Over the past twenty-five years of serving the Suck, I've ridden the road that you deftly described: from buying into the Neo-conservative "cause" of bringing Lockean republicanism to the benighted, to realizing that the government's heart isn't really in it, to seeing the corruption from within, to finally realizing that the only thing of any worth in the warrior caste are the warriors themselves. It's why I make my living now, training combined arms at the tactical level, attempting to ensure that my friends and their Marines are adequately trained to save one another as the empire marches on. It sounds like rationalization, and I'm humble enough to admit it. I've spent a lot of time over the past ten years wondering why I am how I am, and I think I've come to a conclusion that makes sense.
Some of us refuse to become domesticated.
In their natural state, animals are feral. To be feral in a manner that is successful enough to reproduce and survive through generations, one must have two principle attributes: the ability to effectively identify threats and the freedom to choose proper threat mitigation. Removing those attributes results in an animal that is dependent on someone else. After enough generations pass in those conditions, domesticated animals become completely unable to do anything for themselves besides consume and reproduce. Thus, a wild turkey who is sensible, tactical, and wily becomes fat, slow, stupid, and will panic to the point of killing itself when faced with the random threat of harm from a predator.
I think this feral archetype runs deep within us and will take many more generations to evolve into absolute domestication. Those who feel it more keenly will join and fight simply out of a need to express that ferality. Jung and Neumann identified it as a "shadow", I think, but I believe their conclusions, that the "shadow" must be confronted and made a necessary part of a man's character, are also true. However, for the first time in the history of this nation, we see a society at-large that has, as Dostoevsky described, "nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with ensuring the continuation of world history and even then man."
In such a situation, young men are caught between society and their genetic predispositions. War is an outlet for the latter, maybe the best outlet, and in the current society maybe the only outlet. I think conversations that get to these bald facts are too few. Even more importantly, the "cause" that we swore an oath to has to be as "just" (if such a thing is even possible) as our sacrifice would entail. Reform is paramount, and perhaps that may serve this end. If the goal is to refine threat mitigation and preserve freedom of choice within an environment of relative prosperity, then we need to focus on the former while expanding the latter at all costs.
I enjoy reading your missives, and I wish you all the best. -Unclean
Jun 9, 2022·edited Jun 9, 2022Liked by Lafayette Lee
I’ve thought a lot about the “military/civilian divide”. A few of my opinions:
It ultimately comes from the all volunteer force and then the reduction in the all volunteer force that has taken place since the end of Desert Storm/Shield in 1991. Maybe for the younger crowd, they do not realize how much smaller the military got after 1991. But, back to the point, the smaller the force, the less American society has to participate in it. A contrast to Vietnam – every family in America that had an 18-21 year old son in the mid 1960s-1973 had to worry about them being drafted and likely to be in Vietnam. And Vietnam was beamed into their homes every night – at a time when people only had network TV and newspapers for news outlets – the public couldn’t not passively take it in. When I say every family, I mean every family had to either worry about being drafted or was hard at work getting deferments and other work arounds (Guard, Reserve..etc). When the casualty figures eclipsed 10,000 per year, the public got tired of the war and protests broke out. The public also got tired of the Iraq War, (also it pushed Afghanistan into the background to where that war got very little press – even less so than the small amount Iraq was getting.
As for the public “not caring”…a couple things: because both wars were sold as fighting terrorism and to not “let the terrorist win”; there is a belief among some that you cant let the terrorists change your way of living. So President George W. Bush said on TV something like: Go about your daily lives like normal – and implying the military would take care of things and everyone just go back to normal. I get why he did that, but that is also a reason the public put that into the back of their mind. Also, the public has to be fed news. News of casualties was not front page news. Generals when they were on TV, were saying how well the wars were going, forever having “turned the corner”.
There was definitely a time – and I was guilty of it myself – of thinking that anyone who didn’t support the war efforts (no matter the why) robustly was not patriotic. Now, I think it is really Pro-American to make sure that if we are going to send our troops into harms way that it must be as a last resort or actually extremely vital to our security interests.
