The U.S. Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its Birth
In 2011, Danios wrote:
Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.
To put this in perspective:
* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.
* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”
* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.
* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.
* * *
Here is a graphic depiction of U.S. wars:
And here is the year-by-year timeline of America’s major wars:
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Year-by-year Timeline of America’s Major Wars (1776-2011)
1776 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamagua Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War
1777 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War
1778 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1779 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1780 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1781 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1782 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1783 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1784 – Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War, Oconee War
1785 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1786 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1787 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1788 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1789 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1790 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1791 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1792 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1793 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1794 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1795 – Northwest Indian War
1796 – No major war
1797 – No major war
1798 – Quasi-War
1799 – Quasi-War
1800 – Quasi-War
1801 – First Barbary War
1802 – First Barbary War
1803 – First Barbary War
1804 – First Barbary War
1805 – First Barbary War
1806 – Sabine Expedition
1807 – No major war
1808 – No major war
1809 – No major war
1810 – U.S. occupies Spanish-held West Florida
1811 – Tecumseh’s War
1812 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Seminole Wars, U.S. occupies Spanish-held Amelia Island and other parts of East Florida
1813 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Peoria War, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in West Florida
1814 – War of 1812, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in Florida, Anti-piracy war
1815 – War of 1812, Second Barbary War, Anti-piracy war
1816 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1817 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1818 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1819 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1820 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1821 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)
1822 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)
1823 – Anti-piracy war, Arikara War
1824 – Anti-piracy war
1825 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1826 – No major war
1827 – Winnebago War
1828 – No major war
1829 – No major war
1830 – No major war
1831 – Sac and Fox Indian War
1832 – Black Hawk War
1833 – Cherokee Indian War
1834 – Cherokee Indian War, Pawnee Indian Territory Campaign
1835 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War
1836 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Missouri-Iowa Border War
1837 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Osage Indian War, Buckshot War
1838 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Buckshot War, Heatherly Indian War
1839 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars
1840 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade Fiji Islands
1841 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade McKean Island, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa
1842 – Seminole Wars
1843 – U.S. forces clash with Chinese, U.S. troops invade African coast
1844 – Texas-Indian Wars
1845 – Texas-Indian Wars
1846 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars
1847 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars
1848 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War
1849 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians
1850 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, California Indian Wars, Pitt River Expedition
1851 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars
1852 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars
1853 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, Walker War, California Indian Wars
1854 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians
1855 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Yakima War, Winnas Expedition, Klickitat War, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay
1856 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, Tintic War
1857 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Utah War, Conflict in Nicaragua
1858 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Mohave War, California Indian Wars, Spokane-Coeur d’Alene-Paloos War, Utah War, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay
1859 Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Pecos Expedition, Antelope Hills Expedition, Bear River Expedition, John Brown’s raid, U.S. forces launch attack against Paraguay, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1860 – Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Paiute War, Kiowa-Comanche War
1861 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign
1862 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Dakota War of 1862,
1863 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Goshute War
1864 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Snake War
1865 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Colorado War, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War
1866 – Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Franklin County War, U.S. invades Mexico, Conflict with China
1867 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua and attack Taiwan
1868 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Battle of Washita River, Franklin County War
1869 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War
1870 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War
1871 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, Kingsley Cave Massacre, U.S. forces invade Korea
1872 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Franklin County War
