Friday, December 19, 2014

Miscellaneous and Fast


2 comments:

LA Grant said...

The piece on French brothels mentions American doughboys, a topic with which I'm familiar.

The Army and the US administration put on a major effort to make sure the clean (in the old meaning of the word) young men we sent to Europe stayed that way.

You might be surprised at the effort that was made in that effort. The YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army, Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community Service, and the American Library Association formed the "Seven Sisters," a group that supported health, welfare, and recreation alternatives for the soldiers to keep them out of the houses of 'ill fame.' Sometimes it worked, but sometimes soldiers behaved like soldiers often behave.

It amazes me how much effort was made in this direction. For example, intelligence testing became a very big deal. Also, classes were held to try to alleviate illiteracy and many similar shortcomings, at least until combat pressures got to be too much.

Interesting story if you're interested.

Michael Wade said...

Larry,

Very interesting. The morality aspect must have been a major influence although I also imagine they were sensitive to the fact that armies in the past had been seriously weakened by disease.

Michael