Journal articles: 'United States Army Infantry Division' – Grafiati (2024)

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Abstract Introduction The United States Army Rangers are a unique population whose training requirements are intensive, and physically and mentally demanding. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a movement screening tool designed to assess movement quality and asymmetries in movement with the potential to identify injury risk. This study was a descriptive, cross-sectional investigation examining associations between FMS scores and the various measures of health and performance of active duty soldiers in light infantry units who were involved in the U.S. Army Pre-Ranger Course (PRC). Materials and Methods Before the PRC, 491 male soldiers (mean age = 24.0 ± 3.8 years; mean height = 176.6 ± 7.2 cm; mean body mass = 80.2 ± 9.8 kg) completed a questionnaire which included items on self-assessed physical fitness, last Army physical fitness test (APFT) score, tobacco use, and injury history. The soldiers then completed the FMS, which consisted of seven movements and three clearing tests. From the FMS results, a determination of asymmetries (i.e., differences in FMS scores between the right and left side of the body) was made. Differences between groups were analyzed via an independent sample t-test, a one-way analysis of variance, or a chi-square as appropriate. Significance was set at 0.05 a priori. Results The average composite FMS score was 16.4 (±1.9) points. Soldiers reporting ≥290 APFT points achieved a higher FMS score than those reporting lower APFT scores (16.5 ± 2.0 vs 16.1 ± 2.0 points, P = 0.03). Soldiers reporting either tobacco use or a previous musculoskeletal injury had lower FMS scores than those not reporting these (tobacco: 16.1 ± 2.1 vs 16.5 ± 1.8 points, P = 0.02; injury: 16.0 ± 2.2 vs 16.6 ± 1.8 points, P < 0.01). FMS asymmetries were not related to APFT scores, tobacco use, or self-rated fitness. As self-rated fitness increased so did APFT scores. Conclusions Active duty soldiers of a light infantry division achieved FMS scores similar to other military populations tested, and the composite FMS score was related to higher APFT scores, absence of tobacco use, and absence of previous musculoskeletal injuries. Improving PRC candidate healthy habits through highlighting the negative associations between poorer fitness, cigarette tobacco use and movement quality, may reduce injury risk and increase PRC completion potential.

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This study uses system dynamics simulation to explore structural and socio-psychological dynamics associated with the United States Army’s gender integration initiatives for its infantry branch. In 2015, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Analysis Center (TRAC) published the “Gender Integration Study” and the “Ranger Assessment Study,” providing findings that helped shape the Army’s gender integration initiatives across its combat arms branches. The focus of these and many other gender integration studies predominantly focus on whether gender differences, physiological and/or psychological, affect one’s ability to meet requisite performance standards in combat arms branches. As an essential complement to the existing and ongoing performance-focused research, system dynamics modeling will provide a basis to assess social barriers that exist with the Army and American culture, inhibiting broad acceptance of women in the infantry.

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Abstract Introduction The impact of sleep disorders on active duty Soldiers’ medical readiness is clinically significant. Sleep disorders present high comorbidity with disease states directly impacting medical readiness, ranging from musculoskeletal injury (MSK-I), obesity, and drug dependence. The current study performed a risk assessment of sleep disorder comorbidity with MSK-I, obesity, and drug dependence across active duty United States Army installations. Methods Health incidences (percent active duty per installation) were queried from the Office of the Surgeon General Health of the Force (HoF) report, specifically for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 (n = 471,000; 85.5% male, > 70% between 18 -34). Nonparametric ranked tests identified active duty Army installations at low risk (green; < 25% percentile relative to mean rank), moderate risk (amber; 25% - 50%), and high risk (red; > 75% percentile). Linear regressions determined extent of comorbidity of sleep disorders with MSK-I, obesity, and drug dependence (tobacco use and substance abuse). Results Mean rank comparisons for sleep disorders vs. injury index (p=0.499), obesity (p=0.306), tobacco use (p=0.378), and substance abuse (p=0.591) did not differ for each installation. Further, there was a high degree of co-morbidity for mean percentage of diagnosed sleep disorder with injury index (p<0.001; r2 = 0.517), obesity (p<0.001; r2 = 0.963), tobacco use (p<0.001; r2 = 0.928), and substance abuse (p<0.001; r2 = 0.968). Conclusion In general, large infantry and artillery training units located in the Southeastern United States were “in the red” for not meeting medical readiness standards. A few exceptions include Virginia-Maryland triangle, a heavily populated area. These data demonstrate strong geographical influences on health risk comorbidity in active duty Soldiers comparable to civilian sectors. Support Military Operational Medicine Research Program

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As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and unstable, the US Army’s mission becomes more complex. This reality, when coupled with a smaller force, is increasing the Army’s reliance on foreign partners and its need for non-traditional skills. Given these challenges, deployed units often offset capability gaps using “reachback,” the act of contacting external organizations for critical expertise. Based on recent support to the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, the United States Military Academy (USMA) possesses considerable reachback potential; however, to fulfill such requests, USMA must first understand its capability and capacity. With this in mind, our research shows that although USMA’s faculty is quite willing to help deployed units, no formalized process exists to catalogue and leverage its collective intellectual capital. As such, we identify the requirement for an intuitive system to fill this void, and we develop and analyze several alternatives

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Visitors to the United States Library of Congress will find it in the midst of major expansions of three kinds – expansions to preserve what otherwise might be lost, to protect what it already has, and to make what it has more readily and widely accessible. One current kind of expansion takes the form of constructing a new complex of four buildings in the side of a mountain near the city of Culpeper in the state of Virginia, about an hour's drive from the library's main facilities in Washington, DC. This complex, named the Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, will provide safe storage and new preservation and access systems for the film, video, and sound collections – 5.7 million items – administered by the library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The library's second major current expansion consists of constructing off-site storage modules for other collections on the site of Fort Meade, a US Army installation in the state of Maryland, less than an hour's drive from Washington, DC. On this site, the library and its partners are finishing the third and fourth of a projected 13, high-density storage modules, designed to extend the life of parts of the library's holdings by a factor of six. The third major current expansion of the Library of Congress is on the Internet, where the library's website now offers some 10 million digitized items. Through financial and other partnerships, the library will continue to add to its online resources, and is working with UNESCO on a project to create a World Digital Library. This will be a collaborative virtual repository through which libraries worldwide provide access to rare, primary source materials, illustrating cultures in all parts of the globe, for the potential benefit of people everywhere.

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2011 marks the 175th anniversary of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that traces its origins to 1836 and the commitment of the second US Army Surgeon General, Thomas Lawson (1789–1861), to purchase books and journals for active-duty medical officers. The occasion affords an opportunity to focus on the contributions of the NLM to the history of medicine and public health, and to look forward into the digital world of the twenty-first century as the NLM joins with like-minded institutions, scholars, educators, writers, students, and others to expand knowledge of medical and public health history for the advancement of scholarship across the disciplines and for the education of the general public. As more audiences become interested in medical and public health history, opportunities abound to broaden and deepen understanding of the past, present, and future of medicine and public health in order to help refine critical thinking about medicine and science, promote deeper understanding of medical and scientific concepts, and generally humanise medicine and public health by revealing the implications of disease and healthcare for individuals and communities in the United States and around the world.

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Studies have assessed omega-3 fatty acids and cognitive decline among older adults and cognitive development among children, although less is known about cognitive or neurological effects among young adults. We examined whether omega-3 supplementation from krill oil could improve cognition and resilience among young military officers compared to a control. This double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 555 officers (mean age 23.4 ± 2.8, 98.6% male) entering the United States (US) Army Infantry Basic Officer Leaders Course (IBOLC) with the intention to complete the US Ranger Course. Volunteer participants consumed eight dietary supplements daily of krill oil containing 2.3 g omega-3 or control (macadamia nut oil) over an approximate 20-week period. Cognitive functioning, resilience, and mood were assessed during a well-rested period at approximately 14 weeks and after a battlefield simulation at 16 weeks. Blood spot samples were collected to monitor compliance and dietary intake was assessed. All hypotheses were tested using both ‘Intention to Treat’ (ITT) and ‘As Per Protocol’ (APP) approaches. Of the 555 randomized individuals, 245 (44.1%) completed the study. No statistically significant group-by-time interactions indicating treatment effect were found on any outcomes. Poor compliance was indicated by lower than expected omega-3 elevations in the treatment group, and may have contributed to a failure to detect a response.

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The Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019. It was founded by C. C. Coleman, who directed the US Army School of Brain Surgery during World War I and was one of the original members of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. Coleman began a residency program that was among the first four such programs in the United States and that produced such prominent graduates as Frank Mayfield, Gayle Crutchfield, and John Meredith. Neurosurgery at VCU later became a division under the medical school’s surgery department. Division chairs included William Collins and Donald Becker. It was during the Becker years that VCU became a leading National Institutes of Health–funded neurotrauma research center. Harold Young oversaw the transition from division to department and expanded the practice base of the program. In 2015, Alex Valadka assumed leadership and established international collaborations for research and education. In its first 100 years, VCU Neurosurgery has distinguished itself as an innovator in clinical research and an incubator of compassionate and service-oriented physicians.

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ABSTRACT Military applications of geology became apparent within the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century, and were developed during the First World War and more extensively during the Second, incidentally by some officers with links to Canada. In the nineteenth century, three Royal Engineer major-generals with geological interests had served there briefly: Joseph Ellison Portlock (1794–1864) helped to stem invasion of Upper Canada by the United States Army in 1814, pioneer geological survey in Ireland from 1826, and promote knowledge of geology amongst British Army officers; Frederick Henry Baddeley (1794–1879) helped to pioneer geological studies in south-east Canada in the 1820s; Richard John Nelson (1803–1877) served in Canada after mapping the geology of Jersey in 1828 and making geological observations in Bermuda. During the First World War, Tannatt William Edgeworth David (1858–1934), a Welsh-born Australian and from 1916 to 1918 the senior of two geologists serving with the British Army on the Western Front, had a Canadian military family link through his mother; and Reginald Walter Brock (1874–1935), Dean of Applied Science at the University of British Columbia and a distinguished Canadian geologist, interrupted his career for infantry service in Europe but was used as a geologist from mid-1918, in Palestine. During the Second World War, the British military geologist Frederick William Shotton (1906–1990) provided geological advice to, amongst other units, Canadian forces who generated thematic maps for parts of northern France that predicted ‘going’ (conditions affecting cross-country vehicle mobility) to follow the D-Day Allied landings in Normandy. In 1943, Thomas Crawford Phemister (1902–1982), Professor and Head of the Department of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland but from 1926 to 1932 an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, as an ‘emergency’ Royal Engineers captain founded the Geological Section of the Inter-Service Topographical Department, a unit whose reports and thematic maps provided terrain intelligence for Allied forces in both Europe and the Far East from a base in England, within the University of Oxford. John Leonard Farrington (1906–1982), an undergraduate student from 1923 to 1928 of Brock and/or Phemister at the University of British Columbia, co-founded the Section and soon succeeded Phemister as its head, from 1944 to 1945 in the rank of major. Soon after 1945, military geologists became established in continuity within the British Army.

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Small arms delivering chemical or biological payloads have been developed by a number of states in the modern era. As the war in Vietnam was intensifying in the mid-1960s, the U. S. Army became aware of one such weapon system being developed by MBAssociates of San Ramon, California. This could silently and covertly deliver non-lethal tranquilisers to military guard dogs or lethal toxins to enemy personnel by projecting a tiny, dartlike ‘Javette’—capable of striking a target unnoticed. The Army’s Special Operations Division, Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, and the CIA subsequently acquired the new weapon, operationalising it by treating Javettes with deadly toxins such as saxitoxin. When, in 1969–1970, President Richard Nixon renounced the United States’ use of toxins and ordered stockpiles destroyed, the MBAssociates weapon was catapulted into the limelight through the actions of an unscrupulous CIA employee. This article traces the full arc of Javette development, from the predecessor experiments conducted by Robert Mainhardt and his colleagues beginning in 1960, through the Senate hearings conducted by the Church Committee in 1975, to Mainhardt’s final attempts to generate government sales in the 1990s. The author focuses on the little-known Javette projectiles themselves, but also addresses delivery devices (handguns), toxins, and the broader historical context.

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On Friday, July 18, 1924, Robert W. Imbrie, United States Consul in Tehran— and personal friend and special agent of Allen W. Dulles, Chief of the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Division—was brutally killed. Imbrie was beaten to death by a mob led by members of the Muslim clergy and including many members of the Iranian Army. In the weeks preceding July 18, there had been several outbreaks of anti-Bahai violence. Imbrie and Melvin Seymour had gone that morning to investigate a miraculous watering place in central Tehran that figured in the anti-Bahai excitement. According to contemporary accounts, a Bahai had been struck blind after drinking from the source when he refused to make an offering in the name of the Shi'i saints; his sight miraculously had been restored after he had repented and made the donation.

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Scholarly debate about the reasons for Korea’s division at the 38th parallel in August 1945 has not been particularly intense. Early historical accounts accepted the u.s. government’s claim that the United States and the Soviet Union made a hasty decision to partition the country as a matter of military convenience to coordinate the acceptance of the surrender of Japanese forces at the end of World War ii. By the early 1980s, however, new research had established that President Harry S. Truman planned to occupy all of Korea after using the atomic bomb, which was designed to force Japan’s surrender before the Soviet Union entered the Pacific War. But when Premier Joseph Stalin sent the Red Army into Korea, Truman proposed dividing Korea to prevent the Soviets from imposing Communist rule on the entire nation. Recently, some South Korean scholars have challenged this interpretation. Relying on new research, they contend that during the Potsdam Conference, u.s. and Soviet officials negotiated a secret agreement to divide Korea at the 38th parallel. This research note examines Won Bom Lee’s article making this argument, showing how it lacks evidentiary support to overturn the standard explanation for Korea’s division.

