Comments on: These were the men who screamed most shrilly https://www.isegoria.net/2020/11/these-were-the-men-who-screamed-most-shrilly/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:42:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Kirk https://www.isegoria.net/2020/11/these-were-the-men-who-screamed-most-shrilly/comment-page-1/#comment-3293814 Kirk Sat, 07 Nov 2020 04:54:22 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47234#comment-3293814 A lot of the problems stemmed from politics, more than anything else. Then, too, a bunch of the troops in the South Pacific were keyed up and expecting to die in the invasion of Japan; when that didn’t eventuate, well… Yeah. Nerve yourself up for death at the age of twenty or so, then find out you’ve been given a reprieve? The wonder is not that they went nuts, but that they stayed as sane and restrained as they did.

The other problem was, I’m afraid, a lack of adult supervision similar to that which plagued the Army during the latter parts of Vietnam. When you don’t have those “elders”, the senior NCOs out in the units, actually doing their damn jobs and riding herd on the troops? Things happen, and none of them good.

In WWII, there wasn’t a real cadre of professional senior NCOs out in every unit; the vast majority of the guys in those positions were jumped-up civilians that had no stake in the corporate whole, and who also had no idea about what their proper role was. So, when someone was needed to drive in the damping rods on the behavior, there wasn’t anyone around who knew they needed to, how to do it, or even cared to bother with it.

It’s amazing how quickly some of those units just dissolved into chaos, when you read the details of it all. A lot of it came from the politicians who were making grandiose promises that couldn’t be kept, about having “the boys home before Christmas…”.

]]> By: Faze https://www.isegoria.net/2020/11/these-were-the-men-who-screamed-most-shrilly/comment-page-1/#comment-3293267 Faze Fri, 06 Nov 2020 01:56:20 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47234#comment-3293267 The period just before demobilzation following the surrender of first Germany, and then Japan, seems to me to be undereported. In periodicals of 1945, I read editorials expressing alarm at the bad behavior of seemingly ungoverned American troops in Europe. Old vets have told me first hand of the tense atmosphere among stir crazy troops on Pacific islands. Everybody was sick of obeying orders, and all sorts of social and criminal pathologies rose to the surface. The government was desperate to get them home.

]]>