United States Armed Forces Celebrating 60 Years of Integration: 1948- 2008

摘要

The history of the U.S. military attests to its success in overcoming skepticism and suspicion within its own ranks when compelled to do so by political mandate or practical dictates. Despite repeated resistance, the U.S. military has throughout its history created cohesive and effective fighting units out of a fractious and diverse collection of civilians, integrating service members with vast differences in cultural background, religious practices, and language and belief systems. In an effort to detail these lessons of successful integration of diverse civilian personnel into the military, this paper will explore the laws and policies that affected the integration of the U.S. armed forces during the periods of the Colonial Era up to 1940, the integration period from 1940 to 1965, and the post-integration period from 1965 to present day 2008. As this paper explores the path of integration within the military ranks, it is essential to illustrate how social norms in the United States brought about different challenges and pressures for government and military leaders during each era in U.S. history. Law and policy development, which usually revolved around acceptable social norms, was affected by these challenges and pressures. This led to the development of some laws and policies that violated acceptable social norms, and subsequently the exclusion of select groups within the U.S. populous. Some of the main groups excluded at one time or another (and at times still at present) within U.S. society range from Native Americans to Black slaves, extending to Hispanics, Asians, and women, and at times Irish, Italian, and Polish Americans. For the purposes of this review, the main focus of integration will revolve around race, ethnicity and gender.