Soldierization And The Warrior Society
June 2nd, 2005 by GoldFalcon
This review of The New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced By War by Andrew J. Bacevich has more than a few points that I would like to discuss with John, but since I haven’t yet read the book I’ll reserve comment on the bulk of it until I do. That said, there was a particular portion that I wanted to address:
10. Reconcile the Military Profession to American Society. Bacevich fears incipient Praetorianism in the Officer Corps. Bacevich wants all officers to graduate from conventional universities – and shut down the Academies as colleges. The Academies survive as Officer Basic Training – kind of along the lines of Sandhurst. I think here he overplays his own experience. Most officers *do* graduate from conventional Universities. And most field grade officers *do* have Master’s Degrees, most of them from conventional institutions, and many of them paid for out of pocket and done on their own time. And while the basic military school system will still exist, he would abolish all the post-graduate military programs, and have all officers go to conventional institutions for higher education… and he does have an idea for countering leftwing bias – simply endow and fund the programs, which will draw the people. I think he’s naïve here… While he doesn’t state it explicity, from tangential comments you can draw the inference that we should eliminate on-post housing, AAFES (military department stores), and the Commissary, so that soldiers have no sense of ‘apartness’ and being aloof from the concerns of average citizens. Putting words in his mouth – he wants us to view our jobs as being no more and no less than any other, and to have virtually no sense of community outside the one (civilian) in which we live. There are merits to the argument – but he has no concept of how expensive that would be. Or, perhaps he does, because he doesn’t come out and actually recommend it, though it’s there between the line.
I’m going to ignore the first half, which is nothing but a thinly veiled plan to produce a more liberal officer corps, and has nothing to do with helping officers to feel as though they are part of the society they protect. I would like to address the theory that eliminating on-post housing, AAFES, or the Commissary would somehow bring a magical sense of ‘oneness’ with the society that the military protects.
For those unfamiliar, the first two weeks of the Basic Training process is called “soldierization”. Soldierization is really nothing more than socialization; trainees are taught everything they need to know to exist and succeed in a new society that is nothing like the one they have come from. This same process occurs at the officer level and generally lasts much longer (months as opposed to weeks), but the goal is the same: to produce a soldier that is completely socialized to military society.
These changes start at the lowest possible level, new soldiers re-learn everything that they have ever been taught: how to tie one’s shoes, how to trim one’s fingernails, the proper way to perform bodily waste evacuation, how to walk, speak, act, look, stand, eat, shower, and think. Not one aspect is left untouched. When successful, these changes take hold and produce an individual that is devoted to the new society and ill at ease in their former society.
This socialization occurs over and over at service schools so that it is constantly reinforced. Graduates of Airborne school, Air Assault school, Sapper school, Ranger school, or the Special Forces course feel even more a part of the Army society and even more alienated from the larger American society. The more schools one attends the more deeply ingrained is soldierization, though it is not restricted to schools. Many soldiers attend Basic and AIT and even the Basic Airborne Course then move on to a unit that does not stress conformity or reward successful soldierization. These soldiers will quickly become disillusioned and seek to leave the military society.
Soldiers that enter units that place a high premium on conformity in the context of the military society and reward soldiers for successful soldierization are more likely to reenlist and be life-long members of the military society, even after separation. The ‘elite’ units and combat arms branches are good examples of this.
This phenomenon can also be seen in police forces, firefighters, and (to a lesser extent) paramedics and doctors. These jobs require that prospective members go through some sort of indoctrination period ( academy/ residency), physically isolate their practitioners from society (station house/fire house/resident dorms/EMT dorms), and require a submission to a chain of authority that is outside of the societal norm.
The separation soldiers feel from the society they serve is not a function of separate facilities; many soldiers live off-post, shop off-post, and eat off post. Almost all soldiers seek recreation primarily off post. Total immersion hasn’t helped police officers feel as though they are part of the society they serve, and it wouldn’t help soldiers to feel that way. Soldiers are separate from their society because they have joined a new society. For some this is a temporary change and they will reintegrate into larger American society; for others the change is permanent and they will never again feel as though they are part of the society they serve(d), regardless of service status, housing arrangements, or commissary availability.
Neither is this a uniquely American situation. I would argue that all soldiers in all armies are subject to this; that most soldiers feel as though they are separate from the populace they serve. Those that don’t feel that way usually don’t make good soldiers.
So –without addressing the deeply flawed objective– the strategy to achieve it simply wouldn’t work as it assumes improper causes for the effect.
The Roman Republic was a militarized society. To obtain office, one had to demonstrate his military abilities and show his ’scars and wounds’ from combat. Think - “I’m John Kerry and I served in Vietnam”. America has not been too different.
From the very beginning of the American republic the nation was lead by its formost general, Washington. The following years would bring Harrison, Jackson, and Taylor, all of whom promoted their military experience as a qualification for office. In the pre-civil war period, the senior military officer in the territories was more often then not a military governor with civil as well as military responibilities. The Civil War created an entire generation of politicians who’d employ their wartime service as the basis for their office, helped greatly by the highly social and political organization of the Grand Army of the Republic. Take great note that the author ignors the entire first hundred years of the republic to contrive his points. After the next great war which mobilized the American society for an extened period of time, our fathers and grandfathers who had served in WWII returned from Europe and the Pacific to dominate the political scene from local politics to the national for generations. Eisenhower being the last general officer to hold the Presidency. The author’s story doesn’t pass a basic reality check.
