To Be All That You Can Be: Recruiting the All Volunteer Military

FAIN: FA-50556-04

Beth Bailey
Temple University (Philadelphia, PA 19122-6003)

"To Be All That You Can Be" is a cultural and social history of military recruiting campaigns since 1973, when the U.S. moved to an all-volunteer military. With the end of the draft, the military was forced to develop new recruiting strategies, including high-budget, sophisticated advertising campaigns, and to broaden its definition of potential recruits and of who "belongs" in the military. As the military has navigated the complexities of recruiting from an increasingly diverse population, it has used such advertising campaigns to appeal to women and to men of color; in so doing the armed forces have had had to represent a military--and a nation--in which these Americans belong. By analyzing these advertising campaigns in the context of military and governmental debates about personnel needs and recruiting tactics, I will demonstrate how the military has, in its recruiting efforts, portrayed and helped construct changing understandings of race, ethnicity, gender, and class in American society. In addition, by investigating the implicit contracts offered in these advertising campaigns both to potential recruits and to the public, my work will explain one way ideas about citizenship, patriotism, and obligation have been given shape in recent American culture. Finally, by analyzing the ways the military has tried to market itself to potential recruits and to the American public at large, my work will increase our understandings of the changing meaning of the military and of military service in the U.S. since the Vietnam War. We need, as scholars and as citizens, to understand more about the role the powerful institution of the U.S. military plays in creating social and cultural change and in shaping our ideas about issues ranging from race and gender to patriotism and the meaning of citizenship.

Media Coverage

(Review)
Author(s): Kotlowski
Publication: Pacific Historical Review
Date: 5/1/2011
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2011.80.2.327

(Review)
Author(s): O'Connell
Publication: International Journal
Date: 3/1/2010
URL: http://internationaljournal.ca/page/3

(Review)
Publication: Journal of Social history
Date: 10/1/2011
URL: http://jsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/1/320.short?rss=1

Tracing Voluntary Military Service (Review)
Author(s): Bandow
Publication: Washington Times
Date: 12/23/2009
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/23/tracing-voluntary-military-service/?page=all

Everyday Heroes (Review)
Author(s): John Nagl
Publication: Democracy
Date: 1/1/2010
URL: http://www.democracyjournal.org/15/6724.php?page=all

(Review)
Publication: Library Journal
Date: 10/15/2009
URL: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/professionalmedia/855934-284/military_history.html.csp

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Disobey the President (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Claire Potter
Publication: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: 6/7/2010
URL: http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/category/leadership/

America's Army (Review)
Author(s): Andrew huebner
Publication: Journal of American history
Date: 9/1/2010
URL: http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/issues/972/

From Vietnam to the All-Volunteer Army" (Review)
Author(s): Kurt Piehler
Publication: REviews in American History
Date: 12/1/2011
URL: http://museweb02-pub.library.uq.edu.au/journals/reviews_in_american_history/summary/v039/39.4.piehler.html

Associated Products

America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force (Book)
Title: America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force
Author: Beth Bailey
Abstract: America’s Army is the story of the all-volunteer force, from the draft protests and policy proposals of the 1960s through the Iraq War. It is also a history of America in the post-Vietnam era. In the Army, America directly confronted the legacies of civil rights and black power, the women’s movement, and gay rights. The volunteer force raised questions about the meaning of citizenship and the rights and obligations it carries; about whether liberty or equality is the more central American value; what role the military should play in American society not only in time of war, but in time of peace. And as the Army tried to create a volunteer force that could respond effectively to complex international situations, it had to compete with other “employers” in a national labor market and sell military service alongside soap and soft drinks.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=29313
Primary URL Description: Harvard University Press website
Secondary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1294423280
Secondary URL Description: WorldCat e-book entry
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780674035362

Prizes

Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award
Date: 6/1/2010
Organization: Army Historical Foundation
Abstract: The Army Historical Foundation has an annual awards program to recognize books and articles that have made a distinctive contribution to U.S. Army history. Candidates are nominated by their publishers. Each candidate receives an initial screening. A select Awards Committee of distinguished military historians and writers carefully judge the finalists. Each finalist is judged against the following four criteria: Significance to U.S. Army History, quality of writing (e.g. clarity, style and analysis), historical accuracy, and presentation (e.g. use of maps, photographs or other materials).

