Thread by @18airbornecorps

1 of 38: Good afternoon! This is chapter 4 of our series running this week on the Atomic Army. If you have not read the first 3 chapters, please go back and do so. Otherwise, this one won’t make much sense.

2 of 38: Before the Cold War, the @USArmy leaders worried little about the force’s narrative. They didn’t have to!

3 of 38: The draft saw to it that military-aged American males filled the ranks when needed.

4 of 38: Things were different by 1956. Without a clear role in the New Look strategy, our Army was in a wilderness, fighting for relevance.

5 of 38: Morale and discipline of the force plummeted. Most conscripts departed the service after a single term.

6 of 38: Enterprising American teens sought an Air Force commission over

7 of 38: The image of the bumbling, unserious Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko in “The Phil Silver
Show” resonated with many American audiences.

8 of 38: The Army soldier was a fading throwback to a type of war long gone, represented comically by the cartoon strip Beetle Bailey featuring a lazy group of soldiers led by hapless officers and non-commissioned officers.

9 of 38: To many Americans, the Army was also represented by images of wounded and killed soldiers coming out of Korea. The Air Force, meanwhile, made it through Korea relatively unscathed by comparison.

10 of 38: The Airman was a cool guy! He got to play with advanced technology. He was part of strategic power.

11 of 38: The Soldier was dirty, freezing. A dying way of war.

12 of 38: To survive, the U.S. Army needed to turn to a new field just beginning to burgeon in response to post-World War II consumerism: mass marketing.

13 of 38: Beginning in 1956 and lasting through the end of the decade, the Army marketed itself to its countrymen and their elected officials as a future-looking force critical in atomic war.

14 of 38: Using a public relations campaign mirroring the booming Madison Avenue advertising industry, the service met its citizenry where they were: on television, at the movies, and in magazines.

15 of 38: The primary focal point for this campaign was the Army’s Office of the Chief of Information (CIO) —analogous to today’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.

16 of 38: The effort was vast: under the CIO, the Army developed its own song, rolled out a new dress uniform, and produced television advertisements, brochures, film clips, and television programs promoting new experiences and career opportunities.

17 of 38: The CIO contracted the services of N.W. Ayer & Son, an enormously successful, cutting-edge Philadelphia-based advertising agency.

18 of 38: N.W. Ayer & Son was the real “Mad Men.” A group of white men who made a fortune aggressively marketing new products and companies.

19 of 38: Not only was the life of a soldier a promising way to learn critical skills but also, according to this effort, a good deal of fun. No longer a dour, rigid experience, Army service was portrayed in marketing campaigns as enjoyable and exciting.

20 of 38: Just like the men and women of today’s "What's Your Warrior" ads, the late-1950s American soldier was on the cutting-edge of technology.

21 of 38: Army bands toured cities, and commanders encouraged soldiers to participate in the Hometown Release Program, which sent newsworthy information about troops back to their local newspapers.

22 of 38: The CIO reached out to Hollywood to influence the depiction of the service in movies such as the 1956 drama The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, about a World War II veteran adjusting to a peaceful world.

cbc.ca/radio/ideas/ho…

23 of 38: GI Blues, a 1960 musical comedy starring Elvis Presley as a disciplined but fun-loving tank gunner with a golden voice was another major motion picture shaped by the CIO.

24 of 38: Another component of this multi-layered public relations campaign was training. (Ok, maybe not this kind of training)

25 of 38: The Army of the late-1950s developed extravagant, division-level training events that served more as public theater than preparation for an actual war.

26 of 38: Posts like @FortBenning and @forthood shuttled in observers, community leaders, and local press to observe operations involving helicopters, enormous maneuver formations, and newly fielded rocket launchers.

27 of 38: These exercises matched the CIO’s focus on rebranding.

28 of 38: These enormous exercises were more show than actual training. Very scripted, choreographed movements with a narrator describing the action.

29 of 38: Think of the All American Week Airborne Review or @usairforce Air Show: these were more demonstrations than opportunities to build training. (Much time was spent looking for the “I can make presentation not demonstration” Ivan Vanko gif)

30 of 38: In fact, because the “training events” require so much coordination, preparation, and manpower, they actually DETRACTED FROM unit readiness.

31 of 38: All over the Army, commanders complained that they could not prepare their forces to actually FIGHT THE SOVIETS, because they were too consumed with these theatrical exercises.

32 of 38: The CIO, and the Army leadership, didn’t care. They wanted to change the way American viewed its Army.

33 of 38: The Army wanted to change the vision of the American Soldier.

34 of 38: The image of the World War II Army was a vision of a particularly American kind of brawler: a dirty, freezing soldier fighting his way onto Omaha Beach, a hell-raiser no one would want to cross in a bar fight, a scrappy fighter who crawled through mud to kill Nazis.

35 of 38: By contrast, the new soldier was much less grit and more glamour.

36 of 38: On military posts, and television and movie screens, Americans saw uniformed men and women who were mounted, professional, educated, and surprisingly clean.

@Strategy_Bridge

thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/202…

37 of 38: For example, check out this clean, handsome, professional-looking guy doing cool stuff in a new green uniform!

END OF CHAPTER 4: So, how did all this work out? Did the Army rebranding turn around its lagging budgets and image? Find out tomorrow at 9AM!