COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: General
Bad Apples from a Rotten Tree
Sgt. MARTIN SMITH, USMC, Counterpunch.org
August 5/6, 2006
The mounting revelations of war crimes in Iraq have ripped the mask ofdemocracy and nation-building off of a fatigued and wearied Uncle Sam,
revealing the true face of U.S. imperialism. At least thirty U.S.
servicemen are being prosecuted or are under investigation for the
murder
of Iraqi civilians. Twenty-one year old Steven Green, who served in the
502nd Infantry Regiment, was charged with the gang rape and murder of a
fourteen-year old Iraqi girl in Al-Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.
The accused, with the assistance of five other soldiers, allegedly
premeditated the attack and carried it out in broad daylight. After a
drinking bout, the soldiers changed out of their uniforms and Green
covered
his face with a brown skivvy undershirt to avoid detection as they
entered
the woman's house to commit the crime. After the sexual assault, they
murdered her and poured a flammable liquid over her body to destroy the
evidence. Afterwards, Green shot the victim's parents and sister in the
head, execution-style. The soldiers made a pact to never discuss the
incident.
Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg of the U.S. occupation's horror
show in Iraq. Out of revenge for the death of a fellow Marine, who had
died
from a roadside bomb last November, members of Kilo Co, 3rd BN, 1st
Marine
Regiment are accused of killing twenty-four unarmed civilians in
Haditha.
Iraqis claim that Marines gunned down unarmed teenagers in the streets
and
then stormed through homes, killing residents, including babies and the
elderly, in what can only be described as a blood bath. Likewise, in
March
in the town of Ishaqi, witnesses claim that eleven civilians, including
children under the age of five and a seventy-five year old woman, were
forced into a corner of a room with hands bound and then brutally shot
by
U.S. troops.
Explaining how U.S. soldiers could be capable of such ghastly deeds has
led
to blatant distortions and false claims by the media punditocracy. The
Fox
News and Limbaughesque loudmouths were quick to blame the anti-war
movement's criticisms of the conduct of the war as a scheme to
demoralize
America's "will to win" and a ploy aimed to bolster the propaganda
efforts
of "al Qaeda operatives." Some in the blogosphere even absolved U.S.
war
crimes as a just response to an insurgency which has utilized
beheadings,
kidnappings, and roadside bombs--even though the targeting of civilians
is
in contravention of international humanitarian law or let alone the
fact
that the Iraqi resistance is born out of the very presence of U.S.
troops
as an occupying force.
Liberal analyses rely on two versions of the "bad apple" hypothesis
that
are equally inept. On the one hand, it is claimed that the war crimes
are
the result of a renegade president who flaunts international law.
According
to such a view, the impeachment of Bush would be a step forward in
remapping what is merely a stray path on which the neo-con Republicans
have
circuitously navigated U.S. democracy. On the other, many argue that
such
incidents are the result of a few deranged individuals and that Steven
Green's discharge with a "personality disorder" is proof that his
actions
represent an isolated incident by an unstable individual. The former
argument buys into the liberal myth that the U.S. military is somehow
capable of humanitarian interventions-if only Al Gore or John Kerry
were
president, or so they say. Such an assessment fails to acknowledge that
U.S. imperialism has never been humanitarian nor has it been free of
blatant war crimes, as the history of military intervention under
Clinton
in Kosovo or Somalia will attest. The latter is merely another version
of
the "support our troops" sloganeering which holds that the U.S.
military,
as a whole, represents the lofty ideals of honor, courage and
commitment.
While many have loved ones or relatives in service; or may have served
in
the military themselves, there can be no denial that the military is a
tool
of big business--and comes at a cost to human life that is, as they
say,
"priceless." In describing the interventions that he participated in
during
the early decades of the 20th century--and the corporate interests he
served--U.S. Marine Gen. Smedley Butler said: "I spent most of my time
being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for
the
Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."
