Writings and contributions of Angus Kress Gillespie, Ph.D.
Military Culture Research
There was a beginning of interest in military folklore at a panel at the 2010 American Folklore Society Meeting in Nashville. Then, in 2012, a book on the topic was published. It was Warrior Ways: Explorations in Modern Military Folklore The focus was on twentieth and twenty-first centuries and English-speaking American warriors. The book had twelve chapters, and fully eleven of them dealt with the Army soldiers. The editors were pleased to include my chapter “Sea Service Slang: Informal Language of the Navy and Coast Guard,” the only one to cover the sea services. The chapter included many binary distinctions—between sailors and civilians, between new recruits and old hands, between seamen and petty officers, and so on.
Next was the publication of Different Drummers: Military Culture and its Discontents issued in 2020, with twelve chapters. The book explored the disjunction between organizational solidarity and individual pushback in military organizations, examining how members of the armed forces express ambivalent attitudes about their service. Gillespie was pleased when the editors decided to place his essay “On the Griping of Grunts” as the first chapter following the introduction. He explained that, in the military, soldiers are expected to uncomplainingly carry out orders given by superiors, even if the superiors were neither liked nor respected. Off duty, soldiers are under no such constraints. They are free to give expression to their true feelings. Thus, they can achieve emotional satisfaction, even if they were not expecting change.