So thats why I always feel civilians don’t understand me….. ;o)
I’m not going to go into the geopolitical end of this article. I am simply going to apply logic to the notion of eliminating AAFES, and “On Base Housing” is so stupid it defies belief. Overseas bases must have these “benefits” as most of the crap holes we have bases in have civilian markets that are either unsanitary or severly overpriced.
CONUS does not have the exact same problems but if you pull these “benefits” the normal married E5 and below would more than qualify for food stamps and some sort of welfare. I would not be surprised to find some other liberal asshole waiting to take their kids away because they could not provide for them.
There has been many attempts to measure and compair military jobs with the “civilian counterpart”. It just don’t work. Pick a MOS or Job in the military that has a direct counterpart in the civilian job market. For the sake of arguement we will pick a “Cook”… I don’t know of very many cooks how have to spend from 1 week to many months a year cooking out of a tent. I have never seen a cook in the civilian secter have to wear Kevlar while stiring the slop. I have also never known of a civilain cook having to leave his family from 2 month to 18 months. Of course there are some cooks that do “travel” and “Camp Cook”… but the get paid a hell of a lot more than any Military Cook.
I think we need a law like in the movie “Starship Troopers”… Only Citizens get to vote… and you have to serve to be a Citizen…
G
Most of the military are “citizen soldiers” and most soldiers only spend a small portion of their lives “on post”. Sure I may have gone to college in a Corps of Cadets but I was still a human being with feelings and love of mankind — parhaps a little more appreciative of freedom when I was able to enjoy it.
I would like to throw a couple rounds in just to get it off my chest…
First and foremost I will always remember getting up at 0530 so that I could walk out of my apartment door just off Yadkin along with 40 other Soldiers/Airmen and begin my drive to PT. When I would get home (when I would get home before 1800) I would pull into that same apartment complex with 40 other Soldiers/Airmen in BDUs. I was never apart from that society. At no point beteen living on post or off did I feel like I was not in the Army or surrounded by the Army.
So in short removing on-post housing would do nothing for that feeling of not being apart of the civilian world. Wouldn’t matter at all…communities around bases would just require more housing…which would be full to capacity with Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, or Sailors…all leaving for PT together and coming home together.
Secondly…I have often wondered about the need for CONUS based on-post housing, AAFES, etc. But any reform to that system would require an entirely new system…one that would pay service men instead of using those services (Insurance, Seperate Rats, etc) as excuses. I almost feel like it would be better just to pay people and let them spend the money…but I will not take up Goldfalcon’s space for that.
Lastly of course is the fact that I wholely agree that the Service Academies are the only defense against the Liberal University System…but I do feel like they have lost focus. They do not spend their education time wisely. But I won’t get into that here either…maybe one day on my blog when I catch up at work.
CL
This comment only applies to that part about the exchanges, commissaries and housing…
Sometimes I wonder about AAFES and NEXCOM (the Navy version of AAFES). In my experience with AAFES, they tend to carry a majority of items that anyone ranked below an officer grade could not afford to buy anyway. $300 Coach handbags, $4,000 HDTVs, $15,000 mountain bikes.
Seriously, it’s almost as if they believe that if someone can join the military then they can automatically afford to buy such high-end items.
I think AAFES (and the other exchanges) have lost touch with the average soldier and airman. They claim that their competition is Wal-Mart and Target, but in reality, judging by what they carry, it’s more like JC Penney and Macy’s.
Oddly enough, I would not support the abolishment of such exchanges. They DO provide a return to the military community - ALL net profits are returned to the morale, welfare and recreation programs. AAFES isn’t a corporation in the traditional sense. It is a governmental agency, much like the Postal Service, that answers to Congress, is governed by a board comprised of military members (as well as civilian ‘experts’) and is commanded by an Army or Air Force general officer (currently AF Major General Paul Essex).
As for base housing, I’d have to agree that even if you eliminate it, you really don’t get ‘away’ from the military society. When we lived off-base while stationed at March AFB, California in the 80s, we were still surrounded by military families. Currently, the Air Force has initiated a housing privatization program where they contract out housing construction, maintenance, and occupancy. The contractor builds the houses, maintains them and runs the rental program - whereas, the Air Force provides a housing allowance to the military member to ‘rent’ these houses.
Congress has been tossing about the issue of whether to force the the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) to move away from NAF to making a profit. Already, DeCA charges a surcharge on every purchase to cover operating costs. Supposedly, they sell their merchandise ‘at cost’, but that’s actually doubtful since I know for a fact that a 12 pack of Coke costs $2.38 and they sell it [here] for $3.49. And they top that with a 6% surcharge. But if Congress gets it’s way, any net profit that DeCA earns would also be returned to MWR.
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