Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-tight

Book excerpt: A folklorist who taught as a civilian professor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for seven years, Carol Burke analyzes the military as an occupational folk group, arguing that every detail of military culture-from the "high and tight" haircut to the chants sung in basic training-is laden with significance.Exploring the minute ways that "the cult of masculinity" persists in all branches of the United States military today, Burke unearths fascinating details and offers eye-opening anecdotes about basic training, military dress and speech, the history of the marching chant, the disdain some veterans still harbor for Jane Fonda, and the colorful-and sometimes questionable-rituals of military manhood.Postulating that culture is made--not born--Burke urges the military to consciously change its policy of "gendered apartheid" so it can evolve into the gender-, race-, and sexuality-neutral democratic institution it needs to be.