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Context Historical research on pathology and laboratory medicine services in World War I has been limited. In the Spanish American War, these efforts were primarily focused on tropical diseases. World War I problems that could be addressed by pathology and laboratory medicine were strikingly different because of the new field of clinical pathology. Geographic differences, changing war tactics, and trench warfare created new issues. Objectives To describe the scope of pathology and laboratory medicine services in World War I and the value these services brought to the war effort. Methods Available primary and secondary sources related to American Expeditionary Forces' laboratory services were analyzed and contrasted with the British and German approaches. Results The United States entered the war in April 1917. Colonel Joseph Siler, MD, a career medical officer, was the director, and Colonel Louis B. Wilson, MD, head of pathology at the Mayo Clinic, was appointed assistant director of the US Army Medical Corps Division of Laboratories and Infectious Disease, based in Dijon, France. During the next year, they organized 300 efficient laboratories to support the American Expeditionary Forces. Autopsies were performed to better understand treatment of battlefield injuries, effects of chemical warfare agents, and the influenza pandemic; autopsies also generated teaching specimens for the US Army Medical Museum. Bacteriology services focused on communicable diseases. Laboratory testing for social diseases was very aggressive. Significant advances in blood transfusion techniques, which allowed brief blood storage, occurred during the war but were not primarily overseen by laboratory services. Conclusions Both Siler and Wilson received Distinguished Service Medals. Wilson's vision for military pathology services helped transform American civilian laboratory services in the 1920s.

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Category: Ankle, Hindfoot Introduction/Purpose: The prevalence of Achilles tendon pathology is common in many sports and daily activities. From ruptures to overuse injuries resulting in tendonopathies, AT dysfunction can result in disability and reduced productively. Continued research that increases our knowledge base of normal Achilles tendon properties can improve our ability to reduce and prevent future AT injuries. In this study, we examined the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the Achilles tendon (AT) at multiple levels in an asymptomatic population of elite American military service members that participate in greater than 20 hours of intense training per week. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study composed of 41 active duty United States Army Rangers. The Rangers are a specialized infantry organization that participates in extensive military training and rigorous combat missions. The service members were voluntarily recruited to participate while deployed in a combat theater. All subjects were members of the Ranger Regiment participating in greater than 20 hours of intense bipedal non-sport weekly training with no history of AT pathology. In a standing position, each subject had bilateral Achilles insertion marked along with additional skin markings made at 2 cm, 4 cm, and 6 cm above the AT insertion. At all four levels, the AT was measured in the coronal and sagittal plains using ultrasound. Results: In 41 subjects, a total of 82 Achilles tendons were examined. The mean age of the cohort was 26 years, 70 inches tall, with a mean weight of 187 pounds. The mean sagittal thickness of the AT at the insertion was 4.3 mm, 2 cm above the insertion is was 4.3 mm, 4 cm above the insertion is was 4.2 mm, and at 6 cm above the insertion it was 4 mm. In the coronal plain was 19.1 mm, 14.3 mm, 13.5 mm, and 14.4 mm respectively. The cross-sectional area was calculated at each respective level: 0.65 cm2, 0.48 cm2, 0.44 cm2 and 0.45 cm2. The non-dominant ankle was slightly larger at each level but was not found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: These results provide the mean sagittal and coronal diameters of the Achilles tendon as measured by ultrasound throughout the watershed area of a young active adult male population. Our data also suggest that increased non-sport activity may not increase the cross-sectional area of the Achilles tendon. Identifying the normal diameter at multiple levels throughout the most commonly injured area can potentially improve the provider’s ability to identify early disease processes and apply targeted interventions to help slow or prevent progression and possible rupture.

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FOREWORD This special issue of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Review highlights top papers from the 2020 annual General Donald R. Keith memorial capstone conference held at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. The conference was certainly a first of its kind virtual conference including asynchronous delivery of paper presentations followed by synchronous question and answer sessions with evaluation panels. Following a careful review of 63 total submissions, eleven were selected for publication in this journal. Unique to this year’s special edition is the mixed selection of seven project team capstone papers, and four honors research papers. Each paper incorporated features of systems or industrial engineering and presented detailed and reflective analysis on the topic. Although there are many elements which cut across the works, three general bodies of knowledge emerged in the papers including: systems engineering and decision analysis, systems design, modeling and simulation, and system dynamics. Systems Engineering and Decision Analysis topics included three unique contributions. Recognized as ‘best paper’ at the 2020 virtual conference, the work of Robinson et al. designed a multi-year predictive cost engineering model enabled through an MS O365 Power BI decision support interface to support U.S. Army Corps of Engineer (USACE) inland waterway national investment strategies. Schloo and Mittal’s work presents research in testing and evaluation of the Engagement Skills Trainer (EST) 2000 towards improving real-world soldier performance. Gerlica et al. employs a robust and scalable K-means clustering methodology to improve decision making in defensive shift schemes for Air Force Baseball outfield personnel. Systems Design works included three unique contributions. Binney et al. worked to design evaluation criteria for military occupational specialties associated with open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts for the Army’s OSINT Office. Hales et al. interdisciplinary work aided in the design of search and identification systems to be incorporated on autonomous robotics to enable survivability improvements for the Army’s chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives (CBRNE) units. Burke and Connell evaluated and designed a performance measurement-based assessment methodology for U.S. Pacific Command’s Key Leader Engagement process. System modeling and simulation included three unique contributions: Arderi et al. simulated and assessed how the Hyper-Enabled Operator (HEO) project improves situational awareness for U.S. Special Forces using the Infantry Warrior Simulation (IWARS). Blanks et al. employed a VBA module and Xpress software for a scheduling optimization model for enhancement of final exam scheduling at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Kelley and Mittal utilized a Batch Run Analysis and Simulation Studio (BRASS) program to batch multiple iterations of IWARS scenarios to study the integration of autonomous systems alongside military units. Finally, two unique contributions utilizing system dynamics (SD) modeling is presented: Dixon and Krueger developed a Vensim SD model to examine how policy recommendations across Central America could restrict gang activities while positively promoting women’s involvement in society. Cromer et al. utilized systems design approaches and a K-means clustering machine learning techniques to develop SD models in support of the U.S. Africa Command and Defense Threat Reduction Agency to examine the interdependence of threats across the Horn of Africa. Thank you and congratulations to the 2020 undergraduate scholars and all authors who provided meaningful contributions through steadfast intellectual efforts in their fields of study! Well done! LTC James H. Schreiner, PhD, PMP, CPEM Program Director, Systems and Decision Sciences (SDS) Department of Systems Engineering United States Military Academy Mahan Hall, Bldg 752, Room 423 West Point, NY 10996, USA james.schreiner@westpoint.edu

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Spiro Munayyer's account begins immediately after the United Nations General Assembly partition resolution of 29 November 1947 and culminates in the cataclysmic four days of Lydda's conquest by the Israeli army (10-14 July 1948) during which 49,000 of Lydda's 50,000 inhabitants ("swollen" with refugees) were forcefully expelled, the author himself being one of those few allowed to remain in his hometown. Although the author was not in a position of political or military responsibility, he was actively involved in Lydda's resistance movement both as the organizer of the telephone network linking up the various sectors of Lydda's front lines and as a volunteer paramedic, in which capacity he accompanied the city's defenders in most of the battles in which they took part. The result is one of the very few detailed eye-witness accounts that exists from the point of view of an ordinary Palestinian layman of one of the most important and tragic episodes of the 1948 war. The conquest of Lydda (and of its neighbor, Ramla, some five kilometers to the south) was the immediate objective of Operation Dani-the major offensive launched by the Israeli army at the order of Ben-Gurion during the so-called "Ten Days" of fighting (8-18 July 1948), between the First Truce (11 June-8 July) and the Second Truce (which started on 18 July and lasted, in theory, until the armistice agreements of 1949). The further objective of Operation Dani was to outflank the Transjordanian Arab Legion positions at Latrun (commanding the defile at Bab al-Wad, where the road from the coast starts climbing toward Jerusalem) in order to penetrate central Palestine and capture Rumallah and Nablus. Lydda and Ramla and the surrounding villages fell within the boundaries of the Arab state according to the UNGA partition resolution. Despite their proximity to Tel Aviv and the fall of many Palestinian towns since April (Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Safad, Acre, and Baysan), they had held out until July even though little help had reached them from the Arab armies entering on 15 May. Their strategic importance was enormous because of their location at the intersection of the country's main north-south and west-east road and rail lines. Palestine's largest British army camp at Sarafand was a few kilometers west of Lydda, its main international airport an equal distance to the north, its central railway junction at Lydda itself. Ras al-Ayn, fifteen kilometers north of Lydda, was the main source of Jerusalem's water supply, while one of the largest British depots was at Bayt Nabala, seven kilometers to its northeast. The Israeli forces assembled for Operation Dani were put under the overall command of Yigal Allon, the Palmach commander. They consisted of the two Palmach brigades (Yiftach and Harel, the latter under the command of Yitzhak Rabin), the Eighth Armored Brigade composed of the Second Tank Battalion and the Ninth Commando Battalion (the former under the command of Yitzhak Sadeh, founder of the Palmach, the latter under that of Moshe Dayan), the Second Battalion Kiryati Brigade, the Third Battalion Alexandroni Brigade, and several units of the Kiryati Garrison Troops (Khayl Matzav). The Eighth Armored Brigade had a high proportion of World War II Jewish veterans volunteering from the United States, Britain, France, and South Africa (under the so-called MAHAL program), while its two battalions also included 700 members of the Irgun Zva'i Le'umi (IZL). The total strength of the Israeli attackers was about 8,000 men. The only regular Arab troops defending Lydda (and Ramla) was a minuscule force of 125 men-the Fifth Infantry Company of the Transjordanian Arab Legion. The defenders of Lydda (and Ramla) were volunteer civilian residents, like the author, under the command of a retired sergeant who had served in the Arab Legion. The reason for the virtual absence of Arab regular troops in the Lydda-Ramla sector was that the Arab armies closest to it (the Egyptian in the south, the Arab Legion in the east, and the Iraqi in the north) were already overstretched. The Egyptian northernmost post was at Isdud, thirty-two kilometers north of Gaza and a like distance southeast of Ramla-Lydda as the crow flies. The Iraqi southernmost post was at Ras al-Ayn, where they were weakest. And although the Arab Legion was in strength some fifteen kilometers due east at Latrun, the decision had been taken not to abandon its positions on the hills between Ras al-Ayn and Latrun for fear of being outflanked and cut off by the superior Israeli forces in the plains where Lydda and Ramla were situated. Indeed, as General Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion, informs us, he had told King Abdallah and the Transjordanian prime minister Tawfiq Abu Huda even before the end of the Mandate on 15 May that the Legion did not have the forces to hold and defend Lydda and Ramla against Israeli attacks despite the fact that these towns were in the area assigned to the Arabs by the UNGA partition resolution. This explains the token force of the Arab Legion-the Fifth Infantry Company. Thus, the fate of Lydda (and Ramla) was sealed the moment Operation Dani was launched. The Israeli forces did not attack Lydda from the west (where Lydda's defenses facing Tel Aviv were strongest), as the garrison commander Sergeant Hamza Subh expected. Instead, they split into two main forces, northern and southern, which were to rendezvous at the Jewish colony of Ben Shemen east of Lydda and then advance on Lydda from there. After capturing Lydda from the east they were to advance on Ramla, attacking it from the north while making feints against it from the west. Operation Dani began on the night of 9-10 July. Simultaneously with the advance of the ground troops, Lydda and Ramla were bombed from the air. In spite of the surprise factor, the defenders in the eastern sector of Lydda put up stout resistance throughout the 10th against vastly superior forces attacking from Ben Shemen in the north and the Arab village of Jimzu to the south. In the afternoon, Dayan rode with his Commando Battalion of jeeps and half-tracks through Lydda in a hit-and-run raid lasting under one hour "shooting up the town and creating confusion and a degree of terror among the population," as the Jewish brothers Jon and David Kimche put it. This discombobulated the defenders, some of whom surrendered. But the following morning (11 July) a small force of three Arab Legion armored cars entered Lydda, their mission being to help in the evacuation of the beleaguered Fifth Infantry Company. Their sudden appearance both panicked the Israeli troops and rallied the defenders who had not surrendered. The Israeli army put down what it subsequently described as the city's "uprising" with utmost brutality, leaving in a matter of hours in the city's streets about 250 civilian dead in an orgy of indiscriminate killing. Resistance continued sporadically during the 12th and 13th of July, its focus being Lydda's police station, which was finally overrun. As of 11 July, the Israeli army began the systematic expulsion of the residents of Lydda and Ramla (the latter having fallen on 12 July) toward the Arab Legion lines in the east. Also expelled were the populations of some twenty-five villages conquered during Operation Dani, making a total of some 80,000 expellees-the largest single instance of deliberate mass expulsion during the 1948 war. Most of the expellees were women, children, and elderly men, most of the able-bodied men having been taken prisoner. Memories of the trek of the Lydda and Ramla refugees is branded in the collective consciousness of the Palestinians. The Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref, who interviewed survivors at the time, estimates that 350 died of thirst and exhaustion in the blazing July sun, when the temperature was one hundred degrees in the shade. The reaction of public opinion in Ramallah and East Jerusalem at the sight of the new arrivals was to turn against the Arab Legion for its failure to help Lydda and Ramla. Arab Legion officers and men were stoned, loudly hissed at and cursed, a not unintended outcome by the person who gave the expulsion order, David Ben-Gurion, and the man who carried it out, Yitzhak Rabin, director of operations for Operation Dani.

