Military history has witnessed an influx of social and cultural histories that focus on the “view from below.” In recent years, historians have drawn attention to the individual experience of military service and how a serviceperson’s civilian rights are infringed upon or restricted due to their service. This panel builds upon this theme by demonstrating that external civilian factors, including family responsibilities and civilian lives, affect how a serviceperson interprets and engages in military service and the larger bureaucracy. In some instances, family and personal duties dissuaded some Americans from completing military service. In other cases, they challenged military culture through litigation.

Jorden Pitt’s presentation focuses on the United States Air Force in the Korean War and its encounter with a psychological illness known as Fear of Flying. This issue arose from traumatic experiences, but many flyers claimed to suffer from it because they wanted to stay at home and care for their families. Psychological health became a way for airmen to balance military and family life, and, in many cases, they deemed family responsibilities to be more important than military duty.

Heather Haley will examine the legal battle between Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich and the United States Air Force in the mid-1970s. Matlovich, a veteran of the American War in Vietnam, sued the Air Force because he was dishonorably discharged from the service due to his homosexuality. At the height of the Gay Liberation Movement, an era that brought more previously denied opportunities to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans, the U.S. military maintained policies that discriminated against homosexuals. Thus, her presentation demonstrates that Matlovich’s personal life affected his military service, but it also motivated him to challenge traditional military mores.

Finally, John Worsencroft’s paper focuses on the antidraft Republicans of the mid-1960s and their efforts to end conscription. Scholars generally focus on the movement to end conscription in the late-1960s and early-1970s when the War in Vietnam was at its worst. However, Worsencroft demonstrates that there was a movement just as the war was beginning. These antidraft Republicans argued that conscription challenged American notions of liberty, and it was a “hidden tax” that hindered young men’s abilities to navigate a changing civilian economy. These conservatives pushed for an all-volunteer force so that American men could be the “breadwinners” and fulfill their family duties. Thus, much like Jorden Pitt’s paper, this presentation demonstrates a movement prioritizing personal lives and responsibilities above mandatory military service.

With Andrew Huebner and Sarah Myers as chair and commentator respectively, this panel exposes the fragile line between the intersections of personal responsibilities and military duty. It further blends historiographical themes of citizenship, civil liberties, and privacy and applies to all scholars with an interest in modern American and military history.