Some of the Bushies and the Pentagon war planners attempt to camouflage
the
mounting war crimes and the staggering count of Iraqi dead by painting
a
rosy picture of how troops are giving candy to Iraqi children or
rebuilding
schools and hospitals in Afghanistan-even though the infrastructures of
these countries were destroyed by U.S. bombs and firepower in the first
place. Yet despite the deceptions and manipulations, the realities of
the
war are coming home. With almost 2,600 U.S. troops now dead and
thousands
more maimed and crippled, one thing is for certain. In this "dirty
war,"
troops cannot tell friend from foe, leading to war crimes against a
civilian population. It is also certain that, with our government
promoting
a campaign of lies and deception to justify its illegal actions (with
the
complicity of both parties in Washington), and with U.S. troops
fighting to
support a regime that lacks popular support and legitimacy, the war in
Iraq
will increasingly resemble another immoral and unjust war from a not so
distant past.
The atrocities of Al-Mahmudiyah, Haditha, and Ishaqi resemble the war
crimes committed by U.S. troops in the American War, the Vietnamese
name
for the conflict known in this country as the war in Vietnam. On March
16,
1968, members of Charlie Company murdered 347 unarmed men, women, and
children in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Lt. William "Rusty" Calley
became infamous as details emerged of how he herded some 100 Vietnamese
into a ditch and machine-gunned them to death. When he saw a baby
crawling
away from the dead, he grapped the child by the leg and threw it back
in
the pit and opened fire. Vietnam is now infamous in the public memory
as
the "bad war," largely because a vocal anti-war movement opened a
public
space that allowed the exposure of war crimes, such as My Lai. The
Winter
Soldier Investigation, held in Detroit in 1971 by the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, included the testimony of over one hundred veterans
who
testified about war crimes they had either witnessed or committed,
including rape and torture.
Yet the comparisons to Vietnam extend beyond the massacre at My Lai. In
fact, the dehumanization of the enemy and the callous disregard for
human
life exhibited in both Vietnam and Iraq travels in multiple directions.
Atrocities were not only committed "in country" to Vietnam but were
also
exported to the U.S. from overseas. Recently, the finally released
report
by a special prosecutor on systematic police torture exposed what
African
American victims long knew, that Chicago police detectives during the
seventies and eighties tortured nearly two hundred African Americans to
gain coerced confessions. John Burge, the Joseph Goebbels of Chicago,
practiced torture techniques on African Americans in the west side of
Chicago for more than ten years and is now retired in Florida where he
receives his full pension. He was also a Vietnam Veteran who served in
the
Ninth Military Police Company. Burge's instruments of torture included
mock
executions with pistols, a cow prod targeting the victim's genitals,
and a
black box that generated an electric shock when a crank was turned. In
fact, this black box technique was the same device utilized by U.S.
soldiers in Vietnam, a field telephone that was jimmied into a torture
method known by soldiers as "the Bell telephone hour." It is likely
that
Burge first honed his skills as master-torturer in the fields of
Vietnam.
The barbaric acts committed by Chicago's "finest" are reminiscent of
the
same incidents that took place at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. torture chamber
in
Iraq, where at least twenty-seven military intelligence officers and
numerous military contractors humiliated detainees. According to the
military's own investigation of the abuse, there were at least
forty-four
accounts of abuse which included sodomizing of detainees, stripping
them
naked and leading them around on leashes, and attaching electrical
probes
to their genitals. In one case, military personnel attempted to force
two
teenage detainees to defecate by terrorizing them with aggressive and
snarling dogs.
Thus, given the massive scale of abuse committed by the U.S. from
Vietnam
to the Middle East and even within the criminal injustice system; and
realizing the similarities between the inhumane conduct of the Steven
Greens, the Lt. Calleys, and the Jon Burges-all military veterans, it
is
far time that we look far beyond the "bad apple" thesis. Because rather
than a few bad apples, it is clear that the contents of the entire
wretched
barrel are, in fact, rotten. If the military is capable of producing
"personalities" that kill babies, rape women, and torture the innocent,
then what is responsible for the degradation and dissolution of these
military personnel? How and why do U.S. soldiers lose their humanity? A
closer examination of military recruit training may shed some light on
these questions.