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From its beginning, mankind suffered injuries through falling, fire, drowning and human aggression [1]. Although the frequency and the kinetics modifiy over millennia, trauma continues to represent an important cause of morbidity and mortality even in the modern society [1]. Significant progresses in the trauma surgery were due to military conflicts, which next to social sufferance came with important steps in injuries’ management, further applied in civilian hospitals. The foundation of modern trauma systems was started by Dominique Jean Larrey (1766-1842) during the Napoleonic Rin military campaign from 1792. The wounded who remained on the battlefield till the end of the battle to receive medical care, usually more than 24 hours, from that moment were transported during the conflict with flying ambulances to mobile hospitals. Starting with the First World War, through the usage of antiseptics, blood transfusions, and fracture management, the mortality decreased from 39% in the Crimean War (1853–1856) to 10%. One of the most preeminent figures of the Second World War was Michael DeBakey, who created the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH), concept very similar to the Larrey’s unit. In 1941, in England, Birmingham Accident Hospital was opened, specially designed for injured people, this being the first trauma center worldwide. During the Golf War (1990–1991) the MASH were used for the last time, being replaced by Forward Surgical Teams, very mobile units satisfying the necessities of the nowadays infantry [1]. Nowadays, trauma meets the pandemic criteria, everyday 16,000 people worldwide are dying, injuries representing one of the first five causes of mortality for all the age groups below 60 [2]. A recent 12-month analysis of trauma pattern in the Emergency Hospital of Bucharest revealed 141 patients, 72.3% males, with a mean age of 43.52 ± 19 years, and a mean New Injury Severity Score (NISS) of 27.58 ± 11.32 [3]. The etiology was traffic related in 101 (71.6%), falls in 28 (19.9%) and crushing in 7 (5%) cases. The overall mortality was as high as 30%, for patients with a mean NISS of 37.63 [3]. At the scene, early recognition of severe injuries and a high index of suspicion according to trauma kinetics may allow a correct triage of patients [4]. A functional trauma system should continuously evaluate the rate of over- and under-triage [5]. The over-triage represents the transfer to a very severe patient to a center without necessary resources, while under-triage means a low injured patient referred to a highly specialized center. If under-triage generates preventable deaths, the over-triage comes with a high financial and personal burden for the already overloaded tertiary centers [5]. To maximize the chance for survival, the major trauma patients should be transported as rapid as possible to a trauma center [6]. The initial resuscitation of trauma patients was divided into two time intervals: ten platinum minutes and golden hour [6]. During the ten platinum minutes the airways should be managed, the exsanguinating bleeding should be stopped, and the critical patients should be transported from the scene. During the golden hour all the life-threatening lesions should be addressed, but unfortunately many patients spend this time in the prehospital setting [6]. These time intervals came from Trunkey’s concept of trimodal distribution of mortality secondary to trauma, proposed in 1983 [7]. This trimodal distribution of mortality remains a milestone in the trauma education and research, and is still actual for development but inconsistent for efficient trauma systems [8]. The concept of patients’ management in the prehospital setting covered a continuous interval, with two extremities: stay and play/treat then transfer or scoop and run/ load and go. Stay and play, usually used in Europe, implies airways securing and endotracheal intubation, pleurostomy tube insertion, and intravenous lines with volemic replacement therapy. During scoop and run, used in the Unites States, the patient is immediately transported to a trauma center, addressing the immediate life-threating injuries during transportation. In the emergency department of the corresponding trauma center, the resuscitation of the injured patients should be done by a trauma team, after an orchestrated protocol based on Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). The modern trauma teams include five to ten specialists: general surgeons trained in trauma care, emergency medicine physicians, intensive care physicians, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, radiologists, interventional radiologists, and nurses. In the specially designed trauma centers, the leader of the trauma team should be the general surgeon, while in the lower level centers this role may be taken over by the emergency physicians. The implementation of a trauma system is a very difficult task, and should be tailored to the needs of the local population. For example, in Europe the majority of injuries are by blunt trauma, while in the United States or South Africa they are secondary to penetrating injuries. In an effort to analyse at a national level the performance of trauma care, we have proposed a national registry of major trauma patients [9]. For this registry we have defined major trauma as a New Injury Severity Score higher than 15. The maintenance of such registry requires significant human and financial resources, while only a permanent audit may decrease the rate of preventable deaths in the Romanian trauma care (Figure 1) [10]. Figure 1 - The website of Romanian Major Trauma Registry (http://www.registrutraume.ro). USA - In the United States of America there are 203 level I centers, 265 level II centers, 205 level III or II centers and only 32 level I or II pediatric centers, according to the 2014 report of National Trauma Databank [11]. USA were the first which recognized trauma as a public health problem, and proceeded to a national strategy for injury prevention, emergency medical care and trauma research. In 1966, the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council noted that ‘’public apathy to the mounting toll from accidents must be transformed into an action program under strong leadership’’ [12]. Considerable national efforts were made in 1970s, when standards of trauma care were released and in 1990s when ‘’The model trauma care system plan’’[13] was generated. The American College of Surgeons introduced the concept of a national trauma registry in 1989. The National Trauma Databank became functional seven years later, in 2006 being registered over 1 million patients from 600 trauma centers [14]. Mortality from unintentional injury in the United States decreased from 55 to 37.7 per 100,000 population, in 1965 and 2004, respectively [15]. Due to this national efforts, 84.1% of all Americans have access within one hour from injury to a dedicated trauma care [16]. Canada - A survey from 2010 revealed that 32 trauma centers across Canada, 16 Level I and 16 Level II, provide definitive trauma care [18]. All these centers have provincial designation, and funding to serve as definitive or referral hospital. Only 18 (56%) centers were accredited by an external agency, such as the Trauma Association of Canada. The three busiest centers in Canada had between 798–1103 admissions with an Injury Severity Score over 12 in 2008 [18]. Australia - Australia is an island continent, the fifth largest country in the world, with over 23 million people distributed on this large area, a little less than the United States. With the majority of these citizens concentrated in large urban areas, access to the medical care for the minority of inhabitants distributed through the territory is quite difficult. The widespread citizens cannot be reached by helicopter, restricted to near-urban regions, but with the fixed wing aircraft of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, within two hours [13]. In urban centers, the trauma care is similar to the most developed countries, while for people sparse on large territories the trauma care is far from being managed in the ‘’golden hour’’, often extending to the ‘’Golden day’’ [19]. Germany - One of the most efficient European trauma system is in Germany. Created in 1975 on the basis of the Austrian trauma care, this system allowed an over 50% decreasing of mortality, despite the increased number of injuries. According to the 2014 annual report of the Trauma Register of German Trauma Society (DGU), there are 614 hospitals submitting data, with 34.878 patients registered in 2013 [20]. The total number of cases documented in the Trauma Register DGU is now 159.449, of which 93% were collected since 2002. In the 2014 report, from 26.444 patients with a mean age of 49.5% and a mean ISS of 16.9, the observed mortality was 10% [20]. The United Kingdom - In 1988, a report of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, analyzing major injuries concluded that one third of deaths were preventable [21]. In 2000, a joint report from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the British Orthopedic Association was very suggestive entitled "Better Care for the Severely Injured" [22]. Nowadays the Trauma Audit Research network (TARN) is an independent monitor of trauma care in England and Wales [23]. TARN collects data from hospitals for all major trauma patients, defined as those with a hospital stay longer than 72 hours, those who require intensive care, or in-hospital death. A recent analysis of TARN data, looking at the cost of major trauma patients revealed that the total cost of initial hospital inpatient care was £19.770 per patient, of which 62% was attributable to ventilation, intensive care and wards stays, 16% to surgery, and 12% to blood transfusions [24]. Global health care models Countries where is applied Functioning concept Total healthcare costs from GDP Bismarck model Germany Privatized insurance companies (approx. 180 nonprofit sickness funds). Half of the national trauma beds are publicly funded trauma centers; the remaining are non-profit and for-profit private centers. 11.1% Beveridge model United Kingdom Insurance companies are non-existent. All hospitals are nationalized. 9.3% National health insurance Canada, Australia, Taiwan Fusion of Bismarck and Beveridge models. Hospitals are privatized, but the insurance program is single and government-run. 11.2% for Canada The out-of-pocket model India, Pakistan, Cambodia The poorest countries, with undeveloped health care payment systems. Patients are paying for more than 75% of medical costs. 3.9% for India GDP – gross domestic product Table 1 - Global health care models with major consequences on trauma care [17]. Traumas continue to be a major healthcare problem, and no less important than cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and access to dedicated and timely intervention maximizes the patients’ chance for survival and minimizes the long-term morbidities. We should remember that one size does not fit in all trauma care. The Romanian National Trauma Program should tailor its resources to the matched demands of the specific Romanian urban and rural areas.

Abstract:

ObjectiveWe assesed the feasibility of a zoonotic disease surveillance system through the current EHR (ROVR) for all POAs and GOAs. Additionally, we conducted a retrospective observational study querying and collecting reported zoonoses of interest, for 2017.IntroductionDogs, cats and other companion animals have played an integral role in many aspects of human life. Human and companion animal (CAs) interactions have a wide range of benefits to human health1–3. The threat of zoonotic transmission between CAs and humans is exacerbated by proximity (56% of dog owners and 62% of cat owners sleep with their animal next to them4) and the number of diseases CAs share with humans. Many of these highlighted zoonoses are spread by direct contact, and others are vector-transmitted (e.g., fleas, ticks, flies, and mosquitos). Within the realm of the One-Health concept, CAs can serve multiple roles in zoonotic transmission chains between humans and animals. They can serve as intermediate hosts between wildlife reservoirs and humans, or as possible sentinel or proxy species for emerging diseases5. Given the large number of CAs within the United States (estimated 72 million pet dogs, 81 million pet cats), understanding and preventing the diseases prevalent in CA populations is of utmost importance.Biosurveillance is a critical component of One Health initiatives including zoonotic disease mitigation and control. As Lead Service for Veterinary Animal and Public Health Services, the Army has a responsibility to champion biosurveillance efforts to support One Health initiatives, improving Servicemember, family, and retiree health across the Joint Force. Additionally, with military personnel experiencing apparent increased rates of job-reducing ailments such as diarrheal, bacterial and viral disease6–8, it is essential that the Army focus on maximizing their operational potential by minimizing the amount of time personnel are sick from these transmissible diseases and observing potential sources of infection. By observing the zoonotic disease burden in privately owned (POAs) and government-owned (GOAs) animals, public health investigators can increase focus on what transmittable diseases are at greatest risk of being spread from companion animals to military personnel.To address this potential source of infection, the Department of Defense (DoD) sought and continues to seek to establish a centralized and integrated veterinary zoonotic surveillance system to provide Commanders with a clear picture of disease burden9. With this assigned responsibility, the Army Veterinary Service (VS) seeks to centralize and enhance surveillance efforts through the Remote Online Veterinary Record (ROVR) Electronic Health Record (EHR), an enterprise web-based application to support the Army VS, accurately establishing a zoonotic epidemiological baseline and sustaining consistent future reporting.MethodsThrough a requested effort and proof of concept, the Army Public Health Center’s (APHC) One Health Division tested the feasibility of a zoonotic disease surveillance system through the current EHR (ROVR) for all POAs and GOAs. We obtained one year (2017) worth of zoonotic encounters of interest through ROVR, querying a population of roughly 202,000 animals (n=202,217). We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing reported zoonoses of interest between CA populations. Maximum Likelihood Estimations of frequency detailed comparisons of frequency and prevalence between GOAs and POAs, within the ROVR EHR. Additionally, we evaluated the accuracy of surveillance data queried, proposed potential metrics and dashboards for commanders and stakeholders to easily observe zoonotic burden of companion animals and developed potential courses of action for future tools, collaborations, and educational interventions.ResultsOf the 512 collected zoonotic encounters, Giardia and Hookworm were the two most prevalent zoonoses overall, with 4.23 and 5.43 cases per 10,000 outpatient visits (OPVs), respectively. We observed a significant differential frequency of Giardia and Hookworm between GOAs and POAs (63% (CI: 54.6-71.4) vs 12.7% (CI: 9.7-16.1) and 2.5% (CI: 0.1-5.9) vs 41.9% (CI: 37.1-46.8) of all queried zoonotic diseases of interest, respectively). In addition to back-end database and querying improvements, we suggested the development of an educational intervention based at Army First-Year Graduate Veterinary Education program (FYGVE) locations to emphasize the important benefits of capturing zoonotic diseases of interest correctly, early stages in the clinical experience. The intervention would focus on increasing accurate data capture with the ultimate goal of a phased regional rollout through education and collaboartive buy-in.ConclusionsFrom these results and recent CDC guidance of data-driven surveillance, we’ve proposed a phased surveillance development plan focused on systematic data collection, collaboration, and evaluation. Our idenfitied overexpressed zoonoses will focus our efforts on tracking Giardia and Hookworm through multi-year trends. This assessment and proof of concept allows for illumination of gaps and limitations within the Army VS to effectively track the zoonotic burden of GOA and POA populations. Our current and future work will look to close surveillance gaps and help identify potential routes of transmission from companion animals to humans.References1. Edney AT. Companion animals and human health: an overview. J R Soc Med. 1995 Dec;88(12):704p-708p.2. Wells DL. The Effects of Animals on Human Health and Well-Being. Journal of Social Issues. 2009 Sep 1;65(3):523–43.3. O’Haire M. Companion animals and human health: Benefits, challenges, and the road ahead. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research. 2010 Sep 1;5(5):226–34.4. Krahn LE, Tovar MD, Miller B. Are Pets in the Bedroom a Problem? Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2015 Dec 1;90(12):1663–5.5. Day MJ, Breitschwerdt E, Cleaveland S, Karkare U, Khanna C, Kirpensteijn J, et al. Surveillance of Zoonotic Infectious Disease Transmitted by Small Companion Animals. Emerg Infect Dis. 2012 Dec;18(12):e1.6. Cook GC. Influence of diarrhoeal disease on military and naval campaigns. J R Soc Med. 2001 Feb 1;94(2):95–7.7. Sanchez JL, Gelnett J, Petruccelli BP, Defraites RF, Taylor DN. Diarrheal disease incidence and morbidity among United States military personnel during short-term missions overseas. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene. 1998;58(3):299–304.8. Russell KL, Hawksworth AW, Ryan MAK, Strickler J, Irvine M, Hansen CJ, et al. Vaccine-preventable adenoviral respiratory illness in US military recruits, 1999–2004. Vaccine. 2006 Apr 5;24(15):2835–42.9. Richardson TR. DoD Directive 6400.04E: DoD Veterinary Public and Animal Health Services [Internet]. Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School; 2000 [cited 2017 Jul 26]. Available from: http://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/9216

Abstract:

