Despite the knowledge gained the Army repeated the mistake in Korea and Vietnam. The ease of the manpower process was more important than the combat needs of operating units. My experience in the USMC was such that we did stabilize units prior to deployment but kept filling those units up to the moment we boarded ships. This insured that the unit had upwards of 10 to 15% filled with Marines who had not fully participated in pre deployment training.
The individual replacement system is a heartbreaking way to treat people, period. However, it is deeply encouraging that the Commanding General of 29th Infantry Division recognized the problem and took steps to address the problems.
It also didn't help that the infantry were the lowest-priority for quality recruits, and consequently received many less-than-stellar men in its ranks.
How truly horrible it must have been to arrive alone, inadequately trained, among men who had bonds of loyalty which excluded you, to go to face death with nothing but a cold shoulder from those around you, betrayed by your country and your Army, which could have done better but instead used you as a disposable widget. And worst of all, the method didn't work. It was a waste. Glad to see that the Army began to figure this out on the fly and to extemporize some improvements.
Tragically, nothing captures the nature of the "modern" American army more than ignoring the human element, treating soldiers like interchangeable parts in a vast machine.
A few years ago I gave a talk at the Society for Military History conference on the intellectual and cultural origins of this system ("Cogs in the Machine").
Despite the knowledge gained the Army repeated the mistake in Korea and Vietnam. The ease of the manpower process was more important than the combat needs of operating units. My experience in the USMC was such that we did stabilize units prior to deployment but kept filling those units up to the moment we boarded ships. This insured that the unit had upwards of 10 to 15% filled with Marines who had not fully participated in pre deployment training.
The individual replacement system is a heartbreaking way to treat people, period. However, it is deeply encouraging that the Commanding General of 29th Infantry Division recognized the problem and took steps to address the problems.
It also indicates that the replacement training centers were not doing an adequate job of training new soldiers or integrating them into the Army.
It also didn't help that the infantry were the lowest-priority for quality recruits, and consequently received many less-than-stellar men in its ranks.
How truly horrible it must have been to arrive alone, inadequately trained, among men who had bonds of loyalty which excluded you, to go to face death with nothing but a cold shoulder from those around you, betrayed by your country and your Army, which could have done better but instead used you as a disposable widget. And worst of all, the method didn't work. It was a waste. Glad to see that the Army began to figure this out on the fly and to extemporize some improvements.
Tragically, nothing captures the nature of the "modern" American army more than ignoring the human element, treating soldiers like interchangeable parts in a vast machine.
A few years ago I gave a talk at the Society for Military History conference on the intellectual and cultural origins of this system ("Cogs in the Machine").