Military Assumptions

AT A CONFERENCE that began a few days after the United States began bombing targets in Afghanistan, a colleague made the comment, “Here we go again, sending our eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds off to be cannon fodder.” A longtime pacifist, I made similar comments when U.S. forces were sent to the Persian Gulf. “No war for oil!” I chanted in my head while chaperoning student protests in my role as a student life dean at Brown University. “Not in my name!” I said to colleagues, friends, and family at any opportunity. “Here we go again, sending young men and women off to be cannon fodder.”

This time, though, instead of joining my colleague in the liberal intellectualism and antimilitarism I had frequently engaged in the past, I responded with silence. When I spoke, it was not out of some sense of patriotism inspired by the September 11^th terrorist attack on America; it was as the sister of a Navy SEAL. My brother David was on active duty with the SEALs when the United States began its military response in Afghanistan. (To protect my brother's privacy and security, identifying details, including his name, have been changed.)

I reacted strongly to my colleague's use of the term cannon fodder, which implies to me that these men and women have uncritically joined an organization that does not respect their humanity. The flippant use of this term reminded me how little many of us in academe know about the modern military. Most faculty and student affairs administrators are not from military families. Our knowledge of the military comes from literature, news media, and popular culture. Since the 1960s, a tradition of antimilitarism has permeated the academy, evident in protests against ROTC programs and military recruiting. Many liberal academics and administrators have learned to tolerate a military presence on campus because of scholarship opportunities available through the military to students who otherwise could not afford higher education. Federal laws prohibiting the banning of the military from campuses have also made it impossible to avoid a military presence at many institutions. But most of us have not moderated our antimilitary stance, even when we speak with little knowledge of military operations. When the subject of war comes up, we rely on our assumptions of shared disdain for military operations and revert to the most effective weapons we believe we have: our words and our wit. Accustomed to academic freedom and vigorous debate, we prefer deconstruction of language to destruction of lives and lands, elegant arguments to brute force, and pacifism to pugilism.

A dilemma arises from my position as a pacifist— one who believes, to paraphrase Brown University chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson, that the military's job is “to kill people and break things”—and as a sibling, intensely proud of my brother and his military training. The dilemma surfaces during discussions like the one at the conference. It is also present in the debate over whether or not to display an American flag at my home, in my office, or on my car. I find repugnant the uncomplicated, us-against-them patriotism of knee-jerk flag waving; to join uncritically with fellow Americans who have spent enormous amounts of money, time, and energy to repress the civil rights of people of color, women, immigrants, and nonhetero-sexuals seems disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. Yet I find more repugnant the actions of anti-American extremists whose disregard for human life diminishes all of humanity. Their actions make me want to signal my pride in and solidarity with the diverse citizens, residents, and international guests of the United States.

And I want to display a flag to show support for my brother, his fellow SEALs, and the other military personnel who have volunteered to delay their educations, leave their families, and put themselves at risk for the purposes of our country. I have talked to family members about this flag issue. Some of us are displaying flags; some are not. Some of us have struggled with the question of how to show support without also signaling uncritical acceptance of all that the flag has come to stand for.

We were not always a military family. Until my brother enlisted, the ways of military training and life were unknown to me. Not finding his first college year sufficiently engaging, David took a test to be considered for military special forces. Having passed the test, he enlisted in the Navy, withdrew from college, and ended up several months later at the Coronado, California, training site of the Navy SEALs. Never before a stellar student, David excelled in academic courses taught by the Navy. He underwent the extraordinarily rigorous training required of special forces, becoming an expert diver, survivalist, parachute operator, and weapons and explosives specialist. As a Navy SEAL, my brother is one of the few thousand most elite military forces in the world. Before September 11^th, I joked that every family should have one Ph.D. and one trained sniper; having violated the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy, I had to settle for the Ph.D.

