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

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 influential 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.

Militarizing politics of recognition through the Invictus Games: post-heroic exalting of the armed forces

“…These include those that might derive from new levels and types of cosmopolitan sentiment (Beck and Levy 2013;Igarashi and Saito 2014) and greater cultural sensitivity towards violence in society (Pinker 2011;Scheipers 2014). Discourses and narratives may also connect with new demographic shifts in national militaries (Hoglin 2021;Milton and Mines 2021;Vasquez and Napier 2022) and rising political activism and critiques of the Department of Defense and Veteran's Affairs by post-2001 veterans and their families (Flores 2017;Gutmann and Lutz 2010). These representations are situated within prominent Western veteran discourses about the disenchanting aspects of military life.…”