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Veterans of Foreign Wars
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in a U.S. veterans’ organization that lobbies for legislation favorable to veterans and leads charitable efforts aimed at helping current and former members of the U.S. military while promoting patriotism and encouraging popular support for the military. The organization has posts throughout the country and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. After briefly describing the development of the organization, this entry discusses the VFW’s political and cultural influence and concludes with a look at the organization today.
Development
The VFW dates to the Spanish-American War of 1898. Veterans returning from the United States’ first substantive overseas conflicts in Cuba and the Philippines reentered a nation with no state-sponsored apparatus for supporting wounded or disabled veterans. Furthermore, existing veterans’ organizations like the ...
- Battles, Significant Legacy
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- Anarchism
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- Authoritarianism
- Balance of Power
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- Bullying
- Capitalism and War
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- Civil Society
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- Ecological Causes of War
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- Nuclear Weapons, Environmental Impact of Building
- Nuclear Winter
- Oil, Military Use of
- Uranium Mining
- Water Security
- Gender
- “Comfort Women” (Sex Slaves) in World War II
- “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
- Camp Followers
- Combat Ban
- Dahomey Women Warriors
- Feminist Understandings of War
- Gendering of War
- Homosexuality and the Military
- Hypermasculinity
- Military Bases, Gender at
- Military Families, Stresses on
- Military Sexual Trauma
- Prostitution
- Rape as a Weapon of War
- Rosie the Riveter
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- Women and the U.S. Military
- Women as Victims of War
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- Abu Ghraib
- Alamo, the
- Allende, Salvador, Overthrow of
- Amritsar, British Massacre (1919)
- Amritsar, Massacre of Sikhs (1984)
- Arlington National Cemetery
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- Extermination Camps, World War II
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- Partition of India
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- September 11, 2001
- Sharpeville, South Africa: Protests and Shootings
- Soccer War
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- Srebrenica
- Stalingrad
- Tet Offensive (Vietnam)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
- Unknown Soldiers
- War Crime Tribunals
- War Crimes and War Criminals
- War Museums
- Wounded Knee
- Yasukuni Shrine
- Multiple Impacts of War
- “Comfort Women” (Sex Slaves) in World War II
- Hibakusha (Atomic Bomb Survivors)
- Abu Ghraib
- Animals (Use in War)
- Atrocities in Wartime
- Biological Weapons
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- Children, Impact of War on
- Civil Liberties and Civil Rights During Wartime
- Civilian Populations in War Zones
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- Crimes Against Humanity
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- Nuclear Winter
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- Refugees and Refugee Reintegration
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- Geography of War: Africa, North
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- Geography of War: Asia, Southeast
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- Georgia
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- ROTC
- Secretary-General of the United Nations
- Security Council
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- United Nations
- Veterans of Foreign Wars
- Preventing and Managing Conflict
- “Long Peace”
- Alternative Defense
- Balance of Power
- Chemical and Biological Weapons, Abolition of
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- Containment
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- Seville Statement on Violence
- Structural Violence
- Track II Diplomacy
- Psychology
- Aggression
- Altruism
- Animal Behavior
- Attribution Error
- Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Combat Exhilaration and Combat Addiction
- Combat Trauma and Fatigue
- Dehumanizing the Enemy
- Desensitization
- Distance Effect
- Emotional Withdrawal
- Emotions
- Empathy
- Enemy Making
- Evil
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Fear of War
- Fight-or-Flight Response
- Group Absolution
- Groupthink
- Guilt and Remorse
- Hate
- Honor
- Horror of Combat
- Killing, Burden of
- Killing, Societal Fascination With
- Milgram Experiments
- Military Families, Stresses on
- Morality
- Operant Conditioning
- Peer Pressure
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Psychological Warfare
- Psychopaths and Sociopaths in Wartime
- Punishment
- Rationalization and Acceptance
- Revenge
- Sanitization of War
- Soldier Suicides
- Stockholm Syndrome
- Testosterone
- Recovery and Reconciliation
- Religious Traditions
- Al Qaeda
- Anabaptists
- Anglicanism
- Bahá’í Faith
- Baptists
- Bible
- Buddhism
- Catholicism, Roman
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
- Confucianism
- Eastern Orthodox Church
- God
- Hinduism
- Islam, Shiite
- Islam, Sunni
- Jainism
- Jihad
- Judaism
- Lutheranism
- Mennonites
- Methodists
- Peace Church
- Pentecostalism
- Presbyterianism and Congregationalism
- Religion and War
- Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
- Salafism and Wahhabism
- Shintoism
- Sikhism
- Sufism
- Unitarian Universalism
- Social Identities
- Sociology and Anthropology
- War, Conduct of
- Authorization to Use Military Force
- Chain of Command
- Chemical Weapons
- Citizen Soldiers
- Command and Control
- Conscription and Mobilization of Soldiers
- Counterinsurgency
- Covert Operations
- Cyber Espionage
- Cyberterrorism
- Dead, Treatment of
- Declaration of War
- Demobilization
- Disinformation
- Drones
- Intent in War
- Interservice Rivalries
- Jamming Signals
- Just War
- Military Bases, Politics and
- Military Courts and Tribunals
- Military Geography
- Military Policing
- Military Recruitment Advertising
- Military Recruitment Strategies
- Morality
- Multilateral Forces
- Political Will for War
- Prisoners of War, Treatment of
- Privatization and Private-Sector Military Contractors
- Professional Military Forces
- Psychological Warfare
- Psychopaths and Sociopaths in Wartime
- Revolution in Military Affairs
- Rules of Engagement
- Small Arms
- Smuggling
- Stealth Technology
- Strategic Bombing
- Suicide Bombers
- Surveillance
- Surveillance: Nazi Germany
- Torture
- Uniform Code of Military Justice
- Violence, Second-Order Effects
- War Crimes and War Criminals
- Women Warriors
- Wounded, Treatment of
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