1873 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Apache Wars, Cypress Hills Massacre, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1874 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Red River War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1875 – Conflict in Mexico, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Eastern Nevada, Mason County War, Colfax County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1876 – Texas-Indian Wars, Black Hills War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1877 – Texas-Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Black Hills War, Nez Perce War, Mason County War, Lincoln County War, San Elizario Salt War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1878 – Paiute Indian conflict, Bannock War, Cheyenne War, Lincoln County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1879 – Cheyenne War, Sheepeater Indian War, White River War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1880 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1881 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1882 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1883 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1884 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1885 – Apache Wars, Eastern Nevada Expedition, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1886 – Apache Wars, Pleasant Valley War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1887 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1888 – U.S. show of force against Haiti, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1889 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1890 – Sioux Indian War, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Ghost Dance War, Wounded Knee, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1891 – Sioux Indian War, Ghost Dance War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1892 – Johnson County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1893 – U.S. forces invade Mexico and Hawaii
1894 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1895 – U.S. forces invade Mexico, Bannock Indian Disturbances
1896 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1897 – No major war
1898 – Spanish-American War, Battle of Leech Lake, Chippewa Indian Disturbances
1899 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1900 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1901 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1902 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1903 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1904 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1905 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1906 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1907 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1908 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1909 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1910 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1911 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1912 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1913 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars, New Mexico Navajo War
1914 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1915 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico, Colorado Paiute War
1916 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1917 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S. invades Mexico
1918 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S invades Mexico
1919 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1920 – Banana Wars
1921 – Banana Wars
1922 – Banana Wars
1923 – Banana Wars, Posey War
1924 – Banana Wars
1925 – Banana Wars
1926 – Banana Wars
1927 – Banana Wars
1928 – Banana Wars
1930 – Banana Wars
1931 – Banana Wars
1932 – Banana Wars
1933 – Banana Wars
1934 – Banana Wars
1935 – No major war
1936 – No major war
1937 – No major war
1938 – No major war
1939 – No major war
1940 – No major war
1941 – World War II
1942 – World War II
1943 – Wold War II
1944 – World War II
1945 – World War II
1946 – Cold War (U.S. occupies the Philippines and South Korea)
1947 – Cold War (U.S. occupies South Korea, U.S. forces land in Greece to fight Communists)
1948 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)
1949 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)
1950 – Korean War, Jayuga Uprising
1951 – Korean War
1952 – Korean War
1953 – Korean War
1954 – Covert War in Guatemala
1955 – Vietnam War
1956 – Vietnam War
1957 – Vietnam War
1958 – Vietnam War
1959 – Vietnam War, Conflict in Haiti
1960 – Vietam War
1961 – Vietnam War
1962 – Vietnam War, Cold War (Cuban Missile Crisis; U.S. marines fight Communists in Thailand)
1963 – Vietnam War
1964 – Vietnam War
1965 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic
1966 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic
1967 – Vietnam War
1968 – Vietnam War
1969 – Vietnam War
1970 – Vietnam War
1971 – Vietnam War
1972 – Vietnam War
1973 – Vietnam War, U.S. aids Israel in Yom Kippur War
1974 – Vietnam War
1975 – Vietnam War
1976 – No major war
1977 – No major war
1978 – No major war
1979 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)
1980 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)
1981 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), First Gulf of Sidra Incident
1982 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon
1983 – Cold War (Invasion of Grenada, CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon
1984 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Persian Gulf
1985 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)
1986 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)
1987 – Conflict in Persian Gulf
1988 – Conflict in Persian Gulf, U.S. occupation of Panama
1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra Incident, U.S. occupation of Panama, Conflict in Philippines
1990 – First Gulf War, U.S. occupation of Panama
1991 – First Gulf War
1992 – Conflict in Iraq
1993 – Conflict in Iraq
1994 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti
1995 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti, NATO bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina
1996 – Conflict in Iraq
1997 – No major war
1998 – Bombing of Iraq, Missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan
1999 – Kosovo War
2000 – No major war
2001 – War on Terror in Afghanistan
2002 – War on Terror in Afghanistan and Yemen
2003 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, and Iraq
2004 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2005 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2006 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2007 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen
2008 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2009 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2010 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2011 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Conflict in Libya (Libyan Civil War)
In most of these wars, the U.S. was on the offense. Danios admits that some of the wars were defensive. However, Danios also leaves out covert CIA operations and other acts which could be considered war.
Let’s update what’s happened since 2011:
2012 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2013 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2014 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine
2015 – War on Terror in Somalia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine
So we can add 4 more years of war. That means that for 222 out of 239 years – or 93% of the time – America has been at war. (We can quibble with the exact numbers, but the high percentage of time that America has been at war is clear and unmistakable.)
Indeed, most of the military operations launched since World War II have been launched by the U.S.
And American military spending dwarfs the rest of the world put together.
