History Commons^™

The Relationship Between Participation In Recreational Therapy Physical Activity And Symptoms Of Mental Health Issues In Veterans, Krista F. Mcdonagh

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Background/Objective: The growing prevalence of mental health issues in veterans has triggered a wide-spread effort to identify and provide complementary intervention strategies to increase help-seeking behavior in this population. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUD) have become two of the most common mental health issues as a result of the demanding environment of military life. This study looks specifically at therapeutic recreation-based physical activity opportunities as a complementary treatment option for veterans at an increased risk for mental health issues.

Method: A correlational survey research design was used to examine relationships between factors of participation in different …

Expendable: Eight Soldiers From Massachusetts Regiments Executed For Desertion During The United States Civil War, Stephen F. Ragon

Graduate Masters Theses

The written history of the United States Civil War provides limited analysis on the topic of desertion and execution for desertion in the Army of the Potomac. The specific numbers involved are well documented. With the exception of occasional narratives on the executions themselves, there is no examination of the human decisions taken; beginning with the soldier’s choice to desert. In addition, while the military court-martial trial was rigid in its structure and process, it allowed for discretion in the sentencing phase. Human choice exerted its greatest influence in the aftermath of the trial as the sentence was reviewed up …

Lusitania: An Examination Of Captaincy And Seamanship In The Face Of Disaster, Robert J. Goulding

Graduate Masters Theses

The last voyage of the RMS Lusitania is examined. The Cunard liner left New York for Liverpool on May 1, 1915 as the conflict in Europe began to escalate. The research separates the act of war from the actions of the ship's command and control infrastructure and the seamanship of its crew. This distinction is made under a thesis that more lives could have and should have been saved. The central question of the research was therefore: to what extent should the captain and crew of RMS Lusitania be held to account for the elevated loss of life in the …

'An Explosive Of Quite Unimaginable Force': Did Werner Heisenberg Obstruct German Atomic Bomb Research?, Aaron G. Noll

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

Why was Nazi Germany unable to acquire an atomic bomb during World War II? An answer to this question necessarily involves an analysis of the wartime conduct of Werner Heisenberg. As the undisputed leader of German nuclear research, Heisenberg was integral to the successful production of a bomb. Heisenberg claimed after the war that the Nazis lacked the economic resources for this project. Moreover, Nazi military strategy ruled out such a sustained long-term commitment in armaments development. Heisenberg explained that he personally felt fortunate that these circumstances prevented Hitler from having a bomb. He argued that he merely “pretended” to …

A Case Study Of Melita Maschmann: Women And The Third Reich, Lynda Maureen Willett

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The case study of Melita Maschmann shows that despite the deep manipulation and gender discrimination she was subject to in her youth by National Socialism Maschmann made her own free choices as an adult and chose to zealously absorb its political ideology. The general assumption is that National Socialism, and fascism, were male dominated political ideologies in which women played a passive role, such as that professed by Gertrude Scholtz-Klink. However, many women found National Socialism appealing and became active supporters of its ideals. The purpose of this paper is to explore that appeal and analyze why certain women such …

Captain Pierce's Fight: An Investigation Into A King Philip's War Battle And Its Remembrance And Memorialization, Lawrence K. Lacroix

Graduate Masters Theses

On March 26, 1676 Native Americans from southern New England overran a company of Plymouth Colony militia, handing the English one of their worst defeats during King Philip's War. This study was concerned with the reconstruction of the Pierce Battle, as it has come to be known, and its eventual memorialization. The study's two main research questions were: First, to what extent did a complete and critical examination of the primary and secondary sources change, support, or add to the commonly accepted battle perspective? Second, in what ways did a contextual analysis of King Philip's War monuments in Rhode Island …

The Brownsville, Texas, Disturbance Of 1906 And The Politics Of Justice, Garna L. Christian

Trotter Review

An acrimonious civilian-military conflict reached into the halls of Congress and the White House when residents of Brownsville, Texas accused the First Battalion, 25th Infantry, of attacking the town from Fort Brown around midnight on August 12, 1906, claiming the life of one townsman and injuring two others.

The disputed episode took place against the background of deteriorating racial relations in the state and region, an enhanced selfconfidence of black soldiers following heroic achievements in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine insurrection, and the economic decline of the South Texas town bordering the Rio Grande. Texas, like other southern states, …

African-American Activist Mary Church Terrell And The Brownsville Disturbance, Debra Newman Ham

Trotter Review

Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) demonstrated the philosophy of calm courage many times in a long life of activism. In the middle of her life, when three companies of African-American soldiers in Brownsville, Texas, were dismissed without honor and without a hearing in 1906, she readily came to their defense. Their dismissals followed a racial disturbance during which one white man was killed and several others wounded in Brownsville. Terrell, at the urging of some African-American leaders, went to see Secretary of War William Howard Taft to request that the action against the black troops be rescinded until they received a …

The Houston Mutiny Of 1917, Garna L. Christian

Trotter Review

One of the deadliest race riots in the strife-ridden World War I period, the Houston Mutiny, otherwise known as the Camp Logan riot, resulted in more than twenty deaths and the largest number of executions in the history of the United States military.

