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

Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016

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Description 1 online resource (444 pages) : illustrations Contents 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 Summary "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."-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes In English Print version record Subject Presley, Elvis, 1935-1977. Presley, Elvis, 1935-1977 United States. Army -- History -- 20th century United States. Army -- Reorganization -- History -- 20th century United States. Army Sociology, Military -- United States -- History -- 20th century Draft -- Social aspects -- United States Cold War. HISTORY -- Military -- Other. TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Military Science. HISTORY -- Military -- United States. Armed Forces -- Reorganization Draft -- Social aspects Sociology, Military Atomkrieg Gleichbehandlung Kriegsvorbereitung Massenmedien Militär Militärausbildung Transformation Umerziehung United States USA Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780674973732 0674973739 0674973755 9780674973756

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