I Want You!

I Want You!

Author: Bernard D. Rostker

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2006-09-08

Total Pages: 833

ISBN-13: 0833040685

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As U.S. military forces appear overcommitted and some ponder a possible return to the draft, the timing is ideal for a review of how the American military transformed itself over the past five decades, from a poorly disciplined force of conscripts and draft-motivated "volunteers" to a force of professionals revered throughout the world. Starting in the early 1960s, this account runs through the current war in Iraq, with alternating chapters on the history of the all-volunteer force and the analytic background that supported decisionmaking. The author participated as an analyst and government policymaker in many of the events covered in this book. His insider status and access offer a behind-the-scenes look at decisionmaking within the Pentagon and White House. The book includes a foreword by former Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird. The accompanying DVD contains more than 1,700 primary-source documents-government memoranda, Presidential memos and letters, staff papers, and reports-linked directly from citations in the electronic version of the book. This unique technology presents a treasure trove of materials for specialists, researchers, and students of military history, public administration, and government affairs to draw upon.


The All-volunteer Force

The All-volunteer Force

Author: Barbara A. Bicksler

Publisher: Potomac Books

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Can America continue to maintain its military commitments without conscription?


America's Army

America's Army

Author: Beth Bailey

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-11-23

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0674035364

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

" ... the story of the all-volunteer force, from the draft protests and policy proposals of the 1960s through the Iraq War"--Jacket.


The Volunteer

The Volunteer

Author: Jack Fairweather

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 0062561421

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

COSTA BOOK AWARD WINNER: BOOK OF THE YEAR • #1 SUNDAY TIMES (UK) BESTSELLER “Superbly written and breathtakingly researched, The Volunteer smuggles us into Auschwitz and shows us—as if watching a movie—the story of a Polish agent who infiltrated the infamous camp, organized a rebellion, and then snuck back out. ... Fairweather has dug up a story of incalculable value and delivered it to us in the most compelling prose I have read in a long time.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and Tribe The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his death-defying attempt to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ plans for a “Final Solution” before it was too late. To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a thirty-nine-year-old Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: assume a fake identity, intentionally get captured and sent to the new camp, and then report back to the underground on what had happened to his compatriots there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside—where the Germans would least expect it. The name of the camp was Auschwitz. Over the next two and half years, Pilecki forged an underground army within Auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi informants and officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying truth that the camp was to become the epicenter of Nazi plans to exterminate Europe’s Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so, meant attempting the impossible—an escape from Auschwitz itself. Completely erased from the historical record by Poland’s post-war Communist government, Pilecki remains almost unknown to the world. Now, with exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, Jack Fairweather offers an unflinching portrayal of survival, revenge and betrayal in mankind’s darkest hour. And in uncovering the tragic outcome of Pilecki’s mission, he reveals that its ultimate defeat originated not in Auschwitz or Berlin, but in London and Washington.


Twenty Years of Service

Twenty Years of Service

Author: Brandon J. Archuleta

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0700629769

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Military pension policies are as old as the republic itself and reside at the intersection of American social, economic, and defense policy. But as the nation’s social and economic circumstances underwent dramatic changes over the last half century, military pension policy remained static, stuck in the personnel and retirement model of the industrial age. This book examines why. Integrating policy history, theory, and practice, Twenty Years of Service provides the most comprehensive examination of US military pension policy in a generation. Brandon J. Archuleta sets the stage with an exploration of the rise, evolution, and transformation of the veterans’ policy subsystem from the American Revolution through World War II. The ensuing theoretical overview explains how the military personnel policy subsystem achieved the autonomy it enjoyed from 1948 to 2018; it also offers a new perspective on autonomous policy subsystems in general, which helps to account for the long-term pension policy stasis. In practical terms, Archuleta explores the role of the successful 2015 Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission as an institutional venue for policy change during the congressional budget battles of the 2010s. Through extensive archival research, illustrative case studies, and field interviews with Pentagon bureaucrats, congressional staffers, veterans’ lobbyists, defense scholars, and journalists, Twenty Years of Service brings the policymaking process to life. Its insights will prove invaluable to policy scholars and defense practitioners alike.


Our Forgotten Volunteers

Our Forgotten Volunteers

Author: Bojan Pajic

Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing

Published: 2019-03-24

Total Pages: 1046

ISBN-13: 1925801446

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Australian and New Zealand volunteers were already in Serbia, treating wounded Serbian soldiers and fighting a typhus epidemic, before the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli in 1915. The Gallipoli Campaign sealed Serbia’s fate, however, as Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria moved to secure a land supply corridor to Turkey through Serbia. Australians and New Zealanders accompanied the Serbian Army on a deadly retreat over wintry mountains to the Adriatic coast. When the fighting shifted to the Salonika or ‘Macedonian’ Front, many served there with the British Army, the Royal Flying Corps, two AIF units and six Royal Australian Navy destroyers in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. Some died in action, others from disease. Several hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies treated the wounded and sick in an Australian-led volunteer hospital and in British and New Zealand Army hospitals. The author Miles Franklin was a medical orderly supporting the Serbian Army; her little-known memoir is quoted extensively in this book. Fifteen hundred Australians and New Zealanders served on this little known yet crucial battlefront. Now for the first time we have an engaging and comprehensive account of what they experienced and achieved in the Great War.


The U.S. Army's Transition to the All-volunteer Force, 1968-1974

The U.S. Army's Transition to the All-volunteer Force, 1968-1974

Author: Robert K. Griffith

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The U.S. Army's Transition to the All-Volunteer Force is a compelling analysis of the process by which the Army responded to the requirements of creating an all-volunteer force, reestablished in the United States at midnight on 30 June 1973 when induction authority expired. That the transition from virtual dependency on the draft to a manpower system based on volunteerism was accomplished nearly simultaneously with the withdrawal from Vietnam is all the more remarkable. Robert K. Griffith Jr. takes us through the turbulent years of transition from 1968 to 1974, examining both the broad context in which the end of the draft occurred and the less well-known perspective that Army leaders brought to bear on the challenge they faced. In spite of an environment of fierce opposition, those charged with developing and implementing the Army's three-phased program to achieve all-volunteer status persevered and approached the task with a determination to succeed. Griffith's history shows the key role played by the Army staff and Army secretariat in shaping the Army as it underwent deep alterations in the very foundations of its structure. It provides both a glimpse into the dynamics of the reciprocal relationship between the Army and society, and is a useful case study of the successful management of fundamental organizational change.


The U. S. Army's Transition to the All-Volunteer Force (1968-1974)

The U. S. Army's Transition to the All-Volunteer Force (1968-1974)

Author: Robert K. Griffith

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 1999-05

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0788178644

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The all-volunteer force, the historic norm in peacetime America, was reestablished in the U.S. on 30 June 1973, when induction authority expired. But never before had the U.S. attempted to field a standing Army in peacetime -- based on voluntary enlistments -- with the worldwide responsibilities that faced this force. Since the mid-1980s the ability of the armed forces to recruit and retain quality volunteers has not been seriously questioned. This book takes us through those years of transition, examining both the context in which the end of the draft occurred and the perspective which the Army's leaders brought to bear on the challenge they faced.