Understanding Army Advertising: Repairing the Divergence of American Liberalism and the

Realities of Army Culture since the All-Volunteer Force

Katrine Nielsen

December 16, 2011

Douglas Sackman

America’s Army exited the Vietnam War battered, brutalized, disillusioned and

disheartened, and I’m not talking about the soldiers. The Army’s public image suffered a

demoralizing blow in the rapidly changing social atmosphere of the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

The full injection of liberalism into American social ideology would usher in an era of

individualism which seemed to obliterate the validity of the citizen-soldier’s social position

which had been so effectively used in World War II. This ideology had been the main pillar of

the state’s legitimate right to draft civilians into the Army in times of need. By 1976 the Army

was producing recruiting manuals which specifically stated that “The Army Recruiter’s job is

essentially that of a sales representative—the Army’s sales man or woman on the local level—

“selling” career opportunities in today’s volunteer Army.”1 The manual produced material

which was designed to “assist the Army Recruiter in gaining maximum exposure for the Army in

the local community through the mediums of advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public

relations.”2 The transition from the draft to an all-volunteer system for America’s Army

forced the goliath organization not only to reevaluate its role within American society, but

reevaluate how well that society could fit within the Army. Military service shifted from an

inherent expression of citizenship to one of the many options in which American’s could

choose to express their citizenship. Advertising had become an integral structure to the

Army’s ability to entice new recruits, forcing them to focus on principles of liberal

consumerism in an effort to reduce the gap between America’s new views on citizenship

and the realities of military life.

I will take into account how, in a society where the burdens of nationally directed combat

are unevenly distributed, it is of the utmost importance to analyze the growing dichotomy 1 UnitedStatesArmyRecruitingCommand,Publicizing Army Recruiting in the Community,(Washington:U.S.Dept.ofDefense,Dept.ofArmy,1976).2 Ibid.

between the life of a soldier and that of a citizen. I will look at why the Army attempts to bridge

that gap in an effort to share its burdens as it attempts to draw support and reassert its importance

in a nation so deeply changed by liberalism yet subject to the strains of war. In order to create a

full picture of the complexities the Army encounters in reconciling its culture with that of liberal

America, I will first dissect the identity of the consumer rewarded citizen-soldier which was

widely advertised during World War II. Although a symbiotic relationship at first, it could be

viewed as the initial breakdown in the citizen-state relationship as individual consumer needs

were not only prioritized, but emphasized by the state through the advent of the G.I. Bill. Next I

will look at how the Army dealt with the transition into the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). This

transition was massive; it revolutionized how the Army advertised itself to the nation. It also

raised issues about how well the reality of Army life actually met their claims, and how fully the

Army could adapt to the values of American society. I will conclude by asking why America’s

entrance into war since 2001 has changed the focus of its advertising and begun to reestablish a

place for the citizen-soldier within a liberal America.

There has been a large body of scholarly work done by both political scientists and

historians regarding the AVF and is split generally into two time periods. Up until the 90’s the

effects of the AVF on the ability of the Armed forces to field a large, effective and quality force

were examined, debated, and exploited.3 The success of early 90’s armed conflicts and the

relative peace which followed represented a period where interest in the subject tapered off. It

has been America’s involvement in a prolonged and hotly debated violent conflicts since the

terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that has spurred a renewed interest in the study of the

AVF. The viability of an AVF force and its more solid national-political implications has again

become hot topic of study. Current research has broadened as it attempts to analyze the obstacles 3ElliotCohen,Citizens & Soldiers: the Dilemmas of Military Service,(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1985),171.

faced by the armed forces to continue to provide a marketable image which will convince

consumers to invest in it.4 It also has called into question the social implications of America’s

liberal citizenship which has disproportionately placed the responsibilities and pressures of

protecting those rights on such a small sector of the population. My research intends to support

this new scholarship by providing an analysis of how the Army, as the largest of the armed

service branches, has attempted to reconcile the inherent contradictions presented in the function

of Army culture and the inviolable rights of the individual citizen in its advertisements.

Liberalism: A concept for the Right and Left

Before I begin addressing advertisements I first need to briefly address the concept of

liberalism. Dominic Tierney, a prominent political scientist, states that liberalism is “a set of

principles rooted in the ideas of John Looke: democracy, limited government, republicanism,

self-determination, the rule of law, equal opportunity, free enterprise, and free expression,” a

creed which Americans had favored since their founding days.5 Political scientist Ronald Krebs

takes us one step further. He uses American critiques of Nazi and communist regimes’

suppression of their citizens and America’s portrayal of themselves as the antithesis of these

regimes, as the point where the American liberal identity would take on a much more pervasive

