![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI was asked the other day how I could do something like send books or care packages to soldiers I didn't know. Not from a technical point of view, but from a moral one- wasn't that the same thing as saying 'I approve of what you're doing'? What if the soldier I was sending stuff to committed a war crime? Things like that.
After the atrocity that CBS documented at Abu Ghraib prison the other night, I think that's a question that needs addressing.
First of all, my instinctive response was: these men and women are soldiers, which means they do the job they're told to do. They may have signed up for the armed forces to take advantage of the GI bill, like a girl at my high school did. She went into the Navy to pay for a degree in nuclear physics, and wound up serving in Operation Desert Storm. They may have gone into the military because they lived in a part of the country where the only ways out of poverty were pro sports or armed service- here I am thinking of places I've been in West Virginia, where the money and resources are largely in the hands of mining corporations and everyone else is lucky if they get to keep the land they live on. They may even have felt it was their duty to serve their country, and found out the hard way that not all service is defense. When you're in the military, you do what you're told.
The next response was that my family has been full of military men for a very long time. I never really realised it until I was in high school and the recruiter came around to talk to us about possible service. My great-grandfather was a second lieutenant in the British Army during the First World War. One of my grandfathers was a translator and poison-gas handler in the Army Air Corps; the other was a little too young to sign up for the Navy until 1945, and by the time his ship was ready to leave port, the war was over. My uncle did Marine Corps ROTC, my father Army Reserve, and another uncle was active duty Air Force. The one in the Air Force was an airplane mechanic in Vietnam. I know that if any of my other male relatives were serving in the armed forces, I'd want to know people were thinking well of him, and I'd be writing to him as often as I could. I also know that there was a time when I would have signed up for the Air Force or the Coast Guard in a heartbeat, and I told the recruiter so back in high school… but then I was forced to hand him my eyeglasses. His face fell, because he could see right away just how bad my eyes were. I was 20/400 then. He handed them back to me and said, "Miss, if you're lucky, they'll let you drive a cargo truck." I wanted Air Force because of the chance I might get into astronaut work that way, or the Coast Guard because I admire what they do, but it came down to the same thing: service that might have led to one of my family being in a line of fire somewhere.
But those were both very idealistic responses. They assume the best: tradition, duty, poverty, study. I have a tendency to trust people until I have reason to believe otherwise, at which point I become horribly cynical. It's easier on the heart, both emotionally and physically. Unfortunately, in this case I have to deliberately look at the desire to support strangers through the lens of cynicism, and see if I can still justify it.
There are, and have always been, plenty of sociopaths in the military. There are sociopaths in every walk of life, in every occupation. People who haven't put a lot of effort into developing empathy, or consciences, can be bloody hard to tell apart from everyone else. People who do have consciences but have structured them in exactly the wrong way- giving themselves an exemption to do something horrid while otherwise responding as a normal person would- are even tougher. Certain kinds of power structure attract people who are not especially stable, or not especially healthy. It's a pathology spawned by authority and the ability to punish without being questioned. As someone who was raised in the Roman Catholic Church I have to say that people who think they have the right to do stuff no one else is allowed to do are depressingly common. The armed forces likely aren't much different, with the exception that they can't tell someone 'God wants you to submit'. They can only bring out the guns.
So how do I justify the very real risk of sending cheer and emotional support to someone who may have been involved in hooking up electrodes to some poor Iraqi slob's genitals? How do I say, 'here, have a book and some movies' to someone who might have done impossibly horrible things above and beyond shooting someone who was shooting at him? How can I write a friendly and pleasant letter to go with a box of ready-to-drink protein shakes for someone who could look a reporter in the face and say 'no one ever told me about the Geneva Conventions' as his excuse for participating in what happened at Abu Ghraib?
These men will be coming home one day. These women- for there were women involved- will be coming home as well. The committers of war crimes will be re-joining the populace, along with the battlefield-traumatized nineteen-year-olds and the war-weary but well-meaning types. All of them will come back to the States and be told: put down your gun. Take off your uniform. Go back to making your own decisions. Do the same job as everybody else. The empathy that you turned off, so that you no longer saw the people you were fighting as having the same right to life as you? Turn that back on. You have to be human again. Act the part, even though you've just spent six months / a year / two years blowing your fellow human beings to kingdom come. Rejoin a country that might like you, but more likely will forget you or despise you.
