America sucks?

       Most of the soldiers we encounter in Slaughterhouse-Five seem very un-military. Since, according to Vonnegut himself in the first chapter, he set out to write an anti-war novel, this makes sense. None of Billy's comrades could possibly fit into a normal "war story" - there are no John Waynes or Frank Sinatras among them. Out of the specifically mentioned characters, Edgar Derby is the only one who gets even a moment of heroism. The only competent soldiers, the scouts, are picked off almost as soon as they appear. Who are we left with? Ronald Weary, the immature bully in his mom's scarf. Lazzaro, making ridiculous death threats to anyone and everyone. Billy, with his deer-in-headlights approach to life and total lack of will to live. The other miscellaneous soldiers are just average, bored people who all hate Billy for ill-defined reasons. Nobody in the army really seems to like each other - there's no camaraderie. None of these characters make the military seem like a good place to be. Vonnegut is obviously trying to contradict traditional ideas about war by removing the tales of heroism and friendship. However, he's also making a point about American culture.

       While most of the soldiers in the American army are made to look pathetic, not all the soldiers we meet are like that. For example, the English soldiers in the POW camp are friendly, work together well, and make the best of their situation. Compared to the Americans, Vonnegut treats them with relatively little irony. Even though their situation itself is ironic (living it up in a POW camp run by Nazis?) they are portrayed as genuinely nice men. We don't get the same descriptions of incompetence and confusion that we do with Billy's group.

       Howard W. Campbell is a ridiculous figure, on top of being a Nazi defector. You wouldn't expect him to make good points about the American army. However, there is some truth to some of what he says. For instance, he writes a monograph about the culture surrounding social class in America. In it he writes: "Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior of American men in German prisons ceases to be a mystery". I definitely wouldn't say this is really how all Americans think of each other. However, the "American Dream" of success based entirely on your own efforts lends itself very well to this kind of thinking. At any rate, it certainly fits with the picture of the American soldiers we get in the book. Campbell's writing talks a lot about how Americans are so paranoid about others looking down on them that they get standoffish and fight pointlessly with each other. Perhaps the best example of this is Lazzaro - he threatens to have pretty much anyone who so much as talks to him murdered. He takes everything as a personal insult, and thinks he needs to prove his superiority over everyone around him.

      Later in his monograph, Campbell writes, "There will be no cohesion between the individuals". None of the named Americans seem to have strong bonds with each other. When they interact, they usually seem like they're just competing for dominance. (I wonder how this is similar/different to Vonnegut's own experience. After all,when he wrote the book he was still friends with some of his old fellow soldiers - etc. However, it makes his "war sucks" point stronger if he doesn't write about friendships like that.) Contrast this with the English, who are a very cohesive group, working together effectively regardless of their official differences in rank. I don't know enough about British culture to say if there really is a huge difference in the way they view class, rank, and poverty. In the book at least, they respect the need for organization and leadership and don't take it as an insult. The Americans are aimless, so the English try to get them to accept Derby as their leader. The Americans don't care and don't want a leader. 

       Another section from Campbell's monograph says, "Every other army in history, prosperous or not, has attempted to clothe even its lowliest soldiers so as to make them impressive to others [...] The American army, however, sends its enlisted men out to fight and die in a modified business suit quite evidently made for another man, a sterilized but unpressed gift from a nose-holding charity which passes out clothing to drunks in the slums." This instantly brings to mind images of unarmed Billy in his tiny jacket, blue cape, and heel-less shoes. Ronald Weary in his many layers and deadly clogs also applies.
 The "gift from a nose-holding charity" could apply to any of the clothes Billy gets along the way: the tiny child's jacket, the real coat from the Englishmen. The American army has apparently just given up altogether on supplying its soldiers with uniforms. The lack of uniformity only serves to further separate the American soldiers: Billy is always left with the most ridiculous clothing, which only reinforces his alienation from the rest of the Americans. Of course, the Americans aren't the only ones without proper uniforms - the German soldiers that capture Billy and Weary are also dressed in whatever they could scavenge. Still, only the American soldiers are the ones whose ridiculous clothes mark them as the butt of some joke.

       Finally, Campbell writes about the Americans: "Each will be a sulky child who often wishes he were dead." Billy is a very obvious example of such a soldier. He has no instinct to fight for anything. His reaction to any situation in war is to curl up somewhere and tell everyone to leave him to die. Contrast this with the English soldiers who, faced with a potentially hopeless situation (being trapped in a German prison camp), try to live and enjoy themselves to the fullest extent they can.

       I think it's ironic that Vonnegut would put these uncomfortable truths about American culture into the mouth of a Nazi. It makes the reader think more, because the first response is to dismiss what Campbell is saying. However, Campbell really hits on the mindset of the American soldiers in a way that no one else in this novel (besides maybe Mary O'Hare) does.