With the recent allegations of U.S. war crimes, many are criticizing
the
standards for recruitment and training. Some are pointing to the fact
that
in 2005 the Pentagon increased the number of admitted Category 4
enlistees,
recruits with low test scores, and is currently giving more waivers to
those with criminal backgrounds and drug abuse histories. Such
adjustments
are a necessary response by the U.S. Army, which consistently failed to
meet recruiting goals due, in part, to the counter-recruitment efforts
by
segments of the anti-war movement. Others fault basic training for the
increase in war crimes, claiming the military is in need of improved
ethics
training. If only the military instilled proper values and respect for
the
Geneva Convention, it is argued, then troops would behave with more
compassion, a sort of "occupation with a human face," so to speak.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense boasts that is has modified
recruit
training to teach the essentials of fighting in Iraq and the principals
of
urban warfare. Yet returning troops report that none of their training
prepared them for what they experienced in Iraq. "You can train up all
you
want, but you're not going to be prepared until you get here and mingle
with the culture," explained Spc. Travis Gillette, an Army infantryman
who
served in Iraq.
Gillette's advice reveals the contradiction of U.S. occupation. Indeed,
learning about Iraqi culture and its people might, on the one hand,
improve
relations between U.S. soldiers and the civilian population. Yet on the
other, the danger is that, as a result, soldiers may sympathize with
the
Iraqi people and turn against U.S. war aims and its justifications. In
fact, keeping a greater distance between troops and the civilian
population
is one of the lessons the military learned from the Vietnam War, a war
in
which large numbers of troops turned against the war and discovered
that
the real enemy was the military itself, particularly from 1968 to 1973.
But rather than blaming the Pentagon for the loosening of recruitment
standards and instead of boot camp needing an overhaul that would
require
more lessons in core values, the overall design and purpose of recruit
training should be truthfully acknowledged. In fact, boot camp
continues
and has long served the needs of U.S. imperialism all too well. Despite
some minor reforms during the seventies, the goals of recruit training
have
changed very little since the Vietnam War. In order for the military to
avoid feelings of solidarity between their soldiers and the "enemy," it
has
developed a tried and true method of conditioning enlistees to kill
efficiently and also, and most importantly for success, to dehumanize
an
adversary. As the war whoop jingo printed on t-shirts and flags, and
attributed to the Green Berets in Vietnam, disgustingly puts it: "Kill
'em
all. Let God sort them out."
The Department of Defense structures basic training with the goal of
molding a singular and uniform killing machine. The notion of
manufacturing
conformity was expressed openly in a 1968 U.S. Army publication for new
recruits about basic training, utilizing cartoon illustrations. On the
cover of the brochure is a motley crew of all-white individuals who
represent a range of stereotypes, including a cigarette smoking cowboy,
a
guitar strapped and barefoot hippie, a beefy jock in a "letter
sweater,"
and, of course, the geek with glasses carrying a bulky briefcase.
However,
by the end of the pamphlet, the image of the drill sergeant is
presented as
the figure to which all recruits should aspire. Gone are the civilian
markers of individuality, replaced instead by the trim, piercing dark
eyed,
chiseled facial boned, short-haired, and, again, white figure which the
military trains one to become.
The brochure explains ten learning objectives of basic training with
humor
and cartoons. Lessons include "learning how to shoot and care for your
rifle or other weapons," "performing guard duty," and "getting in good
physical condition." However, one lesson, in particular, reveals a not
so
subtle message about the projection of military conformity. Lesson nine
is
"learning how to conceal yourself and your equipment." The picture is
of a
recruit hiding behind a tree as he spies on three scantily dressed
white
women as they frolic and splash in a pond. How three sprightly and
smiling
civilian women managed to find a pond in the middle of basic training
for
their merriment is a question the military must assume the average
recruit
would not ask. Yet, the real purpose of the cartoon was to assert that
one's newfound military identity is to be based upon the affirmation of
heterosexuality. The cartoon was a not so subtle warning that real
military
recruits long for and desire white women.
