Army Gi, Pacifist Co: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich - Hardcover

by Frank Dietrich (Author), Albert Dietrich (Author), Scott H. Bennett (Editor)

Frank and Albert Dietrich were identical twins whose lives took very different directions during World War II. Drafted into the Army Air Corps and trained as a radio operator, Frank was shipped to the Philippines in 1945, where as a sergeant in the Fifth Air Force he prepared for the invasion of Japan. Albert, a pacifist, struggled mightily to become a conscientious objector and spent two years building dams, saving farmland, and helping the poor at Civilian Service Camps in South Dakota, Iowa, and Florida.

Raised in a close, religious, Pittsburgh family, Frank and Albert were inseparable as boys, sharing a strong social conscience. Divided by war, they kept in touch by writing hundreds of letters to each other. The correspondence concerns everything from the daily drudgery of service--loneliness, lousy food--to heartfelt debates about war, peace, and patriotism.

This absorbing selection of letters offers fresh perspectives on the American experience during World War II. The first published correspondence between GI and CO brothers, the letters are an uncommonly articulate chronicle of military service and life on the home front, including GI marriage and parenthood. Back and forth, Frank and Albert also argued about the uses of armed force and pacifist nonviolence in the face of fascism and Nazism.

Frank Dietrich's letters from Manila are vivid descriptions of a liberated city under an uneasy occupation. Albert provides an insider's view of the pacifist experience, especially the protracted efforts pacifists often had to wage to obtain CO status. Together, the letters bring to life different ways Americans chose to serve their country during one of its most dangerous and demanding times.

Author Biography

Scott H. Bennett is an associate professor of history at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. At Georgian Court, he teaches courses on modern American history, peace history, and nonviolent social movements. He has published and spoken widely on peace history, radical pacifism, nonviolent social movements, and World War II conscientious objectors. He has written Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1923 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution [Syracuse University Press], 2003) and edited Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank and Albert Dietrich (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005). He is completing a book manuscript on the lives and World War II prison letters of radical pacifist siblings Igal and Vivien Roodenko. He is president of the Peace History Society.