COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
The Ground Truth: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out
Susan Van Haitsma, Comon Dreams News Center
September 19, 2006
On
Friday, September 15, the film, "The Ground Truth," opened in selected
cities around the country, including Austin. The riveting documentary
directed by Patricia Foulkrod is scheduled to run for one week at the
Dobie Theatre. The film gives voice to young veterans of the Iraq war,
who speak candidly about the successive phases of their military
experience: recruitment, basic training, combat, re-entry into civilian
society, physical and psychological war injuries and the consequent
realization that their country is unprepared for the levels of support
they really need. Yellow car magnets and heroes' welcomes don't cut it.
"The Ground Truth" is rated "R for disturbing violent content, and
language," according to its listing in the Austin American-Statesman.
Most of the disturbing violent content and language is contained in
footage from basic training and from the Iraq war. Drill instructors
are shown dehumanizing recruits as part of the process of training them
to dehumanize the adversary. Rare video footage from Iraq, accompanied
by first-hand accounts from soldiers featured in the film, reveal the
ways their training to "Kill, kill" leads them to target Iraqi
civilians.
A film review of "The Ground Truth" in the Austin Chronicle includes
the reviewer's suggestion, "It would be a good idea to show Foulkrod's
movie nationwide on high school career days." As it happened, I
attended a local high school career fair the evening before the film
opened. Counseling staff at the school had invited Nonmilitary Options
for Youth to participate with a literature table along with the many
college and occupational trade representatives who were present. My
colleague and I set up our table near the Army and Marine recruiters
who came with their chin-up bar and give-away items.
One of the points made by the veterans interviewed in "The Ground
Truth" (including a former Marine recruiter) is that recruiters do not
tend to use the word "kill" when they talk to young people about
enlistment. The military recruiters I observed at the career fair
encouraged students under age 18 to display their physical strength on
the chin-up bar and to fill out cards with their contact information.
The students weren't told that the primary purpose of the military is
to harness their youthful energy for killing.
Materials at our Nonmilitary Options table did address killing and the
human costs of war. We invited students to consider signing cards that
read in bold letters, "I WILL NOT KILL." The postcards are part of a
youth-organized campaign sponsored by the international organization,
Fellowship of Reconciliation. The 'I Will Not Kill' campaign
(www.iwillnotkill.org ) gives young people a way to document their
beliefs about killing in war, not only in case of a draft, but to
encourage them to explore their own moral values as they enter
adulthood.
If "The Ground Truth" could have been shown as part of that high school
career night, the truths offered by the young veterans in the film
would have done much more than we could at our table to inform and
enlighten both students and recruiters about the realities of
enlistment. Unfortunately, the film is not likely to be shown in the
school, partly because of its 'R' rating, which is due precisely to the
film's candid revelation of the disturbing violence and language that
is required to make students into soldiers.
Included in AISD school regulations is the following statement:
"Students shall be informed that physical violence and threats of
physical violence as a means of addressing interpersonal conflict and
discipline or control are inappropriate and destructive." At the same
time, military recruitment in schools means that students are sought to
join an institution that relies on physical violence and threats of
violence as a means of addressing conflict, discipline and control. If
military training and combat is described accurately, those
descriptions may be considered too violent for minors to access, yet
access to minors is what military recruitment is all about. Such layers
of cognitive dissonance become part of the soldier's psychological
burden described so honestly by the young veterans in the film.
Students are deceived if ground truths about military training, war and
inadequate veteran care are withheld from them. And if images of real
war are inappropriate to display to young people, then it is
inappropriate to recruit young people to fight. The veterans who speak
in "The Ground Truth," several of whom are only a few years out of high
school themselves, have undertaken a truth-telling mission.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of