As the ages of gang criminality lower, the need for other perspectives is necessary. This study poses the question “why and how should literature featuring child soldiers be used to discuss human rights violations in the classroom in upper secondary school?” and deconstructs the binaries childhood-innocence and victim-perpetrator in the novel Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala. This study utilises Paolo Freire and bell hooks’ radical pedagogical theory to bridge the gap between child soldiers in other countries and those that are involved in criminality in Sweden. The agency of child soldiers in their victimisation of civilians and other combatants is something that requires further nuance as well as the assumption that child soldiers have lost their innocence and childhood upon entering combat, without consideration for the violence that might have occurred before combat. Thus, further nuance is required in order to engage in fruitful discussions concerning child soldiers worldwide.

Guardians of Freedom is my attempt to make sense out of my time spent in uniform, in the only way that is appropriate: hyperbolic comedy. It is a story of Specialist Henry, a disillusioned soldier returning from one deployment in the Global War on Terror and facing another. Thoughts of making a difference and changing the world dashed, he wants nothing more than to be rid of the uniform and live an admittedly pointless life. He is joined by the various characters of Bravo Company, the deploying unit which has been used as a dumping point for medically-impaired soldiers. Outwardly, the story is about the bureaucracy and inanity of military life in a time of prolonged war. Hopefully though, there is a glimpse at the very real people that I met and loved and who, like me, were forced to find a way to survive and live in an environment that’s sole purpose revolves around death.

This dissertation explores the efforts of northern soldiers’ relief organizations in bringing Union veterans home and aiding them during and after the Civil War. Part One focuses on the wartime work of the United States Sanitary Commission’s Special Relief Department in Washington, which dealt with a humanitarian crisis caused by neglect on the part of the U.S. Army as the city became choked with wounded, ill, or destitute discharged soldiers unable to get home. Employing antebellum missionary tactics, its workers relieved suffering where found but also forged vital and innovative bureaucratic mechanisms to move men homeward. By 1864, the Special Relief Department stood poised to spearhead a national system of soldiers’ homes. The Sanitary Commission leadership backed away from this challenge not out of a simple faith in American self-sufficiency, as they professed, or indifference, as many scholars suggest, but because they were daunted by mounting evidence of widespread poverty among soldiers and a societal problem beyond their reach. The withdrawal of the Sanitary Commission did not leave a vacuum as sometimes claimed. Part Two examines relief efforts in the Boston area. Previous scholarship has asserted that northern civilians turned their backs on suffering endured by discharged soldiers. On the contrary, a decentralized yet complex and multilayered network of private charities and state and local government programs saved lives and mitigated suffering. Some groups of veterans were indeed marginalized, due not to civilian antipathy towards veterans but to long-standing prejudices on the part of veterans and civilians alike against foreigners and the poor that were exacerbated by the Panic of 1873. As the Grand Army of the Republic joined the decentralized aid system, they cultivated the image of the noble discharged soldier to garner respect. Consequently, they played a major role in cementing the concept of the “unworthy” veteran in the public mind, stripping destitute veterans of the aura of the “discharged soldier.” Diverse methodologies sparked debate between aid workers who based their efforts on emerging social science and those religion-based antebellum models. This project explores this complex discourse and the varied strategies employed to assist the discharged soldier.

No description available.

