A Grand Adventure Except That It Isn't

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Wednesday, November 02, 2005 9:30 AM

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A Grand Adventure Except That It Isn't

by Fred Reed

 

 

A friend recently asked me what I would tell a young man thinking

about enlisting in the military. (He had in mind his son.) I would

tell him this, which I wish someone had told me:

 

Kid, you are being suckered. You are being used. You need to think

carefully before signing that enlistment contract.

 

First, notice that the men who want to send you to die were

draft-dodgers. President Bush was of military age during Vietnam, but

he sat out the war in the Air National Guard. The Guard was then a

common way of avoiding combat. Bush could do it because he was a rich

kid who went to Yale, and his family had connections.

 

He dodged, but he wants you to go.

 

Vice President Cheney, also of military age during Vietnam, also

didn't go. Why? When asked by the press, he said, " I had other

priorities. " In other words, he was too important to risk his precious

self overseas. He dodged, but wants you to go.

 

If you take the time to investigate, you will always find this

pattern. The rich and influential avoid combat. Harvard, Yale, and

Princeton do not send young men to Iraq. The editors at magazines that

support the war, National Review for example, didn't fight. They are

happy to let you go, though. The reason for the All Volunteer military

was to let the smart and rich avoid service and instead send kids from

middle-class and blue-collar families. It works.

 

In talking to recruiters, you need to understand what you are up

against. You are probably nineteen or twenty years old, full of piss

and vinegar as we used to say, just starting to know the world. Which

means that you don't yet know it. (Do you know, for example, what

countries border Iraq?)

 

You are up against a government that hires high-powered ad agencies

and psychologists to figure out how to lure you into the military.

Over many years they have done surveys and studies on the weaknesses

of young males to find out what will get them to join. They know that

young men, the ones that are worth anything anyway, want to prove

themselves, want adventure, want to show what they can do. Everything

a recruiter does is carefully calculated to play on this. They go to

recruiting school to learn how.

 

" The Few. The Proud. " You don't think that came out of the Marine

Corps, do you? These phrases— " An Army of One, " " Be All You Can

Be " --come from ad agencies in New York. Nobody in those ad agencies, I

promise you, was ever in the Marine Corps. New York sells the military

the way it sells soap. It has no interest in you at all.

 

Recruiters know exactly what they are doing. They are manly, which

appeals to gutsy young guys who don't want to be mall rats. They are

confident. They have a physical fitness, a clean-cut appearance that

looks good compared to all those wussy lawyers in business suits. They

invite you to come into a man's world. They promise you college funds.

(Check and see how many actually ever get those funds. Read the small

print.)

 

And of course the military is a man's world, and it is an adventure,

and it does beat being a mall rat—until they put you in combat.

Driving a tank beats stocking parts in the local NAPA outlet—until

they put you in combat. Days on the rifle range, running the bars of

San Diego far from home and parents, going across the border into

Mexico—all of this appeals powerfully to a young man. It did to me. It

beats hell out of getting some silly associate degree in biz-admin at

the community college.

 

Until they put you in combat. Then it's too late. You can't change

your mind. They send you to jail for a long time if you do.

 

Combat is not the adventure you think it is. Know what happens when an

RPG hits a tank? Nothing good. The cherry juice—hydraulic fluid that

turns the turret—can vaporize and then blow. I saw the results in the

Naval Support Activity hospital in Danang in 1967. A tank has a crew

of four. Two burned to death, screaming as they tried to get out. The

other two were scalded pink, under a plastic sheet that was always

foggy with serum evaporating from burns where the skin had sloughed

off. They probably lived. Know what burn scars look like?

 

The recruiters won't tell you this. They know, but they won't tell

you. Ever seen a guy who just took a round through the face? He's a

bloody mess with his eyes gone, nasty hole where his nose was, funny

white cartilage things sticking out of dripping meat. Suppose he'll

ever have another girlfriend? Not freaking likely. He'll spend the

next fifty years as a horror in some forsaken VA hospital.

 

But the recruiters won't tell you this. They want you to think that

it's an adventure.

 

Other things happen that, depending on your head, may or may not

bother you. Iraq means combat in cities. Ordinary people live there.

You pop a grenade through a window, or hit a building with a burst

from the Chain gun, or maybe put a tank round through it. Then you

find the little girl with her bowels hanging out, not quite dead yet,

with her mother screaming over what's left. You'd be surprised how

much blood a small kid has.

 

You get to live with that picture for the rest of your life. And you

will live with it. The recruiter will tell you that it doesn't happen,

that it's the exception, that I'm a commy journalist. Believe him if

you want. Believe him now, while you can. When you get back, you'll

believe me.

 

A lot of things in America aren't what they used to be. The military

is one of them. The army didn't always use girl soldiers to torture

prisoners. For that they had specialists in the intelligence agencies.

You won't get assigned torture duty, almost certainly, because the

Army got caught. Ask your recruiter about it, just to be sure.

 

Don't expect thanks from a grateful nation. Somebody might buy you a

drink in a bar. That's about all you get. Many will regard you as a

criminal or a fool.

 

Wars seem important at the time, but they usually aren't. Five years

later, they are history. About sixty thousand GIs died in Vietnam. We

lost. Nothing happened. It was a stupid war for nothing. Today the

guys who lost faces and legs and internal organs back then are just

freaks. Nobody gives a damn about them, and nobody will give a damn

about you. A war is a politician's toy, but your wheelchair is

forever. If you want adventure, try the fishing fleet in Alaska.

 

Think about it.

 

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