AEF Veteran Perry Mason and the Great War’s Blue Ticket Discharge

Captain Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys), 79th Division, AEF

 

By Kimball Worcester, Assistant Editor

Matthew Rhys plays the young Perry Mason, a troubled, down-on-his-luck, private investigator (and nascent attorney) in the eponymous HBO television series (2020 to 2023). The show posits some insight into the origins of Mason’s more polished—and graver—persona, the distinguished defense lawyer (played by Raymond Burr) of the first TV series from the 1950s. The viewer hopes that Erle Stanley Gardner would be pleased with this intense and creative origin story for his esteemed character. 

This version of Perry Mason is set in 1932, in Los Angeles, 13 years since the end of the Great War, referred to in the show as “The War.” Mason is still reliving his experiences as a captain in the 79th Division; he responds to the statement "God is with you" with God left me in France. 

Private Eye Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) and Police Officer Paul Drake (Chris Chalk)

Mason’s postwar discharge status is that of a “blue ticket,” given mostly to black soldiers, or those considered troublesome, queer, or “undesirable” for some unspecified reason. These discharges prevented the veteran from accessing postwar benefits and limited his employment opportunities. The blue ticket was a sad, murky assessment that left open so many interpretations applied to the veteran burdened by this label. Mason is taunted in a conversation with a combative district attorney about his (apparently known) blue ticket status. In a successful attempt to provoke Mason, the DA asks if Mason is a “Negro,” and Mason responds defiantly that he is “one quarter Welsh and queer only once,” a sarcastic retort that expresses his disgust at both racial and social discrimination. Mason is also reminded by the same adversary that he is known as “The Butcher of Montfaucon.” Mason’s actions with the 79th at Montfaucon were those of a horrified soldier in the heat of battle who administers several coups de grace to mortally wounded, suffering soldiers, German and American alike—not a butcher but a thoughtful man in a challenging moral dilemma, a parable for much of any war. This district attorney and Mason are about to face off in a highly charged murder trial. 

A blue discharge, commonly known as a "blue ticket," was a form of administrative military discharge issued by the United States Armed Forces between 1916 and 1947. It was printed on blue paper and classified as neither honorable nor dishonorable. For the First World War it turns out to be impossible to determine how many were issued. The military did not track them as a separate statistical group with the same scrutiny it did later in the next war. Furthermore, a massive 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center destroyed roughly 80 percent of Army personnel records for those who served between 1912 and 1960, making exact data retrieval virtually impossible.  However, for the Second World War, during which about 16 million Americans were mobilized, the records have survived, so a precise total of 48,603 is available.

WWII-Era Blue Ticket Form

Blue tickets were used to separate service members who were simply incapable of exercising their duties, troublemakers, or individuals deemed to have "undesirable habits and traits of character" without subjecting them to a formal court-martial, which would necessitate charging them with a specific offense contrary to the Articles of War. In Perry Mason, it seems to be implied that it is Captain Mason’s unconventional world view and his expressed moral outrage that prompted his nebulous discharge; military decisions have been based on even thinner grounds. Given that interpretation, we can only guess that it may have been more politic to give this officer a blue discharge rather than a dishonorable one. The viewer can easily see how Mason’s subsequent legal work defending the underdog could reflect on a grander scale the injustice of his army discharge. We may surmise that Mason was discharged after the Armistice, given that his Montfaucon service was in late September 1918 and the army’s bureaucracy may not have proceeded efficiently before 11 November to be rid of him before then.

In both World Wars, black soldiers received blue tickets at a higher rate than white troops, and gay men were singled out. Perry Mason (21st century version) accurately brings up these points. In both World Wars, blue ticket recipients lost their veterans benefits, including the famous "Bonus" for the Doughboys (another likely source of Mason’s disaffection).  Post-WWII, with the implementation of the G.I. Bill, these losses were potentially much more substantial.  Also, a blue ticket was detrimental to civilian job prospects and one's reputation back home.  

 

Veterans Bonus March Through Los Angeles from Perry Mason
During Which an Important Trial Witness Is Lost

The unpopular practice came to an end in 1947 after facing organized opposition led by Black newspapers. The category "Other Than Honorable" discharge was introduced in the same year, and that too still has serious long-term consequences for recipients.