character.6

4 BethBailey, America’s Army: Making the All‐Volunteer Force,(Cambridge,Massachusetts:TheBelknapPressofHarvardUniversity,2009).; StephenL.Carter,The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama,(NewYork:BeastBooks,2011).;RyanKelly,MeredithKleykampandDavidR.Segal,“TheMilitaryandtheTransitiontoAdulthood,”The Future of Children.Vol.20,No.1(Spring2010),181‐207.;RonaldKrebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates:HasitsDemisebeenGreatlyExaggerated?,”Armed Forces & Society, Vol.36,No.1(October2009),153‐174.;GeneMurray,Covering Sex, Race, and Gender in the American Military Services,(Lewiston,NewYork:TheEdwinMellenPress,2003).;KathyRoth‐Douquet,andFrankSchaeffer,AWOL: the Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from the Military‐‐and how it hurts our Country,(NewYork:HarperCollins,2006).;DominicTierney,How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War,(NewYork:Little,BrownandCompany,2010).5 Tierney,How We Fight, 20.6 Krebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates,”158.

The obvious contradiction of America’s profession of championing the rights of the

individual as inviolable against a backdrop of massive social stratification and segregation which

was experienced on their home soil is portrayed well in an article written by historian Lauren

Sklaroff.7 Her analysis of the contradiction points to the fact that the American government had

to start addressing their violations of the liberal principles they so vehemently claimed to uphold.

During this time, the American government had created the aura of a political-sociological

balance that not only favored the individual, but subordinated the government to its needs.

During the era of Vietnam, however, fronts of liberal equality were to be fought by the

individual. As Krebs explains of the 60’s and 70’s, there was “[a] cultural turn that cast society

as merely an aggregation of individuals that saw citizenship as guaranteeing individuals’ rights

against the state.”8 No longer was citizenship to be dictated by the state from the relation of an

individual’s use of state guaranteed rights in support of the state functions. Instead, the individual

and his or her rights would become the foundation of citizenship and the reason the state existed.

Consumerism as Liberalism: the Deconstruction of Obligation

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson referenced a statement made by a friend that demonstrated the

profoundly different way responsibilities and expectations within the citizen-state relationship

were expressed prior to the 60’s liberal movement. Military service and soldier alike were

articulated as idealized duties:

A friend of mine made a very poignant remark to me one day. He said: “Did you ever see a family that hung his son’s yardstick or ledger or spade up over the mantel piece?” But how many of you have seen the lad’s rifle, his musket, hung up! Well, why? … why not hang them [yardstick, ledger or spade] up? Because they do not represent self-sacrifice. They do not glorify you in the same sense that the musket does, because when you took that musket at the call of your country you risked everything and knew 7TohaveamorefullunderstandingoftheeffectsofthesecontradictionsonAmericansocietyandpoliticsatthistime,read:JustinHart,“MakingDemocracySafefortheWorld:Race,Propaganda,andtheTransformationofU.S.ForeignPolicyduringWorldWarII,”Pacific Historical Review,Vol.73,No.1(February2004)49‐84.8 Krebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates,”159.

you could not get anything. The most that you could do was come back alive, but after you came back alive there was a halo about you.”9 In explaining some of the terminology in this statement, we can further reveal the deep

divergence which had developed by the time of the Vietnam War between the ideas of

citizenship and the requirements of belonging to the Army. First, it is important to note that

Wilson’s friend identifies tools of the citizen’s life as different from those of a soldier’s. In

doing so he identifies what a citizen does and what a soldier does as disparate functions of

society. Although it could be argued that we continue to see these roles being advertised as

disparate from each other as history continues, it is a fact that the role of the Army now includes

the provision of an individual with skills rather than an individual to selflessly provide for the

Army.

Wilson’s friend also does much to evoke the senses of glory, honor and duty which have

historically been associated with military service. He speaks of it as a higher calling, above

material reward, promulgating language which is commonly found throughout Christian

doctrines. The use of the term halo evokes a saint like quality for the returning soldier,

presenting them as equals to the iconic figures who for centuries have paid the ultimate price to

serve the good of mankind. To him, responding unabashedly to the call of military service

without thought of personal gain was the greatest attribute of a citizen. Those deeds were the

things of memory and reverence, the glory of the Christian faith and those people we remember

because of it.

During World War II, however, we see the American government connecting the pursuit

of individual needs with the function of the American Army. As many scholars have written

before, advertisements helped to construct social identities by visually confirming who the

9 ElliotCohen,Citizens & Soldiers, 121.

message was intended for.10 The focus of World War II advertising, however, was not on who

could be a citizen but how to be a good citizen and what that citizenship offered you. This initial

connection was first directed towards the civilian community at home whereby they advertised

“good” consumer practices as the expression of “good” citizenship.11 As the war progressed

advertisements became much more blatant in linking participation in the Army with the

fulfillment of individual needs. This was reflected in World War II recruitment advertisements

like the Army’s “NOW you can choose your branch of the service”12 (1) or “Be a Cadet Nurse:

