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As We See It: What To Say An 18 Year Old About Military Enlistment

By VVAW

What to say to the 18-year old who wants to go into the military? It's a good question that members of VVAW face all the time. Demonstrations outside recruiters' offices (as during Veterans Day and Agent Orange Day, described in this issue of THE VETERAN), selling the newspaper outside government offices with recruiters inside bring us into contact with young men and women who see the military as a way out of the situation they find themselves in. And more and more, as Vietnam vets grow older, our own children are going to be reaching the age of military service.

And it's certainly not only Vietnam or Vietnam-era vets who face the questions. Millions of Americans were out in the streets fighting against U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and many of these individuals still have strong opinions on joining up with the military, even though there is no Vietnam going on at the moment. And, while 4 or 5 years ago during the height of the anti-war struggle, there was much information spread around concerning the role of the U.S. military in Southeast Asia, today's 18-0year-olds were still in grade school, in many cases insulated from the furor surrounding the Indochina War.

Seductive advertising from the military feeds into the situation; the Pentagon bosses make full use of the fact that there is no shooting war going on at the moment. The who recruiting effort has been designed to present the military as a good time (Join the Navy—See the World), a patriotic thing to do, or as a way to pick up necessary skills which can later be used on the outside. It's a good job, the military is saying, with many future benefits. Propaganda about re-instituting the draft, which periodically creeps out in Pentagon press releases, reinforces young peoples' interest in enlisting—if they're going to get us anyhow, why not do it when the time is "good" and there isn't anything else to do anyhow.

The military continues to push the draft with talk about the failure of all-"volunteer" military and with dire predictions about what would happen if Europe were invaded—instead of the 30 days that the military says is necessary to crank up an army, it would take at least 90 days to get the draft going again and get troops in Europe to replace the hundreds of thousands who are expected to be casualties in the early days of a new war.

Right there is the central point we try to make with those who talk about joining up: the military's purpose is to fight another rich man's war. It's not to provide job training, it's not to hand out the BI Bill, it's not to provide world tours for recruits. It is to fight, to get killed or wounded in the service of greater profits—or continued profits—for the rich band of thugs who run this country. The military is, plain and simple, the armed enforces for the country's rulers. With its own internal discipline, with its code of military "justice," it works to force the sons and, more and more, daughters of American workers to do the bidding of the American bosses whether they like it or not, whether it is in their own interests or not. If the workers in the post office go on strike, as was threatened in July of 1978, the military will be scabs and strike-breakers; if the people of Watts rebel against the conditions under which they are forced to live it's the military that will come in to put down the rebellion. When the 1932 veteran Bonus marchers got too militant for the Hoover administration, it was the military which was sent in to drive the vets out of Washington with tanks and bayonets. And if the U.S. rulers decide to keep the Shah of Iran, or any of the other dictators they prop up around the world, in power, it's the U.S. military that will go to kill that country's people.

It's important for someone going into the military to know what they're getting into; in war games, it's the "war" that comes first, not the "games."

There are other insights into the nature of the military we can draw from out experience—racism, for instance. Despite the attempts to image building which the military come sup with from time to time, minorities have a hell of a time in the military. Minorities made up way beyond reasonable proportions of the ground-pounders, the combat forces who will be the first to be killed. Bad discharges are still handed out wholesale to Black soldiers. Bar brawls become mini-race riots in Europe and Korea, though we seldom hear about them. Despite official denials, the KKK has always flourished inside the military.

Beyond things like racism, there's just the whole pile of harassment and nonsense. The military needs to wash the brain clean so it can fill it up again with its own content. So there are endless repetition of the simplest instructions of stupidities like scrubbing the barracks with a toothbrush. Once the mind is turned off or overwhelmed, then the military can pour into it what they want.

But with all the horror stories we can tell about war or about first sergeants, we're still going to meet youth who are going to go into the military. It makes little sense to tell them they shouldn't. even though there is, right now, no draft, and the sentiments against it—part of which helped to build a large anti-draft movement in the past—are still present, the fight against the draft could not stop the economic draft which is what's happening today. Last year, for instance, 31.9% of the recruits joining the Army were Black; moreover, their educational levels were higher than for whites joining the military. Why?

For one possible example, take the Black teenager who may or may not have finished high school; even if he has, the diploma is no guarantee of being able to read. The job market is closed, almost: there's the $2.65 an hour job at MacDonald's, but beyond that, the choice of ripping off liquor stores. Neither choice holds much of a future. And then there's the military. Recruiters aren't all stupid (they just appear that way!). they play on the fact that the potential GI feels unwanted in society and then come off with their pitch—we want you, we'll give you a job, we'll pay you a living wage (6900 a year for new troops under the all-"volunteer" Army). If you can't read, well, we've got to keep up our quota, so we'll pass the test for you. You've got a long arrest record—no problem; we've been taking recruits straight from courtrooms for a long time.

For these recruits there is no choice. Vets can give some hints—how much of the recruiters' propaganda to believe, what are some of the necessary preparations, what are some of the weapons needed to fight against military harassment. And we can draw on the experience of GI's who fought fiercely against both the uses and methods of the military. The GI anti-war movement saw hundreds of thousands of GIs in acts of resistance to the military in Vietnam, everything from directly refusing orders and fragging overly enthusiastic officers to consciously misplacing forms to mess up the military machine. The resistance inside the military was a major reason for U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia—the brass could see that there was no longer and an Army which would fight their war.

Some of those lessons are good today for those who are joining up. When the men and women of the military are forced to fight against their own interests (as was the case in Vietnam) they can go a long ways toward changing the situation. More than once in the past, the rank and file in the military have risen in rebellion against the way they were being used and made it impossible for the government and rulers to continue.