The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941 (review)

Mac Coffman has now completed his coverage of the history of the American Army from the end of the American Revolutionary War through to the beginning of World War II, and what a magnificent job he has done. His The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I remains the best history of the American military effort in World War I and The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898, is the best concise look at the American Army as an institution during that period. While all three of these works are essential reading for today's Army professionals, The Regulars ought to be required reading for every officer on active duty today and all cadets, those at academies, and those enrolled in Reserve Officer Training programs as well as all attending Officer Candidate Schools.

The Regulars describes an Army that suddenly found itself engaged in nation-building, or rebuilding, in pacification of turbulent regimes, and in assessing threats to American national security that have moved from exercises in near fantasy to uncomfortably more palpable reality. It describes an Army that was largely deployed outside the United States with its officers making repeated tours of duty in remote places, pacifying the unruly, waiting for the American government to decide what it really wanted the conclusion of events to look like, and living in alternating luxury and bare habitability . . . shades of descriptions of Army housing from Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle. If there are faint echoes from these days past in what the Army has been doing and continues to do today, we should not be surprised—the American Army has "been there, done that," but the "T-Shirts" have too long since decayed and fallen from modern memory.

This was a period in American military history that saw the creation of a truly new Army. The remnants of the Civil War Army were still visible including a few superannuated officers, but there was a new spirit evident as the Army embarked on the Spanish-American War. What was really new was the way the Army responded to the challenges in the aftermath of that war. It was a professional response from the top down. To be sure, the war did not end as anyone anticipated and the U.S. government and the Army had to adjust and readjust to the fact that the country was suddenly an imperial power with the associated responsibilities. Soldiers were governors and after a bit of stumbling about did a very good job—a job for which they had no specific training, but in which they were able to employ their common sense and professional habits. This was a people Army to which "systems" were essentially foreign. Soldiers were people and horses were horses and professionals understood both pretty well and dealt with both accordingly.

But this was an Army that was learning and adapting rapidly. It took to the ideas of industrial organization and production easily, but that meant it began a shift toward systems and has only recently begun to break itself loose from the "Efficient" production line approach to managing people. Beyond that, the Army entered into the American "Managerial Revolution" and began to publish doctrine; the "How to" guides for action that laid down guidelines while allowing considerable room for the exercise of individual initiative.

It was a true profession and solidified its claim through the refinement of its already existing school system and the expansion of professional opportunities. It remained insular as a by-product of its stationing and duties, but was by no means isolated from mainstream America. It reflected that America in its prejudices and social structure and officers easily married into middle and upper class civilian families. Its relations with the Congress were as much functions of personality as anything else although it had little to offer beyond its Constitutional purposes and...