America is engaged in a prolonged an unprecedented effort to increase the integration of females into the armed services. This campaign has resulted in changes in our military practices, and led to a succession of controversies and innovations, some wise and some unsound. My military service was as an Army draftee during the Korean War. It gave me some perspectives that may still be applicable to today’s military.
Quite appropriately, I reached my greatest insight during basic training. We had an especially long day in the field–march, digging and training. Just before we stumbled toward our dinners, showers and bunks, our sergeant commanded us to vigorously police the barracks area. There was no loose paper or trash in sight; thus, “policing” translated into pulling up a few scattered weeds still clinging to the barren soil. The prime effect of our obedience was to expend our last bits of energy to increase the ugliness of the base. We silently cursed our sergeant and carried out orders.
To restrain my mounting anger, I came upon a novel generalization: the central purpose of basic training was to inculcate in us a mindless obedience and loyalty. The dumber the directions we received and obeyed, the more we learned to be mindlessly obedient. Then, if and when we were directed to charge a machine-gun nest or undertake other semi-suicidal acts, we would unhesitatingly obey.
I realized the Army did not solely train us to mindlessly die–it was also interested in initiative and ingenuity. But the ancient instinct of self-survival has enormous power. The power would only be moderated by intense pressures for reflexive obedience–to the death. I was reluctant to give the sergeant credit for such profoundly Machiavellian tactics. But I could conceive of him as the thoughtless agent of some remote and diabolical force.
My military learning did not end at this juncture. Eventually, it achieved still greater sophistication. I realized that even semi-suicidal charges against machine guns could still have a moral logic. Such attacks might even make sense from the viewpoint of the group. Individual attackers might die, but the unit, due to such sacrifices, might overcome the enemy.
But group-centered wisdom is not everyone’s cup of tea. Many people benefit from the selfless sacrifices of others, while withholding their personal contributions. That’s why tax collection relies on compulsion. And so the Army, presumably, must inculcate its trainees with some degree of unthinking obedience.
My reflections were revitalized by a recent White House ceremony, to award the Congressional Medal of Honor to several black World War II soldiers. Their heroic feats were previously unrecognized. A majority of the awardees were killed in the incidents which earned them their honors. The citation of 1st Lt. John Fox was typical. He earned his medal by phoning in an order for friendly artillery fire on his outpost–which was being overrun by attacking Germans. Fox’s commander, back with the artillery battery, objected to the order. It would probably lead to Fox’s death. Fox insisted, and the shelling was carried out. The next day an American counterattack recovered the area. Fox’s body was found, surrounded by more than 100 Germans, also killed by the barrage.
Fox’s heroism was not only caused by his training in obedience, or even to the sum of his Army training. Undoubtedly, his exceptional courage was also partly due to his being an unusual person before even entering the service. Still, it was his courage that represents the ultimate “beau ideal,” which military combat training aims to stimulate.
Our armed forces now have the good fortune to be surfeited with tranquility. Given this tranquility, it is understandable that harsh and “irrational” military practices are pushed to the side. They take second priority to policies that foster a kinder and more diversified military establishment–perhaps, social workers in uniform.
Thus, a Tribune editorial criticized The Citadel military academy, because its initiation practices for its cadets involved “hazing,” which is illegal under South Carolina law. But for many years, South Carolinians assumed the anti-hazing law, almost by definition, did not apply to an institution dedicated to military training.
Group loyalty, or bonding, another goal of military training has come under criticism, especially since group initiations are partly designed to drive away weakly committed candidates. For example, The New York Times belittled the proposition that shared “humiliation and physical pain” generates bonding among Citadel cadets. But doesn’t The Times realize that “bonding” is a metaphor? It is derived from a chemical process; a process relying largely on heat and compression. Apropos of bonding, author Albert Hirschman summarized a number of studies on the bonding power of various initiation rites. Hirschman said that powerful initiation systems–which aim to generate bonding–has many stress-generating elements. Indeed, there was a strong, positive correlation between the intensity of such stress and the degree of solidarity generated.
In sum, powerful systems of initiation and training enhance unit solidarity. This can save lives in combat. But such benefits can only be created via the generation of tension and stress.
Despite the current military tranquility, one thing can be said with 100 percent assurance: It is inevitable that someday our national security will depend on the willingness of certain young Americans to show irrational obedience and loyalty by fighting and dying for our country and their unit buddies.
Let us hope our efforts to foster equality and rationality in our military have not cut too deeply into our troops’ combat elan.
Important military policies in contemporary America are now strongly influenced by utopian aspirations cultivated by a strange mix of feminist demagogues and their egalitarian allies, our highly individualistic and mischievous media and certain disheartened military careerists. It is problematic whether these ascendant forces are the agencies best equipped to determine the tone of our military establishment.
It is hard to tell where to draw the line in military training and initiation between sadism and necessary pressures for bonding and obedience. The issue is surely a subtle one, a legitimate topic for debate. The debaters, however, must recognize the ultimate kill-or-be-killed world in which the training may be applied.
