most military basic training, even more so with a war on ,seeks to break the
individual and mold the man as part of a team. As much as I admired the movie
and how plunkett redemmed himself, it still has this false ring. He would have been booted out of the service prior to going to france. Of course, real life
didn't make for a good movie all the time. But to all military men and women,
active and retired am I right?
His antics more likely would have earned him a room at LeavenWorth for the duration. In peace time yes, he would have been discharged in basic, during war time things tighten up quite a bit.
shareEven if he didn't wash out in basic, his antics with the flare gun and the cowardice when he was first under fire would have put him in the stockade -- if only as an example to the others. The film makes it appear that he was only insubordinate, but he was that of course but much worse.
shareMaybe not but don't forget that as the war goes on the pickings become slimmer and the standards/qualifications drop. I suspect this applies in all lengthy wars but I can attest to it so far as the Vietnam War was concerned. The majority of the guys I served with were genuine patriots but we also had a lot of dirtbags who would have been rejected from service in peacetime, e.g., all the "dopers."
shareMaybe not but don't forget that as the war goes on the pickings become slimmer and the standards/qualifications drop. I suspect this applies in all lengthy wars but I can attest to it so far as the Vietnam War was concerned. The majority of the guys I served with were genuine patriots but we also had a lot of dirtbags who would have been rejected from service in peacetime, e.g., all the "dopers."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
With all respect to a vet, I'm sure you are correct about the pickings as you go on, but if I understand the history correctly was this not one of the first units to ship out to France, before the slim times? I could well be wrong but I believe this is so.
Pleasuring a man with a socked foot one time does not make a person gay - Peter Griffin
I'm not a vet, but I have to agree with the original poster. The 69th was considered an elite unit among National Guard outfits, and while they did take mem from other units to fill out their ranks in 1917, a square peg like Plunkett would have been identified and removed from the unit pretty quickly as a threat to unit cohesion and morale. His refusal to conform to the 69th's "Irish" identity was bad enough, and he didn't show any other military qualities that would have made him worth keeping.
BYW, the 69th was part of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, which arrived in France in October 1917. The 42nd, a National Guard unit, was one of the first four divisions of the AEF to be sent to France (the others were the 1st (Army regulars), the 2nd (Army regulars and a Marine brigade), and the 26th (a National Guard outfit from New England)). Some of the action in THE FIGHTING 69th actually occurs in December 1917 (the Christmas service, the long march to the front, etc.).
Weren't a lot of them draftees who didn't want to be in the army?
shareSPOILERS AHEAD:
Just to point out that, in the film, all the men who saw Plunkett fire the flare were killed in the subsequent shelling, and Lt. Wynn does not survive to report Plunkett's desertion of the front line. Plunkett surely wouldn't have admitted to firing the Very pistol, and, apparently Duffy (in the film) was trying to give Plunkett a break by not reporting the desertion. (He apparently sees some good in Plunkett at the Christmas Midnight Mass.) Only after Plunkett's later public cowardice - that gets Kilmer and Tim Wynn killed -- does he get court-martialed and sentenced to death.
Just watching this movie tonite, and had the same questions in my mind. I went to Marine Corps boot camp in 1977 at the ripe old age of 22.
My first thought was that the first day he was in camp, and showed such arrogance, the DI's would have beat the crap out of him, and he would not have lasted past that day.
But, as others said, maybe 1917 they just processed them through quickly, and sent them to the front? Maybe they would have even thought his bravado was real, and he would make a ferocious fighter?
I do know that the 88 recruits in my platoon for the 13 weeks we were there, never uttered even the slightest whimper of disrepect to a DI, I mean not even a backward glance!
And the OP is right, there is some psychology used by the DI's to break you, then make you part of the team. But never was anyone in my experience punished individually, we all paid for the mistake of an individual, and as long as that one person screwed up, we all stayed holding our rifles high, or doing push-ups in the pit, etc.
As an aside, I wonder how they felt they had the license to change the well-known circumstances of Joyce Kilmer's death?
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
Glen. T.
CAPT. USMCR-Ret.