The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. — Sun TzuWorld War II saw a proliferation of maps. From command posts to the pages of National Geographic to the pages of daily newspapers, they were everywhere (Schulten). The era also saw substantive developments in cartography, especially with respect to the topographical maps that feature in our selected films. This essay offers a preliminary examination of the battle-map as depicted in two films about the Second World War: Franklin J. Shaffner’s biopic Patton (1970) and Jack Smight’s epic Midway (1976). In these films, maps, charts, or tableaux (the three-dimensional models upon which are plotted the movements of battalions, fleets, and so on) emerge as an expression of both martial and cinematic strategy. As a rear-view representation of the relative movements of personnel and materiel in particular battle arenas, the map and its accessories (pins, tape, markers, and so forth) trace the broad military dispositions of Patton’s 2nd Corp (Africa), Seventh Army (Italy) and Third Army (Western Europe) and the relative position of American and Japanese fleets in the Pacific. In both Patton and Midway, the map also emerges as a simple mode of narrative plotting: as the various encounters in the two texts play out, the battle-map more or less contemporaneously traces the progress of forces. It also serves as a foreshadowing device, not just narratively, but cinematically: that which is plotted in advance comes to pass (even if as preliminary movements before catastrophe), but the audience is also cued for the cinematic chaos and disjuncture that almost inevitably ensues in the battle scenes proper.On one hand, then, this essay proposes that at the fundamental level of fabula (seen through either the lens of historical hindsight or through the eyes of the novice who knows nothing of World War II), the annotated map is engaged both strategically and cinematically: as a stage upon which commanders attempt to act out (either in anticipation, or retrospectively) the intricate, but grotesque, ballet of warfare — and as a reflection of the broad, sequential, sweeps of conflict. While, in War and Cinema, Paul Virilio offers the phrase ‘the logistics of perception’ (1), in this this essay we, on the other hand, consider that, for those in command, the battle-map is a representation of the perception of logistics: the big picture of war finds rough indexical representation on a map, but (as Clausewitz tells us) chance, the creative agency of individual commanders, and the fog of battle make it far less probable (than is the case in more specific mappings, such as, say, the wedding rehearsal) that what is planned will play out with any degree of close correspondence (On War 19, 21, 77-81). Such mapping is, of course, further problematised by the processes of abstraction themselves: indexicality is necessarily a reduction; a de-realisation or déterritorialisation. ‘For the military commander,’ writes Virilio, ‘every dimension is unstable and presents itself in isolation from its original context’ (War and Cinema 32). Yet rehearsal (on maps, charts, or tableaux) is a keying activity that seeks to presage particular real world patterns (Goffman 45). As suggested above, far from being a rhizomatic activity, the heavily plotted (as opposed to thematic) business of mapping is always out of joint: either a practice of imperfect anticipation or an equally imperfect (pared back and behind-the-times) rendition of activity in the field. As is argued by Tolstoj in War and Peace, the map then presents to the responder a series of tensions and ironies often lost on the masters of conflict themselves. War, as Tostoj proposes, is a stochastic phenomenon while the map is a relatively static, and naive, attempt to impose order upon it. Tolstoj, then, pillories Phull (in the novel, Pfuhl), the aptly-named Prussian general whose lock-stepped obedience to the science of war (of which the map is part) results in the abject humiliation of 1806:Pfuhl was one of those theoreticians who are so fond of their theory that they lose sight of the object of that theory - its application in practice. (Vol. 2, Part 1, Ch. 10, 53)In both Patton and Midway, then, the map unfolds not only as an epistemological tool (read, ‘battle plan’) or reflection (read, the near contemporaneous plotting of real world affray) of the war narrative, but as a device of foreshadowing and as an allegory of command and its profound limitations. So, in Deleuzian terms, while emerging as an image of both time and perception, for commanders and filmgoers alike, the map is also something of a seduction: a ‘crystal-image’ situated in the interstices between the virtual and the actual (Deleuze 95). To put it another way, in our films the map emerges as an isomorphism: a studied plotting in which inheres a counter-text (Goffman 26). As a simple device of narrative, and in the conventional terms of latitude and longitude, in both Patton and Midway, the map, chart, or tableau facilitate the plotting of the resources of war in relation to relief (including island land masses), roads, railways, settlements, rivers, and seas. On this syntagmatic plane, in Greimasian terms, the map is likewise received as a canonical sign of command: where there are maps, there are, after all, commanders (Culler 13). On the other hand, as suggested above, the battle-map (hereafter, we use the term to signify the conventional paper map, the maritime chart, or tableau) materialises as a sanitised image of the unknown and the grotesque: as apodictic object that reduces complexity and that incidentally banishes horror and affect. Thus, the map evolves, in the viewer’s perception, as an ironic sign of all that may not be commanded. This is because, as an emblem of the rational order, in Patton and Midway the map belies the ubiquity of battle’s friction: that defined by Clausewitz as ‘the only concept which...distinguishes real war from war on paper’ (73). ‘Friction’ writes Clausewitz, ‘makes that which appears easy in War difficult in reality’ (81).Our work here cannot ignore or side-step the work of others in identifying the core cycles, characteristics of the war film genre. Jeanine Basinger, for instance, offers nothing less than an annotated checklist of sixteen key characteristics for the World War II combat film. Beyond this taxonomy, though, Basinger identifies the crucial role this sub-type of film plays in the corpus of war cinema more broadly. The World War II combat film’s ‘position in the evolutionary process is established, as well as its overall relationship to history and reality. It demonstrates how a primary set of concepts solidifies into a story – and how they can be interpreted for a changing ideology’ (78). Stuart Bender builds on Basinger’s taxonomy and discussion of narrative tropes with a substantial quantitative analysis of the very building blocks of battle sequences. This is due to Bender’s contention that ‘when a critic’s focus [is] on the narrative or ideological components of a combat film [this may] lead them to make assumptions about the style which are untenable’ (8). We seek with this research to add to a rich and detailed body of knowledge by redressing a surprising omission therein: a conscious and focussed analysis of the use of battle-maps in war cinema. In Patton and in Midway — as in War and Peace — the map emerges as an emblem of an intergeneric dialogue: as a simple storytelling device and as a paradigmatic engine of understanding. To put it another way, as viewer-responders with a synoptic perspective we perceive what might be considered a ‘double exposure’: in the map we see what is obviously before us (the collision of represented forces), but an Archimedean positioning facilitates the production of far more revelatory textual isotopies along what Roman Jakobson calls the ‘axis of combination’ (Linguistics and Poetics 358). Here, otherwise unconnected signs (in our case various manifestations and configurations of the battle-map) are brought together in relation to particular settings, situations, and figures. Through this palimpsest of perspective, a crucial binary emerges: via the battle-map we see ‘command’ and the sequence of engagement — and, through Greimasian processes of axiological combination (belonging more to syuzhet than fabula), elucidated for us are the wrenching ironies of warfare (Culler 228). Thus, through the profound and bound motif of the map (Tomashevsky 69), are we empowered to pass judgement on the map bearers who, in both films, present as the larger-than-life heroes of old. Figure 1.While we have scope only to deal with the African theatre, Patton opens with a dramatic wide-shot of the American flag: a ‘map’, if you will, of a national history forged in war (Fig. 1). Against this potent sign of American hegemony, as he slowly climbs up to the stage before it, the general appears a diminutive figure -- until, via a series of matched cuts that culminate in extreme close-ups, he manifests as a giant about to play his part in a great American story (Fig. 2).Figure 2.Some nineteen minutes into a film, having surveyed the carnage of Kasserine Pass (in which, in February 1943, the Germans inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Americans) General Omar Bradley is reunited with his old friend and newly-nominated three-star general, George S. Patton Jr.. Against a backdrop of an indistinct topographical map (that nonetheless appears to show the front line) and the American flag that together denote the men’s authority, the two discuss the Kasserine catastrophe. Bradley’s response to Patton’s question ‘What happened at Kasserine?’ clearly illustrates the tension between strategy and real-world engagement. While the battle-plan was solid, the Americans were outgunned, their tanks were outclassed, and (most importantly) their troops were out-disciplined. Patton’s concludes that Rommel can only be beaten if the American soldiers are fearless and fight as a cohesive unit. Now that he is in command of the American 2nd Corp, the tide of American martial fortune is about to turn.The next time Patton appears in relation to the map is around half an hour into the two-and-three-quarter-hour feature. Here, in the American HQ, the map once more appears as a simple, canonical sign of command. Somewhat carelessly, the map of Europe seems to show post-1945 national divisions and so is ostensibly offered as a straightforward prop. In terms of martial specifics, screenplay writer Francis Ford Coppola apparently did not envisage much close scrutiny of the film’s maps. Highlighted, instead, are the tensions between strategy as a general principle and action on the ground. As British General Sir Arthur Coningham waxes lyrical about allied air supremacy, a German bomber drops its payload on the HQ, causing the map of Europe to (emblematically) collapse forward into the room. Following a few passes by the attacking aircraft, the film then cuts to a one second medium shot as a hail of bullets from a Heinkel He 111 strike a North African battle map (Fig. 3). Still prone, Patton remarks: ‘You were discussing air supremacy, Sir Arthur.’ Dramatising a scene that did take place (although Coningham was not present), Schaffner’s intention is to allow Patton to shoot holes in the British strategy (of which he is contemptuous) but a broader objective is the director’s exposé of the more general disjuncture between strategy and action. As the film progresses, and the battle-map’s allegorical significance is increasingly foregrounded, this critique becomes definitively sharper.Figure 3.Immediately following a scene in which an introspective Patton walks through a cemetery in which are interred the remains of those killed at Kasserine, to further the critique of Allied strategy the camera cuts to Berlin’s high command and a high-tech ensemble of tableaux, projected maps, and walls featuring lights, counters, and clocks. Tasked to research the newly appointed Patton, Captain Steiger walks through the bunker HQ with Hitler’s Chief of Staff, General Jodl, to meet with Rommel — who, suffering nasal diphtheria, is away from the African theatre. In a memorable exchange, Steiger reveals that Patton permanently attacks and never retreats. Rommel, who, following his easy victory at Kasserine, is on the verge of total tactical victory, in turn declares that he will ‘attack and annihilate’ Patton — before the poet-warrior does the same to him. As Clausewitz has argued, and as Schaffner is at pains to point out, it seems that, in part, the outcome of warfare has more to do with the individual consciousness of competing warriors than it does with even the most exquisite of battle-plans.Figure 4.So, even this early in the film’s runtime, as viewer-responders we start to reassess various manifestations of the battle-map. To put it as Michelle Langford does in her assessment of Schroeter’s cinema, ‘fragments of the familiar world [in our case, battle-maps] … become radically unfamiliar’ (Allegorical Images 57). Among the revelations is that from the flag (in the context of close battle, all sense of ‘the national’ dissolves), to the wall map, to the most detailed of tableau, the battle-plan is enveloped in the fog of war: thus, the extended deeply-focussed scenes of the Battle of El Guettar take us from strategic overview (Patton’s field glass perspectives over what will soon become a Valley of Death) to what Boris Eichenbaum has called ‘Stendhalian’ scale (The Young Tolstoi 105) in which, (in Patton) through more closely situated perspectives, we almost palpably experience the Germans’ disarray under heavy fire. As the camera pivots between the general and the particular (and between the omniscient and the nescient) the cinematographer highlights the tension between the strategic and the actual. Inasmuch as it works out (and, as Schaffner shows us, it never works out completely as planned) this is the outcome of modern martial strategy: chaos and unimaginable carnage on the ground that no cartographic representation might capture. As Patton observes the destruction unfold in the valley below and before him, he declares: ‘Hell of a waste of fine infantry.’ Figure 5.An important inclusion, then, is that following the protracted El Guettar battle scenes, Schaffner has the (symbolically flag-draped) casket of Patton’s aide, Captain Richard N. “Dick” Jenson, wheeled away on a horse-drawn cart — with the lonely figure of the mourning general marching behind, his ironic interior monologue audible to the audience: ‘I can't see the reason such fine young men get killed. There are so many battles yet to fight.’ Finally, in terms of this brief and partial assessment of the battle-map in Patton, less than an hour in, we may observe that the map is emerging as something far more than a casual prop; as something more than a plotting of battlelines; as something more than an emblem of command. Along a new and unexpected axis of semantic combination, it is now manifesting as a sign of that which cannot be represented nor commanded.Midway presents the lead-up to the eponymous naval battle of 1942. Smight’s work is of interest primarily because the battle itself plays a relatively small role in the film; what is most important is the prolonged strategising that comprises most of the film’s run time. In Midway, battle-tables and fleet markers become key players in the cinematic action, second almost to the commanders themselves. Two key sequences are discussed here: the moment in which Yamamoto outlines his strategy for the attack on Midway (by way of a decoy attack on the Aleutian Islands), and the scene some moments later where Admiral Nimitz and his assembled fleet commanders (Spruance, Blake, and company) survey their own plan to defend the atoll. In Midway, as is represented by the notion of a fleet-in-being, the oceanic battlefield is presented as a speculative plane on which commanders can test ideas. Here, a fleet in a certain position projects a radius of influence that will deter an enemy fleet from attacking: i.e. ‘a fleet which is able and willing to attack an enemy proposing a descent upon territory which that force has it in charge to protect’ (Colomb viii). The fleet-in-being, it is worth noting, is one that never leaves port and, while it is certainly true that the latter half of Midway is concerned with the execution of strategy, the first half is a prolonged cinematic game of chess, with neither player wanting to move lest the other has thought three moves ahead. Virilio opines that the fleet-in-being is ‘a new idea of violence that no longer comes from direct confrontation and bloodshed, but rather from the unequal properties of bodies, evaluation of the number of movements allowed them in a chosen element, permanent verification of their dynamic efficiency’ (Speed and Politics 62). Here, as in Patton, we begin to read the map as a sign of the subjective as well as the objective. This ‘game of chess’ (or, if you prefer, ‘Battleships’) is presented cinematically through the interaction of command teams with their battle-tables and fleet markers. To be sure, this is to show strategy being developed — but it is also to prepare viewers for the defamiliarised representation of the battle itself.The first sequence opens with a close-up of Admiral Yamamoto declaring: ‘This is how I expect the battle to develop.’ The plan to decoy the Americans with an attack on the Aleutians is shown via close-ups of the conveniently-labelled ‘Northern Force’ (Fig. 6). It is then explained that, twenty-four hours later, a second force will break off and strike south, on the Midway atoll. There is a cut from closeups of the pointer on the map to the wider shot of the Japanese commanders around their battle table (Fig. 7). Interestingly, apart from the opening of the film in the Japanese garden, and the later parts of the film in the operations room, the Japanese commanders are only ever shown in this battle-table area. This canonically positions the Japanese as pure strategists, little concerned with the enmeshing of war with political or social considerations. The sequence ends with Commander Yasimasa showing a photograph of Vice Admiral Halsey, who the Japanese mistakenly believe will be leading the carrier fleet. Despite some bickering among the commanders earlier in the film, this sequence shows the absolute confidence of the Japanese strategists in their plan. The shots are suitably languorous — averaging three to four seconds between cuts — and the body language of the commanders shows a calm determination. The battle-map here is presented as an index of perfect command and inevitable victory: each part of the plan is presented with narration suggesting the Japanese expect to encounter little resistance. While Yasimasa and his clique are confident, the other commanders suggest a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor to ascertain the position of the American fleet; the fear of fleet-in-being is shown here firsthand and on the map, where the reconnaissance planes are placed alongside the ship markers. The battle-map is never shown in full: only sections of the naval landscape are presented. We suggest that this is done in order to prepare the audience for the later stages of the film: as in Patton (from time to time) the battle-map here is filmed abstractly, to prime the audience for the abstract montage of the battle itself in the film’s second half.Figure 6.Figure 7.Having established in the intervening running time that Halsey is out of action, his replacement, Rear Admiral Spruance, is introduced to the rest of the command team. As with all the important American command and strategy meetings in the film, this is done in the operations room. A transparent coordinates board is shown in the foreground as Nimitz, Spruance and Rear Admiral Fletcher move through to the battle table. Behind the men, as they lean over the table, is an enormous map of the world (Fig. 8). In this sequence, Nimitz freely admits that while he knows each Japanese battle group’s origin and heading, he is unsure of their target. He asks Spruance for his advice:‘Ray, assuming what you see here isn’t just an elaborate ruse — Washington thinks it is, but assuming they’re wrong — what kind of move do you suggest?’This querying is followed by Spruance glancing to a particular point on the map (Fig. 9), then a cut to a shot of models representing the aircraft carriers Hornet, Enterprise & Yorktown (Fig. 10). This is one of the few model/map shots unaccompanied by dialogue or exposition. In effect, this shot shows Spruance’s thought process before he responds: strategic thought presented via cinematography. Spruance then suggests situating the American carrier group just northeast of Midway, in case the Japanese target is actually the West Coast of the United States. It is, in effect, a hedging of bets. Spruance’s positioning of the carrier group also projects that group’s sphere of influence around Midway atoll and north to essentially cut off Japanese access to the US. The fleet-in-being is presented graphically — on the map — in order to, once again, cue the audience to match the later (edited) images of the battle to these strategic musings.In summary, in Midway, the map is an element of production design that works alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to present the notion of strategic thought to the audience. In addition, and crucially, it functions as an abstraction of strategy that prepares the audience for the cinematic disorientation that will occur through montage as the actual battle rages later in the film. Figure 8.Figure 9.Figure 10.This essay has argued that the battle-map is a simulacrum of the weakest kind: what Baudrillard would call ‘simulacra of simulation, founded on information, the model’ (121). Just as cinema itself offers a distorted view of history (the war film, in particular, tends to hagiography), the battle-map is an over-simplification that fails to capture the physical and psychological realities of conflict. We have also argued that in both Patton and Midway, the map is not a ‘free’ motif (Tomashevsky 69). Rather, it is bound: a central thematic device. In the two films, the battle-map emerges as a crucial isomorphic element. On the one hand, it features as a prop to signify command and to relay otherwise complex strategic plottings. At this syntagmatic level, it functions alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to give audiences a glimpse into how military strategy is formed and tested: a traditional ‘reading’ of the map. But on the flip side of what emerges as a classic structuralist binary, is the map as a device of foreshadowing (especially in Midway) and as a depiction of command’s profound limitations. Here, at a paradigmatic level, along a new axis of combination, a new reading of the map in war cinema is proposed: the battle-map is as much a sign of the subjective as it is the objective.ReferencesBasinger, Jeanine. The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre. Middletown, CT: Columbia UP, 1986.Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbour: U of Michigan Press, 1994.Bender, Stuart. Film Style and the World War II Combat Genre. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Vol. 1. London: Kegan Paul, 1908.Colomb, Philip Howard. Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated. 3rd ed. London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1899.Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. London: Continuum, 2005.Eichenbaum, Boris. The Young Tolstoi. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1972.Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1976.Jakobson, Roman. "Linguistics and Poetics." Style in Language. Ed. T. Sebebeok. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1960. 350—77.Langford, Michelle. Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter. Bristol: Intellect, 2006.Midway. Jack Smight. Universal Pictures, 1976. Film.Patton. Franklin J. Schaffner. 20th Century Fox, 1970. Film.Schulten, Susan. World War II Led to a Revolution in Cartography. New Republic 21 May 2014. 16 June 2017 <https://newrepublic.com/article/117835/richard-edes-harrison-reinvented-mapmaking-world-war-2-americans>.Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Vol. 2. London: Folio, 1997.Tomashevsky, Boris. "Thematics." Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Eds. L. Lemon and M. Reis, Lincoln: U. Nebraska Press, 2012. 61—95.Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. San Diego: Canterbury Classics, 2014.Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics. Paris: Semiotext(e), 2006.Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. London: Verso, 1989.