The dissertation argues that the United States Army was a slaveholding institution. It explains how the military, the central instrument of statecraft in the 19th century, evolved as a national establishment while condoning and promoting slavery in its ranks. An empirical study of often ignored military pay records reveals that from the army’s foundation to the abolition of slavery, thousands of enslaved people served as officers’ servants and became integral to the military. In 1816, Congress authorized allowances, rations, and clothing for officers’ private servants while prohibiting the former custom of taking soldiers as servants. By reimbursing officers who held or hired enslaved servants, Congress not only sanctioned slavery but also subsidized and created incentives for officers to own, utilize and trade enslaved people. The dissertation shows that over three-quarters of officers, southerners and northerners alike, held slaves as servants during their military careers. Over 9,000 enslaved people were forced into the army, nearly three times more than the number of officers. The dissertation investigates the origins and scope of slavery within the army, the legal, fiscal, and violent mechanisms that sustained it, and the profound impact slavery had on the American military establishment. By analyzing the U.S. Army, the most dominant national establishment, as a slaveholding institution, this project adds to the expanding literature on the “slaveholding republic.” The dissertation goes beyond merely illustrating “slave power” in the federal army by offering a ground-level investigation into how slavery got its foothold in an important national organization. Virtually unnoticed by prior historians, some 180,000 payrolls in the National Archives reveal the mundane realities of enslaved military servants and their enslavers. Each document included servants’ names, physical descriptions, locations, and allowances paid for their subsistence. The dissertation utilizes an original database of thousands of payrolls identified, sampled, and digitized, particularly for this project. The database has over two million data points, which enable grasping the phenomena of military slavery and tracking down individual servants’ and enslavers’ trajectories. The data shows that officers carried enslaved servants wherever they went, regardless of local laws forbidding it – even in so-called “free states” in the continental United States, Mexico, and Europe. Nearly 13% of all officers’ pay expenses went directly to subsidize slavery. Ratio analysis demonstrates that the bureaucracy and funding mechanisms that evolved before 1816 kept enslaved servitude stable. Thus, until the Civil War (1861-1865) and the unmaking of slavery, the army – which expanded and protected the frontiers of an empire in the making – not only benefited from the slave market but was a significant force in its expansion. Moreover, permitting and subsidizing slavery in the army made the U.S. government complicit in its brutalities, including forced removals, human trafficking, and the separation of families. Military slavery developed gradually with the foundation, bureaucratization, and professionalization of an American military peace establishment. It evolved from 1797 to 1816 through competing policy objectives, resulting in an enduring bureaucratic (and euphemistic) workaround: “servants not soldiers.” Facing public criticism over officers’ abuse of soldiers’ labor, the army gradually “outsourced” officers’ servants through a dual process of privatization and racialization of military labor, differentiating between “public” and “private” service; between free, white soldiers and enslaved, black servants. Though serving slaveholders’ interests, the adopted solution of “Servants not soldiers” was a product of bureaucratic contingencies and ad-hoc decision-making and not a top-down policy orchestrated by a cabal of enslavers. Interestingly, a simple, basic question of reimbursement led somewhere perhaps unanticipated, ending in government-sponsored enslaved servitude. To add this level of contingency is not to make excuses, not to pose something akin to an “unthinking decision,” but to make us aware of the degree to which “the problem of slavery” was most frequently “solved” by accommodating it institutionally, rather than contesting it politically or morally. Thus, the dissertation illuminates an often-ignored aspect of the United States as a “slaveholding republic.”

The objective of this thesis was to examine the demographic characteristics and the drink-related determinants of alcohol use among U.S. military personnel. The data were obtained from The 1985 Worldwide Survey of Alcohol and Nonmedical Drug Use among Military Personnel which included 17,328 active duty military personnel. Analysis of Variance and Pearson r were used to examine the zero-order relationships among all independent and dependent variables in the study. Multiple Regression and Path Analysis were used to reveal the relationships between demographic and drink-related variables in predicting alcohol use. Findings from bivariate analyses explored the zero-order relationships between alcohol use and demographic attributes as well as drink-related determinants. It was found that the following characteristics were more frequently associated with military personnel who used alcohol: male, black, younger, not living with a spouse, in lower military ranks and with lower educational attainment. Furthermore, personnel who were strongly influenced by their drinking peers, considered the positive personal benefits of alcohol use, had favorable attitudes toward alcohol use, and encountered more serious problem situations were found to exhibit higher levels of alcohol use. Findings from multiple regressions and path analyses indicated that personal benefit was the most important determinant in predicting alcohol use. lt was found that the effects of problem situations on alcohol use were largely mediated by personal benefit. Moreover, peer influence not only directly affected alcohol use, but also mediated the effect of age on alcohol use. Surprisingly, it was found that normative definition toward alcohol use was not a good predictor of alcohol use. Both direct and mediating effects of normative definition on alcohol use were weak and negligible. Based on the findings of the study, implications for academic research on alcohol use were also discussed in the thesis. / Master of Science