"The Army in the Marketplace" (Article)
Title: "The Army in the Marketplace"
Author: Beth Bailey
Abstract: In 1973 the United States abandoned the draft in favor of an all-volunteer military, despite the warnings of the House Armed Services Committee that such a force could be achieved only through a draft. The primary mover behind the shift to a volunteer force was neither public discontent nor youthful protesters, but a group of free-market economists surrounding Richard M. Nixon. Beth Bailey analyzes the move from a troubled military system based on the obligations of (male) citizenship to one that relied on market logic and on sophisticated marketing campaigns that pinpointed the supposed psychological needs of America's youth and promoted military service as a way to fulfill them.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/issues/941/
Primary URL Description: Journal of American History website, June 2007 issue
Periodical Title: Journal of American History

Prizes

Army Historical Association Article Prize
Date: 6/1/2008
Organization: Army Historical Foundation
Abstract: The Army Historical Foundation has an annual awards program to recognize books and articles that have made a distinctive contribution to U.S. Army history. Candidates are nominated by their publishers. Each candidate receives an initial screening. A select Awards Committee of distinguished military historians and writers carefully judge the finalists. Each finalist is judged against the following four criteria: Significance to U.S. Army History, quality of writing (e.g. clarity, style and analysis), historical accuracy, and presentation (e.g. use of maps, photographs or other materials).

“A Political History of the All-Volunteer Army,” (Article)
Title: “A Political History of the All-Volunteer Army,”
Author: Beth Bailey
Abstract: When the United States moved to an all-volunteer force (AVF) in 1973, the military was forced to compete in the national labor market without the cushion of conscription or draft-motivated volunteers. The Army, which needed to attract more than 20,000 recruits each month, turned to market research and advertising, began internal reform, and offered new benefits, portraying military service as opportunity rather than obligation. The turn to the labor market had political implications. As women and African Americans joined the military in unprecedented numbers, the Army served as a site of social experimentation, directly confronting the social change movements of the 1960s or 1970s and their legacies. Because an AVF requires high reenlistment rates and family-oriented benefits help retain soldiers, army dependents have come to far exceed army members, with implications for deployment, morale, and cost. And defining military service as labor market opportunity rather than citizen’s obligation is a critical shift in political definitions of citizenship.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol9/iss3/
Primary URL Description: Political Science journal homepage
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Forum
Publisher: bepress

“Teaching the JAH: The Army in the Marketplace,” (Web Resource)
Title: “Teaching the JAH: The Army in the Marketplace,”
Author: Beth Bailey
Abstract: Resources for using "The Army in the Marketplace" in the classroom: additional essays, images, and potential assignments.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/teaching/2007_06/index.html
Primary URL Description: JAH website link to "Teaching the JAH"

"Soldiering as Work: The All-Volunteer Force in the United States" (Book Section)
Title: "Soldiering as Work: The All-Volunteer Force in the United States"
Author: Beth Bailey
Editor: Erik-Jan Zurcher
Abstract: Part of a three-year international project through the International Institute of Social History to analyze the military as labor.
Year: 2013
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Book Title: War and the Soldier: A History of Military Employment in Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia, 1600-2000

Beth Bailey on her Book America's Army (Blog Post)
Title: Beth Bailey on her Book America's Army
Author: Beth Bailey
Abstract: Blog entry, in Rorotoko format, on America's Army
Date: 3/17/2010
Primary URL: rorotoko.com/interview/20100319_bailey_beth_on_america_army_making_all-volunteer_force/
Primary URL Description: the blog entry
Blog Title: Rorotoko
Website: rorotoko.com

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