Donald Duncan: The New Legions. Victor Gollancz. 35s.
Donald Duncan suffered a hellish training course for the privilege of fighting in the Special Forces (the Green Berets) of the us Army in Vietnam. But after 18 months in and about the combat area, after ten years in the Army, he resigned with honour and a row of medals. His book is an eloquent denunciation of that war and a passionate warning to his countrymen against the increasing power and influence of the us Military in civilian life.
The American Military is ‘an organization employing more people, owning more land, controlling more money than any other organization in the world, reaching into every facet of our society, touching everybody and everything. . .’ The indoctrination of the American people into accepting Universal Military Training (the draft) as a natural and normal phenomenon and their paranoid response to Communism have helped to form the nation into what he terms a ‘new legion’. (His reference is to the French Foreign Legion’s motto ‘The Legion is our Fatherland’.)