assembly hall” while serving as the center of Manila’s social life. Membership was $5-per-month, and a scotch and soda only cost thirty cents.
Similarly, in Tientsin, China, many of the 15th Infantry’s privates had been regimental sergeant majors during WW I, and its ranking noncommissioned officers were former captains and majors who had accepted the reduction in rank to remain on active duty until they qualified for retirement. “In the interwar army when promotions were glacially slow,” one study of U.S. forces in China notes, “for men to give up their rank seems to be an excellent indicator that the China Station was perceived as good duty.” Indeed, one veteran of the regiment recalled that immediately outside the American barracks in Tientsin the “signs saying ‘Bar’ seemed to stretch into infinity.” Marshall, who served as the regiment’s executive officer from 1924-1927, noted in a letter to Pershing that: “Today is ‘pay day’ and we are up against the problem of cheap liquor and cheaper women.”
Between April and December 1933, thirty-six states ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing the 18th Amendment and ending Prohibition. For the Army, Prohibition’s demise was as undramatic as its enactment fifteen years prior.
The Army continued to abide by the 1901 Canteen Act and the WW I standard of 1.4 percent alcohol-by-volume on military posts. It was not until midway through WW II that the Army raised its intoxication standard to 3.2 percent alcohol, the level set by Congress a decade earlier. These measures continued in force until 1953, when it was determined that the Canteen Act of 1901 had been repealed, in effect, by 1951 amendments to the Universal Military Training and Selective Service Act. Thus, although Army troops in combat zones are still prohibited from consuming alcohol, all others are allowed to emulate George Patton’s toast at the West Point Dinner in ostensibly dry Kansas City, 5 April 1924:
Good water is the greatest gift to set before a King,
But who am I, that I should have the best of everything?
Let monarchs gather round the pump and pass the dipper free!
Gin, whiskey, wine and even beer are good enough for me.
[Source: Real Clear Defense Benjamin Runkle Jan 2019]
