Soldiers, War, and the Combat Experience in American history

Martin Clemis, Command and General Staff College

This course explores what former Supreme Court justice and Civil War veteran Oliver Wendell Holmes once called the “incommunicable experience of war” – that is armed conflict as it was lived and remembered by the common soldier. It does so by examining five memoirs generated by veterans of American wars from the Revolution to Vietnam, and by contextualizing these works within the conflicts, societies, and larger historical currents that spawned them. The course will pay particular attention to the values, attitudes, and beliefs of American servicemen as they were called upon to serve the nation in a time of war. It will also examine the emotional and psychological impact of combat and the ways in which every day Americans interpreted and made sense of this unique and relatively rare experience as practitioners of war and specialists in armed violence.