The Girl with a Future”13 (2). The former advertisement chose to link service for the nation as a

simultaneous consumption in the promotion of individuality by offering “choices” to their new

recruits. The freedom to choose also coincided with later, more developed liberal notions that

service to a state did not depend on self-sacrifice, as the speaker above suggested, but on the

state’s ability to return on that service in the form of personal gains.14 Language was used both

cleverly and explicitly in advertisements like that of the cadet nurse which uses terms like “a

future” and “a lifetime education” to describe the benefits a recruit would gain from service to

the state. This message was also explicitly stated in another advertisement directed at women

recruits. The poster is very plain with four overlapping bust portraits of women in various

military outfits which are framed by the slogan “For your country’s sake today- For your own

10 LizabethCohen,A Consumers’ Republic: the Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America,(NewYork:VintageBooks,2003).;RolandMarchand,Advertising the American Dream: making way for Modernity1920‐1940,(Berkley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1985).11 Cohen,A Consumers’ Republic,67.12 “Men18and19:NowYoucanChooseyourBranchoftheService,”poster(,10‐17‐1942)fromUniversityofNorthTexasLibrariesGovernmentDocumentsDepartment,World War Poster Collection,http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc173/(AccessedDecember14,2011)13 “BeaCadetNurse:theGirlwithaFuture,”poster(,1944)fromUNTLibrariesGovernmentDocumentsDepartment,World War Poster Collection,http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc249/(AccessedDecember14,2011).14AconclusionIcametofromaninfluentialstatementmadebyRonaldKrebsthat“Americansdonotexpecttheirnationalgovernmenttocallonthemtosacrificeforthenation,andtheydonotbelievethattheirrightsascitizensdo,orshould,hingeontheirwillingnesstodieforthenation.”Krebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates,”15.

sake tomorrow”15 (3). A temporal dichotomy arises from this statement whereby the state

assures you’re future of personal gains and liberal citizenship by acting for the state in the

present. This highly contrasts against previous declarations where state service held nothing to

gain but pride and glory. These recruiting advertisements signified the start of a significant shift

in the social-political structure of America that would come to be known as liberalism.

Fighting for Your Future and Reimbursements for Civic Duty

It is not shocking that military service, something which required a citizen to subsume his

or her individual needs to the needs of the state, would become the focal point of divergence for

the development of the liberal identity since World War II. Placing an individual’s ability to

fulfill his or her needs as an integral part of national success set consumerism as the main forum

in which to serve the state. It is a pathway between the state and its returning fighting citizenry

which was exemplified in the design of the G.I. Bill. During the war citizens were encouraged to

think of their selective fulfillment of state approved individual consumer needs as a fulfillment of

their duty to uphold the state that they believed existed to protect them. Qualified, male citizens

within America were encouraged to fulfill this duty by stepping into the citizen-soldier role with

a consumerist twist.

This twist was most obviously reflected in soldier consumption of the pin-up girl.

Historian Robert B. Westbrook provides an excellent exploration of this form of consumption

and its effects on ideas regarding citizenship. As he explains, the state’s encouragement of the

consumption of pin-ups was a way for individuals to “defend private interests and discharge

15 “ForyourCountry’sSakeToday:ForyourownSakeTomorrow,”poster(,1944)fromtheSmithsonianMuseumofAmericanHistory,The Price of Freedom: Americans at War,http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/collection/object.asp?ID=566&back=1(AccessedDecember14,2011)

private obligations” while enforcing the amalgamation of personal needs as needs of the state.16

The fulfillment of this link was ever present in the plethora “what we are fighting for” themed

pin-up advertisements (though pictured more modestly than the Yank, Stars and Stripes, and

Esquire pin-ups). The pin-up was a fantastical evocation of the All-American girls at home they

needed to protect. At this time, we don’t see a huge amount of male recruitment advertisements

utilizing the pin-up directly as incentive, but its permeation within the ranks of soldiers and the

message it affirmed was extremely clear: this is what we’re fighting for. There were a few

instances, however, when the pin-up was used more directly. Take for example the blonde pin-

up saluting the Army Air Corps (4) for their service from the wing of an airplane which was

being used as a direct motivator for joining the Army Air Corps;17 or the “He Volunteered for

Submarine Service,” (5) which pictured the modest girl at home version swooning over her man

in order to glamorize the Navy.18 Then one has the “Fly! For her liberty and yours”19 (6)

recruitment poster for the Army Air Forces which is possibly one of the most explicit visual

displays for the discharge of private interest through service to the state. The similarities

between the personification “Lady Liberty” as a representative of the state along with the All-

American girl who is clinging to the soldier’s arm link them as one in the same interests.