Back to the “warrior class”. I saw a couple of years ago that 82% of active duty military had a close relative who had been in or was also currently in the military. Well that pretty much spells out “warrior class” or a more negative word that you use “caste”. And not only that…the Southern states are way overrepresented in where people come from that join the military. There are a couple of reasons for that…1. Since we previously mentioned that so many military members had immediate relatives also in the military…the biggest military bases are in the South…Benning and Bragg to mention just a couple. Therefore, these areas have the big numbers of military families to feed into the next generation of troops. Also, Southerners have always generally been geared to like the military.
Another thing…and I think this a double edge sword – civilians are discouraged from having an opinion on anything military related by having their opinions met with “but did you serve?” I actually have said that myself…but I also realize it just makes each side retreat further away from each other.
A lot of disjointed thoughts above, but I do wish someone smarter than I would really delve into the military/civilian divide. I personally think it as I said in the first paragraph. A professional military – which is what an AVF breeds – also isolates itself. And to honest, the military flag officer class has as much to do if not more, for America being in “forever wars” than anyone else. I mean the last thing the public is to do is question the generals. Just look how Trump was treated for questioning the generals. And the generals believe in forever war. Again a double edge sword,,,should the public revere its generals (one would think, “Yes!”) and give them blank checks? or should we inject some skepticism in our views of the generals.
Oh, one last note: as the military got smaller, the Guard and Reserve became active participants and carried a significant burden of the GWOT. This was not the case in Vietnam, as the Guard and Reserve almost exclusively did not participate. I still remember when some reserves were activated and sent to my base in the ME during Desert Storm – reservists who in the 80s had joined for extra money and college tuition assistance – actually uttered the words “I did not join the Reserves for this”.
I may have more thoughts on this, but for now this is it.
Loyalty up and down the chain is sadly a fading characteristic in the uniformed services just as it is in the society which produces those who serve. Maybe it’s maturity, or wisdom that comes with age and rank but after Somalia, maybe before, one noticed a serious hard-turn in concepts that once characterized the armed forces, particularly the combat arms. Loyalty, faithfulness, commitment and sacrifice were all ideals slowly circling an ever shrinking arena of actors comprised primarily now of select SOF and infantry formations. Senior leaders are the products of that waning past and so hope for a resurgence is a generation in coming.
Mr. Lee,
Over the past twenty-five years of serving the Suck, I've ridden the road that you deftly described: from buying into the Neo-conservative "cause" of bringing Lockean republicanism to the benighted, to realizing that the government's heart isn't really in it, to seeing the corruption from within, to finally realizing that the only thing of any worth in the warrior caste are the warriors themselves. It's why I make my living now, training combined arms at the tactical level, attempting to ensure that my friends and their Marines are adequately trained to save one another as the empire marches on. It sounds like rationalization, and I'm humble enough to admit it. I've spent a lot of time over the past ten years wondering why I am how I am, and I think I've come to a conclusion that makes sense.
Some of us refuse to become domesticated.
In their natural state, animals are feral. To be feral in a manner that is successful enough to reproduce and survive through generations, one must have two principle attributes: the ability to effectively identify threats and the freedom to choose proper threat mitigation. Removing those attributes results in an animal that is dependent on someone else. After enough generations pass in those conditions, domesticated animals become completely unable to do anything for themselves besides consume and reproduce. Thus, a wild turkey who is sensible, tactical, and wily becomes fat, slow, stupid, and will panic to the point of killing itself when faced with the random threat of harm from a predator.
I think this feral archetype runs deep within us and will take many more generations to evolve into absolute domestication. Those who feel it more keenly will join and fight simply out of a need to express that ferality. Jung and Neumann identified it as a "shadow", I think, but I believe their conclusions, that the "shadow" must be confronted and made a necessary part of a man's character, are also true. However, for the first time in the history of this nation, we see a society at-large that has, as Dostoevsky described, "nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with ensuring the continuation of world history and even then man."
In such a situation, young men are caught between society and their genetic predispositions. War is an outlet for the latter, maybe the best outlet, and in the current society maybe the only outlet. I think conversations that get to these bald facts are too few. Even more importantly, the "cause" that we swore an oath to has to be as "just" (if such a thing is even possible) as our sacrifice would entail. Reform is paramount, and perhaps that may serve this end. If the goal is to refine threat mitigation and preserve freedom of choice within an environment of relative prosperity, then we need to focus on the former while expanding the latter at all costs.