IN AUGUST 2001, David and his unit shipped to Guam for six months of, among other activities, joint training with Australian, Thai, and Japanese military forces. He got an early twenty-fourth birthday present: a digital camera, so that he could e-mail pictures of places we likely would never be able to visit ourselves. Given a limited amount of space for personal gear for the six-month deployment, David prioritized his five surfboards; the surfing in Guam is said to be terrific. His early e-mail messages and phone calls were filled with details about the scenery and cultures he was experiencing. David was living the old Navy recruiting slogan “See the World,” and we were vicariously seeing it with him.

After September 11^th, life changed radically for David and his fellow SEALs. In the first days after the attack, we had few signs of the changes ahead for him. Then one day he said that when he and his friends returned from surfing that afternoon they were going to calibrate the sights in their guns. Physical training, always rigorous for active duty SEALs, was stepped up; it wasn't the Hell Week of training (and GI Jane fame), but things were getting more serious. He would be out of contact for days at a time and wouldn't necessarily be able to indicate where he would be or when he would be back in touch. He was incommunicado for a few days and resurfaced at an Army base in the region of conflict, where he is now stationed, ostensibly for the remainder of his overseas tour. His surfboards may have been destroyed in an earthquake that devastated Guam but received little press attention in a nation focused on air strikes, anthrax, and “evildoers.”

Whereas David's life has changed, the ripple effects within his family have been less profound but still pronounced. My father and I talk about our fears for David—first, that he might be hurt and, second, that he might have to kill someone else. Of a generation deeply marked by combat experiences in Vietnam, my father knows that it is not only those who are killed or wounded in war whose humanity is assaulted. Those who are asked to participate in the killing of others also risk their humanity, for a cause greater than themselves.

To ward off our concerns for David's safety, we remind ourselves that he is an expert, a member of an elite fighting unit whose first principle is to “leave no man behind.” Always private about our faith, we talk and e-mail about religion, we pray together, and we have asked others to pray. For the first time, I have discussed my faith with students and encouraged them to find a faith community as they wrestle with the fundamental questions brought forth by the attack and our responses—military and otherwise—to it.

And since September 11^th I have become more careful about making sure that my family knows where I am. In part I want them to know that I'm safe. I understand from discussions with others that this response is widespread; we seek the comfort of belonging to family and community. For me, it's about more than belonging; I want my family to know where I am so that if something were to happen to David, they could reach me. Self-centered? Perhaps. But the threat is real. Commandos are killed. Training accidents happen. And I don't want to hear about a death on the news and worry that my family can't reach me when they need to.

I am intensely proud of my brother. He is one of the best in the world at what he does. Before September 11^th, I was able to enjoy his professional success by focusing on his elite status, separating it from its military context. Ambivalent at best about the military—an organization that discriminates against women and non-heterosexuals yet at the same time provides significant educational and professional opportunities for young Americans of all races, ethnicities, and social classes—I nevertheless proudly divulged my connection to it, maintaining an academic aloofness that allowed me to maintain my liberal politics, challenge the military's shortcomings, and still speak with inside knowledge.

With David's physical and psychological well-being at imminent risk, I am more knowledgeable than ever about the military, and certainly more proud. But I am also unable to maintain my liberal academic aloofness. I am poignantly aware that the freedom to disagree with the very organization that protects that freedom comes at the cost of the young men and women who have volunteered to serve it. It may sound trite to the jaded ears of academia, but I am deeply grateful to the men and women who are protecting U.S. interests at home and abroad. Do I always agree with how those interests are defined? No. Do I worry that we sometimes overstep our national bounds and are involved in causes that are not just? Yes.

But even while I will not join uncritically in displaying the flag, I cannot stand by when someone implies that my brother and his military colleagues are “cannon fodder.” They are not. They are well trained, well supported, and well led. In the case of the special forces, they are experts in their fields, as well trained as any elite Ph.D. And while we in the academy do not always recognize the professionalism of the military, we owe them, from the newest enlistee to the most senior officers, our respect. Cannon fodder? No. They are the hardworking young men and women we may be fortunate enough to welcome to our campuses when they complete their military service.