Although the evocation of “what we are fighting for” was by no means a new trend, it would

have serious implications in a world driven by individual consumerist trends. Instead of citizens 16AlthoughWestbrook’sargumentandexplorationintothisareaismuchmorecomplexthanIgiveitcreditfor,itsbreadthisnotsuitableforthisresearch.Hisdevelopmentoftheintrinsicallyoxymoronicideathatastate,legitimizedbyitscitizenrytosecuretheirsafety,needstocallonthecitizenrytoprotectthatsafetyandmustfindawaytolegitimizesuchactions,is,however,essentialtothedevelopmentofmyargument.RobertB.Westbrook,“’IWantaGirl,JustLiketheGirlThatMarriedHarryJames’:AmericanWomenandtheProblemofPoliticalObligationinWorldWarII,”American Quarterly,Vol.42,No.4,(December1990)p588.17 EarlMacPherson,“AtYourCommand”poster,(1942)fromtheArmyAirCorpsLibrary&Museum,http://www.armyaircorpsmuseum.org/WWII_Posters.cfm(AccessedDecember14,2011)18 “HeVolunteeredforSubmarineService,”fromNationalArchivesandRecordsAdministration,World War II Photograph,http://wwiiarchives.net/servlet/photo/470/0(AccessedDecember14,2011).19 “Fly!ForHerLibertyandYours,”poster(,1941)fromtheNationalArchivesandRecordsAdministration,http://narademo.umiacs.umd.edu/cgi‐bin/isadg/viewitem.pl?item=30697(AccessedDecember14,2011).

fulfilling obligations to a state which provided for their needs, they were encouraged “to join the

war effort in order to defend the state that protected them.”20 This transition had a direct impact

on the change in the perception of the role of the Army within American society as liberalism

infiltrated the everyday role of citizenship.

The G.I. Bill of Rights was developed as a way “to avoid the severe economic disruption,

massive unemployment, and political unrest that had followed World War I” by encouraging

individual consumerism in all areas of life.21 In essence, the bill was the embodiment of the end

of the selfless civil service era. As Elliot Cohen assessed, the G.I. Bill in essence was the

creation of the individual within the group, which, by offering individual advancement, advanced

notions of liberal democracy into the world of military civic duty.22 Even though I do not feel

that the G.I. Bill was designed as an exchange incentive in the way we may view it today, it

created a system that no longer just expected civic service as an unquestioned role of citizenry to

one which required representation of one’s deeds through compensation for interrupting the

citizen’s life and in essence their personal rights. In a way, it was like the state was trying to

make up for the time these men lost to build their lives by expediting it with “gifts.”

As a profound statement about the new options soldiers were given on their return home

from war one could view advertisements depicting a contemplative soldier as he pondered “Shall

I go back to school?”23 (7) Equally as revealing was the “Information for Veterans of our Armed

Forces” booklet being distributed by the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company of

20 Westbrook,“’IWantaGirl,JustLiketheGirlThatMarriedHarryJames’,”588.21 Cohen,A Consumers’ Republic,137.22 Cohen,Citizens & Soldiers,137.23 “ShouldIgoBacktoSchool,”posterhttp://www.squidoo.com/gi‐bill(AccessedDecember14,2011)

Boston24 (8). The advertisement boasts of all the possible options soldiers had at their disposal

to improve their life after their time at war. Unfortunately, this relationship would not only link

the state to consumer ideologies and practices but, in some ways, lead to a muddled

understanding of what the responsibilities of the state and citizen were to each other. Instead of

just returning home to the lives they had before the war started, as generations had done before

them, America’s soldiers were now being encouraged to invest in a new life through military

designed programs of consumption. For all their hard work they were being rewarded with

consumer goods like an education and low interest loans to improve their lives.

For the Good of You, If You are Good Enough

The real issue of the G.I. Bill, however, was that it rewarded only specific types of war

efforts even though all American citizens were subject to some form of war contribution. In this

regard the bill, designed to create a link between the spheres of civilian life and soldier life also

split them by designating soldiers as a beneficiary group and civilians as not.25 There were also

the more internal issues regarding the ability of soldiers from minority groups to utilize the bill to

its full potential.26 Although many people may think that these inequities undermine my use of

the G.I. Bill to analyze all sociological classes of American citizens regarding civic obligations, I

would state the contrary. I would argue that these discrepancies in fact emphasized and

polarized groups as they addressed issues of citizen obligations over the next thirty years in a

fight to equalize their status with that of the favored majority.

The government, by setting itself up as a provider of services in exchange for services, all

but removed the theory of civil obligation in favor of the more individualistic and consumer

24 “ThisFreeBooklethasAlltheAnswers,”advertisement(SaturdayEveningPost,October6,1945)fromGalleryofGraphicDesign,http://advertising.tjs‐labs.com/gallery‐view?advertiser=W%25D%25C(AccessedDecember14,2011)25 LizabethCohen, A Consumers’ Republic,138.26 LizabethCohen,A Consumers’ Republic,166.

based business. Further, by providing unequal compensation for services rendered, groups were

then able to mobilize around these ideas as unfair business practices, a hindrance of the free

market and, in turn, a suppression of the individual’s civil rights. As individual rights were

superimposed over the state’s, it changed the essential balance of what the state was supposed to

offer the citizen and the citizen’s obligation to respond to such “requests” which now depended

on the likelihood of their individual needs being met by such an endeavor. The world of the

consumer civilian would clash violently with that of the selfless soldier as the reaction of

liberalism sought to equalize the social inequities developed since World War II.