What do they have to come back to, if no one here reaches out to them? What incentive do they have to ever view other people as human, if all they have every single day is blow-shit-up, blow-shit-up? Why should they ever try to be part of society again if that society abandoned them to the wolves, left them to have no human contact or association with anyone other than people who tell them 'go ahead and shove that plunger handle in, he deserves it'? Being forgotten by people you're supposed to defend is a nasty experience. Being despised by people you thought you were serving is even worse- I know this from personal experience. When you combine that with the experience of war, you have a very fast recipe for disaster. These folks in uniform need a hell of a lot more than a cold shoulder or a muttered prayer. They need a sign that someone cares about them, and that it might therefore be a good idea to remember to care about other people. One day they'll have to put down their guns. Whether I like what they're doing or not (I don't), whether I approve of the war (I don't- I'm glad Hussein's gone, but I don't approve of the way things are being handled), I'm going to have to share a country with these folks. I want them to remember that somebody here was decent to them. Having something to hold on to, even something as small as 'take care out there', is a very, very big thing to someone who's surrounded on all sides by disdain, disgust, and hostile invective.
And when it comes right down to it. . . I donate blood regularly. I'm due to do so this week or next. I'm O-, which means that my blood is tapped first when someone comes into a hospital and is bleeding to death. It's also tapped first for newborn babies, and for other emergencies. I like to think about the baby part when I give blood, but when you're lying there with a needle in your arm, you don't have much to do except think. I've come to the conclusion that my blood is just as likely to go into someone who dies anyway despite the transfusion as it is to save the life of some child. I've also realised that there's an excellent chance my blood will save the life of some pimp, gang-banger, drug pusher, or other dreadful person who got wounded in the course of their wickedness. That's the chance I take every time I let them put the needle in. The thing is that there's always the chance of it doing good for someone good, or doing good for someone who might or might not be good. The important part is that the blood is there, so that no one has to go without in their time of need. If I can do that, I don't feel like I should deny a little comfort from home to people who may or may not be decent sorts. I like to think they are. They may not be. But I like to think they are.
At any rate, there's also the fact- often forgotten- that not all soldiers, sailors, and so on are serving in the war zones right now. There are members of the US military stationed in Korea, in Haiti, and in all kinds of other places. Those poor sods in Korea are stuck with standing on guard in a country that's probably about as alien as it gets. They've got requests on Books for Soldiers, too. So do guys in VA hospitals, who've come home from the war zone or from other places of service. Even if my conscience didn't allow me to take a chance on the folks doing the fighting, there are always those in other areas who're left lonely and without any sign from home.
The Gospels say that if we love only our friends, if we pray only for those who are good to us, then we are no better than anyone else. As a Christian (yes, those of you who aren't clear on the denominations, Roman Catholics are Christians), I'm supposed to love my enemies and pray for those who do me harm. The men and women of the United States military have done me no harm, and are DEFINITELY not my enemies, but I see no reason not to expand the spirit of the message to those who do things to which I am morally opposed. Besides, I work for the Red Cross. We're chartered to look after the US military- it's right there in the rules. The Red Cross was started as an organization to see to the needs of the wounded and dying on the battlefield, and to look after prisoners of war. One of our seven principles is humanity: we serve people regardless of what their actions might have been, because they are human beings no matter how inhuman their deeds were. The soldiers in this war are human. They could have been my siblings, my uncles, my aunts; they could have been anyone. The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies do what they can to look after the needs of prisoners of war, of civilians in war zones, of refugees and internally displaced people. They do what they can to educate even the most hardened of soldiers about international humanitarian law, in the hopes that something will sink in. It's our duty, for as long as we can sustain it. . .
In the end it comes to this. Maybe the soldier I'm sending stuff to is a decent guy. Maybe he's the next William Calley. Maybe he's fighting because he hasn't got a choice. Maybe he's fighting because he likes to break things and hurt people. I hope that's not the case, but that's the chance I take- and I would rather offer succor to a bad man or woman by mistake than deliberately turn away from a good one.
****
And now I have to go do something a little more bearable. John Constantine's gonna meet Winky, I think.
After the atrocity that CBS documented at Abu Ghraib prison the other night, I think that's a question that needs addressing.
First of all, my instinctive response was: these men and women are soldiers, which means they do the job they're told to do. They may have signed up for the armed forces to take advantage of the GI bill, like a girl at my high school did. She went into the Navy to pay for a degree in nuclear physics, and wound up serving in Operation Desert Storm. They may have gone into the military because they lived in a part of the country where the only ways out of poverty were pro sports or armed service- here I am thinking of places I've been in West Virginia, where the money and resources are largely in the hands of mining corporations and everyone else is lucky if they get to keep the land they live on. They may even have felt it was their duty to serve their country, and found out the hard way that not all service is defense. When you're in the military, you do what you're told.
