The United States Army Ranger mantra of no man left behind became more urgent with the end of the Vietnam era, and the accompanying end of conscription, as an all-volunteer military magnifies the importance of moral obligation and responsibility to care for all soldiers. The Vietnam War military evolved into an all-volunteer force. The need to view soldiers as individuals resulted in the need for familial bonds inside the military, including the all for one, one for all mentality. The Vietnam War had seen the creation of elite battalions in the army called Rangers, and the evolution of the Ranger Creed: "I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy..." The inclusion of the media in every aspect of battle in Vietnam resulted in the public seeing soldiers as individuals, and the public being extremely aware of their status. George Spillmann would have been versed in all aspects of this legacy by news reports of the frequent incursions of Ranger units into the greatest confrontations of the War.
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| George Spillmann |
George Spillmann absorbed the “no man left behind” mantra along with the American public, who were saturated with movies based on the premise, such as Black Hawk Down which chronicled the rescue of a chief warrant officer in Somalia, and The Great Raid, which told the story of the liberation in the Philippines of 552 Allied prisoners from the Japanese during World War II. Today, the joint POW/MIA Accounting Command uses its budget to find and retrieve the remains of soldiers who have died in wars, and return them to American soil for full military honors and burial.
