What WWII active duty "citizen soldiers" said about military service

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https://www.businessinsider.com/world-war-ii-surveys-what-soldiers-wanted-from-military-society-2019-5

Here are US World War II soldiers' uncensored opinions about the military and their country

.... It was mid-April 2009. I was scrolling through roll after microfilm roll of the War Department's " Opinion Surveys Relating to the Morale of U.S. Army Personnel."

What I had discovered were tens of thousands of statements written by World War II American soldiers about their military experiences. Not only were they uncensored, but they were also composed during the conflict — not afterward, from re-created memories. ....

"Entirely too much boot-licking going on," one soldier wrote. "Some sort of a merit system should be instituted. Closer supervision by officers. And stricter discipline enforced where the rights of others are concerned.… No patronage. Ability should be rewarded. Equality for all." ....

Histories of the US civil rights movement draw a bright, bold line from the military service of African Americans and the wartime persistence of Jim Crow practices to the broad movement for racial equality after the war.

Black GIs in their open-ended survey responses wrote passionately against the injustice of their forced military service as "citizen-soldiers" in a war to defend democracy while being denied basic civil rights at home. Anonymity provided them an exceptional opportunity to speak their mind without fear of retribution. ....

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1. Well, cashing in one Rec for a self-kick.