Battle has consistently been the most dangerous collective human activity. In battle, human beings risk serious wounding and even death. Consequently, the study of the motivation of soldiers in combat is important to Military history. Combat motivation in the army of eighteenth-century Britain merits study, since the subject as it pertains to pre-industrial armies has at present received little attention. The soldiers of Hanoverian Britain received motivation from several sources. Basic training in the eighteenth-century British army laid the foundations for certain relationships among military personnel which contributed to combat motivation. One such relationship was a network of primary ties among soldiers. The relationship between soldiers and officers was also important. The relationship between individual soldiers and the military institution as a whole also contributed to combat motivation. These relationships created a set of standards to which to army expected soldiers to react. When they reacted correctly, they were motivated to face the dangers of combat. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to gauge the perceptions and attitudes of participating soldiers toward the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges Associate Degree (SOCAD) Program. SOCAD is a voluntary off-duty associate degree program designed for Army noncommissioned officers and warrant officers. Two major research questions guided this inquiry. The first question was designed to determine the perceptions and attitudes of participants toward SOCAD. The second question related to the relationship between soldier participation and selected demographic variables such as age, gender, educational level, pay grade, marital status and term of enlistment. The questions were investigated by conducting a cross-sectional survey of the views of SOCAD participants on eight factors: (a) overall program impressions, (b) program mechanics, (c) program quality, (d) motivation, (e) benefits, (f) leadership influences, (g) progress toward the associate degree, and (h) demographics. From a verified Army Data Master File, 1,959 SOCAD participants were stratified by pay grade and randomly selected from a population of 9,799 active duty respondents to participate in the survey. A 65% return rate was attained. The questionnaire schedule was used as the principal method of gathering the information. The instrument was pilot tested for validity, and reliability was established at .83 by computing an internal consistency alpha level. All data gathered were coded and analyzed using the SPSSX software package. The chi-square test of association was used to determine statistical significance of relationship between SOCAD participant satisfaction with the program and selected demographics. Summary of findings: (a) 85% of the SOCAD participants reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall operation of the program; (b) over three-fourths of the respondents rated counseling support as good or excellent; (c) nearly 85% of all respondents indicated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the educational services provided by SOCAD colleges; (d) the top motivating factors for entering SOCAD were desire to get a better job when discharged from the Army (93%), being able to work on associate degree regardless of location (93%), and opportunity to use tuition assistance (85%); (e) one-fourth of the respondents agreed that involvement in SOCAD has encouraged them to stay in the Army; (f) among all pay grades, 34% agreed that they receive leadership encouragement to participate in the program; (g) slightly more than two-thirds of the respondents were satisfied with their rate of progress in the program; (h) when stratified by demographics most SOCAD participants were satisfied with the program. Very few differences in satisfaction levels were noted among the subgroups used in the study, and even then the differences were only slightly significant. Open-ended comments and additional analysis supported the above findings. In conclusion, the SOCAD program was perceived by the respondents to be a very effective and highly respected program that is meeting its goal of providing soldiers the opportunity to earn associate degrees in selected technical areas. Several program operational areas are identified for further study. / Ed. D.

Yes / After the Battle Dunbar between English and Scottish forces in 1650, captured Scottish soldiers were imprisoned in Durham and many hundreds died there within a few weeks. The partial skeletal remains of 28 of these men were discovered in 2013. Building on previous osteological work, here we report wide-ranging scientific studies of the remains to address the following questions: Did they have comparable diet, health and disease throughout their lives? Did they have common histories of movement (or lack of movement) during their childhoods? Can we create a collective biography of these men? Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel investigated childhood movement. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of incrementally sampled dentine addressed childhood diet and nutrition. Metaproteomic analysis of dental calculus investigated oral microbiomes and food residues; this was complemented by microscopic analysis of debris in calculus from ingested materials. Selected individuals were examined for dental microwear. The extent of hydroxylation of proline in collagen was examined as a potential biomarker for scurvy. An osteobiography for each man was created using the full range of data generated about him, and these were synthesised using an approach based on the historical method for a collective biography or prosopography. The childhood residences of the men were primarily within the Midland Valley of Scotland, though some spent parts of their childhood outside the British Isles. This is concordant with the known recruitment areas of the Scottish army in 1650. Their diets included oats, brassicas and milk but little seafood, as expected for lowland rather than highland diets of the period. Childhood periods of starvation or illness were almost ubiquitous, but not simultaneous, suggesting regionally variable food shortages in the 1620s and 1630s. It is likely there was widespread low-level scurvy, ameliorating in later years of life, which suggests historically unrecorded shortages of fruit and vegetables in the early 1640s. Almost all men were exposed to burnt plant matter, probably as inhaled soot, and this may relate to the high proportion of them with of sinusitis. Interpersonal violence causing skeletal trauma was rare. Based on commonalities in their osteobiographies, we argue that these men were drawn from the same stratum of society. This study is perhaps the most extensive to date of individuals from 17th century Scotland. Combined with a precise historical context it allows the lives of these men to be investigated and compared to the historical record with unprecedented precision. It illustrates the power of archaeological science methods to confirm, challenge and complement historical evidence. / The excavation and post-excavation programme was primarily funded by Durham University, with the palaeoproteomic analysis funded through the Wellcome Trust www. wellcome.ac.uk (108375/Z/15/Z to CFS).

The involvement of children in conflict is not a recent phenomenon. The military use of children dates back to ancient times. The change of warfare and the advocating of the protection of children's rights within the global discourse context have taken the discourse on child and youth involvement in conflict out of the political and military context and placed it into one circumscribed by legal and moral concern. Since the late 1970s, a number of international instruments have been promulgated to limit the recruitment of child soldiers, but even though the numbers of children being recruited into armed forces have decreased, children continue to be deployed into armed forces, particularly in Africa. 'Loopholes', vagueness and inconsistencies in the treaties and the strengths and weaknesses of the enforcement and monitoring mechanisms have created legal uncertainty which have ultimately resulted in further injustice for the child. However, legal uncertainty is not per se the cause of recruitment continuing; the cause being more complex. Researches and treaties have failed to address the obstacles to the implementation of the relevant international law. The issue(s) of culture and child crossborder recruitment have served as obstacles to an effective protection of children against recruitment by international law. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.