A timely, accessible window into the lifestyles and challenges of American military personnel.

"An important book. . . . A rich ethnography of the internal character and dynamics of armed forces. . . . Hawkins's main argument is that the situation in which NATO units had to be in constant readiness for an invasion of Western Europe by the armies of the Warsaw Pact, led to a very heavy stress within the American military forces on control and alacrity. [He] systematically lays out the contradictions between civilian American cultural premises (individualism, equality, freedom of choice, readiness for compromise) and the corresponding premises of the military (unity, hierarchy, obedience, readiness for violence)."--American Ethnologist "This is a first-rate ethnography of a little known but important community: forward-deployed American soldiers, stationed in Germany at the height of the Cold War. Hawkins mixes profound structural analysis with intimate conversational portraits to paint a picture of a military community torn between the competing demands of army life and family responsibilities. . . . An excellent teaching tool. . . . I recommend it highly."--Charles W. Nuckolls, author of Culture: A Problem That Cannot Be Solved John P. Hawkins is Professor of Anthropology at Brigham Young University, a Lieutenant Colonel (retired) in the United States Army Reserve, and formerly a research officer in the Department of Military Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Hospital.