American Military History Volume II: The United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008

World war--global war--was still to come. This second volume of the new edition takes up that story and extends it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism.American Military History provides the United States Army--in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets--with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose.The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action.