Military Service and Education

https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/ktonhauser/ReadersDigestAugust1963p189.jpg?uniq=ph8vnd

“We can not learn men from books”

Ethyl Corporation Ad. August, 1963. Reader’s Digest. Pg.189.

For the second media project, I was going to look at the depiction of soldiers in the 60s and 70s and the first thing that struck me was that I could hardly find any in the magazines during the early 60s. The only picture I did find is not directly related to the armed forces but belongs to an ad for the Ethyl Corporation which encourages people to go on trips with their cars around their home towns. This is especially time related as this ad would not have appeared ten years later, when the first oil crisis limited the availability of gas. The lack of other pictures of soldiers indicates that the public was not too concerned with the United States’ military involvement in Indochina yet as Kennedy increased troops in the region only in the summer of ’63, around the time when this ad appeared. The soldier in full uniform is depicted positively as a role model for the little boy he talks to who drove all the way to the base to experience what it means to be a real soldier. The ad’s headline implies that serving in the military, the real life experience, is what forms real men which can not be achieved by learning from books. Considering, that the draft was implemented during until 1973, this statement has several implications. First, the allusion to manliness turns men serving in the armed forces into “real” men who fight the advance of Communism actively and are therefore to be admired leaving out those who are not part of this group, not “real” men. Second, the main reason how one could avoid the draft in this time was being enrolled in university. The hierarchy established in the quote downgrades learning from books and becomes especially significant when keeping in mind that the universities were considered places of liberal or even socialist thinking, therefore a double negation of the actively Communist fighting soldier.

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“College isn’t the only place to continue your education.”

US Army Ad. March, 1974. Reader’s Digest. Pg. 222.

In contrast to the picture in the previous ad, this one is advertising directly for the Army. The necessity for this arose when the draft was ended in 1973 and the pervasiveness of the Army/Marines/Reserve ads in the magazines of the mid-seventies is striking. On reason to end the draft was to stop the massive anti-war movements of the late 60s and early 70s which can be seen in this ad. It advertises traveling and personal growth along with the many educational possibilities the Army offers. This is interesting as it constitutes a direct contrast to the ad from the 60s. The people in the ad are not pictured in their combat uniform but in their working environment as pilots or policemen or while sight seeing. Besides, women are depicted as part of the Army, giving them the possibility to participate in the “real” experience that was reserved for men in the previous ad. The focus on education makes the Army an alternative to college instead of making it the absolute opposite was implied previously. The military part of the education is more or less disregarded, active combat that was still happening in Indochina in 1974 despite the Paris Peace Accord of 1973 is entirely left out. The traveling destinations in the text only names “safe” places like Germany and as an additional stimulus, financial aid for post-Army college education is offered, trying to reevaluate entirely the connection between military service and higher education that was prevalent throughout the 60s.