September 16, 1951. Tragedy

 The crash of a F2H-2 Banshee off of Korean, September 16, 1952.  Seven lives losts.

The Military and Alcohol. U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946

Patrons of a bar and grill in Washington D.C. in 1943.  The man on the left is drinking a glass of beer, and it appears the woman is as well.  Also, fwiw, the man on the left is a Technician with a Corporal's grade, which during World War Two was an E3 grade, as opposed to Specialist and Corporals today, which hold an E4 grade.  The man on the right is an officer, so this is frankly likely a posed photograph.  All three people are smoking cigarettes.

Alcohol and the United States Army would make for an interesting small book  in no small part because the United States itself has had a love/hate relationship with alcohol.

Beer can, perhaps, be regarded as the American alcoholic beverage of choice, reflecting both the climate and geography of the nation, as well as the English founding of the country.  While not to put too fine of point on it, the English were armed Germanic immigrants in the 5th Century and some cultural things go way back.  Everywhere north of some line in modern France, if you consider Western Europe, beer is the alcoholic beverage.  South of that, it's wine.  All the Mediterranean people of the ancient world drank wine and in those areas of that region which are not now Islamic, they still do.  North of that line, at some point, they drank beer, although you can easily find beers going back to the ancient Egypt as well, although frankly the Egyptian climate was somewhat different at the time.

In the Medieval world, north of the beer line, beer was a staple.  South of it, wine was.  This isn't necessarily good, but basically the ills associated with any sort of alcohol were lower than those associated with plain water.  I'm not going to go into that, as its a bit more complicated than it might seem, but that's the case.

Before I move on. . . yes, there's hard alcohol and every region of the globe seems to produce some.  Whiskey is a Celtic thing and it goes way back in its own right.  But there are few people and were few people who simply drink hard alcohol routinely in the Western world, and in those regions were it is routinely consumed, it's destructive.  So, with that, we'll move on.

In the early Colonial era there was no big temperance movement of a wide societal basis.  Indeed, one of the oddities of history is that religious denominations that today argue against alcohol and which trace their origin to the Puritans, and not all make that trace, don't reflect back what the Puritans believed at all.  The Puritans were against a lot of things, to be sure, but they were fans of beer (and [marital] sex), so people remember them inaccurately.  But one did start to arise in North America by the mid 1700s in the form of Native American groups who urged it given the devastation that alcohol was causing in their cultures.  Indeed, they'd organized a temperance organization as early as 1737.  Coupled with this the popularity of gin in the early Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom, which was a gross booze which could be manufactured cheaply, caused the movement to come about there as well.  

The early United States, however, was simply awash with alcohol and this, over time, gave force to the temperance movement, and by the mid 19th Century it was growing strong.

Issuing an alcohol ration is a strong military tradition in many armies, but reflecting the unique history of alcohol in the US, the tradition is much weaker in the U.S.  The American Navy, following the tradition of the Royal Navy, issued a Rum Ration, with Rum simply being any available hard alcohol, but in 1862 it abolished it.  In 1914, during the era in which Prohibition was coming on strong, the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels completely banned alcohol in ships, meaning that the U.S. Navy went into World War One escort duties dry.  

The Army had an alcohol ration very early on.  Starting in 1775 Congress authorized soldiers an alcohol ration, and the ration was whiskey, in part reflecting a disruption of alcohol constituents that had been imported.  The is ration continued until 1832.  There was a separate spirts ration for military surveyors that continued on until the 1840s, but then it was also discontinued.

Since that time I don't know that there's ever been an alcohol ration in any branch of the military.  Indeed, the British discontinued their famous naval rum ration in the 1970s, so its likely disappeared or much less what it was everywhere.  The problem of obtaining clean water isn't what it once was, and its never been as big of problem in North America.  From the 1830s on soldiers could buy beer at post suttlers stores, but they were restricted in the amount they could buy.  I can't recall the restriction, but it was far below the amount you could drink and get drunk, which no doubt was the goal.  Of course, off base you could buy as much of anything as you might wish to, which is partially why saloons were a feature of every location with a frontier post.  Indeed, it was noted in the 19th Century that one of the problems of not having something like an Enlisted Man's Club, such as was later done, is that off post saloons were real dens of vice of all sorts.  Apparently this wasn't enough to motivate a change, but it was noted.  No alcohol ration was provided at any point through Prohibition.

This brings us to World War Two and this interesting item below, by Gary Gillman, a Toronto based beer blogger with an excellent blog entitled Beer, Et Seq.

U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946 (Part I)

U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946 (Part II)

U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946 (Part III)

I frankly don't know what was done beer wise from our point of entering the Second World War up through the end of the Vietnam War.  What is clear is that beer seems to have been provided on at least an ad hoc basis and therefore was a type of ration, even if on a somewhat informal basis.  Cigarettes had become one too, which had not been the case in World War One. The though likely was that you simply couldn't have that many people in uniform and not address such things, least they be addressed by the men themselves, which of course they also did.  Beer seems to have been provided on some basis in the Korean War and the Vietnam War as well, but not since then.  Indeed, recent wars in Islamic countries have been "dry", so to speak.

Anyhow, and interesting look at the US actually undertaking to brew beer during World War Two for servicemen's consumption.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

 A new series, cataloging current conflicts.

In posting this, I realize this could lead to a misimpression that the whole world is aflame.  Not so. We live in the most peaceful period in human history, bar none.

Still, some fighting is going on here and there.  We'll attempt to list conflicts as they come up. And by that, we mean conflicts.  Wars and near wars, as well as some pretty serious international shoving matches.

We're only going to try to catch these, fwiw, as they come up.  I'm not going to try to list every pending conflict, near conflict and the like.

September 29, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, which has long been a bone of contention between them.  Turkey is pledging support for Azerbaijan, with that country being a Turkic one culturally.

This outbreak of fighting comes just about one century after the Turkish Armenian War, which we mentioned just the other day.

What it's about:  Essentially this is a long running ethnic war.  And by long running, we mean really long running, dating back 700 or more years and involving the expansion of the Turkic Muslim population into the Christian lands to their West.  Armenia lost lands in that struggle and is substantially smaller than it was 700 years ago, but it managed to not disappear, as opposed to what occured in Anatolia.  Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous Armenian ethnic enclave inside of Azerbaijan.

Who else is involved:  Turkey, predictably, in support of Azerbaijan.  Russia is attempting to broker a peace.

What are the combatants like: I don't really know, but given the locality, both are heirs to Soviet arms and tactics.  Azerbaijan may have some backdoor military aid and advice from Turkey.

Good guys and bad guys?:  This one really depends on your prospective.

China v. India

China and India have been engaging in border skirmishes over their border in the Himalayas. The skirmishes have been unique as they've been hand to hand.  Both countries have adopted the policy of not arming their soldiers on their border out of the fear it will lead to shooting incidents.  The fighting has been severe enough, however, that lives have been lost.  In response China was going to arm their troops with poles, butthe Indians indicated they'd reciprocate by issuing firearms to their troops, so the Chinese did not carry their threat out.

What it's about:  The Indian border with its northern neighbors has never been well defined as the region is largely inaccessible and it largely didn't matter until recent times.  Part of what makes it matter is Chinese aggression, which made China a neighbor of India after its 1950s invasion of Tibet.

