A Religious History Of The American Gi In World War Ii Piehler by Piehler, G. Kurt 9781496226839, 9781496230003, 1496226836, 1496230000 instant download after payment.

This study will offer more than an institutional history of the establishment and execution of official policies on the free exercise of religion. It aims to offer a bottom-up account of the lived religion of gis. Religious ideals and values motivated gis to fight and sustained them while in combat. Prayer and a host of other rituals provided succor to those facing danger, especially on the battlefield, the grievously wounded, and those held prisoner by the Germans and Japanese. Religion served as an essential marker of identity for individual servicemen and servicewomen, a signifier reflected in the “dog tags” they wore around their necks, stamped with a P for Protestant, C for Roman Catholic, or H for Hebrew (Jewish). For citizen soldiers who bristled at the inexorable push by the armed forces to turn them into “government issue,” participating in religious services offered an opportunity for gis to assert their individualism and remember their ties to home. Although the armed services proclaimed that each gi could worship according to the dictates of his conscience, the structuring of religious life fostered a civil religion that promoted pluralism and tolerance.