The integration of African Americans and women into the US Armed Forces after World War II coincided with major social movements in which marginalized civilians demanded equal citizenship rights. As this book explores, due to personnel needs, the military was a leading institution in opening positions to women and African Americans and offering educational and economic opportunities that were often unavailable to them in the civilian world. By opening positions to African Americans and women and remaking its image, the military was an institutional leader on social equality in the second half of the 20th century. The pushback against gay men and women wishing to serve openly in the forces, however, revealed the limits of the military's progressivism. This text investigates how policymakers have defined who belongs in the military and counts as a soldier, and how the need to attract new recruits led to opening the forces to marginalized groups and the rebranding of the services.