Who else is involved:  Nobody, but India has similar problems in regard to its border with Pakistan

What are the combatants like: Both countries have large and modern militaries.

Good guys and bad guys?:  The Chinese are behaving like a 19th Century imperial power and have become international bullies.  Additionally, China shouldn't even be in the area and only is due to illegally occupying Tibet.

North Korea v. South Korea

This entry would seem to violate my comment above about not cataloging every conflict going on in the world, as this one has been going on for seventy years.

But for sixty six of those years its smoldered under an armistice that brought an end to the open fighting but didn't completely stop the hostilities.  From time to time, there's violence, and there was some last week with North Korean soldiers shot and killed a South Korean man who was making a deluded attempt to defect to North Korea.  North Korea is a disaster so why that individual, a South Korean official, would attempt that is beyond me, but he did.

Apparently the North Koreans shot the man as a Coronavirus precaution and then burned his body.  The North Korean government then took the unusual step of apologizing for the incident, and then the South took the unnecessary one of also apologizing for failing to look after its own citizen better, although seeing a real South Korean failure here is hard to do.

What it's about:  As a result of the end of World War Two the US occupied the southern part of the Korean peninsula and the USSR the northern half.  The two halves were supposed to unite under a democratically elected government but didn't, leaving the northern half a Stalinist state that attempted to unite the country by force by way of a 1950 invasion of the south.  That failed, and the subsequent United Nations intervention nearly united the country under the southern government until the Chinese intervened. Ultimately an armistice placed the two halves nearly back where they had started, but left them with a lingering state of conflict which has never resolved.

Who else is involved:  For years following the Korean Conflict the United States remained as a deterrent to northern invasion.  The US still remains in the country today but with the southern government having evolved into being a full democratic one and the south a modern country.

The  north is propped up by China and receives assistance, to a lesser degree, from Russia.

What are the combatants like: South Korea's military is highly modern.  North Korea's is less so, but its  military is large and has some modern weapons.  As an Army of conscripts inside a controlled state, it's really hard to judge the loyalty of North Korea's soldiers.

Good guys and bad guys?: North Korea is run by Stalinist bullies who should step down in the interest of their country and humanity.

October 4, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia Update

Protests broke out in Hollywood, California yesterday as Armenian Americans, of which California has the largest number, gathered in front of news outlets to demand coverage of the fighting between the two countries. Protestors also blocked California state highway 101.

At this point, I guess I'll give my opinion on this conflict.

Armenians have occupied the region they are in since time immemorial. The Armenian kingdom was the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, with adoption of Christianity as the Armenian religion coming in the year 301.  Christianity itself was present in the country as early as 40AD, which isn't too surprising as Christianity spread miraculously fast after the Resurrection.  That would mean, that Christianity arrived in Armenia just seven years after that event.

Armenia, in the ancient, and modern, world has often been part of somebody else's empire. The Armenians are victims of their geographic location in that their land lies between the Caspian and Black Seas, so its the pathway to the Middle East for invaders. They became autonomous, if not fully independent, in 451.  The region fell to Islamic conquerors early in the Islamic armed expansion, but the region itself resisted Islam enormously and retained its Christian identity.  Following that it was briefly part of the Byzantine Empire, and then fell to the Seljuk Turks, who were driven out in the 1100s.  It fell to the Mongols in 1230, and and endless string of invaders from the east therefore.  It's unfortunate association with the Turks returned in 16th Century, following the Ottoman invasion of Anatolia.  As the Ottoman Empire began to collapse in the early 20th Century, Armenians became a victim of Turkish atrocities.

Armenia was supposed to be given independence following the fall of Ottoman Empire and its entering into a peace treaty with the Allies.  It's borders were drawn by Woodrow Wilson, even though the United States had never entered the war against the Ottomans.  The Allies proved, however, to tired to carry on what seemed to them to be a sideshow with the Turks, and abandoned the country allowing the Young Turks to form a new Turkish nation.  One of the first things that country did was to invade Armenia in a border dispute.

This story was complicated by the fact that the Russian Empire also had expanded into Armenian territory so, by the 20th Century, Armenians were split between two empires, and two empires that did not get along.  World War One, therefore, not only brought terrible atrocities to Armenia, but opportunity as well. The Armenians did not get a state with the border promised to them in the peace treaty, but they did get a state briefly.  Turkish armed action against them combined with Communist subterfuge and Soviet invasion brought that to an end in 1921.  

A small Armenia regained its independence with the fall of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan is a country populated by the Azerbaijani Turks.  They came into the area during the period of time of the Muslim armed expansion.  The region itself, in vast antiquity, was populated by Albanians, something that's difficult to imagine given the tiny region occupied by Albania, quite some distance away, today.  Historical evidence indicates that they originally occupied a region in Iran, and are culturally related to the Turks (obviously) but they share the odd invaders history such as other invading people's, such as the English, in that modern genetic evidence suggests that modern Azerbaijanis may have a culture, and religion, derived from the invaders, but most of their DNA is from the invaded.  I.e., they're pretty closely related, genetically, to Armenians and Georgians.

During the rise of modern Turkey the Turks briefly dreamed of uniting Azerbaijan, and other Turkic people to Turkeys' north and east, to a greater Turkey, but British intervention, and the ultimate success of the USSR in that region, put an end to that, at least for the time.  

When the Soviet Union collapsed it left opportunities for all of these people to regain statehood, or acquire it for the first time.  Most ethnic boundaries in the Soviet Union were a mess anyhow, as the Soviets were heirs to the Russian Empire in that fashion, which never had neat ethnological boundaries and which further had no need of them.  Compounding that, the Soviets had encouraged Russian immigration everywhere in its territory as a bulwark against ethnic movements.  This left a situation in regard to Armenia and Azerbaijan in which there exists Nagorno-Karabakh.  Azerbaijan may be over 90% Azerbaijani in ethnicity, but Nagorno-Karabakh is overwhelmingly Armenian.

It ought to belong to Armenia.

In a brief war after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenians took it against all odds.  And they deserve to keep it.  They occupy a rump state in comparison to their former domains and didn't receive what they were promised and deserved after World War One. They have no reason to trust the Turks at all, and at this point the Islamist government of Turkey can't be depended upon not to hold old imperial expansionist dreams from the Turkish revolutionary period. The fact, moreover, that Turkey is allowing Syrian mercenaries to enter the fray is a bad sign.

My prediction is, however, that the Armenians will be abandoned once again.

Part of this is compounded, we'd note, by the fact that Armenia is completely landlocked.  It's receiving some aid from Iran, which is ironic but Iran doesn't get along well with Turkey, which is also ironic.  It also receives assistance from Russia, which views the country as part of its old empire as it also does Azerbaijan, but as Russia also views itself as the defender of Christian Orthodoxy, its sympathies are with Armenia. All that assistance, however, is fairly minor  It would take the introduction of very significant weaponry, particularly antiaircraft weapons, to really put Azerbaijan and Turkey on their heels.  Azerbaijan, for its part, receives aid, as previously noted, from Turkey, but it also receives it to some degree from Israel.  There's no good excuse for that whatsoever, although we'd note that Israel and Turkey have traditionally had close relations and the realpolitik element of keeping the Turks away from the Iranians, which ancient antipathy plays into anyway, may serve that as much as anything else.