Lesson nine also reveals a more disturbing current within the military.
Not
only is the smirking recruit hiding behind a tree, but he is also, as
the
brochure explains, "concealing his equipment." One wonders what the sly
grin on the face of the recruit might also represent. Thus, not only
was
the cartoon about affirming heterosexuality but it was also about
confirming a soldier's right to violate the privacy and space of women.
Underneath the surface of the cartoon is an implied predatory violence.
While the military projected the experience of basic training with
light-mannered humor in the brochure, the actual experience of basic
for
many recruits is far from amusing. Taking away one's individuality
during
training is based on a planned and structured form of cruelty. As Terry
Mullen, who served in the Americal Division infantry in Vietnam,
explains,
"I remember going into basic and the first thing that hits you is that
they
take away from you any individuality you had and put you in a mass. . .
.they tell you in this situation that you are the legs and they are the
head. You don't think. You don't do anything but act. From there on it
goes. You are in it."
Through basic training, the military molds troops into fighting members
of
the Armed Forces. Key to the recruit training is the inculcation of
discipline. As the 1967 Guidebook for Marines, the bible of rules and
regulations for enlisted personnel, made clear, "when a Marine learns
to be
a disciplined Marine, he has learned a sense of obligation to himself
and
to his comrades, to his commander and to the Marine Corps. He has
learned
that he is a member of a team which is organized, trained and equipped
for
the purpose of engaging and defeating enemies of his country." The
achievement of military discipline is based on the ability to shut down
any
emotional feelings so that one is prepared for the possible exigencies
of
battle and the ability to overcome fear. "The individual must be able
to
recognize and face fear because fear is the enemy of discipline. Fear
unchecked will lead to panic and a unit that panics is no longer a
disciplined unit but a mob," according to the Guidebook.
Training recruits to be "disciplined" and not a "mob" is based on
removing
civilian emotions of compassion so that troops accept their role of
killing
during combat. John R. Fabian, who served in the 1st Air Cavalry in
Vietnam
from 1969-1970, explains how drill instructors taught recruits to quash
their feelings of compassion:
The day I went into the Army-I'll never forget that-I got to basic
training
in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and the senior drill instructor said, "You are
not
human being. You are animals." That stays with me. Everything they
taught
you was not to be a human being, to have compassion, to have feelings.
If
you had feelings and compassion, you are a shit soldier. As soon as you
got
rid of those things, the better off you were, those emotions.
The process of basic training is part of a structured environment so
that
troops replaced their civilian identity, which allowed a limited degree
of
emotional feelings, with an idealized military masculinity based on the
denial of attachment and compassion.
Through ritual-like commands, recruits learn the acceptance of any and
all
orders within the military rank structure. As soon as recruits arrive
off
the bus, they receive their new buzz haircut, a ritual of
dehumanization.
Throughout the training weeks, recruits live an ultra-regimented life,
akin
to prison, participating in daily calisthenics, close-order drill, and
classes in first aid and military history and traditions. According to
Daniel Barnes, who served in an Army infantry unit from 1969-1970, "the
main word was, 'Kill. Kill. Kill,' all the time, they then pushed it
into
your head twenty-four hours a day. Everything you said-even before you
sat
down to eat your meals, you had to stand up and scream, 'Kill' before
you
could sit down and eat." If for some reason, a recruit does not perform
a
task efficiently, drill instructors punish the entire training unit or
team. In so doing, individual recruits learn to see their larger
purpose as
tied to the other recruits and to the training unit as a whole. Thus,
one's
emerging military identity is based on a doctrine of conformity
constructed
around teamwork.
