Happy Armed Forces Day?

You may be aware that the third Saturday in May – that would be May 17th – was Armed Forces Day. When I heard that I did a little research, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m a typical American in the sense that I had no idea exactly what Armed Forces Day was about except for that somehow it probably involved the armed forces. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

“On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department -- the Department of Defense. Each of the military leagues and orders was asked to drop sponsorship of its specific service day in order to celebrate the newly announced Armed Forces Day. The Army, Navy and Air Force leagues adopted the newly formed day. The Marine Corps League declined to drop support for Marine Corps Day but supports Armed Forces Day.”

Department of Defense

1949 was a time of change in the US. World War II had ended almost five years prior and it wouldn’t be until July of 1950 that the US would see any significant action in Korea. Five years isn’t a long time for peace to last – it’s really a brief respite between horrors when all of the ‘boys in uniform’ were home again and, if you check the birth statistics, making babies. Strange thing, though, was that even though the US fought to ‘preserve liberty and freedom throughout the world…’ on the home front it looks a lot like we were busily stamping out anything that deviated from the old established norms with vehemence.

Though the famous Savoy Ballroom, the birthplace of Lindy Hop, didn’t close its doors until 1958 one the things it’d become famous for had already started to erode by ‘49. The Savoy was the only place in the US where whites and blacks shared the same dance floor and one of the few places where a black band could play for a white audience – an island of integration in the segregated sea that was America. In ’49 there was a race riot in upstate New York, an angry mob assaulted working-class blacks over a concert performance by African-American performer Paul Robeson. The violence and bigotry would only continue to get worse.

A more insidious erosion of the meager measure of equity that had come about in the 20’s was the disappearance of the fem-fatal. The noir films and literature of the 30’s practically required the smart and markedly dangerous woman. She was tough and she knew how to maneuver through a world that was just as tough – and without a knight in armor, shining or otherwise. Mildred Pierce found her own way through the world and Nora Charles (the other half of the Hammett’s Thin Man duo) only required a man if he had a martini shaker. A real example of the bawdy, tough girl is Mae West – tough, dirty, smart, and nobody’s patsy.





Compare that to this clip from ’49 – Male Order Brides. Apparently, by ’49 women had become commodities – order them like you would a pair of shoes from the Sears and Roebucks Catalog, when you get home from your tough day doing important things at the office and one will be waiting on your doorstep (though, apparently the fellow in this video gave Sears his apartment key).





Yes, I know – there are exceptions. Monroe was cast to be the new West during the 50’s but in my opinion the US went to sleep and tried to pretend that nothing wild existed. After trenches and bombed out villages, America was ready for postage stamp lots and Levittown suburbs – identical sedans, identical suits, identical hats, and manila factory jobs where you could check your identity at the door when you punched the clock. Some utopia.