The war was picking up, even though the replacements got younger and dumber.
Then Japan surrendered, and the men didn’t feel much emotion about it:
No one thought of celebrating much because we knew it would be months before we would get home and to us getting home and out of the army meant the real end of the war.
[...]
The point system was in full swing and a third of the “old men” were gone by the middle of August. I was shy two points, so had to stay. The cavalry was throwing Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars around promiscuously, to give most of their combat men a chance to get enough points to get home before the division left the Philippines. I was now sorry I had not collected a Bronze Star on that last flying column deal. That southern Luzon trip was a sore point with those of us who had been on the contact party with the expedition, for every man who went on it — except us — got the award. Even the guy who brought our mail up to us after we had been on the road a week got one! Of course we did not do anything to deserve any kind of medal, but neither did anybody else on that excursion. Five points was five points. Bronze Stars meant less and less as the war went on, and by the end they had far less value among the soldiers than the Combat Infantryman badge. Company clerks got them for keeping the typewriters clean; or getting fresh eggs for the captain. All officers gave them to themselves; every officer I knew of had one. That is no exaggeration.
My old man was in the South Pacific when the Japs surrendered. He says some guys on his island brewed moonshine and that night, some other guys passed it around in poorly cleaned gas cans. He didn’t partake himself, but says that when he woke up the next morning, it looked like a massacre had taken place, with sick and unconscious men lying all over, many sprawled in puddles of vomit.
Honestly, the stuff about the counterculture corrupting Our Boys In Uniform who’d never of got drunk or drugged or fornicate without the dang hippies? Gives to wonder.
LOL… Corrupt. The. “Boys”. In. Uniform.
That particular thread of delusion in popular culture came out of the mid-19th Century, and stems from a lot of the attitude that “good young Christian boys” were people who were “corruptible” in the first damn place.
Can’t remember where the hell I read it, but a part of the reason why the North chose not to use the Regular Army as “seasoning” in the called-up militia units was that there was a definite disdain for the men who made up the pre-Civil War Regulars, and the “Good People” feared the influence of their wanton corruption. The Union suffered commensurate losses for that stupidity.
Other aspect is, you want “corruption”? Lemme introduce y’all to the average farm boy I dealt with–Most were about average human beings, but… Oh, holy crap, did I hear some strange shit out of North Dakota farm boys. Middle of an exercise, everyone is doing their usual sit-around-and-BS during a break, talk shifts, per the usual, to sex. North Dakota pipes up that his first sexual experience was… His sister. Conversation stopper, right the f**k there, and cue everyone in the tent edging away from him. Dude literally didn’t understand why that was an issue.
My inner-city guys might have been involved in the odd drive-by, and could possibly have been in the informal pharmaceutical marketing industry, but… I never heard any of them come up with some shit about them having had sex with close relations and/or farm animals. I recall the look of horror on the faces of a couple of ‘em, when they were listening to another “country boy” matter-of-factly recounting his experiences with sheep… And, yes, that was another denizen of North Dakota.
Knew some great guys from North Dakota, but… Man. The really weird ones I met stick out like garrison flags in my memory.
So, yeah… No. Corrupt the youth of America? Ain’t happening. The opposite, that the youth of America might corrupt the Army? Yeah, that’s more like it. I swear to God, about the worst sumbitches I ever met in the service were the ones who made a point of going to church every Sunday, and the guys who were inveterate drinkers and wannabe playboys? Those were the ones who usually treated women and children with utmost respect and consideration. Some of the other church-going types were probably there at church to scope out the Sunday School attendees…
Another opposite is that being drafted into the brutal and licentious soldiery coarsened decent young men from stable respectable paths. The WWI draft was at least over in a few years. 1940-1973 was a long time.