Western powers could do something but it would mostly be something economic.  No western power would want to send a military mission to Armenia in a time of war, and for that matter, it'd have to cross a neighboring power that wouldn't allow for it.  Economic sanctions against Turkey are in order.  Russia, for its part, probably won't let Armenia lose, but it won't guaranty that it wins in Nagorno-Karabakh either.

October 6, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia Update

NATO called  upon NATO member ally to work to mediate the dispute, a thing which is ironic in some ways as Turkey is Azerbaijan's ally in the conflict.  NATO, in doing so, noted Turkey's "regional influence".  Iran stated it is working to mediate the conflict.

October 9, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia Update

Armenia called upon NATO to investigate Turkey's role in the conflict. The US, Iran, and France, called upon the warring sides to stop fighting.

Armenians from Lebanon's large Armenian community have been leaving Lebanon to volunteer for the Armenian forces.

Mali v. Mali

Mali is one of France's unstable former colonies in which she retains an interest.  Intertribal strife that breaks out in open fighting has been going on in the country for some time.  Additionally, Islamic extremist are present in the country.

The country recently experienced a coup in which the army seized control of the country and deposed its elected leadership, claiming it did it due to alleged election irregularities.  It was the second coup in eight years.

Members of the military committee formed to rule Mali following the August coup.

This week Islamist extremist released a French aid worker who had been held for nearly four years and a politician.

France has a military mission to Mali, like it does to many of its former colonies.  It's mission to that country is designed to fight offshoots of Al Qaeda in the country.   France has announced that it has no intention to withdraw.

October 10, 2020

Mali v. Mali, update

Islamic terrorist announced that they had killed a Swiss prisoner a month ago.

October 12, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia Update

Kim Kardashian West pledged $1,000,000 for Armenian relief.

A ceasefire between the warring parties does not appear to be holding.

October 27, 2020

Israel v Hamas

Earlier this week Israeli aircraft struck targets in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas balloon bomb strikes.

Hamas is a Sunni Islamist fundamentalist Palestinian nationalist organization with a military wing basically dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  The timing of its attack, perhaps purely coincidentally, comes at the same time that a selection of regional states have been entering into peace treaties with Israel and recognizing its legitimacy.

Israel's struggle against Hamas has been long term, and this is only the most recent expression of it.

Syria v Syria

Russia broke a truce that it is one of the parties monitoring, along with Turkey, by launching airstrikes against the Islamist fundamentalist militia Faylaq al-Sham.

This is one of those regional conflict stories that can rapidly get hopelessly confusing.  Basically, Putin's Russia, for reasons of realpolitik, old Soviet ties, and opportunity, are supporters of the Baathist Syrian regime along with Iran.  Ideologically this makes no sense whatsoever, but it's not about ideals. 

Syria is now in year nine of a civil war which pit various forces, many of them hard corps Islamist, against their secular, and facistic, regime.  The noted group attacked by Russian aircraft the other day is an amalgamation of nineteen different Islamist groups.

Russia and Turkey brokered a cease fire in the region, but obviously Russia doesn't mind making use of opportunities when they present themselves.  The targets it hit were training grounds for the noted group.

The Baath regime in the country has effectively won the war, which it was obvious that it was going to do. The more surprising fact is that some militia groups have hung on for the time being.  Russia is working towards ending that in at least some ways.

November 7, 2020

Ethiopia v. the Ethiopian region of Tigray

Ethiopia is slipping into civil war as the central government seeks to control an increasingly independently acting Tigray, a large region in the country which is maintaining its own military structure.  Yesterday the Ethiopian government hit Tigray's military infrastructure with air strikes.

Ethiopia has struggled to be stable ever since the fall of its ancient monarchy to Communism in 1974. The nation has emerged from that episode but it has not been stable.  The current government started with promise and the backing of the political forces in Tigray its now fighting, so obviously a new period of unrest is starting.

What it's about:  The main political party in Tigray has been the dominant party in post Communist Ethiopia and feels threatened by the current government which it views as trying to built a more unitary state. Tigray is a powerful and large area of Ethiopia and doesn't want its power diminished. Also, the current government removed members of the party last year which it resents.

The region held an election in defiance of the central government, which ordered national elections postponed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Who else is involved:  Nobody.

What are the combatants like: Ethiopia has a small military and Tigray's militia, which is likely comprised of local units of the central military, won't be large either. They'll be roughly equally armed and equipped, but the central government will have an advantage in a conventional war.

Good guys and bad guys?:  Hard to say, but it's hard to argue that a separatist movement that's upset in these conditions has the high side of the argument.

November 10, 2020

Azerbaijan v Armenia Update

Russia has brokered a new ceasefire.

Cont:

And as details of the deal emerge, it's clear that Armenia lost the conflict.

Azerbaijan will keep the territory it acquired in the war.  Armenia will quickly withdraw from more of it.  In the center, a Russian peacekeeping force of 2,000 men will operate to secure the area from further Azerbaijani aggression, as they won't wish to enter into a war with Russia, but the deal could hardly be described as a great one for Armenia which is losing over 50% of the territory it held in the disputed region before the war commenced.

November 12, 2020

United States v. Peoples Republic of China.

This one really doesn't belong here, as there's no shooting war (um, yet?), but China presents a problem for the world and this thread given its aggressive bullying nature that puts it in the category of something resembling a 19th Century imperial power.

The United States just banned Americans from investing in companies that are involved in PRC Chinese military technology.  This move is long overdue.

It's worth noting that the Department of Defense is flat out now preparing for war with China, regarding the strategic risk as fairly high.  The Marine Corps is specifically restructuring itself to revive its 1900 to 1960 type role featuring amphibious assault.  It never abandoned it, but its now the focus once again.

What it's about:  China is an aggressive, and brutal, imperial power that is bent on expanding its influence in any fashion possible.  It's military was primitive until the First Gulf War, at which time its observation of the conflict lead it to the conclusion that it could no longer just rely on a massive military alone.  Additionally, it's become increasingly aggressive as a naval power in recent years.

Who else is involved:  Most of the nations that border China, either by land or sea, are concerned about it, and some have fairly hostile relations with China, creating some ironic situations.  For example, the United States has in recent years started to favor Vietnam, which has a very hostile relationship with its northern neighbor.  Taiwan, which of course is technically part of China but not under the Chinese government as it was the last refuge of the Chinese Nationalist government, is effectively an independent state but has been increasingly threatened by the PRC.  Hong Kong is part of China but the former British Colony has effectively had its "special relationship" which allowed it to have its own government for a prolonged anticipated period of time following reunification with the PRC has seen that massively erode leading to a huge amount of strife there.

It should be noted that Taiwan and the PRC are sometimes claimed to be "technically at war", but they are not, as they were never at war.  Taiwan is the surviving political entity of the Republic of China, with there being some irony in that in that the island itself is not one native to the Chinese but rather its own ethnic groups, although the Chinese have had a presence there for centuries. The island was ruled by the Chinese periodically and then by the Japanese from 1895 to 1945.  It reverted to the Republic of China in 1945 and then was the last refuge of the Nationalist Chinese government following their defeat in the Chinese Civil War.  As a civil war is, technically, not a legal war, the Chinese Communist and the Chinese Nationalist were not therefore in a legal war.  The Republic of China was recognized as the legal Chinese government for some time thereafter, with that definitely changing when the United States recognized the Communist government in 1971, after which the Nationalist government lost its seat at the United Nations.  Following that, and the death of Chiang Kai Shek, the Taiwanese government has taken the position of de facto independence from China and is governed currently by a political party that takes that position, without formerly declaring it.  Taiwan some time ago unilaterally declared hostilities to be over.