However, the military has larger plans for promoting teamwork beyond
troop
morale and welfare. The process of breaking-down recruits and molding
them
into future troops is based on building a team which was in opposition
to
those who were outside of it. Drill instructors indoctrinate recruits
to
dehumanize the enemy in order to train them how to overcome any fear or
prejudice against killing. The process of dehumanization is central to
military training. Before Vietnam, the Japanese and Germans were
derogatively referred to as "Japs" and "Krauts." The enemy in Vietnam
was
simply a "gook," "dink," or a "slope." Today, "rag head" and "sand
nigger"
are the current racist epithets of derision lodged against Arabs and
Muslims.
Steve Padris, who served in the Army infantry from 1969-1970, revealed
that
he learned in basic that "the only good dink is a dead dink, and once
you
do get over there you can't trust any of the people." Similarly,
Guadalupe
G. Villarreal, who also served in the Army infantry during Vietnam,
explains how the racism learned in basic was tied to national identity
as well:
They are indoctrinated and that is sort of a racist type thing
that of
course the gooks are gook and they are inferior to us; therefore, you
just
hear this statement. Well, if you kill ten gooks for one American
that's
all right because that's how much they are worth. They would say that
anybody would go along with that because that's what an American was
worth,
was worth so much more. . . .That their lives have really no meaning
and
this, of course, is the attitude that is shown to you and the ones
indoctrinated with it, this is indoctrinated into you from the first
time
you get into the Army until the time you leave. When you get there,
this is
the attitude that you find.
Simply put by Daniel Barnes, all of the Vietnamese "were something less
than human." Military identity is based upon both learning solidarity
with
the unit as a means to draw a demarcation between those who were inside
the
boundaries of the unit and those who are outside of it. Drill
instructors
enforce a dehumanization of the enemy that infects the entire training
process.
Yet the racialized "other" is not the only group targeted as the
outsider.
A carefully crafted campaign of teaching recruits to despise and
mistrust
women is also part of the training regiment. Future soldiers run in
formation through cadences based on the repetition of call and response
lyrics with their drill instructors. Cadence calls are in the lineage
of
work songs utilized centuries previous by slaves and often chanted by
sailors on whaling vessels in the nineteenth century. However, a large
portion of military cadences degrade women.
Recruits sing "Jody Calls" or "Jodies" to encourage male bonding
through
the homosocial space of the military. Jody is a mythical figure who
stays
at home, avoids the military, and then steals one's girlfriend. Thus,
the
Jody figure plays several roles. He represents the draft-evader or
civilian
"outsider" who shirks his call to duty. Military culture teaches
recruits
to hate and despise Jodies. Therefore, the "insider" status of recruits
is
forged in opposition to all of the potential Jody "outsiders,"
civilians
who are not in the military. However, the assumption at the core of the
call and response verses is that if one were not in the military, one
would
also be the womanizer that Jody embodies. He is, therefore, both
despised
and valorized. The real purpose of the Jody figure is thus to reinforce
the
idea amongst recruits that women are disloyal and two-timing. As the
Jody
figure perpetuates, women will always leave a soldier at the drop of a
hat.
Only military men and particularly those within one's unit can be
trusted.
The following cadence is typical of the "Jodies" prevalent in today's
military and is representative of the general theme of those utilized
in
the past:
When I was home on leave last time,
Found out the meaning of Jody rhymes.
My girl was running with another guy,
Had planned to write and tell me bye.
But I surprised her with this man,
You should have seen the way they ran.
The guy was a wimp, looked real weak,
My girl was alone, he took a peek.
While I was fighting to keep them free,
They got it on and forgot about me.
In fact, the above "Jody" is bland and mild-mannered in comparison to
the
more vulgar and degrading verses of many cadence calls. The implication
and
logical conclusion of such cadences are that women are to be used for
one
purpose only-as repositories for sexual aggression. In Tim O'Brien's
classic Vietnam memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone, he recalls several
"Jodies" that expressed a profound hatred towards women sung during the
Vietnam era. Therefore, troops learn to forge an identity based on
achieving a group "insider" status in opposition to the feminine
"outsider." The "other" is not only the nation's so-called adversary
but
also the entire civilian world, particularly women.
