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Listen up, maggot: Recruits to the military, particularly the Marines, are toughened up for the obstacles ahead. But at what cost to freedom? |
I N GEORGE WITTMAN'S article ["Got
He then proceeds to point out the far worse treatment that our military inflicts on its own citizens who volunteer for service and then go through Army basic training or the Marine Corps boot camp.
But Wittman never questions why a young American man or woman would willingly submit to the thoroughly frightening, humiliating, and painful actions imposed on them by often sadistic drill sergeants or other officers. Unfortunately he, and most other citizens, consider this barbaric treatment to be both necessary and justified in order for new soldiers and Marines to fit into the ultra-authoritarian military establishment.
Most people also think that the only way to operate any military branch is to continue to do things just as they have always been done for hundreds or thousands of years. They never, for a minute, consider stopping this madness and completely altering and civilizing the way people are trained to protect themselves, their families and property, and their country.
Just suppose you are a young person seeking employment. Can you think of any type of job, outside the military, where new employees are cursed at or physically attacked, have their heads shaved, screamed at up close by a trainer whose saliva runs down their faces, required to stand in hot clothes while carrying heavy equipment in 100-degree heat for hours, called all sorts of demeaning names such as maggots or rats, required to lie to certain questions or suffer immediate punishment, or made to jump into water over their heads even if they cannot swim, etc.?
But many young people will often take a job with the military and readily submit to these abominable situations and treatments that are inevitably inflicted upon them. So the most vitally important question is: Why would they ever do this?
In my book, "The REAL Academic Community," one will find the precise answer to this seeming conundrum, which reads: We should not be surprised when a youth, having been thoroughly indoctrinated into authoritarian ways
Armies, as we now have them, could never recruit healthy individuals who have developed a strong sense of self-worth and independent characteristics. All those mothers, and others, who say that they hate wars and all that accompanies them must come to realize that it is they who have caused these hostilities--by bringing up their children in a climate that is antagonistic to healthy human development and in an environment that could not help but damage a child's sensitive self-esteem and mold him into
It is the English poet Wordsworth who reminds us that the child is the father to the man. Or, put another way, the child is the soon-to-be adult. Therefore, how a child is treated by older humans is vitally important and will determine many of his future actions.
If the child is treated in an authoritarian manner in the home (spare the rod and spoil the child, an aphorism practiced for most of human history), or the school (sit down, be quiet, and do what you are told or be punished), then the damaged and warped individual coming out of these autocratic circumstances will be more than willing to put up with the severe indignities inflicted upon him by the military when he becomes a recruit.
Therefore, one must always remember this vitally important concept: It all begins with the child!
Maria Montessori, that remarkably perceptive 20th-century education innovator and reformer, recognized this concept fully, and in a beautiful poetic manner declared:
"Who touches the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.
"Who touches the child touches the delicate and vital point where all can yet be decided, where all can be renewed, where all is pulsating with life, where the secrets of the soul lie hid.
"To work consciously for the child, and to go deep down, with the tremendous intention of understanding him, would be to conquer the secret of mankind."
For those who truly want a better world in the future, it will be necessary for them to open their minds and seriously question the structure and philosophy (which considers obedience, humility, and self-sacrifice to be virtues) of society's main institutions--for if they remain as they are, America's fragile and ever-decreasing freedom will continue to fade and disappear, leaving behind only a faint and tragic memory.
THOMAS JOHNSON , professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of Mary Washington, is author of "The Declaration of Educational Independence." He lives in Fredericksburg.