I enjoy reading your missives, and I wish you all the best. -Unclean
I’ve thought a lot about the “military/civilian divide”. A few of my opinions:
It ultimately comes from the all volunteer force and then the reduction in the all volunteer force that has taken place since the end of Desert Storm/Shield in 1991. Maybe for the younger crowd, they do not realize how much smaller the military got after 1991. But, back to the point, the smaller the force, the less American society has to participate in it. A contrast to Vietnam – every family in America that had an 18-21 year old son in the mid 1960s-1973 had to worry about them being drafted and likely to be in Vietnam. And Vietnam was beamed into their homes every night – at a time when people only had network TV and newspapers for news outlets – the public couldn’t not passively take it in. When I say every family, I mean every family had to either worry about being drafted or was hard at work getting deferments and other work arounds (Guard, Reserve..etc). When the casualty figures eclipsed 10,000 per year, the public got tired of the war and protests broke out. The public also got tired of the Iraq War, (also it pushed Afghanistan into the background to where that war got very little press – even less so than the small amount Iraq was getting.
As for the public “not caring”…a couple things: because both wars were sold as fighting terrorism and to not “let the terrorist win”; there is a belief among some that you cant let the terrorists change your way of living. So President George W. Bush said on TV something like: Go about your daily lives like normal – and implying the military would take care of things and everyone just go back to normal. I get why he did that, but that is also a reason the public put that into the back of their mind. Also, the public has to be fed news. News of casualties was not front page news. Generals when they were on TV, were saying how well the wars were going, forever having “turned the corner”.
There was definitely a time – and I was guilty of it myself – of thinking that anyone who didn’t support the war efforts (no matter the why) robustly was not patriotic. Now, I think it is really Pro-American to make sure that if we are going to send our troops into harms way that it must be as a last resort or actually extremely vital to our security interests.
Back to the “warrior class”. I saw a couple of years ago that 82% of active duty military had a close relative who had been in or was also currently in the military. Well that pretty much spells out “warrior class” or a more negative word that you use “caste”. And not only that…the Southern states are way overrepresented in where people come from that join the military. There are a couple of reasons for that…1. Since we previously mentioned that so many military members had immediate relatives also in the military…the biggest military bases are in the South…Benning and Bragg to mention just a couple. Therefore, these areas have the big numbers of military families to feed into the next generation of troops. Also, Southerners have always generally been geared to like the military.
Another thing…and I think this a double edge sword – civilians are discouraged from having an opinion on anything military related by having their opinions met with “but did you serve?” I actually have said that myself…but I also realize it just makes each side retreat further away from each other.
A lot of disjointed thoughts above, but I do wish someone smarter than I would really delve into the military/civilian divide. I personally think it as I said in the first paragraph. A professional military – which is what an AVF breeds – also isolates itself. And to honest, the military flag officer class has as much to do if not more, for America being in “forever wars” than anyone else. I mean the last thing the public is to do is question the generals. Just look how Trump was treated for questioning the generals. And the generals believe in forever war. Again a double edge sword,,,should the public revere its generals (one would think, “Yes!”) and give them blank checks? or should we inject some skepticism in our views of the generals.
Oh, one last note: as the military got smaller, the Guard and Reserve became active participants and carried a significant burden of the GWOT. This was not the case in Vietnam, as the Guard and Reserve almost exclusively did not participate. I still remember when some reserves were activated and sent to my base in the ME during Desert Storm – reservists who in the 80s had joined for extra money and college tuition assistance – actually uttered the words “I did not join the Reserves for this”.
I may have more thoughts on this, but for now this is it.
Loyalty up and down the chain is sadly a fading characteristic in the uniformed services just as it is in the society which produces those who serve. Maybe it’s maturity, or wisdom that comes with age and rank but after Somalia, maybe before, one noticed a serious hard-turn in concepts that once characterized the armed forces, particularly the combat arms. Loyalty, faithfulness, commitment and sacrifice were all ideals slowly circling an ever shrinking arena of actors comprised primarily now of select SOF and infantry formations. Senior leaders are the products of that waning past and so hope for a resurgence is a generation in coming.