I think it's important to note the vigorous differences between service now and service then.. It's not at all clear that the military would be as regimented then as it is today., Also, I would note that this unit was US Army, not Marine Corp.. Army was always a bit looser than the Marine Corp, but then, it would be hard NOT to be looser than the US Marine Corp..
At any rate, WW I has to weigh in as one of the strangest wars ever fought., It was a meat grinder, a slaughterhouse.. Divisions were sacrificed to gain a couple of hundred yards.. Armies were bogged down in mud and the tactics consisted of throwing regiment after regiment into no-man's land where they were promptly mowed down by machine gun and mortar fire. This unit consisted of NYC Irishmen, they shared heritage and hometown.. I think they related to each other more from that shared commonality than a military orientation so it's really not surprising that the military of that era would be unrecognizable today. The psychology you mention used in training today was unknown then, they would not have employed those tactics. Life on the front was cheap and short, I don't think they were nearly so particular about who carried a rifle then as they are now.
Anyway, just my thoughts, thank you for your service Captain Glen.
connor...I am pleased with myself that I made my opinion open enough to invite interpretation, as your post expressed a viewpoint that was better said than I could do.
A sad part of war history is that those involved do not always wish to share. Even in my limited involvement, it is more nightmare than subject for discussion.
My grandfather had his 21st birthday in France in 1918. I could have added a lot to this post, if only I had asked him what basic training was like! But I remember asking him about the civil war, because he grew up listening to the stories.
He told me about when he was 7 or 8, and he played around the porch, and there were veterans on their rocking chairs, smoking and drinking...most missing legs, about the stories of the battles they were involved in.
Fortunately, my grandmother kept a diary, here is an excerpt from 1979:
"we have 2 grandsons in the Marines. Father's 3 brothers fought in the civil War. One died there, one had his leg shot off and the third contracted tuberculosis. Ancestors in the American Revolution make us eligible for DAR. I am proud of our patriotism record. I wish the Iran problems were settled. Things are disturbing but America, the greatest nation in the world, will see us through."
Back to this movie, I felt a kinship to the Cagney character; he voiced it out loud, while I kept it in. I hated being a private, so I went on to OCS and was moderately successful, until I resigned my commission in 1990 due to service related disability.
Thanks Connor!
I think Plunkett would have been "fragged" (murdered) by his fellow soldiers. The term "fragging" originated during the Vietnam conflict when a misfit or martinet NCO/officer was killed by a fellow soldier, often by tossing a fragmentation hand grenade into his "hooch" (billet) while the victim was asleep. A relative who fought in Europe in WW2 told me that he knew of several officers who were shot in the back by their own men during combat. The Army usually hushed things up, not wanting to upset the folks back home.
shareIn the newly published book Duffy's War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I, author Stephen L. Harris identifies the real-life soldier upon whom the character of Jerry Plunkett was based. He was Private Tom Shannon, an actual Irish immigrant from County Clare. He was court martialed and convicted for attempting to rob a monastery distillery of a couple of bottles of brandy at gunpoint (with his issue Springfield), a distillery which had been placed off limits by the 69th and under armed guard so he was easily caught in the act. Like Plunkett in the movie, he was about to be dishonorably discharged until Father Duffy intervened and pleaded for his retention in the 69th, and he redeemed himself by dying a hero's death.
However, Harris devotes only a page and a half out of a 460 page book to Tom Shannon, and Shannon's only other offenses besides the robbery were three AWOLs. As the main character in the movie, Plunkett was linked to just about every real-life major mishap depicted that befell the 69th, including causing the bunker collapse at Rouge Bouquet by firing an unauthorized flare and then causing the death of Joyce Kilmer by retreating in the face of enemy fire and leaving Kilmer exposed. Shannon didn't get discharged, but Hell, yeah, Plunkett would have in real life!
Thanks for filling in those details about the 69th. When viewing a movie like this that's based on a real outfit I always wonder what liberties were taken with the "real" story. Your post was very illuminating. All those Irish actors must've had a ball making this movie. No one could've played those parts better than Cagney/O'Brien.
shareSorry to respond to such an old post but regarding the incident in WWII with the officer being shot by his soldiers sounds like the basis for the movie Attack starring Jack Palance, Eddie Albert and Lee Marvin.
let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could