The Year of the Rat

Some of my students have recently wondered how and why American soldiers and civilians can torture, maim and kill foreign guerillas and civilians in the twenty-first century, not only in Iraq, but at Gitmo, in Afghanistan, and in secret holding tanks around the world. My initial response is, Americans are people, too. What did you expect?

I read somewhere recently that some Marine and Army units are being given sensitivity training after revelations of murder and mayhem perpetrated by small groups of them (men); not to leave women out, female guards also joined in sadistic activities at Abu Ghraib, as many of us must remember all too well -- so they must be getting sensitivity training, too. But as for men and their preliminary training, that's something I can attest to from my stint at the Virginia Military Institute.

I was there before it became co-ed. In those halcyon days, as soon as the gates to the barracks were closed to parents dropping their sons off, the brutal nature of military training leapt out of the shadows. All that drill sergeant stuff in the movies is basically true. Jarhead has it down well, though that film focuses only on the Marines. VMI was (maybe still is) an odd place, because it mixed together all the services -- Bravo Company was led by a gung-ho Air Force officer-in-training who reminded me of a depraved Capt. Kirk. Of my five roommates, one was a Marine, four of us Army. Another Bravo guy from North Carolina was a Ranger in training (scary guy). Our Sgt. was a Marine, and he was as thick as an ox. One of the new "Keydets" -- or Rats as first year cadets were/are called at the beginning of training -- was a descendent of Confederate General Richard Ewell. Though his name is properly pronounced "Yule," this poor guy was constantly harassed by the Sarge for not being able to keep in lock step during marches or runs: "Eeeeeeeewell! Get in step you Fuckhead Moron!"

But the Captain was worse, and though the program is generally described by insiders as drawing out the man, it was more like a vast attempt to rub out the man and replace him with an efficiently brutal psyborg. During runs, this Air Force officer-in-training would make us sing songs. He'd gleefully shout out the lines and we'd have to repeat them "with enthusiasm." One of his favorites, being a potential attack jet pilot, went like this:

Napalm Napalm
Don't be blue
Kills all the babies
and their Mommies, too!

This ditty in particular delighted him, and he'd flash an evil little grin every time we responded in unison.

When we crossed an obstacle course, he'd go on and on about how in real action we'd be running a whole lot faster being shot at by "Chinks" and "Gooks" and their "rice propelled grenades."

But one day the Mainland Chinese would be our allies, the next day our enemies. The man seemed confused in every detail except his delight at the idea of spreading mayhem and murder. He, the man in charge, was turning out guys who, if we graduated, would become lieutenants in the field. Sensitivity training begins at home. His brain short-circuited when he learned that the People's Republic of China had actually launched a limited invasion into Vietnam: how could that be? He was even more flumoxed the day we were informed of the mass "revolutionary suicide" in Jonestown. (That quickly became turned into a joke, too: to the tune of the then-popular Steve Martin song "King Tut" came new lines for a concoction dubbed "Jim Jones." I remember snippets like "Born in Indiana, moved to Guyana: Jim Jones. . . Now drink that cyanide tea!")

Some of the fully operational military officers were even worse than the cadet ones. They were the ones supervising matters, the "adults," and at least one was attached to every "sweat party," a routine whereby any cadet who did something an officer didn't like was forced to cram into a small chamber with a dozen other victims to do scores of pushups, etc., until they/we buckled. Some of those regulars had greasy pig eyes, seeming to get great pleasure out of watching and doing nothing to stop it short of not letting anyone jump out a window or flee for their lives.

On top of that, there were some officers from Iran and Korea who were completely deranged. Some of them were cadets at VMI but also actual field officers back home. One day, the Iranians began disappearing, though: these were the Shah's men, not the Shi'ites who are in power now. As the Shah fell, so did their subsidies and reason for being in the USA at the time, I suppose. I've no idea where they ended up, but was glad to see them go. They were nasty men, and somehow had special dispensation to leave on weekends to ride around in large vans that they called "fuck trucks." Something to do with large amounts of disposable cash, I'm guessing. Behind their backs, some Virginians called them "sand niggers." The Koreans were just as brutal, right out of The Manchurian Candidate, and I imagined them delighting in torturing prisoners. Yes, sensitivity training begins at home. And it goes downhill quickly from there.

I will continue about VMI days at some point, but for now it's merely worth noting that from this exposure to the lovely world of men at play, I can understand fully how men in a real war situation can get completely out of hand. Women, too, these days. But in those days on the Rat Line, when I could freely leave at any time, it all seemed nothing more than stupid and mindless. I've hated listening to morons ever since.

Ronald Reagan, Jame Wyman and Eddie Albert starred in a 1938 movie set on the VMI grounds called Brother Rat. It's pretty dumb, but what struck me after seeing it was how little had changed in the barracks since 1938: the stacked rifles had been upgraded to M14s and the horse cavalry had fallen by the wayside; other than that it seemed pretty much the same. Not quite the barrel of laughs the movie portrayed, but then reality is not Hollywood's particular forte, now is it?

Am I sorry I subsequently transferred to co-ed UNC-Chapel Hill? What do you think?

Ooorah.