This article analyzes the ethic of the US military to rescue its fallen warriors. The US military will go to extraordinary lengths to evacuate its wounded, and more interestingly, to recover its dead. While taking risks to recover the body of a fallen soldier may make no rational sense, it impacts significantly on the unit, the military profession, and US society. This article examines the “leave no man behind” phenomenon through individual, family, unit, institutional, and societal perspectives. Possible reasons why the ethic has increased in salience and potential future implications are also discussed.
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References
1.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the US Army War College, the US Army, or the US Department of Defense.
2.
Sophocles, Antigone, translated by R. C. Jebb, available online at http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html.
3.
Department of Defense news briefing, March 2002, available online at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2002/t03052002_t0305asd.html.
4.
Private G. Giggins, quoted in Lyn Macdonald, They Called it Passchendaele (New York: Atheneum, 1989), 169–169.
5.
Richard T. Cooper, “Fierce Fight In Afghan Valley Tests US Soldiers And Strategy,”Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2002, p. 1–1.
6.
American Battle Monuments Commission, Annual Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2002), 15–15.
7.
“News Briefs,”Army Times, August 26, 2002.
8.
Embassy of France, http://www.info-france-usa.org/atoz/legion/code.asp.
9.
Bill Crooks, quoted in Eric Bergerud, Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 467–467.
10.
Jerry D. Jenning, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (POW/Missing Personnel Affairs) remarks at the Disabled American Veterans’ 81st Annual Convention in Dallas, TX, August 12, 2002.
11.
Mary Beth Sheridan, “A Popular Request to the Rescuers: ‘Make Sure You Get Me.’”Washington Post, March 20, 2003.
12.
As part of the research for this study, the author made onsite visits to the Joint Task Force—Full Accounting headquarters; the US Army Central Identification Laboratory; the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia; the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Affairs office; Detachment 2 (Hanoi), Joint Task Force—Full Accounting; and a recovery operation in the vicinity of Nghe An province, Vietnam.
13.
Earl H. Tilford, Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 (Washington, DC: US Air Force, 1980), 3–3.
14.
Gerald F. Linderman, The World Within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II (New York: Free Press, 1997), 102–102.
15.
Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier (London: Sphere Books, 1986), 299–299.
16.
Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (New York: Bantam, 1981), 100–100.
17.
Bergerud, Touched with Fire, 467–467.
18.
John C. McManus, The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998), 152–152.
19.
Wallace Terry, Bloods (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984), 121–121.
20.
McManus, Deadly Brotherhood, 155–155.
21.
Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once... and Young (New York: Random House, 1992), 197–197.
22.
Samuel Heilman, quoted in Alexandra J. Wall, “Relatives of WTC Victims Confront Halachic Issues,” press release from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 28, 2001, available online at http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=10299&intcategoryid=4
23.
Ibid.
24.
McManus, Deadly Brotherhood, 153–153.
25.
Moore and Galloway, We Were Soldiers, 321–321.
26.
Many of the perspectives on death and grieving were brought out in conversations with the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), including those involved with the World Trade Center attacks.
27.
See Avis Thomas-Lester, “Relics From the Ruins: Army Unit Works to Return Belongings of Pentagon Victims,”Washington Post, July 28, 2002, p. C1–C1, for an example of the impact on the families of receiving the personal effects of victims.
28.
Bergerud, Touched with Fire, 467–467.
29.
Ibid., 468.
30.
Captain Bob Wright, quoted in Mary Pat Kelly, Good to Go: The Rescue of Capt. Scott O’Grady, USAF, from Bosnia (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996),57–58.
31.
Darrel D. Whitcomb, The Rescue of BAT 21 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 136–136.
32.
Moore and Galloway, We Were Soldiers, 82–82.
33.
Ibid., 196.
34.
Linderman, World Within War, 284–284.
35.
Bergerud, Touched with Fire, 467–467.
36.
Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (New York: The Free Press, 1960), 221–221.
37.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 10–10.
38.
William Langewiesche, “American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center,”The Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2002): 78–78.
39.
Ibid., 79.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Whitcomb, Rescue of BAT 21, 136–136.
42.
Ibid.,137–138.
43.
See Jeff Cohen, “Commentary; John McCain and the Media: A Buss-Fest or a Bust?”Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2000, p. 9–9, for an example of the influence of Vietnam guilt on the media.
44.
Humphrey Taylor, “While Confidence in Leaders and Institutions Has Dropped from the Extraordinary Post–9/11 High, It Is Still Higher Than It Was for Most of the Late 70s, 80s and 90s,” HarrisInteractive, January 22, 2003, available online at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=351
45.
Institute of Politics, Harvard University, A National Survey Of College Undergraduates (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2002), 2–2.
46.
Frank Sweeney, “What Mean Expendable?: Myth, Ideology, and Meaning in First Blood and Rambo,”Journal of American Culture22 (Fall 1999): 63–63.
47.
William Langweische, “American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center,”Atlantic Monthly (September 2002): 78–78.
48.
Robert C. McFarlane, in a speech to the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, at the 24th annual meeting, Arlington, VA, 1993.
49.
National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, http://www.pow-miafamilies.org/leaguebackgrnd.html, personal interviews with League Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths at the Arlington, VA office.
50.
Langewiesche, “American Ground,”104–104.
51.
Ibid.
52.
Vince Crawley and Karen Jowers, “Pentagon Rejects Mass-Cremation Option,”Army Times, March 3, 2003.
53.
Briefing on the warrior ethos to senior Army leaders, June 7, 2003. Also see Vernon Loeb, “Army Plans to Heighten ‘Warrior Ethos,’” Washington Post, September 8, 2003, p. 19 [emphasis added]. See also http://www.army.mil/soldierscreed/flash_version/index.html for an example of the institutionalization of the “leave no man behind” norm.
54.
The Vietnamese are increasingly following the US example and are now beginning attempts to account for their war dead.
55.
Jeffery M. Jones, “Sept. 11 Effects, Though Largely Faded, Persist,” Gallup Poll Organization, September 9, 2003, available online at http://www.gallup.com/poll/content’?ci=9208
56.
Langewiesche, “American Ground,”79–79.
57.
At the time of this printing, however, a rift had emerged between the League of e Families and the deputy assistant secretary of defense (DASD) for POW/MIA Affairs to the extent that the League of Families’ board of directors offered a unanimous vote of no confidence in the DASD. Despite this clash in personalities, the influence of the League of Families still forces the government to be an advocate of leaving no one behind.
58.
Leonard Wong, Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003), 23–23.