Producing conformity based on hatred of the "outsider" is just one
purpose
of breaking-down recruits and molding them into troops. The training
also
encourages one to lose their ability to think independently and to
become
psychologically dependent on the officers and upper enlisted for all
decisions, including the very personal aspects of one's hygiene and
identity. It must be acknowledged, however, that the military is never
completely successful in this endeavor. Not all troops accept the
indoctrination of basic training whole-heartedly. Some bring a
questioning
attitude into the military that no amount of "training" can erase.
Still
others become bitter at the military as a result of the harsh
treatment,
enforced regulations, and military discipline imposed by drill
instructors.
The molding of a uniform killing machine, the convergence of the
hippie,
geek, and jock into the perfect warrior, is far from uniform and less
than
perfect. For example, in 1971, Garry Battle, who served in the Americal
Division in Vietnam, reflected, "I made it through basic training with
difficulty. I didn't like stabbing a dummy with a bayonet. I just
couldn't
see it. I don't like killing." Likewise, Vietnam veteran Tim O'Brien
reminisces about the close friendship he developed at basic training at
Fort Lewis, refusing to reign in his feelings of compassion. O'Brien
explains how his camaraderie with Eric was built upon defiance:
It was a war of resistance; the objective was to save our souls.
Sometimes it meant hiding the remnants of conscience and consciousness
behind battle cries, pretended servility, bare, clench-fisted
obedience.
Our private conversations were the cornerstone of the resistance,
perhaps
because talking about basic training in careful, honest words was by
itself
an insult to army education. Simply to think and talk and try to
understand
was evidence that we were not cattle or machines.
O'Brien and Eric subverted the military training "to save our souls,"
relying on each other as a means to express their hidden protest.
Yet relying on a secret friendship should not be the only means through
which the men and women in uniform can hold on to their humanity. The
deterrence of more Greens, Calleys, and Burges depends on the strength
and
tactics of today's anti-war movement. It should be our task to not only
"bring the troops home now" but to also give our soldiers the
determination
and fortitude to refuse to participate in war crimes and atrocities. It
is
no coincidence that the strength of the anti-war movement during the
Vietnam War and the dissension in the ranks, what David Cortright has
called the "soldiers in revolt," were mutually reinforcing. During the
Sixties, many soldiers encountered their first anti-war or civil rights
protest at home and some revolutionary socialists purposefully entered
the
military to organize, carrying the ideas of social justice with them
into
the military structure. Therefore, the "GI Movement," the widespread
dissent and rebellion by active duty troops and veterans during the
Vietnam
War, emerged out of an organic connection between the organizing at
home
and the resistance abroad. It is just such a connection that we should
take
heart in from the past and aim to rebuild and strengthen in our
anti-war
tactics in the present.
But our ideas are just as important as our actions. We can neither rely
on
claims that impeaching Bush will end future war crimes nor that the
actions
of a few individuals are merely to blame. Rather, the entire military
institution and its training are complicit in the project of U.S.
imperialism, including the war crimes of the past, and, if not stopped,
in
the continuance and promotion of further atrocities. Moreover,
individual
soldiers should never be viewed as cogs in a wheel or as mere
simpletons
and powerless victims. The elemental truth is that generals and war
planners call the shots from air-conditioned building and bunkers far
from
combat, but wars must be fought on the ground by working-class troops
who,
when organized, can act on their own political principles rather than
on
those of their commanding officers. As David Cortright argues, a new
generation of activists in solidarity with active-duty personnel and
military families "need not be helpless before the power of
illegitimate
authority . . . by getting together and acting upon their convictions
people can change society and, in effect, make their own history"--a
history that is free of torture, far removed from war crimes, and rid
of
the likes of Steven Green, Lt. Calley, and John Burge.
Martin Smith, a former sergeant in the US Marine Corps, is a member of
Iraq
Veterans Against the War.
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