By Beth Bailey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
ISBN 978-1-4696-7326-4. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
Pp. 341. $35.00.
In her 2009 book America’s Army, Beth Bailey probed both the origins and implications of the change from conscription to an all-volunteer army. In An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam War Era, she continues her investigation of social and institutional change and the relationship between the two. During the Vietnam War era, the U.S. Army had to fight an increasingly controversial war, while at the same time confronting significant, sometimes drastic, changes in American society. With her study of this effort, she has produced an exemplary study of the military’s attempts to deal with a pressing problem that, in many ways, also brought upheaval in the broader American society.
One of the most pressing problems faced by the Army during the period Bailey investigates was indeed race. So significant was this challenge that the Army did not view racial discord as merely a “problem,” as it was often called in civilian society. Rather, racial issues presented a full-blown crisis for the Army, one which could significantly undermine the ability of the force to fight the Vietnam War. It was this sense of crisis during wartime, furthermore, which accelerated the pace of the Army’s attempts at “managing the racial crisis that threatened to tear the institution apart” (p 275).
Rather than focusing on “movements for social change” themselves (p 5), Bailey is interested in the means by which changes become laws or policies and are thus enforced by those with the authority to do so. In the case of the U.S. military, the institution had an especially authoritative capacity to enforce its decisions over its members. This makes the Army a particularly apt case study. Also recommending the Army for such a study is the fact that it was, by the 1960s, one of the most racially integrated of all American institutions.
From housing to haircuts, race was a factor for the American soldier. Nor was the Army confronted with the problem of race only in Vietnam and the United States. Bailey provides a particularly fascinating discussion of the problems faced by African American soldiers trying to find off-base accommodations in Germany. As in Vietnam, black troops had to face racism and discrimination from the very people whom they were there to defend. It was in Vietnam itself that racial crises became most threatening for the Army. The best-known of the racial “incidents” during the war was the Long Binh Jail riot of 1968, in which one prisoner was killed and over 100 others were injured. This number included the camp commander, who was beaten so badly that he had to retire.
Such incidents of tumult and even violence are an important element of Bailey’s narrative. What is most striking is her treatment of the Army leadership’s earnest attempts to handle the crisis. From racial sensitivity exercises to what today would be called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the Army experimented with a wide range of means to address and rectify racial problems in order to end the crisis. Bailey concludes the book by asking a simple question, namely, “Did it work?” (p 275). Her answer is a qualified “yes.” The Army achieved the stability necessary to continue its mission of fighting the war in Indochina, and this stability had, after all, been its aim the whole time. This in no way meant that race no longer posed a problem for the defense establishment, nor that racism had ceased to be a serious issue for America’s fighting forces. Still, race was no longer a crisis that threatened the ability of the Army to do its job.
Beth Bailey has provided her readers with an exemplary analysis of the U.S. Army’s attempts to address the racial crisis that challenged its very capacity to effectively fight a major war. Clearly and engagingly written, An Army Afire should find a readership well beyond military historians and scholars of the Vietnam War. The general reader with an interest in the history of the Army in the past century will also benefit greatly from reading Bailey’s compelling book.
Steven J. Brady
Washington, DC