Band of Brothers or Band of Others?: Rhetoric, Veterans, and Civil Rights Fights in Germany and the United States

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211065490
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211065490

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(2) 446 –469

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211065490

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Article

1134644AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X211065490Armed Forces & SocietyVasquez and Napier

research-article2022

Band of Brothers or Band of

Others?: Rhetoric, Veterans,

and Civil Rights Fights in

Germany and the United

States

Joseph Paul Vasquez, III

1

and Walter W. Napier, III

2

Abstract

Research suggests that marginalized groups can use military service to win greater

governmental and social acceptance by using civic republican rhetoric, however,

conditions in which claims-making rhetoric is coercive are underspecif‌ied. Because

rhetorical effectiveness requires sympathetic ears, we examine the inf‌luence of (1)

expectations and political efforts of marginalized group members seeking greater

acceptance, (2) whether majority group economic status is outpacing marginalized

groups seeking improved treatment, and (3) whether marginalized groups have in-

f‌luential military veterans from majority groups as allies. We apply these factors to

explain the claims-making failure of German Jews following the First World War and

the success of African Americans after the Second World War. From the African

American case, we also conclude that military service led to greater socio-political

inclusion and rights based on development of future political actors through leadership

development processes and inter-group contact, especially regarding Presidents

Truman and Eisenhower.

Keywords

citizenship, civil rights, discourse, identity, rhetoric, veterans

1

School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

2

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joseph Paul Vasquez, III, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida,

4297 Andromeda Loop N, Howard Phillips Hall, Rm. 30, Orlando, FL 32816-8005, USA.

Email: paul.vasquez@ucf.edu

Vasquez and Napier 447

Historically, groups have struggled for citizenship, acceptance, and greater rights. Tilly

(1985) argues that the European war-making process allowed groups to gain in ex-

change for their cooperation. Relatedly, Krebs (2006) contends citizenship, greater

political inclusion and benef‌its can be achieved by groups using civic republican

rhetoric about their military sacrif‌ice for their country.

1

Krebs has been invoked by

scholars studying the role of military service and the pursuit of greater rights and

benef‌its by women (Best, 2019), Muslims (Sandhoff, 2013), and immigrants more

generally (Sullivan, 2019) in the United States, as well as by scholars examining the

domestic political consequences of war (Sparrow, 2008;Kier & Krebs, 2010;Centeno,

2010). It comes as little surprise that Krebs’work has been so inf‌luential. On the

dustjacket of Krebs’book, James Burk referred to it as a “unique and interesting

contribution to our understanding of the relationship between military service and

citizenship status,”and Charles Moskos described it as “truly pathbreaking.”Another

scholar described Krebs work on minorities serving in the Israeli military as

“groundbreaking,”as well as “[h]ighly original, well-written and powerfully and

convincingly argued”(Geller, 2017, xvi, 97–101,113).

Krebs’is certainly not alone in examining the intersection of military service and

citizenship. Following Tilly, Krebs, and others in the “bellicose school of state for-

mation,”Levy (2013) develops criteria for evaluating the exchange rate inf‌luencing the

ability of groups to receive symbolic civilian, social rewards for military service.

2

However, we focus on Krebs’study for several reasons. Not only was it very positively

received, but it unambiguously found support for casual processes related to rhetoric

and minority’s gains, while dismissing alternative pathways to greater citizenship and

benef‌its that had long been discussed in the literature. Thus, we believe Krebs’

conclusions might lead scholars prematurely to discard rival mechanisms by which

military service benef‌its those who served.

Krebs argues that minority group’s appeals for better treatment are most successful

when justif‌ied by their military service and civic republican rhetoric in societies

highly valuing military virtue where such rhetoric is coercive. Because this phe-

nomenon involves marginalized groups winning concessions from dominant groups

with interests and power at stake, (Krebs & Jackson, 2007) argue that using rhetorical

power to explain the “politics of citizenship”is a “hard case”(p. 49). While such

campaigns for rights are a “hard case”as a type of phenomenon, the case upon which

most of his support rests—the case of successful civic republican lobbying by Israel’s

Druze community in the 1950s and 1960s,

3

is one which seems much less comparable

than the case of American blacks after WorldWar II, to which Krebs (2006) compares

it. In 1945, African Americans had been out of slavery less than a century due to the

U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment, and they remained second-class citizens be-

cause of Jim Crow segregation and were prevented from exercising their 15th

Amendment right to vote in many places. By contrast, the Druze always enjoyed full

suffrage in Israel. Furthermore, because large numbers of Jews emigrated to Israel

from Europe after the Holocaust, the Druze were not subject to sustained and deeply

engrained dehumanization as African Americans were.

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