My Son, John

"The army," said Lenin of the collapse of Russia's land forces in 1917, "decided the question of war and peace with its feet." Last week a nervous U.S. Government heard an impatient scraping of other feet--the G.I.s of a once-great U.S. Army. It had won a war with dashing gallantry but it still had a precarious political front to hold. G.I. Joe wanted to quit--and to hell with winning the peace.

There was little violence; it was more like a Union Square demonstration. But the noise spread around the world. Fueled on homesickness and low morale, the ruckus was touched off by the Army's abrupt announcement that it would be some time before a lot of U.S. soldiers got home, because many would have to carry on for a while as occupation troops.

Boos for Brass. In Manila, where G.I.s started sporadic demonstrations several weeks ago, the noise was loudest. Dis integration of the soldierly virtues had shown in drunkenness, reckless driving, carelessness in dress. Then demonstrations became organized.

Mass meetings booed the top command, collected funds to buy space for protests in U.S. papers. They promised: "We are marking the names of Congressmen who are interested in our welfare."

Other G.I.s demonstrated in Honolulu. In Paris several hundred paraded down the Champs Elysees waving magnesium flares and yelling "scab" and "slacker" at soldiers who declined to join the mob. In London 500 soldiers met in Grosvenor Square. When a sergeant bellowed: "Do you know who we got on this side [of the Atlantic]?" they roared back: "Eleanor!" A delegation marched to Claridge's Hotel, where Eleanor Roosevelt had arrived for the UNO conference, and demanded that she help them. They said she promised to "do all I can."

Even in the U.S. soldiers met and wanted to know: "Why can't we go home?" They met at Wright Field in Dayton, demanding: "Where is the critical work we're supposed to be doing?" They assembled at Andrews Field, Md. and listened sulkily when their commanding officer pleaded: "Are you gentlemen interested in information? I'm trying to explain this to you."

Ripe Time. They were in no mood for explanations. The war was over, they wanted to go home. It was as simple as that. Even occupation troops in Germany and Japan, who should have known better, joined the chorus. In Frankfurt 2,000 G.I.s crowded into the Army headquarters compound and G.I. orators shinnied up a lamppost to harangue them. They yelled for soldierly Lieut. General Joseph T. McNarney to come out and face them if he was not too "scared." McNarney was in Berlin at a meeting of the Four-Power Control Council. The G.I.s showed what they thought of his absence by booing and hissing his name. McNarney, well aware of the Army's dependence on Congress, said mildly, when he returned: "I ask you to discontinue [the demonstrations] for the time being."

In Yokohoma a mob booed War Secretary Patterson, who had picked this unlucky moment for a Pacific inspection trip, until a provost marshal told them: "You are insulting a man who was a soldier before you were born."*

The situation became so critical that Major General Clovis E. Byers, chief of staff of the Eighth Army in Japan, warned: "None of our divisions is up to full strength. ... If any group of Japanese decided the time was ripe for revolt they would certainly pick a time when they believed there was dissatisfaction in the American Army. It appears that subversive forces are deliberately at work, for obscure reasons, attempting to undermine the morale of our Army." The soldiers still felt that the only critical situation was their distance from home.

Action by Mob. It was true that most of the men still in uniform (the Army has already released 5,000,000) had seen little or no fighting. But they could be just as homesick as men who had. Most of them, even many of the officers, were conscripts and they had never had any liking for soldiering. They were frustrated by idleness. They had never fully understood why the war was fought. To most of them no one had ever bothered to explain the Army's postwar job. Many who had heard explanations of a sort thought it was hogwash, anyhow.

They had substantial gripes, too. Not the least of them were the frequent failures of a poorly indoctrinated officer corps, which paid less & less attention to the G.I.s and more & more attention to its own comfort and amusement. While officers played, the men went to seed.

The high command, harried by the uproar from civilian and soldier, had never told them exactly what the score was on the time they must serve. The demobilization machinery had sometimes operated in strange ways that no one could adequately explain.

When soldiers discovered what every good agitator knows--that by mob methods they could stir up a quick reaction from the U.S. public and its Congress--they began to act like a mob. Generals as well as politicians were powerless against this behavior. With G.I. demands ringing in his ears, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower issued a strategic retreat order to theater commanders: return to the U.S. any men "for whom there is no military need."

G.I.s were sure they had won a victory. Actually, unless the War Department had badly miscalculated the "military need," Ike Eisenhower's order did not change the situation one iota. His statement, passing the buck to theater commanders, was an evasion which G.I.s would figure out later.

No Place Like Home. The soldiers had the sympathies of Congressmen. Just as noisily as the G.I.s, Congressmen confounded confusion. Mississippi's rabble-rousing Rankin again plugged his bill to release any man who has been in the Army 18 months, or who had dependents, or who wanted to go to school (i.e., virtually every man jack). Pennsylvania's Rich had blabbered: "Every father, every mother, every wife, every child want their loved one to be with them at home. ... Remember there is no place like home."

As a Senate subcommittee got ready to investigate, Senator Ed Johnson declared: "We got results last September [when George C. Marshall appeared before Congress to tell how things were going], . . . We got action through public opinion. If we don't get results now that way there are other methods such as cutting back appropriations."

There was little doubt that Congress could get action from a public which had sent more than 200 pairs of babies' booties to Senator Elbert Thomas, containing such notes as "I miss my daddy." Every G.I. had the sympathy of the home folks. Everyone thought someone else should do the G.I.'s job.

Said Under Secretary of War Kenneth C. Royall: "It is that philosophy of 'me and my son, John' that's flooding our Congressmen with a deluge of criticism of demobilization," and jeopardizing the nation's foreign policy--and its reputation as a serious nation. Like its soldiers, the U.S. public was also deciding questions of war and peace with its feet.

*As an infantry captain in World War I, Secretary Patterson won the Distinguished Service Cross for a courageous daylight patrol.

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