Doughboys and Conflict
I found this reading a lot harder to get through this week. It’s a lot more dense and dry than the other passages we’ve been assigned. However, it did contain a lot of information that helped me understand the time period better. I hadn’t even learned about WWI until my senior year in European History. For some reason, we always seemed to skip this war and go on the 2nd world war. Learning about it from the prospective of Europeans was interesting though.
I noticed a lot of similarities between this war and the others we’ve learned about. First off, racial tensions between blacks and whites were still very common, despite what Roy Wilkins may have claimed. I still have to hand it to him for having the courage to say this especially at this point in history. Another similarity I saw was the uprising of veterans against their government. The march of veterans on Washington and their confrontation with reminded me of Shay’s rebellion. The protesting with Shay didn’t go as far as the man who buried himself alive though!
October 8th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I would agree that the reading was maybe more technical than what we’ve read so far. I fortunately learned about WWI and it’s impact in my World and American history classes, but certainly not to the extent of our readings. However, my school didn’t offer a European history class for my senior year. I certainly wouldn’ve prefered that to the gov’t and politics class I had to take.
And the fellow who buried himself alive? I cringed when I read that. But what a way to make some money!
October 8th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
That’s a good similarity! I never made that connection that the march of veterans on Washington was sort of like Shay’s rebellion. They were both broken up by troops too.
October 9th, 2007 at 9:22 am
I also drew paralells between the Bonus March and Shay’s Rebellion. It’s kind of weird how a century and a half can pass and a new group of veterans are protesting the same thing.