Main NI Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From The Militant, Vol. X No. 13, 30 March 1946, p. 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
|
The following letter to The Militant from, an “ex-Navy GI,” exposes the hand-picked “board of inquiry” recently appointed by the War Department to investigate officer-privileges. The letter is typical of servicemen’s reactions to the military caste system. |
Editor:
After months of heated protests from enlisted men of both the army and Navy against the notorious “caste system,” the army “Brass” is making an all-out attempt to
stop unfavorable publicity toward their age-old “Prussian” military caste system once and for all.
The board of inquiry set up by top army officials to investigate the long-standing complaints of thousands of GIs, is an artful attempt to whitewash the whole rotten situation in the eyes of the public.
To realize this, one has but to look at the background of the six members of the committee. The army loudly boasts that all, excepting General Doolittle, are ex-GIs. It has been long recognized by all enlisted men that in most cases it takes more than just military ability to advance from the ranks to a commission, battlefield commissions excepted.
The most hated man in the army or navy is the one who “lords it over” or threatens his subordinates merely to create a favorable impression in the eyes of his superior officers. He becomes known as an “apple-polisher” in a surprisingly short time.
The army boasts of Sgt. Jake Lindsey, 100th infantryman to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, who was appointed to this board. It is also known that Congressional Medal of Honor winners are given free trips to various localities in behalf of war bond drives, and in some instances are presented before Congress and other Washington bigshots to create an air of patriotism. Home town papers cash in heavily on such publicity. Such coddling is above and beyond any treatment accorded the non-decorated men. In effect, they automatically assume officers’ privileges. Certainly such soft treatment could induce Lindsey not to criticize a system he knows is demoralizing and unjust. Neither could Lindsey afford to jeopardize his position with the Veterans’ Administration by making critical observations of a much publicized situation.
Lindsey hails from Mississippi, a breeding place of Jim Crowism. Certainly there is no question regarding Sgt. Lindsey’s attitude toward the army’s infamous racial discrimination policy. Unbiased judgment on his part would be impossible.
That “Big Business” is definitely on the side of the army; big shots is clearly evidenced by the following quotation from an Association Press dispatch to the Toledo Blade.
“GIs were promised a chance today to sound off on what they think is wrong with the army’s officer system. But when they sound off it had better be good, for five of the six members of the inquiry board hearing their complaints will be ex-GIs – and ex-GIs have surprising sales resistance.”
Secretary of War Patterson and his Brass Hat cohorts were careful to select a board of inquiry that had every reason to be sympathetic in their attitude towards the “aristocratic tradition” of the armed forces.
The remaining members of the board are in just as far-removed positions to give accurate criticism. They may be compared to a group of stool-pigeons, appointed by the boss, arbitrating a labor dispute.
No one is protesting the idea of such an inquiry. Soldiers and sailors have long and loudly clamored for investigation of the unfair barriers between officers and enlisted men, such barriers extending even into off-duty hours.
But until a committee is formed from the anonymous ranks of the GIs, the men who bore the brunt of the battle with no fancy medals or promotions as a reward, the men who were accorded no favors or privileges, then, and only then, will such a committee accomplish its true purpose. That is, abolishing the most out-dated and undemocratic system imposed upon the American youth.
The army big-wigs with their board of inquiry aren’t going to fool the average GI. Who then is it attempting to fool? YOU, the public – the workers and their sons who will be drafted to form the army.
|
|
Harold Josephs, |
Main Militant Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 22 June 2018