Remaking the Conquering Heroes shows that American policymakers and Army officers had
to confront and take control over a lawless US military in the aftermath of World War II.
Money laundering, theft, racial antagonism between black and white GIs, unregulated sex,
and high rates of venereal disease threatened to undermine American authority in occupied
Germany as much as Soviet-American conflict. Willoughby argues that it was the creative, if
disorganized, reaction of American officials in Germany that helped create both a foreign …

… John Willoughby's goal in his short book (151 pages of text) is to show that the impact on
the Americans was no less significant. Willoughby argues that the domestication of
American troops, from undisciplined, sexually predatory "conquerors" to semipermanent
residents, living with their families in large settlements and participating in a range of tourist
and social activities, helped change American attitudes toward armies of occupation and
the use of their forces to extend American influence overseas. …