Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Elvis's army : Cold War GIs and the atomic battlefield / Brian McAllister Linn.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, (c)2016.Description: 1 online resource (444 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780674973732
  • 9780674973756
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • UA25 .E485 2016
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
Contents:
The army was coming apart -- The catalyst of the Korean War -- The atomic battlefield -- The tools of modern war -- Who's in the army now? -- The officer corps's generation gap -- Training for nuclear war -- Marketing the new, improved army -- The renovation of the American soldier -- Next stop is Vietnam? -- Epilogue.
Subject: "What kind of army wants the king of rock-n-roll? Elvis's Army explores the great military and social experiment that was the Cold War atomic army. Militarily, the US Army transformed for the revolution in warfare initiated by the nuclear weapons. Traumatized by Cold War reductions and Korea, it seized on the vision of a great atomic land war against the Soviet Union. It not only adapted a radically new way of fighting, but fundamental changes in its equipment, concepts, and training. Socially, the 1950s the service underwent even more of a transformation. In large part due to the draft, the Fifties Army became the nation's most racially and economically egalitarian institution, the only place where black and white, college graduates and illiterates, rich and poor, urban and rural had to live, work, and, if necessary, fight together. In return for their service, the army was expected to provide young males not only with military skills, but also education, technical training, entertainment, and moral instruction. This social transformation was nowhere more evident than with Elvis Presley. He entered the service a notorious musical rebel hated by adult society; he emerged two years later a clean-cut young all-American boy in the movie G.I. Blues. Elvis's Army is the first history of the US Army's transformation for the atomic battlefield. But it also reveals the cultural importance of the US Army in Fifties America, from draft calls to ROTC, from basic training to overseas service, from Madison Avenue to Hollywood, and from atomic maneuvers to rock-n-roll."--
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

"What kind of army wants the king of rock-n-roll? Elvis's Army explores the great military and social experiment that was the Cold War atomic army. Militarily, the US Army transformed for the revolution in warfare initiated by the nuclear weapons. Traumatized by Cold War reductions and Korea, it seized on the vision of a great atomic land war against the Soviet Union. It not only adapted a radically new way of fighting, but fundamental changes in its equipment, concepts, and training. Socially, the 1950s the service underwent even more of a transformation. In large part due to the draft, the Fifties Army became the nation's most racially and economically egalitarian institution, the only place where black and white, college graduates and illiterates, rich and poor, urban and rural had to live, work, and, if necessary, fight together. In return for their service, the army was expected to provide young males not only with military skills, but also education, technical training, entertainment, and moral instruction. This social transformation was nowhere more evident than with Elvis Presley. He entered the service a notorious musical rebel hated by adult society; he emerged two years later a clean-cut young all-American boy in the movie G.I. Blues. Elvis's Army is the first history of the US Army's transformation for the atomic battlefield. But it also reveals the cultural importance of the US Army in Fifties America, from draft calls to ROTC, from basic training to overseas service, from Madison Avenue to Hollywood, and from atomic maneuvers to rock-n-roll."--

Includes bibliographies and index.

Prologue -- The army was coming apart -- The catalyst of the Korean War -- The atomic battlefield -- The tools of modern war -- Who's in the army now? -- The officer corps's generation gap -- Training for nuclear war -- Marketing the new, improved army -- The renovation of the American soldier -- Next stop is Vietnam? -- Epilogue.

COPYRIGHT NOT covered - Click this link to request copyright permission:

https://lib.ciu.edu/copyright-request-form

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.