Every Citizen a Soldier: The Campaign for Universal Military Training after World War II

Abstract

Every Citizen a Soldier: The Campaign for Universal Military Training after World War II By William A. Taylor College Station, TX: Texas AM determining the role of universal military training (UMT) and its impact on groups within American society; and defining the relationship of citizenry to its military. Taylor provides a well-explicated precursor to the UMT efforts. Military historians will be familiar with the post-First World War Plattsburg Movement where American students and businessmen volunteered for basic military training under the command of then-former Army Chief of Staff General Leonard Wood. The movement's success greatly influenced Wood and future generals whom he mentored--George C. Marshall and John Palmer--both who became the foremost uniformed advocates for UMT. This legacy of the First World War became the National Defense Act of 1920, which reorganized the General Reserve (including the National Guard). However, a critical provision for compulsory military training of males between the ages of 18 and 21 was dropped from the bill. In hopes the world would not brook another conflict of a scale as the Great War, the United States followed George Washington's imperative for a "respectably defensive posture" (22) with a small standing army and reliance on mobilizing its citizenry for military operations. Embroiled in the Second World War in 1944, Army Chief of Staff General Marshall signed War Department Circular No. 347 to make UMT "the primary goal of the army's postwar establishment." (29) To Marshall, UMT was essential in developing military leaders, informing public opinion on military matters, minimizing the expense of a large standing army, and aligning democratic traditions with civilian participation in defense and a small standing force. …