No wonder polls show that the world believes America is the number 1 threat to peace.
Sad.
So many duped americans believe it’s the rest of the world that is at war, and it’s us, and our service men and women that keep the peace.
Even stupidfuckingdemocrats believe they are the party of peace. Just wait until hilary is elected, war will still be bush’s fault.
Admin- Thanks for posting this proof of almost continuous war. It needs to be exposed for the racket that it is. There is BIG MONEY in war for a few and zero benefit for those who pay the taxes that fund it.
He actually left some war out. Understandable. U.S. involvement against japan in china prior to ww2. Started with advisors late in 1937, thru 1940 if memory serves.
Bea Lever says:
Admin- Thanks for posting this proof of almost continuous war. It needs to be exposed for the racket that it is. There is BIG MONEY in war for a few and zero benefit for those who pay the taxes that fund it.
This is some what inaccurate. Military spending supports directly and indirectly millions of jobs and thousands of companies from arms manufacturers to convenience stores and bars near military bases. Simple supplies such as toilet paper and cleaners must be made and delivered by someone to the hundreds of military operations in the USA and around the globe.
The military budget is huge and while a few many benefit greatly many many more benefit from it and depend upon it for income. The tax payer is not fully funding it all because probably near half of military costs are paid with debt in the tax payers name. These debts can not be paid off as they stand and will never be paid no matter who’s name they are in. Some day even the interest will be to much to pay and then it will not be paid.
If we cut military spending by 80% right now I’ll bet our economy would fall part and many tax payers won’t pay tax anymore because they will have no work. The military and war are bad symptoms more than actual problems. As with most everything we discuss here to address the real problem we must kill the bankers and then suffer the financial, emotional and physical pain that will be a consequence of dispatching them.
Those assholes in Eastasia never learn. We’ll always be at war with them.
I’m tired of this America bashing bullshit !!
If all those other countries would simply accept Democracy — as we see it — then there would be peace.
So simple even a caveman could understand that.
“Welcome to the War”
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, by Paul Fussell
What was it about the war that moved the troops to constant verbal subversion and contempt? It was not just the danger and fear, the boredom and uncertainty and loneliness and deprivation. It was rather the conviction that optimistic publicity and euphemism had rendered their experience so falsely that it would never be readily communicable.
Those in the war – and most specifically, the small minority on the front line – knew the sanitized version that was portrayed for those at the home front; further, they knew that their own comrades who were in support positions knew little of the experience of actual war.
Fussell also comments on this contempt in his companion book of the Great War, “The Great War and Modern Memory”:
The visiting of violent and if possible painful death upon the complacent, patriotic, uncomprehending, fatuous civilians at home was a favorite fantasy indulged by the troops.
…would like to see them crushed to death by a tank in one of their silly patriotic music halls, and in “Fight to the Finish” he enacts a similar fantasy. The war over, the army is marching through London in a Victory Parade, cheered by the “Yellow-Pressmen” along the way. Suddenly the soldiers fix bayonets and turn on the crowd:
At last the boys found a cushy job.
They hated the smiling women on the streets. They loathed the old men….They desired that profiteers should die by poison-gas. They prayed God to get the Germans to send Zeppelins to England – to make the people know what war meant.
Those in combat knew that their arms and equipment were inferior to that available to the Germans, their automatic rifles slower and clumsier, and that the Germans had a much better light machine gun. They knew their tanks were under-armed and under-armored, their anti-tank mines unusable in sub-freezing weather. The greatest weapon in the war – other than the atomic bomb – was the German 88-mm flat-trajectory gun, used to bring down thousands of bombers and countless tens-of-thousands of soldiers.
And they knew that no one at home was aware of any of these things. And they knew that the relative capability of the enemy’s armaments was the least important secret being kept from the home front.
To the extent those at home saw pictures of the dead they saw peaceful, intact bodies. If ever a corpse was shown in a disfigured condition, it was usually the enemy’s dead.
What annoyed the troops and augmented their sardonic, contemptuous attitude toward those who viewed them from afar was in large part this public innocence about the bizarre damage suffered by the human body in modern war.
