Military Misconceptions

Before I roll out the con report, there was something that came from Penguicon 6.0 that gave me pause, just a little. It was probably the only sub-optimal moment of the con, and I won’t go into specifics of who and when and whatnot, other than to paraphrase what was said, and the response I wanted to make to it.

That I didn’t respond was an attempt at courtesy to the panel–my objections would have been deeply tangential and “more a comment than a question,” which really irritates me when I’m in the audience listening to someone else expound on their views in such a way. That is, after all, what blogs are for.

Anyway, the first thing that riled me up was the repetition of the notion that “Boot Camp is meant to break you down, so you can fit into the team mentality better.”

To put it simply, this is utter horseshit, of a very fine vintage. There’s a number of sources for it, and promotions of the idea, most memorable for me is Joker’s robotic narration near the midpoint of Full Metal Jacket where he claims the Corps doesn’t want robots. The thing is, and there’s a theme here, that Boot Camp tends to be a different experience for everyone involved. Some people it may break down. But I knew of one actual break down, and it wasn’t pushed so that recruit would then be putty for the Drill Instructors to build up, it was so that they could get him out.

A broken recruit is a useless recruit, especially since the Drill Instructors do not have the time necessary to build one back up. That is just not how it works. They do teach you to be a team, and sometimes the object lessons are quite harsh. But I think one of the biggest misconceptions comes from being taught a stoicism and discipline as a public face. That can be intimidating, and disorienting when a loved ones send away a smiling, laughing teenager and get back a stone-faced man or woman in uniform.

In reality, that person is still there, and still very much an active part of their personality, but that is not always on display.

The other thing I objected to was an apt refutation of the notion of war as a “grand adventure,” but then an equally erroneous characterization of war as nonstop dirt and death and eating out of a bag and so on. Even Easy Company of the 506th PIR, one of the most celebrated combat units of World War II, which found itself in regular combat from D-Day to V-E Day, often went to the rear to rest and refit, once or twice going all the way back to England. Sometimes, they lived in foxholes around Bastogne in the freezing cold, and sometimes they lived in relatively warm and comfortable houses in Hagenau.

My experience of war was unique: I was shot at more times than I care to remember, but was never able to return fire. Some of my buddies were “fortunate” enough to have a target, and others never once fired a round from their weapon. We lived in a former cell block, four to a room, which we had to clean every Thursday for inspection by the CO and 1st Sergeant. We may not have sat around a campfire, but we regularly sat around a television, watching movies sold to us by the “local nationals” outside of our chow hall or playing the video games we bought in the PX or our loved ones sent us.

Some Marines patrolled a lot, some not at all. Some got into heavy firefights, some did not. Some lived in tents, some in buildings, many had air conditioning, even in the tents. Few went on forced marches, but most rode in long and dangerous convoys at some point or another. Sometimes those “periods of interminable boredom” could last for hours or days, and sometimes they could last for months.

The point, as I said, that war is not a grand adventure is quite apt, and I certainly don’t want people to start thinking that combat troops have it easy. But I think the point has little grounding today; no one in the military believes it, and one of the other points of Boot Camp is to swiftly disabuse recruits of that notion. Now, there’s a lot to be said for the idea that many civilian leaders aren’t aware of the lack of grand adventure, but I think it’s also apparent that few civilians have a decent grasp on what war is like, period.

And it’s not that I fault anyone for ignorance (other than the leadership, as it is their job to know better), but I think I would like to see folks trying to engage with the experience of war for the troops, rather than making assumptions, no matter how well-intentioned.

Crossposted with klech.net