Abstract:

IntroductionNew Orleans is one of a number of infamous swamp cities—cities built in swamps, near them or on land “reclaimed” from them, such as London, Paris, Venice, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Petersburg, and Perth. New Orleans seemed to be winning the battle against the swamps until Hurricane Katrina of 2005, or at least participating in an uneasy truce between its unviable location and the forces of the weather to the point that the former was forgotten until the latter intruded as a stark reminder of its history and geography. Around the name “Katrina” a whole series of events and images congregate, including those of photographer Robert Polidori in his monumental book, After the Flood. Katrina, and the exacerbating factors of global warming and drained wetlands, and their impacts, especially on the city of New Orleans (both its infrastructure and residents), point to the cultural construction and production of the disaster. This suite of occurrences is a salutary instance of the difficulties of trying to maintain a hard and fast divide between nature and culture (Hirst and Woolley 23; Giblett, Body 16–17) and the need to think and live them together (Giblett, People and Places). A hurricane is in some sense a natural event, but in the age of global warming it is also a cultural occurrence; a flood produced by a river breaking its banks is a natural event, but a flood caused by breeched levees and drained wetlands is a cultural occurrence; people dying is a natural event, but people dying by drowning in a large and iconic American city created by drainage of wetlands is a cultural disaster of urban planning and relief logistics; and a city set in a swamp is natural and cultural, with the cultural usually antithetical to the natural. “Katrina” is a salutary instance of the cultural and natural operating together in and as “one single catastrophe” of history, as Benjamin (392) put it, and of geography I would add in the will to fill, drain, or reclaim wetlands. Rather than a series of catastrophes proceeding one after the other through history, Benjamin's (392) “Angel of History” sees one single catastrophe of history. This single catastrophe, however, occurs not only in time, in history, but also in space, in a place, in geography. The “Angel of Geography” sees one single catastrophe of geography of wetlands dredged, filled, and reclaimed, cities set in them and cities being re-reclaimed by them in storms and floods. In the case of “Katrina,” the catastrophe of history and geography is tied up with the creation, destruction, and recreation of New Orleans in its swampy location on the Mississippi delta.New OrleansNew Orleans is not only “the nation’s quintessential river city” as Kelman (199) puts it, but also one of a number of infamous swamp cities. In his post-Katrina preface to his study of New Orleans as what he calls “an unnatural metropolis,” Colten notes:While other cities have occupied wetlands, few have the combination of poorly-drained and flood-susceptible territory of New Orleans. Portions of Washington, D.C. occupied wetlands, but there was ample solid ground above the reach of the Potomac [River’s] worst floods. Chicago’s founders platted their city on a wetland site, but the sluggish Chicago River did not drain the massive territory of the Mississippi. (5)“Occupied” is arguably a euphemism for dredging, draining, filling, and reclaiming wetlands. Occupation also conjures up visions of an occupying army, which may be appropriate in the case of New Orleans as the Army Corps of Engineers have spearheaded much of the militarisation by dredging and draining wetlands in New Orleans and elsewhere in the U.S.The location for the city was not propitious. Wilson describes how “the city itself was constructed on an uneven patch of relatively high ground in the midst of a vast swamp” (86). New Orleans for Kelman “is surrounded by a wet world composed of terrain that is not quite land” (22) with the Mississippi River delta on one side and Lake Pontchartrain and the “backswamps” on the other, though the latter were later drained. The Mississippi River for Kelman is “the continent’s most famed and largest watercourse” (199). Perhaps it is also the continent’s most tamed and leveed watercourse. Earlier Kelman related how a prominent local commentator in 1847 “personified the Mississippi as a nurturing mother” because the river “hugged New Orleans to its ‘broad bosom’” (79). Supposedly this mother was the benign, malign, and patriarchal Mother Nature of the leveed river and not the recalcitrant, matrifocal Great Goddess of the swamps that threatened to break the levees and flood the city (see Giblett, Postmodern Wetlands; People and Places, especially Chapter 1). The Mississippi as the mother of all American rivers gave birth to the city of New Orleans at her “mouth,” or more precisely at the other end of her anatomy with the wetland delta as womb. Because of its location at the “mouth” of the Mississippi River, New Orleans for Flint was “historically the most important port in the United States” (230). Yet by the late 1860s the river was seen by New Orleanians, Kelman argues, only as “an alimentary canal, filled with raw waste and decaying animal carcasses” (124). The “mouth” of the river had ceased to be womb and had become anus; the delta had ceased to be womb and had become bowel. The living body of the earth was dying. The river, Kelman concludes, was “not sublime” and had become “an interstate highway” (146). The Angel of Geography sees the single catastrophe of wetlands enacted in the ways in which the earth is figured in a politics of spaces and places. Ascribing the qualities of one place to another to valorise one place and denigrate another and to figure one pejoratively or euphemistically (as in this case) is “placist” (Giblett, Landscapes 8 and 36). Deconstructing and decolonising placism and its use of such figures can lead to a more eco-friendly figuration of spaces and places. New Orleans is one place to do so.What Colten calls “the swampy mire behind New Orleans” was drained in the first 40 years of the twentieth century (46). Colten concludes that, “by the 1930s, drainage and landfilling efforts had successfully reclaimed wetland between the city and the lake, and in the post-war years similar campaigns dewatered marshlands for tract housing eastward and westward from the city” (140–1). For Wilson “much of New Orleans’s history can be seen as a continuing battle with the swamp” (86). New Orleans was a frontline in the modern war against wetlands, the kind of war that Fascists such as Mussolini liked to fight because they were so easy to win (see Giblett, Postmodern Wetlands 115). Many campaigns were fought against wetlands using the modern weapons of monstrous dredgers. The city had struck what Kelman calls “a Faustian bargain with the levees-only policy” (168). In other words, it had sold its soul to the devil of modern industrial technology in exchange for temporary power. New Orleans tried to dominate wetlands with the ironic result that not only “efforts to drain the city dominate early New Orleans history into the present day” as Wilson (86) puts it, but also that these efforts occasionally failed with devastating results. The city became dominated by the waters it had sought to dominate in an irony of history and geography not lost on the student of wetlands. Katrina was the means that reversed the domination of wetlands by the city. Flint argues that “Katrina’s wake-up call made it unconscionable to keep building on fragile coastlines […] and in floodplains” (232–3). And in swamps, I would add. Colten “traces the public’s abandonment of the belief that the city is no place for a swamp” (163). The city is also no place for the artificial swamp of the aftermath of Katrina depicted by Polidori. As the history of New Orleans attests, the swamp is no place for a city in the first place when it is being built, and the city is no place for a swamp in the second place when it is being ravaged by a hurricane and storm surges. City is antithetical and inimical to swamp. They are mutually exclusive. New Orleans for Wilson is “a city on a swamp” (90 my emphasis). In the 1927 flood (Wilson 111), for Kelman “one of the worst flood years in history” (157), and in the 2005 hurricane, the worst flood year so far in its history, New Orleans was transformed into a city of a swamp. The 1927 flood was at the time, and as Kelman puts it, “the worst ‘natural’ disaster in U.S. history” (161), only to be surpassed by the 2005 flood in New Orleans and the 2012 floods in north-eastern U.S. in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in which the drained marshlands of New York and New Jersey returned with a vengeance. In all these cases the swamp outside the city, or before the city, came into the city, became now. The swamp in the past returned in the present; the absent swamp asserted its presence. The historical barriers between city and swamp were removed. KatrinaKatrina for Kelman (xviii) was not a natural disaster. Katrina produced “water […] out of place” (Kelman x). In other words, and in Mary Douglas’s terms for whom dirt is matter out of place (Douglas 2), this water was dirt. It was not merely that the water was dirty in colour or composition but that the water was in the wrong place, in the buildings and streets, and not behind levees, as Polidori graphically illustrates in his photographs. Bodies were also out of place with “corpses floating in dirty water” (Kelman x) (though Polidori does not photograph these, unlike Dean Sewell in Aceh in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in what I call an Orientalist p*rnography of death (Giblett, Landscapes 158)). Dead bodies became dirt: visible, smelly, water-logged. Colten argues that “human actions […] make an extreme event into a disaster […]. The extreme event that became a disaster was not just the result of Katrina but the product of three centuries of urbanization in a precarious site” (xix). Yet Katrina was not only the product of three centuries of urbanisation of New Orleans’ precarious and precious watershed, but also the product of three centuries of American urbanisation of the precarious and precious airshed through pollution with greenhouse gases.The watery geographical location of New Orleans, its history of drainage and levee-building, the fossil-fuel dependence of modern industrial capitalist economies, poor relief efforts and the storm combined to produce the perfect disaster of Katrina. Land, water, and air were mixed in an artificial quaking zone of elements not in their normal places, a feral quaking zone of the elements of air, earth and water that had been in the native quaking zone of swamps now ran amok in a watery wasteland (see Giblett, Landscapes especially Chapter 1). Water was on the land and in the air. In the beginning God, when created the heavens and the earth, darkness and chaos moved over the face of the waters, and the earth was without form and void in the geographical location of a native quaking zone. In the ending, when humans are recreating the heavens and the earth, darkness and chaos move over the face of the waters, and the earth is without form and void in the the geographical location and catastrophe of a feral quaking zone. Humans were thrown into this maelstrom where they quaked in fear and survived or died. Humans are now recreating the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of “Katrina.” In the beginning of the history of the city, humans created the city; from the disastrous destruction of some cities, humans are recreating the city.It is difficult to make sense of “Katrina.” Smith relates that, “as well as killing some 1500 people, the bill for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans […] was US$200 billion, making it the most costly disaster in American history,” more than “9/11” (303; see also Flint 230). A whole series of events and images congregate around the name “Katrina,” including those of photographer Robert Polidori in his book of photographs, After the Flood, with its overtones of divine punishment for human sin as with the biblical flood (Coogan et al. Genesis, Chapters 6–7). The flood returns the earth to the beginning when God created heaven and earth, when “the earth was without form and darkness moved […] upon the face of the waters” (Coogan et al. Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 2)—God's first, and arguably best, work (Giblett, Postmodern Wetlands 142–143; Canadian Wetlands “Preface”). The single catastrophe of history and geography begins here and now in the act of creation on the first day and in dividing land from water as God also did on the second day (Coogan et al. Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 7)—God’s second, and arguably second best, work. New Orleans began in the chaos of land and water. This chaos recurs in later disasters, such as “Katrina,” which merely repeat the creation and catastrophe of the beginning in the eternal recurrence of the same. New Orleans developed by dividing land from water and is periodically flooded by the division ceasing to be returning the city to its, and the, beginning but this time inflected as a human-made “swamp,” a feral quaking zone (Giblett, Landscapes Chapter 1). Catastrophe and creativity are locked together from the beginning. The creation of the world as wetland and the separation of land and water was a catastrophic action on God's part. Its repetition in the draining or filling of wetlands is a catastrophic event for the heavens and earth, and humans, as is the unseparation of land and water in floods. What Muecke calls the rhetoric of “natural disaster” (259, 263) looms large in accounts of “Katrina.” In an escalating scale of hyperbole, “Katrina” for Brinkley was a “natural disaster” (5, 60, 77), “the worst natural disaster in modern U.S. history” (62), “the biggest natural disaster in recent American history” (273), and “the worst natural disaster in modern American history” (331). Yet a hurricane in and by itself is not a disaster. It is a natural event. Perhaps all that could simply be said is that “Katrina was one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in U.S. history” (Brinkley 73). Yet to be recorded in U.S. history “Katrina” had to be more than just a storm. It had also to be more than merely what Muecke calls an “oceanic disaster” (259) out to sea. It had to have made land-fall, and it had to have had human impact. It was not merely an event in the history of weather patterns in the U.S. For Brinkley “the hurricane disaster was followed by the flood disaster, which was followed by human disasters” (249). These three disasters for Brinkley add up to “the overall disaster, the sinking of New Orleans, [which] was a man-made disaster, resulting from poorly designed and managed levees and floodwalls” (426). The result was that for Brinkley “the man-made misery was worse than the storm” (597). The flood and the misery amount to what Brinkley calls “the Great Deluge [which] was a disaster that the country brought on itself” (619). The storm could also be seen as a disaster that the country brought on itself through the use of fossil fuels. The overall disaster comprising the hurricane the flood, the sinking city and its drowning or displaced inhabitants was preceded and made possible by the disasters of dredging wetlands and of global warming. Brinkley cites the work of Kerry Emanuel and concludes that “global warming makes bad hurricanes worse” (74). Draining wetlands also makes bad hurricanes worse as “miles of coastal wetlands could reduce hurricane storm surges by over three or four feet” (Brinkley 10). Miles of coastal wetlands, however, had been destroyed. Brinkley relates that “nearly one million acres of buffering wetlands in southern Louisiana disappeared between 1990 and 2005” (9). They “disappeared” as the result, not of some sort of sleight of hand or mega-conjuring trick, nor of erosion from sea-intrusion (though that contributed), but of deliberate human practice. Brinkley relates how “too many Americans saw these swamps and coastal wetlands as wastelands” (9). Wastelands needed to be redeemed into enclave estates of condos and strip developments. In a historical irony that is not lost on students of wetlands and their history, destroying wetlands can create the wasteland of flooded cities and a single catastrophe of history and geography, such as New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.In searching for a trope to explain these events Brinkley turns to the tried and true figure of the monster, usually feminised, and “Katrina” is no exception. For him, “Hurricane Katrina had been a palpable monster, an alien beast” (Brinkley xiv), “a monstrous hurricane” (72), “a monster hurricane” (115), and “the monster storm” (Brinkley 453 and Flint 230). A monster, according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Allen 768), is: (a) “an imaginary creature, usually large and frightening, composed of incongruous elements; or (b) a large or ugly or misshapen animal or thing.” Katrina was not imaginary, though it or she was and has been imagined in a number of ways, including as a monster. “She” was certainly large and frightening. “She” was composed of the elements of air and water. These may be incongruous elements in the normal course of events but not for a hurricane. “She” certainly caused ugliness and misshapenness to those caught in her wake of havoc, but aerial photographs show her to be a perfectly shaped hurricane, albeit with a deep and destructive throat imaginable as an orally sad*stic monster. ConclusionNew Orleans, as Kelman writes in his post-Katrina preface, “has a horrible disaster history” (xii) in the sense that it has a history of horrible disasters. It also has a horrible history of the single disaster of its swampy location. Rather than “a chain of events that appears before us,” “the Angel of History” for Benjamin “sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage” (392). Rather than a series of disasters of the founding, drainage, disease, death, floods, hurricanes, etc. that mark the history of New Orleans, the Angel of History sees a single, catastrophic history, not just of New Orleans but preceding and post-dating it. This catastrophic history and geography began in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, darkness and chaos moved over the face of the waters, the earth was without form and void, and when God divided the land from the water, and is ending in industrial capitalism and its technologies, weather, climate, cities, floods, rivers, and wetlands intertwining and inter-relating together as entities and agents. Rather than a series of acts and sites of creativity and destruction that appear before us, the Angel of Geography sees one single process and place which keeps (re)creating order out of chaos and chaos out of order. This geography and history began at the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, and the wetland, and divided land from water, and continues when and as humans drain(ed) wetlands, create(d) cities, destroy(ed) cites, rebuilt/d cities and rehabilitate(d) wetlands. “Katrina” is a salutary instance of the cultural and natural operating together in the one single catastrophe and creativity of divine and human history and geography.ReferencesAllen, Robert. The Concise Oxford Dictionary. 8th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History.” Selected Writings Volume 4: 1938–1940. Eds. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2003. 389–400.Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William Morrow, 2006.Colten, Craig. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2006.Coogan, Michael, Marc Brettler, Carol Newsom, and Pheme Perkins, eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge, 1966.Flint, Anthony. This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.Giblett, Rod. Postmodern Wetlands: Culture, History, Ecology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1996.———. The Body of Nature and Culture. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.———. Landscapes of Culture and Nature. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.———. People and Places of Nature and Culture. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2011.———. Canadian Wetlands: Place and People. Bristol: Intellect Books, forthcoming 2014.Hirst, Paul, and Penny Woolley. “The Social Formation and Maintenance of Human Attributes.” Social Relations and Human Attributes. London: Tavistock, 1982. 23–31.Kelman, Ari. A River and its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans. Berkeley: U of California P, 2006.Muecke, Stephen. “Hurricane Katrina and the Rhetoric of Natural Disasters.” Fresh Water: New Perspectives on Water in Australia. Eds. Emily Potter, Alison Mackinnon, Stephen McKenzie and Jennifer McKay. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 2005. 259–71.Polidori, Robert. After the Flood. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006.Smith, P.D. City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.Wilson, Anthony. Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2006.

Abstract:

