Paper Summary:

This paper discusses essays written in the 1970s at the time of the Vietnam War, which seems veritable light years away in terms of military and political changes related to the current terrorism on the colossal and destructive scale of 9/11/01. The author feels that the essay by Kennedy best reflects the big-picture view of America, its peoples, its geography, its politics, and its wars fought. The paper relates that Kennedy asserts, given this nation has not had to defend its own boundaries, Americans have developed an attitude that, when Uncle Sam goes to war, he totally wipes out the enemy with massive force, such as WWII's massive landing at Normandy, France.

From the Paper:

"Examples of how small our armies were compared to those in Europe are offered: in 1897, when the French Army of conscripts number more than half a million, and the German Army of conscripts numbered just less than half a million, Americans had an army of 27,000 volunteers. Until WWI, the U.S. Army was all-volunteer and the stark comparison with Europe's standing armies makes Kennedy's point about geography isolating America from conflict."

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