behind in the war ravaged countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Kosovo, Chad, and Syria. Garcia gives readers the sort of gritty detail learned from immersing himself in other cultures. He eats the food, drinks the tea, and endures the oppressive heat. These are the stories of how a middle-class guy from the Midwest with a social work degree learned to experience and embrace the cultures of Third World countries in conflict--and lived to tell the tale. ~April  Writing Blue Highways: The Story of How a Book Happened  William Least Heat-Moon The story behind the writing of William Least Heat-Moon's best-selling Blue Highways is as fascinating as the journey that he recounted in his 1982 book. More than thirty years later, in Writing Blue Highways, Heat-Moon reflects on the four years after the road trip--the stops and starts in his composition process, the numerous drafts and painstaking revision, the depressing string of rejections by publishers, the strains on his personal relationships, and many other aspects of the toil that went into writing his first book. Along the way, he traces the hard lessons he learned and offers guidance to aspiring authors and experienced writers alike. Far from being a technical manual, this work is an adventure story of its own, a journey of "exploration into the myriad routes of heart and mind that led to the making of a book from the first sorry and now vanished paragraph to the last words that came not from a graphite pencil but from a letterpress in Tennessee." ~April  The Cinematic Voyage of The Pirate: Kelly, Garland, and Minnelli at Work  Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar The Cinematic Voyage of The Pirate: Kelly, Garland, and Minnelli at Work follows the model of Hess and Dabholkar's previous study of Singin' in the Rain. Drawing on exhaustive research in archives, memoirs, interviews, and newspaper coverage, it takes the reader from the original conception of the story in the mind of a German playwright named Ludwig Fulda, through S. N. Behrman's Broadway production starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, to the arduous task of crafting a suitable screenplay at MGM. Behind-the-scenes issues such as Garland's personal problems during the making of the film and the shaping of the film by Minnelli and Kelly are among the many subjects detailed here. ~June     A Very Private Public Citizen: The Life of Grenville Clark  Nancy Peterson Hill Grenville Clark was born to wealth and privilege in Manhattan, where his maternal grandfather, LeGrand Bouton Cannon, was an industry titan, retired Civil War colonel, and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. Clark grew up on a first-name basis with both Presidents Roosevelt, and his close friends included Supreme Court justices. He was well known and respected in the inner circles of business, government, and education. In A Very Private Public Citizen: The Life of Grenville Clark, Nancy Peterson Hill gives life to the unsung account of this great and largely anonymous American hero and reveals how the scope of Clark's life and career reflected his selfless passion for progress, equality, and peace.  ~June      An Irish-American Odyssey: The Remarkable Rise of the O'Shaughnessy Brothers  Colum Kenny The O'Shaughnessy brothers' story takes place between 1860 and 1950 in Illinois, Missouri, New York, and Ireland. They were the children of an impoverished immigrant who fled the famine in Ireland and of his Irish-American wife. An Irish-American Odyssey by Colum Kenny is the tale of this first generation immigrant family's struggle to assimilate into American society, highlighting their perseverance and determination to seize opportunities and surmount obstacles, all the while establishing a legacy for their own descendants in American art, advertising, journalism, and public service. ~June     The Collapse of Price's Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri  Mark A. Lause As the Civil War was drawing to a close, former Missouri governor Sterling Price led his army on one last desperate campaign to retake his home state for the Confederacy, part of a broader effort to tilt the upcoming 1864 Union elections against Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans. In The Collapse of Price's Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri, Mark A. Lause examines the complex political and social context of what became known as "Price's Raid," the final significant Southern operation west of the Mississippi River. ~July  Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II  Dennis R. Okerstrom Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II by Dennis R. Okerstrom is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Allied joint project to invade Burma by air. Beginning with its inception at the Quebec Conference of 1943 and continuing through Operation Thursday until the death of the brilliant British General Orde Wingate in March 1944, less than a month after the successful invasion of Burma, Project 9 details all aspects of this covert mission, including the selection of the American airmen, the procurement of the aircraft, the joint training with British troops, and the dangerous night-time assault behind Japanese lines by glider.  ~June     All My Days Are Saturdays Sam Pickering A New York Times article once stated that "the art of the essay as delivered by [Sam] Pickering is the art of the front porch ramble." As Pickering himself puts it, "Well, I have gotten considerably older, and humor has come to mean more and more to me. And if I'm on the front porch, I am in a rocking chair." All My Days Are Saturdays offers fifteen new pieces in which he ponders a world that has changed and, in new ways, still delights him. This collection features Pickering writing about teaching and his recent retirement, visits to various locales, and, as he tell us, "the many people I meet...who tell me their stories, small tales that make one laugh and sigh." ~May  Farewell to Prosperity: Wealth, Identity, and Conflict in Postwar America  Lisle A. Rose Farewell to Prosperity by Lisle A. Rose is a provocative, in-depth study of the Liberal and Conservative forces that fought each other to shape American political culture and character during the nation's most prosperous years. The tome's central theme is the bitter struggle to fashion post-World War II society between a historic Protestant Ethic that equated free-market economics and money-making with Godliness and a new, secular Liberal temperament that emerged from the twin ordeals of depression and world war to stress social justice and security.  ~July     The Moon in Your Sky: An Immigrant's Journey Home  Kate Saller The Moon in Your Sky: An Immigrant's Journey Home by Kate Saller tells of one woman's journey from rural Uganda during the reign of dictator Idi Amin Dada, through her family's escape to the US only to face more devastating challenges, to her triumphant achievement of a life devoted to relieving the suffering of orphans left by the ravages of war in her homeland.  ~June      Sky Pilots: The Yankee Division Chaplains in World War I  Michael E. Shay Sky Pilots: The Yankee Division Chaplains in World War I by Michael E. Shay tells the story of nearly three dozen clergymen who volunteered as chaplains during the First World War. Assigned to the 26th "Yankee" Division, the first fully-assembled division in France, they experienced all of the horrors of war, shared all of the privations of the common soldier, and earned the love and affection of their "boys." Two died, several were gassed or wounded, and many of them were decorated by France and the United States for their heroism.  ~May     Updated and Expanded Edition The Power of Two: A Twin Triumph over Cystic Fibrosis Isabel Stenzel Byrnes and Anabel Stenzel The tragedy of cystic fibrosis has been touchingly recounted before, but this is the first book to portray the symbiotic relationship between twins who share this life-threatening disease through adulthood. Isabel Stenzel Byrnes and Anabel Stenzel tell of their struggle to pursue normal lives while grappling with the realization that they will die young. Their story reflects the physical and emotional challenges of a particularly aggressive form of CF and tells how the twins’ bicultural heritage--Japanese and German--influenced the way they coped. The Power of Two is an honest and gripping portrayal of day-to-day health care, the impact of chronic illness on marriage and family, and the importance of a support network to continuing survival. These two remarkable sisters have much to teach about the power of perseverance--and about the ultimate power of hope.  ~May

UMP's New Years Resolutions

With 2013 now in the past and the new year ahead of us, we at the University of Missouri Press have come up with some literary-based suggestions for those of you who may have some trouble thinking of New Years resolutions on your own:

1. Read a Shakespeare play... without annotations.

I know - it's a scary thought. But thou hast the requisite fortitude of mind to succeed.

2. Judge a book by its cover.

This colloquialism has become so universal that it actually applies better to other situations than to literal book covers. We publishers work really hard on our cover designs! So go ahead and grab one that catches your eye.

3. Use your Kindle more for reading than for the apps.

With all the cool stuff they can do now, sometimes it's easy to forget that Kindles can still be used to read books. You remember, that whole reason they were invented?

4. Read the book version of a movie BEFORE seeing the movie.

Spoiler alert: all of your friends are going to be super impressed... as long as you don't ruin the movie for them.

5. Start writing your book.

There's no reason the spirit of NaNoWriMo should be limited to just one month of the year.

So, what are you going to do for 2014?