The G.I. Bill created an aided path of socio-economic mobility for soldiers.27 As

discussed above, the unequal distribution of goods spurred marginalized groups to call upon the

state to redress the issue it had created by favoring one group over another. Although the social

movement of liberalism was the main instigator for the transition into the AVF, there was also an

important alteration in the American military tradition during the thirty years that followed

World War II and helped to catalyze the creation of the AVF during Vietnam. Since the creation

of the AVF, many scholars have been quick to point out that American memory tends to be

flawed when it comes to the draft.28 They forget that up until World War II and the following

thirty years, which were dedicated to asserting our superpower status, the draft had only been

instituted in the event of war and not the semi-permanent status it had acquired during this

period. This pattern created an era where civilian lives were often disrupted as they were called

to perform civic duties owed to their country as previously agreed upon by their citizenship.

27LizabethCohenarguesthattheG.I.Billwascreditedformuchmoremobilitythanrealityhasevershown.Yetitispreciselythefactthatitwasperceivedthiswaybymarginalizedgroupswhichcatalyzedargumentsforequalityofcitizenshipthroughequalityofcivilrightstoindividualopportunities.L.Cohen156‐165.28 BethBailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace:RecruitinganAll‐VolunteerForce,”The Journal of American History,Vol.94,no.1,(June2007),48.

We must remember, however, that the American military had always had a type of buy-

out clause, established since its inception, commonly known to contemporaries as Selective

Service registration, an option which was primarily only accessible to the elite classes. During

full mobilization like that seen in World War II, Selective Service functioned to “secure the

maximum number of soldiers while preserving the nation’s war economy”29 which created an

equalized war experience amongst the population. Korea was the first war America had been

involved in which did not require the entire nation to mobilize and commit in some manner or

another to the war effort; yet Korea, due its proximity to World War II and principles of civic-

military obligation, escaped the social upheaval experienced in the “me” generation of Vietnam.

Vietnam’s call for only part of the nation to mobilize for war unevenly distributed the pressures

of the war amongst a population who either resented their individual pursuits being interrupted to

serve or didn’t have access to the tools needed to escape service. The increasingly individualistic

identity of liberalism, the perceived inequality caused by the G.I. Bill, and the ability for those

who had benefitted from the bill to escape military service came to a head during the unpopular

Vietnam War eventually resulting in the end of the draft.

The Great Divorce of Citizenship and Military Obligation

It wasn’t long before America’s entrance into Vietnam that John F. Kennedy had called

on Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your

country,”30 in his inaugural address of 1961. Despite being supportive of the citizen-soldier

ideal, his evocation of it implicitly acknowledges the fact that citizens were requiring their state

to provide more for them at no cost. At a time when American’s were experiencing the uneven

distribution of pressures associated with the Vietnam War groups were mobilizing to assert their 29 ElliotCohen,Citizens & Soldiers,164.30 JohnF.Kennedy,“TranscriptofJohnF.Kennedy’sInauguralAddress(1961),”  Our Documents,http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=91&page=transcript(Accessed,December15,2011).

rights as equals, especially as they felt the burdens of Selective Service disproportionately fell on

those who did not have access to the tools and routes necessary to avoid military service. This

was aided by the ideological shift created during World War II where the dispensation of civic

service was mingled with the dispensation of individual interests whereby that the draft and

military alike were now seen as violations of an individual rights as they violated individual

interests.

In the new liberal socio-political climate it was inevitable, barring some major

catastrophe, that the draft was nearing its end. By 1972 there was an acknowledgment that “[t]he

pressures towards liberalization within the armed forces in recent years have largely been a

response to the demand of civilians-in-uniform brought in by the draft,” emphasizing just how

different ideas of citizenship had become between the civilian and soldier sectors. In 1971 the

Army officially began to embrace the switch with some trepidation knowing that it was now

subject to the principles of the job market.31 The term “job market” should not be taken lightly;

in fact, it had serious implications for the Army. The use of “job” here implies employment

which meant that services rendered by the employee are subject to compensation by the

employer; “market” suggests that jobs must project themselves as competitive products which

convince individuals that they would find them beneficial to their needs and worth investing in.

Combining the two terms creates an arena in which the Army had to critically look at their image

in relation to their compensation and decide whether they had a winning combination that would

attract young Americans.

The specter of Vietnam and the perceived contradictions between military culture and

ideas of liberal citizenship would be a significant obstacle for the Army to overcome in its

31 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”49.

advertising image creation.32 Yet, even if the Army was able to smooth all of their image issues

out and change their internal system enough to create significant incentive for young Americans

to enlist, they still had to contend with the much greater issue that the Army was not a normal

consumer product that young men and women were deciding on. It was a product that required

them to risk their lives when the nation called them to duty.33 The question was what life they

were risking. A New York Times article put it bluntly when it stated that despite a three-hundred-

twenty-six percent increase in pay since 1963 “it may still prove to be difficult for a modern

Army, Navy and Air Force to get enough bright, well-educated young men without the draft,

especially if the civilian economy returns to full employment.”34 The structure of the Army was

also uniquely designed in that your personal life is inherently tied to your service, a tie which

was exacerbated in the shift to an AVF. Prior to 1973 Army service was geared towards single

males and was often seen or used as a hiatus in the life-career path of an individual.35 The fact

that young Americans were now consciously choosing the Army as a life-career path meant that

there was increased pressure for the Army to provide for the greater development of these young

people’s lives as well.