The next response was that my family has been full of military men for a very long time. I never really realised it until I was in high school and the recruiter came around to talk to us about possible service. My great-grandfather was a second lieutenant in the British Army during the First World War. One of my grandfathers was a translator and poison-gas handler in the Army Air Corps; the other was a little too young to sign up for the Navy until 1945, and by the time his ship was ready to leave port, the war was over. My uncle did Marine Corps ROTC, my father Army Reserve, and another uncle was active duty Air Force. The one in the Air Force was an airplane mechanic in Vietnam. I know that if any of my other male relatives were serving in the armed forces, I'd want to know people were thinking well of him, and I'd be writing to him as often as I could. I also know that there was a time when I would have signed up for the Air Force or the Coast Guard in a heartbeat, and I told the recruiter so back in high school… but then I was forced to hand him my eyeglasses. His face fell, because he could see right away just how bad my eyes were. I was 20/400 then. He handed them back to me and said, "Miss, if you're lucky, they'll let you drive a cargo truck." I wanted Air Force because of the chance I might get into astronaut work that way, or the Coast Guard because I admire what they do, but it came down to the same thing: service that might have led to one of my family being in a line of fire somewhere.
But those were both very idealistic responses. They assume the best: tradition, duty, poverty, study. I have a tendency to trust people until I have reason to believe otherwise, at which point I become horribly cynical. It's easier on the heart, both emotionally and physically. Unfortunately, in this case I have to deliberately look at the desire to support strangers through the lens of cynicism, and see if I can still justify it.
There are, and have always been, plenty of sociopaths in the military. There are sociopaths in every walk of life, in every occupation. People who haven't put a lot of effort into developing empathy, or consciences, can be bloody hard to tell apart from everyone else. People who do have consciences but have structured them in exactly the wrong way- giving themselves an exemption to do something horrid while otherwise responding as a normal person would- are even tougher. Certain kinds of power structure attract people who are not especially stable, or not especially healthy. It's a pathology spawned by authority and the ability to punish without being questioned. As someone who was raised in the Roman Catholic Church I have to say that people who think they have the right to do stuff no one else is allowed to do are depressingly common. The armed forces likely aren't much different, with the exception that they can't tell someone 'God wants you to submit'. They can only bring out the guns.
So how do I justify the very real risk of sending cheer and emotional support to someone who may have been involved in hooking up electrodes to some poor Iraqi slob's genitals? How do I say, 'here, have a book and some movies' to someone who might have done impossibly horrible things above and beyond shooting someone who was shooting at him? How can I write a friendly and pleasant letter to go with a box of ready-to-drink protein shakes for someone who could look a reporter in the face and say 'no one ever told me about the Geneva Conventions' as his excuse for participating in what happened at Abu Ghraib?
These men will be coming home one day. These women- for there were women involved- will be coming home as well. The committers of war crimes will be re-joining the populace, along with the battlefield-traumatized nineteen-year-olds and the war-weary but well-meaning types. All of them will come back to the States and be told: put down your gun. Take off your uniform. Go back to making your own decisions. Do the same job as everybody else. The empathy that you turned off, so that you no longer saw the people you were fighting as having the same right to life as you? Turn that back on. You have to be human again. Act the part, even though you've just spent six months / a year / two years blowing your fellow human beings to kingdom come. Rejoin a country that might like you, but more likely will forget you or despise you.
What do they have to come back to, if no one here reaches out to them? What incentive do they have to ever view other people as human, if all they have every single day is blow-shit-up, blow-shit-up? Why should they ever try to be part of society again if that society abandoned them to the wolves, left them to have no human contact or association with anyone other than people who tell them 'go ahead and shove that plunger handle in, he deserves it'? Being forgotten by people you're supposed to defend is a nasty experience. Being despised by people you thought you were serving is even worse- I know this from personal experience. When you combine that with the experience of war, you have a very fast recipe for disaster. These folks in uniform need a hell of a lot more than a cold shoulder or a muttered prayer. They need a sign that someone cares about them, and that it might therefore be a good idea to remember to care about other people. One day they'll have to put down their guns. Whether I like what they're doing or not (I don't), whether I approve of the war (I don't- I'm glad Hussein's gone, but I don't approve of the way things are being handled), I'm going to have to share a country with these folks. I want them to remember that somebody here was decent to them. Having something to hold on to, even something as small as 'take care out there', is a very, very big thing to someone who's surrounded on all sides by disdain, disgust, and hostile invective.