The mutiny occurred on the night of August 23, 1917, less than a month after the Third Battalion of the African-American 24th Infantry arrived in Houston, Texas. Companies I, K, L, and M, consisting of 645 enlisted men and seven officers under the command of Col. William Newman, and later Maj. Kneeland S. Snow, drew the assignment …

The Status And Needs Of Small Businesses Owned And Controlled By Disabled Veterans, Paul R. Camacho

William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences Publications

This introduction provides a thumbnail sketch, or landscape, of the history and conditions of veterans’ benefits against which to profile the issue of veterans’ small business opportunities. After years of applied research on issues pertaining to the veteran community, it has become abundantly clear to this researcher that the good people who serve in our federal and state agencies, and as staff persons in various congressional and state legislative offices often lack the data and/or information they need to fully and meaningfully address the needs of veterans and their families. This situation is no doubt a result of demographic facts. …

Preface, James Jennings

Trotter Review

It gives me great pleasure to be part of the publication of this special issue on blacks in the U.S. military. Blacks in America have sacrificed their lives in all of the wars involving the U.S. at the same time that they have struggled for social and racial justice at home. Unfortunately, pervasive myths about the military sacrifices and valor of blacks in this country continue to be held by many Americans. It is also sad that too many blacks find that the military may be the only channel available to them for the realization of social and economic mobility. …

Introduction, William King

Trotter Review

Bloods. Brothers. The Griot. Vietnam Blues. Black Bitches Dancing With Charlie. These titles, and numerous articles, essays, poems, government reports, films, and related items, describe and detail various aspects of the black experience of the American war in Vietnam, the situation on the homefront during that conflict, and some of the things that happened to black veterans upon their return to the "world" in the postwar years. That only selected aspects of that experience are covered arises from the fact that blacks were not nearly as prolific inrecapitulating their tours of duty, forcing us to get at that information …

Acknowledgements, Kevin Bowen, David Hunt

Trotter Review

All of us at the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences are extremely grateful to our friends at the Trotter Institute for the opportunity to collaborate on this issue of the Trotter Review. It seems especially appropriate that this issue is being published at the time of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the center, named after William Joiner, Jr., an African-American veteran of the Vietnam War and the university's first director of Veterans' Affairs who died of cancer in 1981.

A Salute To African Americans Who Served In The United States Armed Forces, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

African Americans have volunteered to participate in every war or conflict in which the United States has been engaged. This is true despite their ancestors having been slaves for 244 years of America's history.

From the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War, African Americans have demanded the right to serve their country in the armed services and, in several instances, they have made the difference between victory or defeat for American troops. Throughout this history, African Americans were ever cognizant of the dual freedoms—their own personal freedom as well as the nation's—for which they so bravely fought and gave their …

African Americans And The Persian Gulf Crisis, Jacquelin Howard-Matthews

Trotter Review

This article addresses two issues: the African-American response to United States involvement in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war and interrelated factors explaining the nature of that response. Despite the historical symbolism associated with African-American participation and disproportionate representation in the military, African Americans composed the most consistently identifiable strata either opposed to or suspicious of the deployment of U.S. troops and military equipment in the Gulf. The pattern of African-American response to the Gulf War is remarkably similar to its underlying reactions to military conflicts taking place in the recent past, including the Vietnam War and Laos invasion of the …

Fragments From A Work In Progress, Elizabeth Allen

Trotter Review

A long time ago in a place far away, a place called Vietnam, I had to come to grips with the monkey. The monkey was not war. As a colored woman born in the forties, the monkey was life. Vietnam just forced me to look at it. Maybe it allowed me the opportunity. Who knows. Looking back at it has been almost impossible. You see, growing up my grandmother would always say when I wanted to explain something, "Baby-darling, will talking about something that has already happened change it?" Of course it wouldn't change anything. Any fool knows that. "Well," …

The Vietnam War Memorial And The Gulf War, Paul L. Atwood

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article discusses the debate over the "meaning" of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., relating it to the revision of the "Vietnam syndrome" as it has been played out in recent U.S. armed interventions overseas. Considerable political struggle occurred during the design phase of the memorial over which values the monument should enshrine. Since its construction the memorial has continued to be a focus for controversy about the future direction of U.S. foreign policy and has functioned as a magnet for continuing historical and political attempts to sort out the "lessons" of the second Indochina war. This debate …

Commentary: Blacks In U.S. History, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

During Black History Month many people paused to discuss and reflect on the presence and the contributions of African-Americans in the history of the United States. During February two years ago we had a visit from a white Navy veteran from nearby Quincy, Massachusetts, who had his own black history story — although he did not express it as such.

Telling The Story Of The Early Black Aviators, Philip S. Hart

Trotter Review

The story of America’s early black aviators from the 1920s and 1930s has been one of the neglected themes in American aviation history. My interest in this topic began with research into family history. My mother’s uncle, J. Herman Banning, was a pioneer black aviator during this nation’s Golden Age of Aviation. I remember my mother, aunt, and grandmother talking about J. Herman Banning back when I was little, and in my teenage years I tried to find out more than I had learned from these family stories and photographs, but it was difficult for me to locate any information …