The first slogan put out by America’s Army was “Today’s Army Wants to Join You.”36

The slogan focuses on the individual as the example setter and teacher. By placing the Army in

the tag along “join” role it produced a sense that the Army wanted to know what their young men

and women had to say. It was an admission of sorts that they were behind the times and wanted

to gain entrance into America’s youthful “in-group.” America’s youth, their needs and desires

32 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”49&54.33 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”63.34 “AnAll‐VolunteerArmy?,”The New York Times,May29,1972(AccessedDecember14,2011).35 Kelly,Ryan,MeredithKleykampandDavidR.Segal.“TheMilitaryandtheTransitiontoAdulthood.”181‐207.36 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”61.

alike, were to be the example setters to update the Army’s new culture. Inevitably, the slogan

was joined by various other catch lines which focused on various areas of individual desires and

improvement. Lines like “We care more about how you think, than how you cut your hair”37 (9)

attempted to dismantle the stigma that they created cookie-cutter personnel who were required to

respect and respond to the hierarchical authority system that was the Army.38 The narrative of

the ad uses key statements like “We spend a lot of time and money helping you get exactly the

training and instruction that does the most for you” and “… you won’t be the first person to go

through college at Army expense. In fact, you can go as far as you like. In just about any

field.”39 There is a double focus emanating from these declarations: first, that employment in the

Army allowed the individual to pursue an avenue which would enhance their life; second, that

the Army was fully committed (ideologically and financially) to the individual’s pursuance of

personal self-fulfillment.

Education was not the only opportunity for personal enhancement, however. The tag line

“When was the last time you got promoted?” (10) uses a multifaceted narrative which presents

the Army as a great place to get the “skill and experience” needed to gain employment in “[j]obs

with a future,” but also as an institution which provided the same type of mobility found in the

civilian sector yet with greater security.40 The Army was keen to express the fact that “the salary

you earn in today’s Army goes a long way when you consider your meals, housing, medical and

dental care are all free,” articulating the Army’s attempts to help young American’s build their

adult lives. Following in this same vein was “Take the Army’s 16-month Tour of Europe” (11)

37 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”60.38 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”60.39Italicizedareasareforemphasisandnotapartoftheoriginaltext.Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”60.40 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”67.

which gave the young enlistee “the chance of a lifetime.”41 Picturing him sitting across a table

from a beautiful young woman in a foreign country was suggestive of the life building and

worldly opportunities which had previously only been available to the elite classes. In offering

such a working option the Army was attempting to equalize the opportunities available to all

classes of American society. By focusing on the different drives and goals of enlisting young

men and women, the Army was redefining military service as something other than an unspoken

requirement of citizenship.

A Not-So Enticing Offer?

The actual transition into the AVF was accompanied with the slogan change “Join the

People Who’ve Joined the Army” and a continued hodgepodge of consumer promises.42

However, the idea was not necessarily an enticing one. A 1973 Harris Poll revealed “the

American public ranked the military only at about the level of sanitation workers in relative

order of respect”43 Although the concept, as quoted by N.W. Ayer’s executive vice president

and associate creative director Theodore M. Regan Jr., in a 1979 New York Times article was to

“attract the quality [recruits] we want through the quality we have,”44 in reference to the

campaign’s use of real recruits giving their reasons for joining the Army, despair over the quality

of recruits had been well voiced publicly for quite some time. The Army had actually been

making the majority of their annual quotas throughout the 70’s by accepting “lower-quality

41Ibid,68.42 MaryKateChambersandDavidVergun,“ArmyrecruitingmessageshelpkeepArmyrollingalong,”Army News Service,(October9,2006),http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/news/Top_Military_News/army‐recruiting‐messages‐.shtml(AccessedDecember14,2011).43 America and the Vietnam War: Re‐Examining the Culture and History of a Generation,ed.byMaryKathrynBarbier,GlennRobinsandAndrewWeist,(NewYork:Routledge,2010)274.44 PhilipH.Dougherty,“Advertising:NewArmyRecruitingCampaign,”New York Times,Mar16,1979(AccessedDecember14,2011)

recruits,”45 but in order for them to get the quality recruits they needed to combat this by not only

“enhance[ing] recruiting in the short run” but by also “establish[ing] a foundation for future

recruiting by cultivating positive images and perceptions about military service.”46

The Army had come to be seen as a “valuable social purpose in providing education and

job training for many young men and women,” but what seemed to be forgotten was that the

Army ultimately had to teach a recruit how to be a soldier.47 The Army’s needs were clashing

violently with civilian liberties and advertisements weren’t telling the whole story. As one

officer so eloquently put it:

How do you teach a guy to fight, to be a god-damn soldier, when the whole emphasis now is on learning a specialized trade? … The Army advertisements claim ‘We can teach you this, we can teach you that.’ But what we’ve really got to teach these guys is how to kill somebody.48

By the 1979, facing bad press and recruiting scandals, the Army decided to add the tag line “This

is the Army” and allow its recruits to tell their experiences. The photos did most of the talking.