Flag of Vietnam.

Flag of Taiwan, the former flag of Nationalist China, or the current one, depending upon how you view it.  Taiwan still styles itself the Republic of China.

Flag of Hong Kong.

What are the combatants like: The United States has the most advanced military in the world.  Taiwan's is advanced but small. Vietnam's is good.  China's is good and getting better, but probably not as adept at sea as military commentators might sometimes suggest.

Good guys and bad guys?:  Everyone but China.

Morocco v Polisario Front

Fighting has broken out in Morocco resulting in at least a temporary end to a thirty year truce with the Polisario Front..  The cause of the fighting was the opening of a highway to Mauritania that runs through territory occupied by the Polisario Front, a group that seeks independence from Morocco in the Western Morocco region of Morocco.  The people living in the eastern portion of the Western Morocco are the Sahrawi and they are ethnically distinct from Moroccans.  The effect of the truce was to effectively make their region a state and it has acquired some recognition and quasi recognition from the United Nations.

As a result of Morocco's action, the Polisario Front declared war upon Morocco.

What it's about:  The immediate cause of the fighting was the opening of a road that had been blocked by the Sahrawi forces which was a source of complaints in the region. The bigger issue is whether the eastern Moroccan desert region of Western Morocco should be its own state.

The area was not part of the the Kingdom of Morocco until 1975 and remained a province of Spain up until that time.  The Kingdom, on the other hand, had been French Morocco.  In 1975, after a civilian unarmed invasion, the Kingdom of Morocco invaded the country in a move that Spain did not oppose.

Who else is involved:  Algeria supplies weapons to the Polisario Front even though Algeria has its own internal problems that have resulted in fighting in the past.

What are the combatants like: Morocco has a good modern army.  The Polisario Front has an army that even includes armor, but it can't be compared to Morocco's.  Having said that, Morocco was not able to defeat it prior to the truce.

Good guys and bad guys?:  Hard to say. The United Nations takes the position that the Sahrawi are entitled to self determination, which is hard to argue with.  And Morocco took the region without weighing in the views of all of the people living there.

Iraq v ISIL

We don't hear much about this war anymore, even though we have approximately 3,000 troops still committed to Iraq.

Generally, the story here is that not much of a war remains, but the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the terrorist group that at one time appeared on the verge of establishing a radical Islamic state in Iraq, does remain as a guerilla combatant.  Much reduced due to earlier fighting, they are not on the verge of anything right now, but they have not completely disappeared.

What it's about:  ISIL is a radical offshoot of Al Qaeda, which says something, which sought to impose an Islamic caliphate starting in Iraq that would rule according to the strictest Sunni interpretations of the Koran.  Iraq's government is Shiia dominated and parliamentarian in nature and it seeks to preserve itself.

Who else is involved:  The United States created the current Iraqi government following its defeat of the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein but, over time, the Iraqi government, dominated by Shiia's, has become an Iranian ally.  This puts us at odds with the government even while supporting it.

To the north, regions of the country are the sole bastions of Kurdish independence, something the Iraqi government opposes.

What are the combatants like: ISIL is a guerilla and terrorist force at this point.  Iraq has a well equipped modern army but internal strife make its overall fighting qualities doubtful.

Good guys and bad guys?:  None of this has turned out the way the UW would have wanted when it first went to war with Iraq, but suffice it to say an ISIL victory, which is now unlikely, would be a disaster.  A totally Iranian dominated Iraq would be as well.

Afghanistan v The Taliban

The long Afghani war brought about by the destabilization of the country under Communism in the 1970s continues on.

The country fell to the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, following the departure of the Soviet Union.  That lead to a civil war in which the United States intervened following the September 11, 2001 attacks as the Taliban was harboring Al Qaeda.  Massive strategic blunders caused by the tactical blundering of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld meant that a war that could have been rapidly won was not, allowing the war to devolve into a long guerilla war.  A US focus on Iraq also diverted much needed attention from the region.  Under President Barack Obama a "surge" recaptured much lost ground, but since then a gradual draw down of American forces, now only 5,000 in number, leave the situation in the country uncertain.

What it's about:  The root of the war is found in a 1970s Communist take over in the country which lead to a guerilla war that ultimately expelled the Soviets but which did not leave a government in place.  The Taliban filled the gap and imposed a brutal theocratic regime.  It in turn harbored Al Qaeda which ultimately lead to American intervention.  The destruction of the political culture in the country has made restoring a civil government extremely difficult.

Who else is involved:  The United States remains involved.  NATO had a significant military mission but presently its remaining non US contingent is largely committed to training.

What are the combatants like: Afghanistan has a western trained and equipped army, but its internal problems make its fighting qualities doubtful.  Al Qaeda is a guerilla force.

Good guys and bad guys?:  The Afghan government is undoubtedly the "good guys" in this fight and if it falls it will be a Western disaster.

November 30, 2020

Ethiopia v. the Ethiopian region of Tigray Update

Ethiopian forces appear to have taken the capitol of the Tigray region.

The conflict seems to have spilled over into neighboring Eritrea which claims to have sent troops into Tigray at the invitation of Ethiopia, which the Ethiopian government denies.  Tigray admitted targeting Eritrea's capitol in rocket attacks recently and explosions were heard in the city yesterday.

Flag of Eritrea.

Eritrea has been independent from Ethiopia since 1993.  By getting involved in the Ethiopian war its drawing itself closer to the government of a country that's presently not tolerating regional dissent which may prove to be a dangerous move.

Morocco v Polisario Front Update.

The United States has recognized Moroccan claims to the Western Sahara.

This comes, oddly enough, as a byproduct of Moocco agreeing to normalize its relations with Israel, which were announced this past Thursday. Recognition of the Moroccan territorial claim was part of the negotiated deal.

December 20, 2020

Russia v. United States (amongst others), Cyber Warfare

It may seem odd, or not, to see this listed here.  The United States and the Russian Federation are not in a shooting war, but for years and years Russia has been engaged in a cyber campaign against the west.

This past week news developed of a huge cyber attack on U.S. agencies which it is believed it will take years to address.  The attack is truly in the nature of a disaster for the United States.  Earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attributed the attack to Russia.  In response, so far, the US has closed some consulates in Russia.

President Trump, in news that's almost become blasé, later discounted the source of the attacks, Russia, and blamed it on China, and then went on to proclaim that the "fake news industry" was making the attacks out to be much worse than they really are.  At this point in his waning days as President the purpose of the President taking such steps is hard to discern but it adds to the speculation that Russia has something on him.  Indeed, it's so odd that, outside of perhaps just his clear admiration for Boris Putin, it's very difficult to grasp.

What it's about:  What Russia's goals are remain difficult to discern. After the fall of the Soviet Union there was real hope that Russia would join the Western family of nations but its clear that under Putin it will not, even though its in its economic and political advantage to do so.  Putin has created an autocratic government in his country that has echoes of earlier Russian autocratic regimes in numerous ways and this seems to be generally part of it.  At any rate, Russia is clearly hostile to the West.