And when it comes right down to it. . . I donate blood regularly. I'm due to do so this week or next. I'm O-, which means that my blood is tapped first when someone comes into a hospital and is bleeding to death. It's also tapped first for newborn babies, and for other emergencies. I like to think about the baby part when I give blood, but when you're lying there with a needle in your arm, you don't have much to do except think. I've come to the conclusion that my blood is just as likely to go into someone who dies anyway despite the transfusion as it is to save the life of some child. I've also realised that there's an excellent chance my blood will save the life of some pimp, gang-banger, drug pusher, or other dreadful person who got wounded in the course of their wickedness. That's the chance I take every time I let them put the needle in. The thing is that there's always the chance of it doing good for someone good, or doing good for someone who might or might not be good. The important part is that the blood is there, so that no one has to go without in their time of need. If I can do that, I don't feel like I should deny a little comfort from home to people who may or may not be decent sorts. I like to think they are. They may not be. But I like to think they are.
At any rate, there's also the fact- often forgotten- that not all soldiers, sailors, and so on are serving in the war zones right now. There are members of the US military stationed in Korea, in Haiti, and in all kinds of other places. Those poor sods in Korea are stuck with standing on guard in a country that's probably about as alien as it gets. They've got requests on Books for Soldiers, too. So do guys in VA hospitals, who've come home from the war zone or from other places of service. Even if my conscience didn't allow me to take a chance on the folks doing the fighting, there are always those in other areas who're left lonely and without any sign from home.
The Gospels say that if we love only our friends, if we pray only for those who are good to us, then we are no better than anyone else. As a Christian (yes, those of you who aren't clear on the denominations, Roman Catholics are Christians), I'm supposed to love my enemies and pray for those who do me harm. The men and women of the United States military have done me no harm, and are DEFINITELY not my enemies, but I see no reason not to expand the spirit of the message to those who do things to which I am morally opposed. Besides, I work for the Red Cross. We're chartered to look after the US military- it's right there in the rules. The Red Cross was started as an organization to see to the needs of the wounded and dying on the battlefield, and to look after prisoners of war. One of our seven principles is humanity: we serve people regardless of what their actions might have been, because they are human beings no matter how inhuman their deeds were. The soldiers in this war are human. They could have been my siblings, my uncles, my aunts; they could have been anyone. The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies do what they can to look after the needs of prisoners of war, of civilians in war zones, of refugees and internally displaced people. They do what they can to educate even the most hardened of soldiers about international humanitarian law, in the hopes that something will sink in. It's our duty, for as long as we can sustain it. . .
In the end it comes to this. Maybe the soldier I'm sending stuff to is a decent guy. Maybe he's the next William Calley. Maybe he's fighting because he hasn't got a choice. Maybe he's fighting because he likes to break things and hurt people. I hope that's not the case, but that's the chance I take- and I would rather offer succor to a bad man or woman by mistake than deliberately turn away from a good one.
****
And now I have to go do something a little more bearable. John Constantine's gonna meet Winky, I think.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 12:39 pm (UTC)Dear Jesus, Constantine and house-elves.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 06:09 pm (UTC)Say, I don't suppose you're in need of any more beta-readers, are you?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 01:02 pm (UTC)it's tough. It's tough as hell. This is what works for me. Y'all's mileage may vary.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 01:20 pm (UTC)Thank you for writing it.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 01:44 pm (UTC)It took me a long time after that upbringing to understand that these things aren't statistically common among soldiers, that I wasn't putting my life in my hands talking to a soldier. I'm sorry to see this being used as "proof" that soldiers shouldn't be respected... I was there for a lot of years, and it took me time to overcome it. Well, that's a post for my own journal, I guess.
The point is, these guys aren't bad just by civilian standards. They're bad by military standards as well, which is why there's going to be an investigation and a prosecution. (As to the one who said that he just didn't know what the chain of command is.... bzzt. Sorry. When it comes to putting electrodes on a prisoner's genitals or forcing him to simulate sex with someone, there's only one chain of command that counts: the one that goes from your conscience to your nerve endings.) Punishing the entire corps simply because of this strikes me as malicious.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 02:31 pm (UTC)The people who committed crimes at Abu Ghraib are horrible, and deserve to be slapped until some glimmer of light gets into their skulls. The people in the military who were appalled that the pictures were taken at Abu Ghraib also need to be slapped, because it's not that the pictures were being taken that was bad- it's what was being done to merit pictures. The REST of the military, the men and women who are shocked, appalled, etc. by what happened- they are the majority, and they're the same as anyone else. They don't deserve to be brought low because of a bunch of smegheads who happen to fight under the same banner as them.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 05:06 pm (UTC)Reaching out to another human almost always benefits the world.
Thanks...
Date: 2004-04-29 05:07 pm (UTC)I'd like to recommend a book for you, and for anyone who has concerns about this. Check out David Drake's Redliners - it's a great look at soldiers who are going to have trouble reintegrating into society.
--
Kyra