From the mid-twentieth century, state and public conceptions of deviance and crime control have turned increasingly punitive (Hallett 115; Hutchinson 138). In a Western context, criminal justice has long been retributive, prioritising punishment over rehabilitation (Wenzel et al. 26). Within that context, there has been an increase in punitiveness—understood here as a measure of a punishment’s severity—the intention of which has been to help restore the moral imbalance created by offending while also deterring future crime (Wenzel et al. 26). Entangled with the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, punitiveness has become internationally pervasive to a near-hegemonic degree (Sparks qtd. in Jennings et al. 463; Unnever and Cullen 100).The punitive turn has troubling characteristics. Punitive policies can be expensive, and increased incarceration stresses the criminal justice system and leads to prison overcrowding (Hutchinson 135). Further, punitiveness is not only applied unequally across categories such as class, race, and age (Unnever and Cullen 105-06; Wacquant 212) but the effectiveness of punitive policy relative to its costs is contested (Bouffard et al. 466, 477; Hutchinson 139). Despite this, evidence suggests public demand is driving punitive policymaking, but that demand is only weakly related to crime rates (Jennings et al. 463).While discussion of punitiveness in the public sphere often focuses on measures such as boot camps for young offenders, increased incarceration, and longer prison sentences, punitiveness also has a darker side. Our research analysing discussion taking place on a large, regional, crime-focused online forum reveals a startling degree and intensity of violence directed at offenders and related groups. Members of the discussion forum do propose unsurprising measures such as incarceration and boot camps, but also an array of violent alternatives, including beating, shooting, dismemberment, and conversion into animal food. This article draws on our research to explore why discussion of punitiveness can be so intensely violent.Our research applies thematic analysis to seven discussion threads posted to a large regional online forum focused on crime, made between September and November 2017. One discussion thread per week of the study period was purposively sampled based on relevance to the topic of punitiveness, ultimately yielding 1200 individual comments. Those comments were coded, and the data and codes were reiteratively analysed to produce categories, then basic, organising, and global themes. We intended to uncover themes in group discussion most salient to punitiveness to gain insight into how punitive social interactions unfold and how those who demand punitiveness understand their interactions and experiences of crime. We argue that, in this online forum, the global theme—the most salient concept related to punitiveness—is a “subaltern citizenship”. Here, a clear division emerges from the data, where the group members perceive themselves as “us”—legitimate citizens with all attendant rights—in opposition to an external “them”, a besieging group of diverse, marginalised Others who have illegitimately usurped certain rights and who victimise citizens. Group members often deride the state as too weak and untrustworthy to stop this victimisation. Ironically, the external Others perceived by the group to hold power are themselves genuinely marginalised, though the group does not recognise or see that form of marginalisation as legitimate. In this essay, to preserve the anonymity of the forum and its members, we refer to them only as “the Forum”, located in “the City”, and refrain from direct quotes except for commonly used words or phrases that do not identify individuals.It is also important to note that the research described here deliberately focused on a specific group in a specific space who were concerned about specific groups of offenders. Findings and discussion, and the views on punitiveness described, cannot be generalised to the broader community. Nor do we suggest these views can be considered representative of all Forum members as we present here only a limited analysis of some violent discourse emerging from our research. Likewise, while our discussion often centres on youth and other marginalised groups in the context of offending, we do not intend to imply that offending is a characteristic of these groups.Legitimate CitizenshipCommonly, citizenship is seen as a conferred status denoting full and equal community membership and the rights and responsibilities dictated by community values and norms (Lister 28-29). Western citizenship norms are informed by neoliberal capitalist values: individual responsibility, an obligation to be in paid employment, participation in economic consumption, the sanctity of ownership, and that the principal role of government is to defend the conditions under which these norms can freely thrive (Walsh 861-62). While norms are shaped by laws and policy frameworks, they are not imposed coercively or always deployed consciously. These norms exist as shared behavioural expectations reproduced through social interaction and embodied as “common sense” (Kotzian 59). As much as Western democracies tend to a universalist representation of one, undifferentiated citizenship, it is clear that gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and migrant status all exist in different relationships to citizenship as an identity category. Glass ceilings, stolen generations, same-sex marriage debates, and Australian Government proposals to strip citizenship from certain types of criminal offender all demonstrate that the lived experience of norms surrounding citizenship is profoundly unequal for some (Staeheli et al. 629-30). An individual’s citizenship status, therefore, more accurately exists on a spectrum between legitimacy—full community membership, possessing all rights and living up to all associated responsibilities—and illegitimacy—diminished membership, with contested rights and questionable fulfilment of associated responsibilities—depending on the extent of their deviation from societal norms.Discussing punitiveness, Forum members position themselves as “us”, that is, legitimate citizens. Words such as “we” and “us” are used as synonyms for society and for those whose behaviours are “normal” or “acceptable”. Groups associated with offending are described as “they”, “them”, and their behaviours are “not normal”, “disgusting”, “feral”, and merit the removal of “them” from civilisation, usually to “the middle of nowhere” or “the Outback”. Possession of legitimate citizenship is implicit in assuming authority over what is normal and who should be exiled for failing the standard.Another implicit assumption discernible in the data is that Forum members perceive the “normal we” as good neoliberal citizens. “We” work hard, own homes and cars, and take individual responsibility. There is a strong imputation of welfare dependency among offenders, the poor, and other suspect groups. Offending is presented as something curable by stripping offenders or their parents of welfare payments. Members earn their status as legitimate citizens by adhering to the norms of neoliberal citizenship in opposition to potential offenders to whom the benefits of citizenship are simply doled out.Forum members also frame their citizenship as legitimate by asserting ownership over community spaces and resources. This can be seen in their talking as if they, their sympathetic audience, and “the City” are the same (for example, declaring that “the City” demands harsher punishments for juvenile offenders). There are also calls to “take back” the streets, the City, and Australia from groups associated with offending. That a space can and should be “taken back” implies a pre-existing state of control interrupted by those who have no right to ownership. At its most extreme, the assertion of ownership extends to a conviction that members have the right to position offenders as enemies of the state and request that the army, the ultimate tool of legitimate state violence, be turned against them if governments and the criminal justice system are too “weak” or “soft” to constrain them.The Illegitimate OtherThroughout the data, perceived offenders are spoken of with scorn and hatred. “Perceived offenders” may include offenders and their family, youths, Indigenous people, and people of low socioeconomic status, and these marginalised groups are referenced so interchangeably it can be difficult to determine which is being discussed.Commenting on four “atsi [sic] kids” who assaulted an elderly man, group members asserted “they” should be shot like dogs. The original text gives no antecedents to indicate whether “they” is meant to indicate youths, Indigenous youths, or offenders in general. However, Australia has a colonial history of conflating crime and indigeneity and shooting Indigenous people to preserve white social order (Hill and Dawes 310, 312), a consequence of the tendency of white people to imagine criminals as black (Unnever and Cullen 106). It must be noted that the racial identity of individual Forum members is unknown. This does constitute a limitation in the original study, as identity categories such as race and class intersect and manifest in social interactions in complex ways. However, that does not prevent analysis of the text itself.In the Forum’s discursive space, “they” is used to denote offenders, Indigenous youths, youths, or the poor interchangeably, as if they were all a hom*ogeneous, mutually synonymous “Other”. Collectively, these groups are represented as so generally hopeless that they are imagined as choosing to offend so they will be sentenced to the comforts of “holiday camp” prisons where they can access luxuries otherwise beyond their reach: freedom from addicted parents, medical care, food, television, and computers. A common argument, that crime is an individual choice, is often based on the idea that prison is a better option for the poor than going home. As a result, offending by marginalised offenders is reconstructed as a rational choice or a failure of individual responsibility rather than a consequence of structural inequality.Further, parents of those in suspect populations are blamed for intergenerational maintenance of criminality. They are described as too drunk or drugged to care, too unskilled in parenting due to their presumed dreadful upbringing, or too busy enjoying their welfare payments to meet their responsibility to control their children or teach them the values and skills of citizenship. Comments imply parents probably participated in their children’s crimes even when no evidence suggests that possibility and that some groups simply cannot be trusted to raise disciplined children owing to their inherent moral and economic dissipation. That is, not just offenders but entire groups are deemed illegitimate, willing to enjoy benefits of citizenship such as welfare payments but unwilling or unable to earn them by engaging with the associated responsibilities. This is a frequent argument for why they deserve severely punitive punishment for deviance.However, the construction of the Other as illegitimate in Forum discussions reaches far beyond imagining them as lacking normative skills and values. The violence present on the Forum is startling in its intensity. Prevalent within the data is the reduction of people to insulting nicknames. Terms used to describe people range from the sarcastic— “little darlings”—through standard abusive language such as “bastards”, “sh*ts”, “dickhe*ds”, “lowlifes”, to dehumanising epithets such as “maggots”, “scum”, and “subhuman arsewipes”. Individually and collectively, “they” are relentlessly framed as less than human and even less than animals. They are “mongrels” and “vermin”. In groups, they are “packs”, and they deserve to be “hunted” or just shot from helicopters. They are unworthy of life. “Oxygen thieves” is a repeated epithet, as is the idea that they should be dropped out at sea to drown. Other suggestions for punishment include firing squads, lethal injections, and feeding them to animals.It is difficult to imagine a more definitive denial of legitimacy than discursively stripping individuals and groups of their humanity (their most fundamental status) and their right to existence (their most fundamental right as living beings). The Forum comes perilously close to casting the Other as Agamben’s hom*o sacer, humans who live in a “state of exception”, subject to the state’s power but excluded from the law’s protection and able to be killed without consequence (Lechte and Newman 524). While it would be hyperbole to push this comparison too far—given Agamben had concentration camps in mind—the state of exception as a means of both excluding a group from society and exercising control over its life does resonate here.Themes Underlying PunitivenessOur findings indicate the theme most salient to punitive discussion is citizenship, rooted in persistent concerns over who is perceived to have it, who is not, and what should be done about those Others whose deviance renders their citizenship less legitimate. Citizenship norms—real or aspirational—of society’s dominant groups constitute the standards by which Forum members judge their experiences of and with crime, perceived offenders, the criminal justice system, and the state. However, Forum members do not claim a straightforward belonging to and sharing in the maintenance of the polity. Analysis of the data suggests Forum members consider their legitimate citizenship tainted by external forces such as politics, untrustworthy authorities and institutions, and the unconstrained excess of the illegitimate Other. That is, they perceive their citizenship to be simultaneously legitimate and undeservedly subaltern.According to Gramsci, subaltern populations are subordinate to dominant groups in political and civil society, lulled by hegemonic norms to cooperate in their own oppression (Green 2). Civil society supports the authority of political society and, in return, political society uses the law and criminal justice system to safeguard civil society’s interests against unruly subalterns (Green 7). Rights and responsibilities of citizenship reside within the mutual relationship between political and civil society. Subalternity, by definition, exists outside this relationship, or with limited access to it.Forum members position themselves as citizens within civil society. They lay emphatic claim to fulfilling their responsibilities as neoliberal citizens. However, they perceive themselves to be denied the commensurate rights: they cannot rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from the illegitimate Other. The courts are “soft”, and prisons are “camps” with “revolving doors”. Authorities pamper offenders while doing nothing to stop them from hurting their victims. Human rights are viewed as an imposition by the UN or as policy flowing from a political sphere lacking integrity and dominated by “do gooders”. Rights are reserved only for offenders. Legitimate citizens no longer even have the right to defend themselves. The perceived result is a transfer of rights from legitimate to illegitimate, from deserving to undeserving. This process elides from view the actual subalterns of Australian society—here, most particularly Indigenous people and the socioeconomically vulnerable—and reconstructs them as oppressors of the dominant group, who are reframed as legitimate citizens unjustly made subaltern.The Violence in PunitivenessOn the Forum, as in the broader world, a sense of “white victimisation”—the view, unsupported by history or evidence, that whites are an oppressed people within a structure systematically doling out advantage to minorities (King 89)—is a recurrent legitimising argument for punitiveness and vigilantism. Amid the shrinking social safety nets and employment precarity of neoliberal capitalism, competitiveness increases, and white identity forms around perceived threats to power and status incurred by “losing out” to minorities (Sacks and Lindholm 131). One 2011 study finds a majority of white US citizens believe themselves subject to more racism than black people (King 89). However, these assumptions of whiteness tend to be spared critical examination because, in white-dominated societies, whiteness is the common-sense norm in opposition to which other racial categories are defined (Petray and Collin 2). When whiteness is made the focus of critical questioning, white identities gain salience and imaginings of the “dark other” and besieged white virtues intensify (Bonilla-Silva et al. 232).With respect to feelings of punitiveness, Unnever and Cullen (118-19) find that the social cause for punitiveness in the United States is hostility towards other races, that harsh punishments, including the death penalty, are demanded and accepted by the dominant group because they are perceived to mostly injure “people they do not like” (Unnever and Cullen 119). Moreover, perception that a racial group is inherently criminal amplifies more generalised prejudices against them and diminishes the capacity of the dominant group to feel empathy for suffering inflicted upon them by the criminal justice system (Unnever and Cullen 120).While our analysis of the Forum supports these findings where they touch on crimes committed by Indigenous people, they invite a question. Why, where race is not a factor, do youths and the socioeconomically disadvantaged also inspire intensely violent punitiveness as described above? We argue that the answer relates to status. From this perspective, race becomes one of several categories of differentiation from legitimate citizenship through an ascription of low status.Wenzel, Okimoto, and Cameron (29) contend punitiveness, with respect to specific offences, varies according to the symbolic meaning the offence holds for the observer. Crimes understood as a transgression against status or power inspire a need for “revenge, punishment, and stigmatisation” (Wenzel et al. 41) and justify an increase in the punitiveness required (Wenzel et al. 29, 34). This is particularly true where an offence is deemed to make someone unfit for community membership, such that severe punishment serves as a symbolic marker of exile and a reaffirmation for the community of the violated values and norms (Wenzel et al. 41). Indeed, as noted, Forum posts regularly call for offenders to be removed from society, exiled to the outback, or shipped beyond Australia’s territorial waters.Further, Forum members’ perception of subaltern citizenship, with its assumption of legitimate citizenship as being threatened by undeserving Others, makes them view crime as implicitly a matter of status transgression. This is intensified by perception that the political sphere and criminal justice system are failing legitimate citizens, refusing even to let them defend themselves. Virulent name-calling and comparisons to animals can be understood as attempts by the group to symbolically curtail the undeservedly higher status granted to offenders by weak governments and courts. More violent demands for punishment symbolically remove offenders from citizenship, reaffirm citizen values, and vent anger at a political and criminal justice system deemed complicit, through weakness, in reducing legitimate citizens to subaltern citizens.ConclusionsIn this essay, we highlight the extreme violence we found in our analysis of an extensive online crime forum in a regional Australian city. We explore some explanations for violent public punitiveness, highlighting how members identify themselves as subaltern citizens in a battle against undeserving Others, with no support from a weak state. This analysis centres community norms and a problematic conception of citizenship as drivers of both public punitiveness and dissatisfaction with crime control policy and the criminal justice system. We highlight a real dissonance between community needs and public policy that may undermine effective policymaking. That is, evidence-based crime control policies, successful crime prevention initiatives, and falling crime rates may not increase public satisfaction with how crime is dealt with if policymakers pursue those measures without regard for how citizens experience the process.While studies such as that by Wenzel, Okimoto, and Cameron identify differences in status between legitimate citizens and offenders as amplifiers of punitiveness, we suggest the amplification may be mediated by the status relationship between legitimate citizens and authority figures within legitimate society. The offender and their crime may not contribute as much to the public’s outrage as commonly assumed. Instead, public punitiveness may predominantly arise from the perception that the political sphere, media, and criminal justice system respond to citizens’ experience of crime in ways that devalue the status of legitimate citizens. At least in the context of this regional city, this points to something other than successful crime control being integral to building more effective and satisfactory crime control policy: in this case, the need to rebuild trust between citizens and authority groups.ReferencesBonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Carla Goar, and David G. Embrick. “When Whites Flock Together: The Social Psychology of White Habitus.” Critical Sociology 32.2-3 (2006): 229–253.Bouffard, Jeff, Maisha Cooper, and Kathleen Bergseth. “The Effectiveness of Various Restorative Justice Interventions on Recidivism Outcomes among Juvenile Offenders.” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 15.4 (2017): 465–480.Green, Marcus. “Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentations and Interpretations of Gramsci’s Concept of the Subaltern.” Rethinking Marxism 14.3 (2002): 1–24.Hallett, Michael. “Imagining the Global Corporate Gulag: Lessons from History and Criminological Theory.” Contemporary Justice Review 12.2 (2009): 113–127.Hill, Richard, and Glenn Dawes. “The ‘Thin White Line’: Juvenile Crime, Racialised Narrative and Vigilantism—A North Queensland Study.” Current Issues in Criminal Justice 11.3 (2000): 308–326.Hutchinson, Terry. “‘A Slap on the Wrist’? The Conservative Agenda in Queensland, Australia.” Youth Justice 15.2 (2015): 134–147.Jennings, Will, Stephen Farrall, Emily Gray, and Colin Hay. “Penal Populism and the Public Thermostat: Crime, Public Punitiveness, and Public Policy.” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 30.3 (2017): 463–481.King, Mike. “The ‘Knockout Game’: Moral Panic and the Politics of White Victimhood.” Race & Class 56.4 (2015): 85–94.Kotzian, Peter. “Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System- and Individual-Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 73.1 (2014): 58–83.Lechte, John, and Saul Newman. “Agamben, Arendt and Human Rights: Bearing Witness to the Human.” European Journal of Social Theory 15.4 (2012): 522–536.Lister, Ruth. “Citizenship: Towards a Feminist Synthesis.” Feminist Review 57 (1997): 28–48.Petray, Theresa L., and Rowan Collin. “Your Privilege is Trending: Confronting Whiteness on Social Media.” Social Media + Society 3.2 (2017): 1–10.Sacks, Michael A., and Marika Lindholm. “A Room without a View: Social Distance and the Structuring of Privileged Identity.” Working through Whiteness: International Perspectives. Ed. Cynthia Levine-Rasky. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2002. 129-151.Staeheli, Lynn A., Patricia Ehrkamp, Helga Leitner, and Caroline R. Nagel. “Dreaming the Ordinary: Daily Life and the Complex Geographies of Citizenship.” Progress in Human Geography 36.5 (2012): 628–644.Unnever, James D., and Francis T. Cullen. “The Social Sources of Americans’ Punitiveness: A Test of Three Competing Models.” Criminology 48.1 (2010): 99–129.Wacquant, Loïc. “Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare, and Social Insecurity.” Sociological Forum 25.2 (2010): 197–220.Walsh, James P. “Quantifying Citizens: Neoliberal Restructuring and Immigrant Selection in Canada and Australia.” Citizenship Studies 15.6-7 (2011): 861–879.Wenzel, Michael, Tyler Okimoto, and Kate Cameron. “Do Retributive and Restorative Justice Processes Address Different Symbolic Concerns?” Critical Criminology 20.1 (2012): 25–44.