Pictured as civilians and soldiers alike, they rattled off a variety of ways the Army had helped

them lead a more fulfilled and individual life (12).49 Between the complaints and the hype, what

was realized out of the 70’s era of advertising was that there was a “fundamental tension between

45A1978New York Timesarticlereviewedthefactthat“[b]othwhiteandblackrecruitscomeingoodpartfromtheunemployed17percentofthenation’syouth…Crime,disciplinarycases,hard‐drugproblemsanddesertionratesintheArmyhavefallensincetheVietnamWar,butlittlemorethanhalfthenewrecruitsarehighschoolgraduates,”asacontributingfactorto,asoneArmycaptainsaid,“[t]hetoughestproblemwe[theArmy]comeacrossismakingwinnersoutofthem.”“CanWeAffordaVolunteerArmy?,”New York Times,May13,1978(AccessedDecember14,2011).;America and the Vietnam War, ed.byMaryKathrynBarbier,GlennRobinsandAndrewWeist,274.46 JamesN.DertouzosandStevenGarber,Is Military Advertising Effective?: an Estimation     Methodology and Application to Recruiting in the 1980s and 90s,(SantaMonica,CA;Arlington,VA;Pittsburgh,PA:Rand,2003),1.47 “CanWeAffordaVolunteerArmy?,”New York Times,May13,1978(AccessedDecember14,2011).;48 BethBailey,America’s Army: Making the All‐Volunteer Force,(Cambridge,Massachusetts:TheBelknapPressofHarvardUniversity,2009),122.49 “ThisIstheArmy,”advertisement(U.S.Army,1973),fromPBS,http://www.pbs.org/pov/soldados/popup/special_then_join1.html(AccessedDecember15,2011)

notions of military service as opportunity and as exploitation.”50 It furthermore displayed that by

usurping the institutional goals and beliefs by focusing on the goals and beliefs of the individual,

the Army was, at the outset, attempting to bridge the divergence American liberalism had created

between the civilian and the soldier. As one New York Times article put it, by ignoring its

“uniqueness apart from society and a sense of ethics deeply rooted in its own experiences and

traditions,” in favor of business ethics “dictated by cost-effectiveness” the Army lost their

primary device for compelling individual behavior: a “sense of belonging, of sharing common

values and of being unique.”51

Exponential Potential in the Army

Although many may view 70’s advertising as a flop after looking at the internal strains

and external tensions the Army experienced with America’s new liberal culture I feel that it was

ultimately a very successful message even if not entirely realistic. As one study mentioned

“[r]egardless of the reasons why a person joins the Army, the decision to enlist is preceded by

mental impressions of what to expect from Army life.”52 The 1980’s was dedicated to a

retrofitting of the Army structure. Between 1981 and 1982 soldier’s salaries were raised by

twenty-five percent, the G.I. Bill was re-instated and the Army College Fund was initiated.53

50 Bailey,America’s Army,128.51 RichardA.Gabriel,“WhattheArmyLearnedFromBusiness,”New York Times,(April15,1979).CharlesC.MoskosoffersapersuasivereconstructionofthisconceptGabrielassertshasbeenlostintheArmy:“peopleinanoccupationtendtofeelasenseofidentitywithotherswhodothesamesortofworkandwhoreceiveaboutthesamepay.Inaninstitution[liketheArmy],ontheotherhand,itistheorganizationwherepeopleliveandworkwhichcreatesthesenseofidentitythatbindsthemtogether.Verticalidentification[institution]meansoneacquiresanunderstandingandsenseofresponsibilityfortheperformanceofthewhole.”CharlesC.Moskos,“SocialConsiderationsoftheAll‐VolunteerForce,”Military Service in the United States,ed.GeneralBrentScowcroft(EnglewoodCliffs,NewJersey:PrenticeHall,Inc.,1982)139.52 WilliamH.Harkley,KarenWhitehillKing,andLeonardN.Reid,“ArmyAdvertising’sPerceivedinfluence:SomePreliminaryFindings,”Journalism Quarterly,Vol.65,Issue3(Fall1988)719.53 America and the Vietnam War, ed.byMaryKathrynBarbier,GlennRobinsandAndrewWeist,278.

