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Conference presentation
Dissent in the ranks: Questioning the conduct of the war from Vietnam to Afghanistan
Eighty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, 88th (Omni Fort Worth Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas, 04/28/2022–05/01/2022)
04/29/2022
Abstract
When Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller denounced the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and claimed he intended to prefer charges against General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr. with dereliction of duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice in September 2021, he was embracing a pattern of behavior that dissenting service members had embraced in the last stages of the American War in Vietnam. In January 1971, three junior officers serving in the United States Navy publicly called for an investigation of senior leaders under Article 138 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They were inspired, in part, by Telford Taylor's contention that "A commander is responsible for the conduct of his troops. You cannot probe these things in a court-martial proceeding at Ft. Benning… That's not the level at which the real responsibility for these things originated." The Concerned Officers Movement organized active duty service members to protest the Vietnam War. By the end of April 1971, they had encouraged seven hundred junior officers to participate in an antiwar service at the National Cathedral. Over the course of 1971, sixty-seven officers signed antiwar statements, risking their careers in the process. While Scheller embraced the methods of his predecessors, his goals appear quite different. Rather than seeking to end a war that tarnished the values of the service in the mode of the Concerned Officers movement, he represents a tradition of dissenters who seek to blame their leaders and the public for their feelings of betrayal after sacrificing so much during their service. This paper will examine the connections between the dissents of active duty personnel from Vietnam through the end of the American war in Afghanistan, and argues that Scheller's arguments are in-line with the post-Vietnam stabbed-in-the-back theory.
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Details
- Title
- Dissent in the ranks: Questioning the conduct of the war from Vietnam to Afghanistan
- Resource Type
- Conference presentation
- Conference
- Eighty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, 88th (Omni Fort Worth Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas, 04/28/2022–05/01/2022)
- Copyright
- Permission granted to the University of West Florida Libraries by the author to digitize and/or display this information for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires the permission of the copyright holder.
- Identifiers
- 99380099993506600
- Academic Unit
- Education Research Library; University of West Florida Libraries
- Language
- English