The general public would not know that the official “Graves Registration form” had a space for indicating “Members Missing.” It wasn’t always bullets and fragments that did the damage – how about being killed by a violently detached body part of your comrade?
If you asked a wounded soldier or marine what hit him, you’d hardly be ready for the answer, “My buddy’s head,” or his sergeant’s heel or his hand or a Japanese leg, complete with shoe and puttees, or the West Point ring on his captain’s severed hand.
Men split into pieces, the head here, the legs there, the torso…unknown. Severed heads thought to be mops. Entrails, always entrails.
An example is offered – an observation by a German soldier after the failed Allied (predominantly Canadian) raid at Dieppe:
The dead on the beach – I’ve never seen such obscenities before. There were pieces of human beings littering the beach. There were headless bodies, there were legs, there were arms.
There were even shoes, “with feet in them.”
What was Dieppe?
The Dieppe Raid, also known as the Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter and, later, Operation Jubilee, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe during the Second World War. The raid took place on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 a.m. and by 10:50 a.m. the Allied commanders were forced to call a retreat.
A total of 3,367 of the 6,086 men (almost 60%) who made it ashore were either killed, wounded, or captured.
After this, the madness.
You can’t take much of that sort of thing without going mad…
It wasn’t just the body parts, or lack of parts, that drove men mad; the fear, the constant, continuous, ever-present fear. Not only on the front line. Repeated tours on the “Murmansk run”; suffering depth-charges while in a submarine.
Fear induced vomiting, losing control of the bowels, urinating in their pants – common events for those so subjected. One soldier, realizing his sergeant had just “pissed his pants,” and who then felt liberty to admit he did as well, was told by the Sergeant, “welcome to the war.”
Few soldiers while in training understood the meaning of the term replacement in their Replacement Training Centers.
What was going to happen to the soldiers they were being trained to replace? Why should so many “replacements” – hundreds of thousands of them, actually – be required?
The answer came soon enough: combat divisions experienced well in excess of a 100% replacement rate.
If a division was engaged for more than three months, the probability was that every one of its second lieutenants, all 132 of them, would be killed or wounded.
After fighting from Normandy to Hamburg, as few as five men out of around 200 in each rifle company of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers remained from the original contingent.
It wasn’t just wounds and death: dysentery, pneumonia, malaria, freezing, burning. And madness, mental breakdowns.
Inevitably, all will break down if in combat long enough….Each moment of combat imposes a strain so great that men will break down in direct relation to the intensity and duration of their experience.
…men will inevitably go mad in battle and…no appeal to patriotism, manliness, or loyalty to the group will ultimately matter.
Frontline soldiers, reduced to quivering wrecks. Not quite as advertised.
As mentioned, it wasn’t only the civilians that were unaware of this reality – most soldiers weren’t aware of this either. Only a small minority of soldiers did any fighting that brought them into such contact with the enemy – as many as 90% of those who wore uniforms saw no such fighting and knew little if anything about this reality. Out of 11 million American men in the army, only about 2 million were in the combat divisions and of these, fewer than 700,000 were in the infantry.
It seems reasonable to surmise that the overwhelming majority of those veterans being thanked for their service likely saw little if any combat: those who were on the frontline died, it was those in support who returned.
Why were these realities so unknown? Believe it or not, a compliant press. as John Steinbeck confessed in 1958: “We were all part of the war effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it.”
Not that the press were liars – they just didn’t tell the truth! They never wrote of thieves, cowards, rapists or looters; not of the cruel or stupid commanders.
As Walt Whitman declared after examining the facts of the American Civil War (and equally applicable in the present case):
The real war will never get in the books.
Posted by bionic mosquito at 3:50 PM
Roy
Glad to see ya! Still researching Cuba?
I’m throwing the bullshit flag on the Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian Wars during Washington’s administration. Zzzzztt. And there goes the flag.
This so-called war was between Indians and settlers. Period. It mostly didn’t even occur within the territorial boundaries of the U.S. Got that, peeps? Indians. Settlers. Outside the U.S.
Llpoh will weigh in at 5,4,3,2 …….!!!!
I had never head of the Banana Wars.