1981 signaled the start of the Army’s newest ad campaign. The “Be All that You Can Be”54 (13)

campaign lasted for two decades. The jingle, starting with the lines “I know this world is

changing, Changing every day, And you’ve got to know, your way around, If you’re going all

the way”55 displayed the Army as appreciative of the developing world around them. The

rhetoric suggested that the Army offered these young recruits opportunities that they otherwise

would never have had, allowing each of them to fulfill their full potential.

The focus on what the individual could gain out of their experience in the Army was

feasible in a generally stable era of peace.56 There was little military action to interfere with the

achievement of individual goals and allowed for the image of the Army to firmly shift from one

of constant obligations to the state one of individual achievement on all fronts. Even

characteristics of pre-AVF military service like discipline, teamwork, and sacrifice were

translated into functioning characteristics of leaders in the liberal world of civilians. As quoted

by Professor Andrew Bacevich: “Contributing to the country’s defense now became not a civic

duty but a matter of individual choice. The choice carried no political or moral connotations.”57

As a result of this disconnect the Army is rarely able to pull recruits from the upper classes of

America who feel the Army offers incomparable incentive for them to join, creating just as

unrepresentative a force as was seen during Vietnam.58 During times of peace these questions go

relatively unanswered, but after an American renewal of war-time affairs in 2001 questions of

what the Army really offers its recruits have again been raised. As scholar Beth Bailey observed

54 ArmyRecruitingAdvertisements,"American Decades Primary Sources,Ed.CynthiaRose.Vol.9:1980‐1989,(Detroit:Gale,2004).384‐388.Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE|CX3490201743&v=2.1&u=taco25438&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w,(AccessedDec15,2011).55 Bailey,America’s Army,193.56 Bailey,America’s Army,196.57 America and the Vietnam War, ed.byMaryKathrynBarbier,GlennRobinsandAndrewWeist,296.58 KathyRoth‐DouquetandFrankSchaeffer,AWOL: the Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper     Classes from the Military‐‐and how it hurts our Country,(NewYork:HarperCollins,2006)36.

the advertising of “money for college, marketable skills, achievement, adventure, personal

transformation … sounded inappropriate, if not absurd” as American soldiers were once again

risking life and limb for their country.59 Despite all the energy the Army had poured into

transforming itself into the closest thing possible to civilian life it has one hurdle it will never be

able to get over, the fact that when war occurs its risks cannot be equated by numbers and figures

like those of business, but by its ethics and morals.

Conclusion: The Unrepresentative Representative

Americans are proud of their freedom. We declare its potency in every act of injustice

we fight against. Our freedom is the basis of our citizenship, a concept which drastically

changed following World War II from one where we earned our freedoms by supporting the state

to one where the state exists only to secure our freedoms with no questions asked. Moving into

an AVF was a monumental task of internal and external reconstruction for the Army as they

attempted to match itself to notions of liberal individualism. Although it would be easy to say

that we have lost the citizen-soldier language as America moved towards consumer incentives

and personal gains in the work place, it purely would not be true, especially in times of conflict.60

Instead the language has found itself a strange bedfellow with the realities of liberal culture.61 In

all regards the two themes have coexisted in a contentious relationship which is often

manipulated to fit the needs of specific motivations (i.e. recruitment, public support, political,

etc.). These are realities, which our soldier class has become very aware of and our civilian

sector seems to have forgotten, are creating a noticeable trend of separation and isolation

between the groups.

59 Bailey,“TheArmyintheMarketplace,”47.60 ThebasisofRonaldKrebs’articlewastodiscountthemyththattheAVF,forallintentsandpurposes,hadkilledcitizen‐soldierrhetoric.Krebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates,”154.61 Krebs,“TheCitizen‐SoldierTraditionintheUnitedStates,”166

This harkens back to pre-AVF fears that an AVF “may become more insulated from the

rest of this democratic and civilian society and constitute a disturbing authoritarian force in

American life.”62 Although most Americans don’t regard the military with fear, it has become

obvious to most of them that the business-like manner we treat our Army with has placed a

disproportionate amount of pressure on them to absorb the effects of our nation’s wars. This

brings up further questions of the Army’s representative quality. As an institution which has, for

the last three and a half decades, promoted the economic advantages of enlisting in the Army it

has pulled overwhelmingly from the disadvantaged classes of an American society which lacks

an overarching moralistic concept which could bind all sections of society.63 The Army attempts

to bridge the gap between liberal America and the realities of military culture in their advertising.

The pronounced nature of that gap in current times of war has caused the Army to view civilians

as under appreciative and capricious of the citizenship they have and the citizenship those of the

Army earn.

62 “AnAll‐VolunteerArmy?,”New York Times, (May29,1972).63StevenA.Holmes,“ForJobandCountry:IsThisReallyAnAll‐VolunteerArmy?,”New York Times,(April6,2003).

Fig.1 Fig.2

Fig.5 Fig.4

Fig.5 Fig.6

Fig.7 Fig.8

Fig.9

Fig.10

Fig.11

Fig.12

Fig.13

Sackman, Hist. 400 Katrine Nielsen

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