Who else is involved:  Nearly every Western nation is similarly situated to the United States in this matter.

What are the combatants like: This category doesn't really fit here in the conventional sense as the parties aren't real combatants.

Having said that, it's highly obvious that the Russians have excellent resources in this area.  The West does as well, but has restrained itself from using them and is likely to continue to do so.  It's extremely difficult to tell where this is going.

One thing to remember, however, is that Russia is in the position of going its own on these matters.  That may be part of its basis for attacking other countries in this fashion.  The nation has economic problems and a modern economy tied to petroleum, which is proving problematic as a future economic base. Attacks of this type keep its neighbors who do not engage in them off balance.  Having said that, however, the economies of the western nations are much more advanced than the Russian one and the populations of those nations dwarf Russia.  Even the US alone has a population twice the size of Russia's.

There seems to be low risk that the western nations will reciprocate, but the Russian strategy is risky as the potential cost benefit ratio to it are poor should they start to.

Good guys and bad guys?:  These actions are essentially unprovoked and only serve Russian short term interest.  They're ultimately risky to Russia itself.

The War Movies of 1970

1970, we've already noted, was the year the United States participated in an invasion of Cambodia with the Republic of Vietnam, while war protests raged across the United States.  In popular recollection, it was also the year that the nation was increasingly anti war and anti military.

Well. . . maybe, but it was one heck of a year for war movies.

Patton, a movie I've never reviewed here (until now), was released that year.  It goes down in cinematic history as a great movie and one of the greatest World War Two pictures ever made.  George C. Scott's portrayal of George S. Patton, for which he was awarded but did not accept an Academy Award, so defined the controversial American cavalry commander turned armored branch general that Scott's movie Patton is better remembered than the real Patton.  

It's interesting to note that Nixon watched the film in a private showing just before ordering the invasion of Cambodia.

The film is justifiably famous for a fairly accurate portrayal of Patton's personality, although it's portrayal of Omar Bradley is more charitable than Bradley deserved, perhaps because Bradley's memoirs of World War Two were used in part for the film, along with  Ladislas Farago's Patton:  Ordeal and Triumph.  Bradley worked as an advisor on the film which also no doubt influenced his portrayal.  Irrespective of that, it's a great film.  Taking the viewer from Patton's elevation after the Battle of Kasserine Pass to just after the war, it is limited, and wisely, to just his biography as an important American commander during the war.

It's not a very materially accurate film, however.  Armor for the film, as well as the numerous soldiers portrayed in it, were provided by the Spanish Army and the film was largely filmed in Spain.  M4 Shermans were Spanish M47s and Spanish M48s filled in for all German armor, giving the impression of more modern armored combat than World War Two actually featured, although the large scale combat scenes in the movie are very will done.  There's a reason that its recalled as a great film to this day.

In contrast to the material inaccuracy of Patton is the accuracy of the peculiar and appealing World War Two sort of drama/comedy, Kelly's Heroes, was released on June 23, 1970.  Filmed in Yugoslavia, the producers were able to make use of American M4 Shermans and other World War Two vintage hardware that remained there.  Not stopping at that, however, three Soviet tanks were carefully converted to be nearly dead ringers for German Tiger Is.  In terms of ground equipment (but not air) the film is the first materially accurate World War Two film made.  The depiction of the fluid nature of France in 1944 is fairly accurate, and the combat scenes are well done.

It isn't accurate, of course, in terms of the portrayal of soldiers and it wasn't met to be.  Donald Sutherland's portrayal of "Oddball", a hippie tank commander, steals the show but he portrays a figure simply impossible for the time.  The film's main star is supposed to be Kelly, portrayed by Clint Eastwood, but its really Sutherland who shines.  The film portrays an armored reconnaissance unit that goes rogue on a mission to loot a bank behind German lines under the leadership of former, and now demoted, officer Kelly.  The cast in the film is really impressive.

Released in 1970, the film anticipates the changing mood of the time, but it remains today a cult classic and its popular with careful students of World War Two for the reasons noted.  It's odd to realize that Sutherland's portrait of Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H was actually from earlier the same year, as his portrayal here was a risky choice.  It's also odd to realize that Carroll O'Connor's portrayal of an Army general in this film was not intended to be a parody of Patton, even though it seems to be.

M*A*S*H was as noted, released earlier this same year, and its an awful film.  Ironically, it's one I've already gone over, so I'm not going really get into it again here.  I would note, as I did originally:

This movie is probably  the most famous movie set during the Korean War, but don't fool yourself, it's really about Vietnam.

Which doesn't make it a good film.

If M*A*S*H was heavily influenced by the country's developing mood, and Sutherland's Oddball at least had a cheerful character more out of 1970 than 1944, the other great war picture of the year was much more like Patton in nature, that being the great film Tora! Tora! Tora!, which portrayed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the greatest World War Two movies ever made and is far and away the best film about the events of December 7, 1941.  The later effort Pearl Harbor is pathetic in comparison.  Getting the history and the material details correct, and filmed on location, it's a masterpiece which may be free of errors.  It stands as the greatest true depiction, quasi documentary, movie of its era and inspired more than one attempt to follow up in its portrayals of later events that were real failures.  Using a large number of actors and depicting sweeping events, it fits into a series of movies of that time, including The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far, that took real big picture and small picture looks at singular events in the war.  It's a great film.

So what does it tell us, if anything, that they were made when they were?  It probably tells us at least in part that our recollection of the country's mood in 1970 isn't very accurate.  M*A*S*H was an anti war film using the vehicle of the Korean War to discuss the Vietnam War.  But none of the three movies about World War Two, which had concluded just 25 years earlier, could be regarded as an anti war film.  Even Kelly's Heroes, which has an element of cynicism, had it only lightly.  So even as the country grew increasingly disenchanted with Vietnam, it didn't feel that way about World War Two. For that matter, of course, the youngest of the country's World War Two veterans were only in their early 40s at the time.

Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 3.

We've just done two posts in this three part series on the naming of military posts, starting off with the controversy, although there doesn't seem to be that much of of a controversy, over the suggestion that military posts in the South named after Confederate generals ought to be renamed.

We eclectically started off our post on Southern Posts with this entry, which wasn't in the South.

Camp Cody, New Mexico. This camp was named after a figure associated with Wyoming, but not from Wyoming, Buffalo Bill Cody.  It operated from 1917 to 1919.

Why did we do that?

Well, at that time this series was conceived of as a single post.  But by the time we had all the text we were interested in posting, the post was so long, as Part 2 no doubt shows, that it no longer made much sense to do so. But it still makes sense to ask the questions we intended to, and those had to do with why posts were named what they were.

It probably shouldn't surprise anyone, but there are Army Regulations. . . now, for  naming posts. The more surprising things is that this hasn't always been the case.  The Army's Center For Military History sums up the story, which they likely are asked about a fair amount, particularly now, this way:

Naming Army Installations 

The naming of posts started as a tradition when the Army was young. In the Continental Army, many posts and camps were named by the commander or supervising engineer for high ranking officers, including those still living; for example, Fort Washington on the New York and Fort Lee on the New Jersey sides of the Hudson in 1776, Fort Putnam at West Point, or Fort Mifflin below Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. Forts were also named for fallen heroes, such as Fort Mercer, built in 1777, on the New Jersey side of the Delaware opposite Fort Mifflin, named in honor of Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer who fell at Princeton in January of that year. 

