Uncle Sam Wanted Me is the story of Daniel Kornstein’s being drafted out of the comparative comforts and intellectual stimulation of law school into the rigors and worries of Army life during the Vietnam War. In clear, entertaining, and memorable language, Kornstein looks back more than half a century to explain and try to understand how he and his generation felt about and dealt with the moral issues posed by the Vietnam draft. The author describes what it was like to receive his draft notice as he studied for his first-year final exams, what his reactions were, and what choices he made and why. Like Proust, the seventy-four-year-old author moves back through time into his memory, dipping into and out of his consciousness, with his old Army dog tags as his madeleine. Kornstein turns the story of his being drafted into the Vietnam Era Army into an expansive meditation on coming of age in the shadow of an unpopular war and making important life decisions about reacting to that war. It is his eloquent attempt to use his personal experiences and moods to explore larger issues, to connect social, cultural and historical dots about the relationship between the military and civilian spheres of life in America, to think about what it even means to be an American citizen. The climax of Kornstein’s time in uniform was being assigned as a legal clerk for the prosecutors of a court-martial arising from the horrible 1968 My Lai Massacre in which U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed, non-combatant old men, women and children. He discusses and analyzes that case. In a final chapter, the author provides a personal long-delayed after-action report summarizing significant lessons from his two-year military experience as a draftee. He considers the pros and cons of an all-volunteer military, whether a draft is necessary and if so how to make it fair and equitable, the possibility of other forms of national service, our continuing entanglement in undeclared wars, more recent examples of war atrocities, and the residual effects of military service on individuals. Uncle Sam Wanted Me offers insights, ripened reflections, for the author’s generation as well as for a new generation that overwhelmingly isn’t personally exposed to anything military, much less the draft.

Based on a rich array of sources that capture the voices of both political leaders and ordinary Americans, Uncle Sam Wants You offers a vivid and provocative new interpretation of American political history, revealing how the tensions of mass mobilization during World War I led to a significant increase in power for the federal government. Christopher Capozzola shows how, when the war began, Americans at first mobilized society by stressing duty, obligation, and responsibility over rights and freedoms. But the heated temper of war quickly unleashed coercion on an unprecedented scale, making wartime America the scene of some of the nation's most serious political violence, including notorious episodes of outright mob violence. To solve this problem, Americans turned over increasing amounts of power to the federal government. In the end, whether they were some of the four million men drafted under the Selective Service Act or the tens of millions of home-front volunteers, Americans of the World War I era created a new American state, and new ways of being American citizens.

This pivot sheds light on U.S. foreign policy objectives by examining diplomatic cables produced by the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Australia, some which have been officially declassified over the past 30 years and others which were made public by the anti-secrecy group, WikiLeaks. Providing an original analysis of the cables, this book provides the context and explanations necessary for readers to understand how the U.S. Embassy’s objectives in Australia and the wider world have evolved since the 1980's. It shows that Australian policymakers work closely with their American counterparts, aligning Australian foreign policy to suit American preferences. It examines a range of U.S. government priorities, from strategic goals, commercial objectives, public diplomacy, financial sanctions against terrorism, and diplomatic actions related to climate change, looking back at key events in the relationship such as sanctions against Iraq, the 2008 Global Financial crisis, intellectual property protection and the rise of China.

From January 30, 1969 to September 2, 1970, Robert Martin was a soldier in the U.S. Army. When drafted, he and his wife were both practicing hospital pharmacists in their second year of marriage with a child on the way. After 16 weeks of Basic and Advanced Training and a 6-week stint of temporary duty at Fort MacPherson in Atlanta, he was sent to the Republic of Vietnam. His tour of duty in Vietnam lasted 12 months plus an additional 36 days (he extended his tour to 36 days to be eligible for discharge upon return to the United States). This book is about his coping with the challenges that he faced during his sojourn in the United States Army. Promised entrance into Field Artillery OCS (Officer Candidate School) upon completion of Basic and Advanced Training, he received orders for Infantry OCS, an invitation, which he immediately rejected, resulting in his shipment to Vietnam as a private soldier skilled in Artillery Fire Direction Control. Assigned to the 2/11th Field Artillery Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, he was told his special skills were not needed. They also had no need for a pharmacist in an artillery battalion but the personnel officer asked him if he could type. Answering in the affirmative, he was assigned duties as Clerk for the Battalion's Headquarters & Headquarters Battery. He served out his tour typing between mortar and rocket attacks. In this book, he tells of his day-to-day experiences and the effects they had upon him and his fellow soldiers. He tells of the decay in the soldiers' morale and the increase in drug use as the war turned into a political football and the effects of anti-war protests in the U.S. were felt by the soldiers in Vietnam. He talks of coping and hanging on to his sanity in a world gone crazy around him. Knowing that every soldier who served in Vietnam has a different story to tell, the purpose of this book was to tell his own story about his time in the service and the effects it had on his life after the Army.

An enlightening overview of America’s misadventures in economic investment from the Revolutionary era to the Obama administration. From the days of George Washington through World War II to today, government subsidies have failed the American people time and again. Draining the Treasury of cash, this doomed attempt to “pick winners” only serves to impede economic growth—and hurt the very companies receiving aid. But why does federal aid seem to have a reverse Midas touch? In Uncle Sam Can’t Count, Burt and Anita Folsom argue that federal officials don’t have the same abilities or incentives as entrepreneurs. In addition, federal control always leads to politicization. And what works for politicians often doesn’t work in the marketplace. Filled with examples of government failures and free market triumphs, from John Jacob Astor to the Wright Brothers, World War II amphibious landing craft to Detroit, Uncle Sam Can’t Count is a hard-hitting critique of government investment that demonstrates why business should be left exclusively to private entrepreneurs.

This is Anton F. Bilek's story of his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war. He recounts the Death March that he and other Fil-American prisoners of war endured in Bataan after surrender, his imprisonment in the Philippines and Japan and his subsequent servitude in the Japanese coal mines.