Abstract:

IntroductionAccounts of criminals, their victims, and their pursuers have become entrenched within the sphere of popular culture; most obviously in the genres of true crime and crime fiction. The centrality of the pursuer in the form of the detective, within these stories, dates back to the nineteenth century. This, often highly-stylised and regularly humanised protagonist, is now a firm feature of both factual and fictional accounts of crime narratives that, today, regularly focus on the energies of the detective in solving a variety of cases. So familiar is the figure of the detective, it seems that these men and women—amateurs and professionals—have always had an important role to play in the pursuit and punishment of the wrongdoer. Yet, the first detectives were forced to overcome significant resistance from a suspicious public. Some early efforts to reimagine punishment and to laud the detective include articles written by Charles Dickens; pieces on public hangings and policing that reflect the great Victorian novelist’s commitment to shed light on, through written commentaries, a range of important social issues. This article explores some of Dickens’s lesser-known pieces, that—appearing in daily newspapers and in one of his own publications Household Words—helped to change some common perceptions of punishment and policing. Image 1: Harper's Magazine 7 December 1867 (Charles Dickens Reading, by Charles A. Barry). Image credit: United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. A Reliance on the Scaffold: Early Law Enforcement in EnglandCrime control in 1720s England was dependent upon an inconsistent, and by extension ineffective, network of constables and night watchmen. It would be almost another three decades before Henry Fielding established the Bow Street Foot Patrol, or Bow Street Runners, in 1749, “six men in blue coats, patrolling the area within six miles of Charing Cross” (Worsley 35). A large-scale, formalised police force was attempted by Pitt the Younger in 1785 with his “Bill for the Further prevention of Crime and for the more Speedy Detection and Punishment of Offenders against the Peace” (Lyman 144). The proposed legislation was withdrawn due to fierce opposition that was underpinned by fears, held by officials, of a divestment of power to a new body of law enforcers (Lyman 144).The type of force offered in 1785 would not be realised until the next century, when the work of Robert Peel saw the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. The Police Act, which “constituted a revolution in traditional methods of law enforcement” (Lyman 141), was focused on the prevention of crime, “to reassure the lawful and discourage the wrongdoer” (Hitchens 51). Until these changes were implemented violent punishment, through the Waltham Black Act 1723, remained firmly in place (Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill 359) as part of the state’s arsenal against crime (Pepper 473).The Black Act, legislation often referred to as the ‘Bloody Code’ as it took the number of capital felonies to over 350 (Pepper 473), served in lieu of consistency and cooperation, across the country, in relation to the safekeeping of the citizenry. This situation inevitably led to anxieties about crime and crime control. In 1797 Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate, published A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in which he estimated that, out of a city population of just under 1 million, 115,000 men and women supported themselves “in and near the Metropolis by pursuits either criminal-illegal-or immoral” (Lyman 144). Andrew Pepper highlights tensions between “crime, governance and economics” as well as “rampant petty criminality [… and] widespread political corruption” (474). He also notes a range of critical responses to crime and how, “a particular kind of writing about crime in the 1720s demonstrated, perhaps for the first time, an awareness of, or self-consciousness about, this tension between competing visions of the state and state power” (Pepper 474), a tension that remains visible today in modern works of true crime and crime fiction. In Dickens’s day, crime and its consequences were serious legal, moral, and social issues (as, indeed, they are today). An increase in the crime rate, an aggressive state, the lack of formal policing, the growth of the printing industry, and writers offering diverse opinions—from the sympathetic to the retributive—on crime changed crime writing. The public wanted to know about the criminal who had disturbed society and wanted to engage with opinions on how the criminal should be stopped and punished. The public also wanted to be updated on changes to the judicial system such as the passing of the Judgement of Death Act 1823 which drastically reduced the number of capital crimes (Worsley 122) and how the Gaols Act, also of 1823, “moved tentatively towards national prison reform” (Gattrell 579). Crimes continued to be committed and alongside the wrongdoers were readers that wanted to be diverted from everyday events by, but also had a genuine need to be informed about, crime. A demand for true crime tales demonstrating a broader social need for crimes, even the most minor infractions, to be publicly punished: first on the scaffold and then in print. Some cases were presented as sensationalised true crime tales; others would be fictionalised in short stories and novels. Standing Witness: Dickens at the ScaffoldIt is interesting to note that Dickens witnessed at least four executions in his lifetime (Simpson 126). The first was the hanging of a counterfeiter, more specifically a coiner, which in the 1800s was still a form of high treason. The last person executed for coining in England was in early 1829; as Dickens arrived in London at the end of 1822, aged just 10-years-old (Simpson 126-27) he would have been a boy when he joined the crowds around the scaffold. Many journalists and writers who have documented executions have been “criticised for using this spectacle as a source for generating sensational copy” (Simpson 127). Dickens also wrote about public hangings. His most significant commentaries on the issue being two sets of letters: one set published in The Daily News (1846) and a second set published in The Times (1849) (Brandwood 3). Yet, he was immune from the criticism directed at so many other writers, in large part, due to his reputation as a liberal, “social reformer moved by compassion, but also by an antipathy toward waste, bureaucratic incompetence, and above all toward exploitation and injustice” (Simpson 127). As Anthony Simpson points out, Dickens did not sympathise with the condemned: “He wrote as a realist and not a moralist and his lack of sympathy for the criminal was clear, explicit and stated often” (128). Simpson also notes that Dickens’s letters on execution written in 1846 were “strongly supportive of total abolition” while later letters, written in 1849, presented arguments against public executions rather than the practice of execution. In 1859 Dickens argued against pardoning a poisoner. While in 1864 he supported the execution of the railway carriage murderer Franz Müller, explaining he would be glad to abolish both public executions and capital punishment, “if I knew what to do with the Savages of civilisation. As I do not, I would rid Society of them, when they shed blood, in a very solemn manner” (in Simpson 138-39) that is, executions should proceed but should take place in private.Importantly, Dickens was consistently concerned about society’s fascination with the scaffold. In his second letter to The Daily News, Dickens asks: round what other punishment does the like interest gather? We read of the trials of persons who have rendered themselves liable to transportation for life, and we read of their sentences, and, in some few notorious instances, of their departure from this country, and arrival beyond the sea; but they are never followed into their cells, and tracked from day to day, and night to night; they are never reproduced in their false letters, flippant conversations, theological disquisitions with visitors, lay and clerical […]. They are tried, found guilty, punished; and there an end. (“To the Editors of The Daily News” 6)In this passage, Dickens describes an overt curiosity with those criminals destined for the most awful of punishments. A curiosity that was put on vile display when a mob gathered on the concourse to watch a hanging; a sight which Dickens readily admitted “made [his] blood run cold” (“Letter to the Editor” 4).Dickens’s novels are grand stories, many of which feature criminals and criminal sub-plots. There are, for example, numerous criminals, including the infamous fa*gin in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress (1838); several rioters are condemned to hang in Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841); there is murder in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844); and murder, too, in Bleak House (1853). Yet, Dickens never wavered in his revulsion for the public display of the execution as revealed in his “refusal to portray the scene at the scaffold [which] was principled and heartfelt. He came, reluctantly to support capital punishment, but he would never use its application for dramatic effect” (Simpson 141).The Police Detective: A Public Relations ExerciseBy the mid-1700s the crime story was one of “sin to crime and then the gallows” (Rawlings online): “Crimes of every defcription (sic) have their origin in the vicious and immoral habits of the people” (Colquhoun 32). As Philip Rawlings notes, “once sin had been embarked upon, capture and punishment followed” (online). The origins of this can be found in the formula relied upon by Samuel Smith in the seventeenth century. Smith was the Ordinary of Newgate, or prison chaplain (1676–1698), who published Accounts of criminals and their gruesome ends. The outputs swelled the ranks of the already burgeoning market of broadsides, handbills and pamphlets. Accounts included: 1) the sermon delivered as the prisoner awaited execution; 2) a brief overview of the crimes for which the prisoner was being punished; and 3) a reporting of the events that surrounded the execution (Gladfelder 52–53), including the prisoner’s behaviour upon the scaffold and any last words spoken. For modern readers, the detective and the investigation is conspicuously absent. These popular Accounts (1676–1772)—over 400 editions offering over 2,500 criminal biographies—were only a few pence a copy. With print runs in the thousands, the Ordinary earnt up to £200 per year for his efforts (Emsley, Hitchco*ck, and Shoemaker online). For:penitence and profit made comfortable bedfellows, ensuring true crime writing became a firm feature of the business of publishing. That victims and villains suffered was regrettable but no horror was so terrible anyone forgot there was money to be made. (Franks, “Stealing Stories” 7)As the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution were having their full impact, many were looking for answers, and certainty, in a period of radical social transformation. Sin as a central motif in crime stories was insufficient: the detective was becoming essential (Franks, “True Crime” 239). “In the nineteenth century, the role of the newly-fashioned detective as an agent of consolation or security is both commercially and ideologically central to the subsequent project of popular crime writing” (Bell 8). This was supported by an “increasing professionalism and proficiency of policemen, detectives, and prosecutors, new understandings about psychology, and advances in forensic science and detection techniques” (Murley 10). Elements now included in most crime narratives. Dickens insisted that the detective was a crucial component of the justice system—a figure to be celebrated, one to take centre stage in the crime story—reflecting his staunch support “of the London Metropolitan Police” (Simpson 140). Indeed, while Dickens is known principally for exposing wretched poverty, he was also interested in a range of legal issues as can be evinced from his writings for Household Words. Image 2: Household Words 27 July 1850 (Front Page). Image credit: Dickens Journals Online. W.H. Wills argued for the acceptance of the superiority of the detective when, in 1850, he outlined the “difference between a regular and a detective policeman” (368). The detective must, he wrote: “counteract every sort of rascal whose only means of existence it avowed rascality, but to clear up mysteries, the investigation of which demands the utmost delicacy and tact” (368). The detective is also extraordinarily efficient; cases are solved quickly, in one example a matter is settled in just “ten minutes” (369).Dickens’s pro-police pieces, included a blatantly promotional, two-part work “A Detective Police Party” (1850). The narrative begins with open criticism of the Bow Street Runners contrasting these “men of very indifferent character” to the Detective Force which is “so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). The “party” is just that: a gathering of detectives and editorial staff. Men in a “magnificent chamber”, seated at “a round table […] with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). Two inspectors and five sergeants are present. Each man prepared to share some of their experiences in the service of Londoners:they are, [Dickens tells us] one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation, and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental excitement. (“Police Party, Part I” 410) Dickens goes to great lengths to reinforce the superiority of the police detective. These men, “in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial presence” and speak “very concisely, and in well-chosen language” and who present as an “amicable brotherhood” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). They are also adaptable and constantly working to refine their craft, through apeculiar ability, always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting itself to every variety of circ*mstances, and opposing itself to every new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important social branch of the public service is remarkable! (“Police Party, Part II” 459)These detectives are also, in some ways, familiar. Dickens’s offerings include: a “shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman – in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster”; a man “with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, [who] has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army” (“Police Party, Part I” 409-10); and another man who slips easily into the role of the “greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, un-suspicious, and confiding young butcher” (“Police Party, Part II” 457). These descriptions are more than just attempts to flesh out a story; words on a page reminding us that the author is not just another journalist but one of the great voices of the Victorian era. These profiles are, it is argued here, a deliberate strategy to reassure readers.In summary, police detectives are only to be feared by those residing on the wrong side of the law. For those without criminal intent; detectives are, in some ways, like us. They are people we already know and trust. The stern but well-meaning, intelligent school teacher; the brave and loyal soldier defending the Empire; and the local merchant, a person we see every day. Dickens provides, too, concrete examples for how everyone can contribute to a safer society by assisting these detectives. This, is perfect public relations. Thus, almost singlehandedly, he builds a professional profile for a new type of police officer. The problem (crime) and its solution (the detective) neatly packaged, with step-by-step instructions for citizens to openly support this new-style of constabulary and so achieve a better, less crime-ridden community. This is a theme pursued in “Three Detective Anecdotes” (1850) where Dickens continued to successfully merge “solid lower-middle-class respectability with an intimate knowledge of the criminal world” (Priestman 177); so, proffering the ideal police detective. A threat to the criminal but not to the hard-working and honest men, women, and children of the city.The Detective: As Fact and as FictionThese writings are also a precursor to one of the greatest fictional detectives of the English-speaking world. Dickens observes that, for these new-style police detectives: “Nothing is so common or deceptive as such appearances at first” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle would write that: “There is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact” (78). Dickens had prepared readers for the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes: who was smarter, more observant and who had more determination to take on criminals than the average person. The readers of Dickens were, in many respects, positioned as prototypes of Dr John Watson: a hardworking, loyal Englishman. Smart. But not as smart as those who would seek to do harm. Watson needed Holmes to make the world a better place; the subscriber to Household Words needed the police detective.Another article, “On Duty with Inspector Field” (1851), profiled the “well-known hand” responsible for bringing numerous offenders to justice and sending them, “inexorably, to New South Wales” (Dickens 266). Critically this true crime narrative would be converted into a crime fiction story as Inspector Field is transformed (it is widely believed) into the imagined Inspector Bucket. The 1860s have been identified as “a period of awakening for the detective novel” (Ashley x), a predictor of which is the significant sub-plot of murder in Dickens’s Bleak House. In this novel, a murder is committed with the case taken on, and competently solved by, Bucket who is a man of “skill and integrity” a man presented as an “ideal servant” though one working for a “flawed legal system” (Walton 458). Mr Snagsby, of Bleak House, observes Bucket as a man whoseems in some indefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply at the very last moment [… He] notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger, or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. (278) This passage, it is argued here, places Bucket alongside the men at the detective police party in Household Words. He is simultaneously superhuman in mind and manner, though rather ordinary in dress. Like the real-life detectives of Dickens’s articles; he is a man committed to keeping the city safe while posing no threat to law-abiding citizens. ConclusionThis article has explored, briefly, the contributions of the highly-regarded Victorian author, Charles Dickens, to factual and fictional crime writing. The story of Dickens as a social commentator is one that is familiar to many; what is less well-known is the connection of Dickens to important conversations around capital punishment and the rise of the detective in crime-focused narratives; particularly how he assisted in building the professional profile of the police detective. In this way, through fact and fiction, Dickens performed great (if under-acknowledged) public services around punishment and law enforcement: he contributed to debates on the death penalty and he helped to build trust in the radical social project that established modern-day policing.AcknowledgementsThe author offers her sincere thanks to the New South Wales Dickens Society, Simon Dwyer, and Peter Kirkpatrick. 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