For much of the Army's history in the 19th Century, the naming of posts was still mainly a local prerogative. For example, War Department General Order Number 79, dated 8 November 1878, left the naming of installations to the commander of the regional Military Division in which the installation was located. Although not always, the names of installations usually reflected a local influence, such as Fort Apache in Arizona, established in 1871, and the Chickamauga Post in Georgia, established in 1902. In the 1890s, the then Quartermaster General, Maj. Gen. Richard N. Batchelder, recommended that the War Department assume responsibility for naming installations, but that did not become policy until World War I when the massive general mobilization saw the establishment of numerous installations of various sizes and functions. The names usually, but not always, reflected some regional connection to its location, and usually with a historic military figure significant to the area: for example, Camp Lee near Richmond, Virginia, and changing the name of the Chickamauga Post in Georgia to Fort Oglethorpe. 

In the years between the World Wars, it became the common practice for the War Department to entertain recommended names for posts from installation commanders, corps and branch commanders, and the Historical Section Army War College, as well as from outside the Army. Public opinion and political Influence sometime weighed heavily on the decisions. For an example of the latter, when in 1928 the Army renamed Fort George G. Meade in Maryland as Fort Leonard Wood, the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress held up the Army's appropriation bill until the service agreed to restore the name of the Pennsylvania-born general. The regional connection, however, cannot be overemphasized. Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, for example, was originally named Camp Alfred Vail, in honor of the Army's then chief Signal Officer, when the installation was established as a Signal Corps training facility in 1917, but changed to Fort Monmouth, for the 1778 battle fought nearby, when it became a permanent installation in the 1920s. 

The War Department better defined the criteria when it established the policy for "naming military reservations in honor of deceased distinguished officers regardless of the arm or service in which they have served" in a memorandum dated 20 November 1939. 

Shortly after World War II, in 1946, the Army established the Army Memorialization Board. Governed by Army Regulation (AR) 15-190, Boards, Commissions, and Committees: Department of the Army Memorialization Board, it assumed responsibility for deciding on the names of posts and other memorial programs and the criteria for naming them. The regulation stated that all those individuals memorialized must be deceased and fall within one of five categories: 

(1) a national hero of absolute preeminence by virtue of high position,
(2) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility (Army and above) and whose death was a result of battle wounds,
(3) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds,
(4) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was a result of battle wounds, and
(5) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds.

On 8 December 1958 , AR 1-30, Administration: Department of the Army Memorialization Program superseded AR 15-190 , and removed responsibility for naming installations from the Memorialization Board and transferred it to Headquarters, Department of the Army. In turn, AR 1-33, Administration: Memorial Programs superseded AR 1-30 on 1 February 1972. This revision retained the same memorialization criteria and categories as the previous regulation, but added a list of appropriate memorialization projects for each category. For example, it would be appropriate to name a large military installation after a person in category two, while it would be appropriate to name a building or a street after a person in category five. The final decision on naming a post was still made by the Headquarters, Department of the Army. The 15 January 1981 revision of AR 1-33 named the Army Chief of Staff as the responsible individual for the naming of installations. 

The current AR 1-33 became effective on 30 June 2006, and redefined and expanded the categories of individuals to be memorialized, and listed appropriate memorialization programs for each category. The naming of installations is now the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary of Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs). The Director of the Installation Management Agency is responsible for the naming of streets, buildings, and facilities on all military installations except medical installations, where the Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command has the approval authority, and on the United States Military Academy, where the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy has the approval authority.

This post here, of course, started off with the topic of the Confederate named posts, and the Congressional Research Service recently issued this short synopsis of the Confederate posts and military installation names in general, about which it must have been receiving inquiries from members of Congress.

Confederate Names and Military Installations  

Updated June 16, 2020  

On June 8, 2020, an Army spokesperson made a statement that the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy are “open to a bi-partisan discussion” on renaming the Army's 10 installations named after Confederate leaders. This statement follows the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger’s message (MARADMIN 331/20) on June 5, 2020, instructing commanders to “identify and remove” displays of the Confederate battle flag on Marine bases. Gen. Berger's order was signed following a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on February 11 regarding the rise of white supremacy in the ranks. A 2019 Military Times survey found that “36 percent of troops who responded have seen evidence of white supremacist and racist ideologies in the military, a significant rise from the year before, when only 22 percent reported the same in the 2018 poll.” In addition to some Department of Defense (DOD) officials, certain Members of Congress have expressed interest in renaming military installations named after Confederate leaders. There is also interest in the DOD’s selection and approval process for naming military installations.  

U.S. Military Bases Named in Honor of Confederate Military Leaders  

There are 10 major military installations named after Confederate Civil War commanders located in the former states of the Confederacy. These installations are all owned by the U.S. Army. They are: Fort Rucker (after Col. Edmund W. Rucker, who was given the honorary title of “General”) in Alabama; Fort Benning (Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning) and Fort Gordon (Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon) in Georgia; Camp Beauregard (Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant “P.G.T.” Beauregard) and Fort Polk (Gen. Leonidas Polk) in Louisiana; Fort Bragg (Gen. Braxton Bragg) in North Carolina; Fort Hood (Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood) in Texas; and Fort A.P. Hill (Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell “A.P.” Hill), Fort Lee (Gen. Robert E. Lee) and Fort Pickett (Maj. Gen. George Edward Pickett) in Virginia. 

Naming Policy by Military Service  

Currently, DOD does not have a department-wide review process to evaluate the naming of military installations. Each military service has its own naming criteria and approval process summarized below.  

Army 

In general, the naming of Army installations is the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary of Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs (ASA (M&RA)), However, the Secretary of the Army retains final approval authority for the Army Memorial Program—a program that oversees the naming of all Army real property. For the Army, the naming of a U.S. Army installation after a deceased individual is considered a memorialization, while naming an installation after a living individual is termed a dedication. The Army maintains separate criteria for memorialization and dedication of Army real property. The regulation that sets these criteria is Army Regulation (AR) 1-33, The Army Memorial Program (October 2018). In addition to dedicating and memorializing installations after people, the Army can also name an installation after an event. AR 1-33 provides a separate set of criteria for this “naming” and is defined as “the non-permanent naming of Army real property after famous battles and events.”  

Navy

OPNAV INSTRUCTION 5030.12H(October 2017) explains the U.S. Navy’s policy and procedures for the naming of streets, facilities and structures. According to this instruction, “names selected should honor deceased members of the Navy.” It may also be appropriate to honor deceased persons other than Navy personnel who have made significant contributions to the benefit of the Navy. This instruction is applicable to naming a structure or building that is identified by a real property unique identifier or a street. Naming designations of internal portions of buildings or spaces can be assigned at the discretion of the local installation commander. The spokesman for the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday announced on June 9, that Adm. Gilday directed his staff to draft an order that will ban the Confederate battle flag from all public spaces and work areas on Navy bases, ships, subs, and aircraft.  

Marine Corps 

The Manual for the Marine Corps Historical Program addresses the Commemorative Naming Program and specifies that “property may be named for individuals highly regarded within the Marine Corps and/or local communities. Names of deceased Marines, or members of other military organizations who died while serving with or in support of Marine Corps units, will be considered first.”A Marine Corps Installations Command Policy Letter 3-15 offers guidance for Marine Corps Installations Command. 

