Samuel Stouffer, a little-known sociologist from Sac City, Iowa, is likely not a name World War II historians associate with other stalwart men of the war, such as Eisenhower, Patton, or MacArthur. Yet Stouffer, in his role as head of the Army Information and Education Division s Research Branch, spearheaded an effort to understand the citizen-soldier, his reasons for fighting, and his overall Army experience. Using empirical methods of inquiry to transform general assumptions about leadership and soldiering into a sociological understanding of a draftee Army, Stouffer perhaps did more for...

A decorated World War I veteran, Federal Judge Robert P. Patterson knew all too well the
needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was thus dismayed by America's lack of military
preparedness when a second great war engulfed Europe in 1939-40. With the international
crisis worsening, Patterson even resumed military training--as a forty-nine-yearold
private--before being named assistant secretary of war in July 1940. That appointment
set the stage for Patterson's central role in the country's massive mobilization and
supply effort which helped the Allies win World War...

Army chaplains have long played an integral part in America's armed forces. In addition to conducting chapel activities on military installations and providing moral and spiritual support on the battlefield, they conduct memorial services for fallen soldiers, minister to survivors, offer counsel on everything from troubled marriages to military bureaucracy, and serve as families' points of contact for wounded or deceased soldiers--all while risking the dangers of combat alongside their troops. In this thoughtful study, Anne C. Loveland examines the role of the army chaplain since World War...