This volume is an account of the many currents, some ongoing, that informed the Army's struggle to design a basic training course acceptable to the nation's civil and military leadership, the general public, various special iterest groups, and the young men and women undergoing their first experience as soldiers. Employs a mixture of topical and chronological organization. The major focus is on the period from 1973 to 2004. Tells the Army's story of mixed-gender training at the initial-entry level.

This volume is an account of the many currents, some ongoing, that informed the Army's struggle to design a basic training course acceptable to the nation's civil and military leadership, the general public, various special iterest groups, and the young men and women undergoing their first experience as soldiers. Employs a mixture of topical and chronological organization. The major focus is on the period from 1973 to 2004. Tells the Army's story of mixed-gender training at the initial-entry level.

With an important introduction by C. Everett Koop and passionate endorsements from Senator Edward M. Kennedy and public officials from every major city in the U.S., this authoritative and timely guide calls for the diagnosis and treatment of urban violence as a public health crisis.

Explores the identity crisis of the post-Cold War US Army and their struggles to adapt to profound geopolitical and cultural changes.

This book sets out the major social scientific approaches to the study of Special Operations Forces. Despite consistent downsizing, over the past two decades the armed forces of the industrial democracies have seen a huge growth in Special Operations Forces (SOF). Through increasing numbers of personnel and more frequent deployments, SOF units have wielded considerable influence in conflicts around the world, with senior SOF officers having led major strategic operations. This increased presence and unprecedented expansion for SOF is largely a result of the ‘new’ kinds of conflicts that have emerged in the 21st century. At the same time, even with this high profile in the military, policy and media and popular cultural arenas, there is relatively little social scientific research on SOF. This volume aims to fill this gap by providing a series of studies and analyses of SOF across the globe, since the end of World War II. Analysing SOF at the micro, mezzo and macro levels provides broad and diverse insights. Moreover, the volume deals with new issues raised by the use of such forces that include emerging modes of civilian control, innovative organizational forms and the special psychological characteristics necessitated by SOF operatives. It concludes with a discussion of a question which continues to be debated in today’s militaries: what makes SOF ‘special’? Filling a clear gap in the literature, this book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, civil-military relations, irregular warfare, security studies, and international relations.

The original 1983 manuscript written by Eugene Alvarez, who is the primary author of this book, included the years 15621983. The current and revised manuscript was edited and updated by Leo J. Daugherty III, PhD, in cooperation with the primary author, and covers the years 1997 to 2015, including chapter 6, dealing with recruit training in the 1920s and 1930s, which was a part of his doctoral dissertation at the Ohio State University. Since this work was first completed, Parris Island has undergone numerous changes in buildings, the base layout, and recruit training. The training philosophy has been altered as society demands. Thus, past training situations and methods should be observed as recorded in the chronological approach of the text to present times.