Air Force Air Force

 Manual 36-2806, Awards and Memorialization Program (2019), sets Air Force policy for the Air Force’s memorialization program. The manual states “The memorialization program is designed to provide enduring honor and tribute to living and deceased military members and civilians with records of outstanding and honorable service through the naming of Air Force installations, streets, buildings, and interior spaces of buildings.” Chapter 4 of the manual provides naming criteria and approval authorities for Air Force installations, and states: “When naming an Air Force installation ensure only the most deserving individuals are selected for memorialization. Selections should bring honor to the Air Force and reflect the goodwill of the local community.”  

Author Information 

Barbara Salazar Torreon Senior Research Librarian

Well, there you have it. From that you can take it to be the case that the Army wouldn't be naming any posts after Confederate rebels today as they wouldn't meet the first two criteria.  I.e., no Confederate figure is a "national hero", in spite of what some in the South may have viewed over the last century about figures like Robert E. Lee, and in spite of the treatment those same figures were given by the Army in the early and mid 20th Century, and the second criteria implicitly presumes that they were in the U.S. service, which none of the Confederate figures was at the time of their famous or infamous service.

Camp Wheeler, Georgia, named after Joseph Wheeler and which was used in World War One and World War Two.  The land was returned to its owners following the Second World War.  Camp Wheeler is arguably the only former military post that would meet the current rules, as while Wheeler had been a Confederate General in the Civil War, he was also a Maj. Gen. in the U.S. Army during the Spanish American War.  Wheeler is associated with Georgia, but was actually from Connecticut.

None of which means that the post would be, or should be, renamed, although we addressed that topic in our first post in which we concluded that they  largely should be.

As the Army's Center for Military History item notes, early on posts were named as a matter of local prerogative.  When we looked at the Wyoming posts names, an interesting added part of the picture comes to light.  When the U.S. first established any military presence in Wyoming at all, it was acquiring existing facilities and simply keeping their names. Ft. Laramie was the first permanent U.S. post in what would become Wyoming and the Army simply bought Ft. Laramie and kept the name.  Jaques LaRamy wasn't an American military figure and wasn't an American at all.   This didn't seem to figure into the Army's naming conventions at all at the time.  Other forts occupied prior to the Civil War went the same way, in part.

Having said that, on some occasions the office establishing a camp was naming it after himself, or in quite a few instances, a commander who was up his chain of command.  A person can look at that more than one way, rather obviously, but both were common.

When the Civil War hit, in Wyoming, the 11th Ohio and 11th Kansas came into the state, and they established the practice of occupying established "stations" of a civilian nature and building posts at them.  Sometimes they observed the pre war naming convention, but more often they simply named the station after where they were.  

The Civil War was a great national shock and following it hte officer corps of the Army was made up of veterans of that war, many of whom had held much higher ranks during the ar than they did after it.  Even as the war was raging the Army started to name new posts after U.S. Army senior officer who had lost their lives during the war or, in some cases, very soon after it.  Wyoming posts like Ft. Buford and Ft. Sanders (the same post) or Ft. Phil Kearny provide such examples.

During the Civil War the Indian Wars heated up massively as Indians tribes, either intentionally or due to circumstances engaged non Indians with increasing frequency.  At the time, and for many years thereafter, this was attributed to Indian opportunism but a careful look at the era would lead a person to question that.*  The war resulted in the withdrawal of the Army from the Frontier to a large extent, although it should be noted that the military presence on the Frontier was very small to start with and the distance between the prewar Frontier forts was massive in extent, so the extent to which that alone was responsible for the uptick in conflicts, as some have asserted, is questionable.

The war directly caused a big upswing in European migration on the transcontinental trails across the West which arrived at the same time in which Indians tribes noticed and became increasingly concerned over the character of European American presence in the upper West.  Prior European Americans had been small in number and were often fairly feral in their nature.  The new migrants were largely passing through but they were also largely of the yeomanry class whose view of hte land was markedly different, and they were also descendant in large numbers of prior American populations that had a history of conflict with Indians.  Simultaneously miners began to penetrate the West in numbers for the first time. Towns, and even cities, began to be built which was a notable and dangerous new development for Indians and finally the railroad began to penetrate as well.  All of this made an already touchy situation explosive.

As did events like the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864 during which Colorado militia attacked a Cheyenne band with no real cause. This put the Cheyenne to flight and also to war, with that war spreading north very rapidly into Wyoming.  In turn, Sioux bands allied with the Cheyenne could not help but note was occurring generally.

All of this meant that even as the Civil War was being fought the Plains Indians Wars were igniting, meaning that as early as 1865, if not earlier, the Army was naming posts after Army figures who had been killed in combat with Indians.  Ft. Caspar was one of the first such examples, but it would soon be joined by Ft. Fetterman and Ft. Brown.  Civil War figures were not replaced by Indian War figures, however, with the seminal name of Abraham Lincoln being given to the post of that name in 1872.**

This loose practice kept up as the Army approached World War One.  Camp Cody, featured above, was named for example at the time of the Punitive Expedition.  Other posts incorporated varied names.

Camp Furlong, Columbus, New Mexico.  1916.  I don't know who this post was named for, as there's little easy to find information on that.  However, it's worth noting that this post in 1912 was established at time at which Wesley J. Furlong, a black recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Civil War, was still living.

Camp Stewart, not Stuart.  I'm not sure which military figure this post was named for, but it was not J. E. B. Stuart. It may have been named for Brig. Gen. Daniel Stewart, whom Ft. Stewart, Georgia, was also named for. That Stewat was a general in the Revolutionary War. Of note, teh Amy chose not to retain this name with this post 

When the US ran up to entry in the Great War, the naming conventions, but not regulations, tighted up considerable.  As the CMH item notes, the practice became to name military posts after generals of historical importance and preferentially with a connection to the region of the post.  Unnamed as a policy, it very clearly became the practice to name Southern posts after Confederate generals even to the extent of naming some after figures of some infamy or who were even of questionable military competence.***

The fact that even figures who were not only rebels, but in some occasions associated with the worst of the Confederate cause and also those who were not bright shining military lights really tells us something about the extent to which the Lost Cause mythology had seized and altered the common historical understanding of the Civil War.  It also says something about the extent to which the Army, faced with the largest war it had been in since the Civil War, looked back on that war for guidance.  Seemingly it was also the only thing that compared to what it was now in.

It was the only thing that it had been in for nearly eighty years in which Southern military figures, save for Joseph Wheeler, had really shined in an obvious fashion. There's been a lot of notable figures of the Indian Wars since 1865 and the Spanish American War contributed additional names to the Army's heroic list. These names were not forgotten, but the policy of local attribution meant that they largely were absent from the South. They were used, and sometimes more than once.  Frederick Funston, only recently departed and expected to have lead the American Army in France if war came, was a hero of the Spanish American War who died shortly before the war. Two Camp Funston's were named for him thereafter, for example.

Camp Funston, Leon Springs, Texas.

Camp Funston, Kansas.

In Michigan, which was his home, George Armstrong Custer of Little Big Horn fame, or infamy, found his name attached to the World War One training post there, Camp Custer, which survives today as Ft. Custer, a Michigan National Guard training range.

Camp Custer, 1918.  This post remained in service after the war and was designated a permanent base and therefore a "fort" in 1940.  After World War Two it went into use as a Marine Corps and Navy Reserve post but reverted to the Army at the start of the Korean War.  It was turned over to the state of Michigan as a National Guard training range in 1968, but interestingly it still sees some Navy Reserve use.

So the naming conventions remained loose during the Great War but there was obviously an unofficial policy of naming posts after a military figure with a local connection, and in the case of the South, that meant, in the minds of Army leaders, picking Confederate generals' names.  To put it fairly, however, they didn't seem to be under any mental reservation about that.  Indeed, during the war the widow of at least one Confederate general, and one of the problematic ones at that, was honored, and therefore the general himself vicariously honored, at the post.

The 82nd Division  honoring the widow of John Brown Gordon at the first Camp Gordon.

What black soldiers thought of this seems unrecorded, or at least I haven't run across their thoughts. They were obviously aware of it and indeed as many black soldiers hailed from the South they saw service in some of these posts.  Indeed, it's worth noting that black combat soldiers were more likely, as a class, to see combat in World War One than World War Two.  While the services were segregated at the time, save for the Marine Corps which didn't allow blacks to enter their service at all until mid World War Two, the Great War did not see an effort to preclude black troops from the front lines to the same extent that was done in the Second World War and there were a variety of black National Guard units that saw service in the war.****  Some of those units would have trained at these posts.

National Guardsmen of the 370th Infantry of Illinois, which had black officers and enlisted men.  Black officers were very unusual, but once again this was a feature of a few such units in World War One.  The 370th had an all black officer corps, the only such unit to have that feature.

It should have been noted that there were ways around naming posts after Confederate officers, if the Army had chosen to do them.  For one thing, they could simply have been named for their locations, which would have been easy enough. As has been already pointed out in Part 2 of this series, that's exactly how Wyoming's two National Guard training ranges were named, even though by the time the second one, Camp Guernsey, was being established, there was clearly a Wyoming personality, Jay L. Torrey, whose name was available for use.*****Another option, in some instances, would have been to use the names of Southern figures from the Revolution or the War of 1812, although that would have perhaps simply served to remind Southerners that names of Confederate generals were being excluded.  Finally, while it would be controversial today, names of Indian War figures were available, but that would have had to have been done without regard to their place of origin and, as odd as it may seem, the Plains Indian Wars were closer in time to World War One for the most part than the Civil War such that many of the participants in those wars remained alive, with some Army officers, such as Pershing, having served in them.

Whatever the situation may have been during World War One, it's harder to justify the ongoing practice of naming Southern posts after Confederate figures after 1918.  By that time, the new war had produced more than its share of well known national heroic figures.  Nonetheless, the practice continued all the way through World War Two. The reason it did is truly an example of institutional racism.  By that time, no matter what the majority view of the country may have been, the Army basically accepted the Lost Cause thesis and had made up, in its mind, with the rebellious Southern officers of the 1860s and accepted them as their own.  Indeed, as an example of that, John J. Pershing and his aid, George Marshall, visited the tomb of J. E. B. Stuart at VMI in 1920, honoring the rebel cavalryman by their presence.  During the same time frame the Army actually became more prejudiced in its view towards its black soldiers, not less, and when the Second World War Came the Army acted to exclude existing black Regular Army formations from combat in spite of their World War One examples.  Half of the Army posts now subject to controversial Confederate names were named during the Second World War, not the First.

Segregation in the Army came to an end in the Truman Administration and it was Missouri born Truman who first used the Regular Army in support of desegregation in the South.  Blacks were conscripted in a fashion roughly analogous with whites during the Korean War and combat units in that war were desegregated.  This has been true, of course, ever since.  Also under Truman, official naming conventions in the Army, already set out above, but repeated here, came into existance in 1946, providing:

(1) a national hero of absolute preeminence by virtue of high position,(2) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility (Army and above) and whose death was a result of battle wounds,(3) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds,(4) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was a result of battle wounds, and(5) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds.

And that is where we are now.

As noted above, none of the Southern posts named after Confederates would meet these criteria now, but then not all of the remaining posts named after others would as well.  At least Michigan's Fort Custer is probably named after an individual who is as despised by a significant number of Americans as the Southern posts are.  So renaming them merely because they don't meet the current criteria likely wouldn't be in order.  Renaming them because of who they are named after, however, very well might be.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Prior posts in this series:

Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 1. Named for Confederate Generals

Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 2. Posts in Wyoming

*I'm not saying that such a careful look has in fact taken place.

**Ft. Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota, was the location from which the 7th Cavalry dispatched in 1876 in their message to gather the Sioux from the plains. The campaign would result in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

***The universal military quality of Southern officers is a myth of the Lost Cause Era.  In truth, the South has an inordinate number of marginal or even incompetent officers.

****The story of segregation in the Armed Forces is a little more complicated than it might at first seem, and has been dealt with here in earlier posts, specifically:

Blacks in the Army. Segregation and Desegregation

That post deals with the Army and the Navy, in spite of its caption.

As noted in that post, during the Revolution blacks were actually common in the Continental Army and it wasn't until after the Revolution that Congress banned their entry into the Army.  Even with an official prohibition, actually enforcing the ban seems to have been loosely enforced at first.  Only as the 19th Century progressed towards the Civil War were blacks actually excluded from the Army, but that day did arrive. During the Civil War the ban was reversed and the segregated Army came in, which remained all the way until just prior to the Korean War.

The Navy in contrast wasn't segregated until the late 19th Century, reflecting the fact that the Navy recruited from ports in the wood and sail era.  During that time it was more concerned about bringing in experienced sailors than anything else and it accordingly disregarded race and even nationality in recruiting enlisted men.  Only when the steel Navy came in post Civil War did that change and the Navy officially segregated in 1893, although officially enforcing that policy on a preexisting structure also took some time.  This change reflected a change in recruitment in which mechanical and technical skills now took precedence over sailing skills, and the Navy was now recruiting largely from the interior of the country.

The Marine Corps had barred entry of blacks from the very beginning as it strictly limited its recruiting to whites.  This was for a peculiar reason, however.  The logic of its first commanders was focused on the mutiny suppression role that Marines fulfilled and they therefore tried to make the makeup of the Marine Corps reflect the largest national demographic out of a fear that allowing in minorities would cause conflicts in loyalties should mutinies occur.  Interestingly enough, the one real mutiny, although it is not called that, which the Navy experienced didn't occur until the early 1970s at which time the black commanding officer of the vessel had to be ordered to stand down in his plan to arm his Marines and storm the parts of the ship held by protesting black sailors so, while the event occured two centuries later, ethnic loyalties did't play a part in that event when it really came.  The Marine Corps allowed blacks into the service during World War Two and was integrated along with the Army and Navy in 1948. The Air Force had already taken the step in 1946 upon its coming into existence and was never officially segregated, although as it was formed out of the segregated Army, it took it until 1949 to really desegregate.

*****Torrey was a legislator and rancher who had lead the formation and recruitment of the 2nd Volunteer Cavalry during the Spanish American War.  That unit failed to see action, but it was sufficiently well remembered that a Rough Rider was adopted as the unit patch for Wyoming National Guardsmen at some point and while different patches have come in, in recent years, for some units, it's still the default patch for the Wyoming Army National Guard.  It's fairly surprising that Camp Guernsey wasn't named Camp Torrey.