starrwriter
12-04-2005, 03:14 PM
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the literary portrayals of military life I read before and after my own experience in the Air Force. How well did they match the realities I dealt with for 4 years?
Unfortunately, the authors were very accurate and honest. Before I ever wore a uniform, I always had a loathing fear of military life and my worst fears were realized in most respects.
I lived through the soul-killing boredom, petty tyranny and death of friends depicted in the play "Mister Roberts." I endured group-think persecution on the same island where James Jones served in the Army and wrote about a military misfit very much like me in his novel "From Here To Eternity." I nearly lost my mind over the type of military absurdities described in "Catch 22" and came to the same conclusion as author Joseph Heller: the "enemy" is anyone who is trying to get you killed. I saw incompetence and injustice rewarded with promotions while able men of conscience were harrassed, demoted and court martialed. I realized my country was NOT being protected by military system that valued obsequious deference to rank over initiative and intelligence. Quite the contrary, the situation was like a strange play I once read about the scum of a mythological country being placed in charge of guarding its borders and twiddling their thumbs while foreign tanks rolled past them.
The one positive experience was the time I saw ordinary soldiers band together as brothers against an incompetent bullying commanding officer, similar to what Norman Mailer described in "The Naked and the Dead."
The American military is a profoundly undemocratic institution that will always be a threat to our democratic heritage. It had already gone beyond the status of a necessary evil when a lifelong military leader and president felt compelled to warn the American public about the military-industrial complex as he left office half a century ago. Dwight Eisenhower's warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Today the military-industrial complex is more pervasive than ever in foreign policy and economic matters and it is fueled from the bottom up by the onerous traditions of military life.
Unfortunately, the authors were very accurate and honest. Before I ever wore a uniform, I always had a loathing fear of military life and my worst fears were realized in most respects.
I lived through the soul-killing boredom, petty tyranny and death of friends depicted in the play "Mister Roberts." I endured group-think persecution on the same island where James Jones served in the Army and wrote about a military misfit very much like me in his novel "From Here To Eternity." I nearly lost my mind over the type of military absurdities described in "Catch 22" and came to the same conclusion as author Joseph Heller: the "enemy" is anyone who is trying to get you killed. I saw incompetence and injustice rewarded with promotions while able men of conscience were harrassed, demoted and court martialed. I realized my country was NOT being protected by military system that valued obsequious deference to rank over initiative and intelligence. Quite the contrary, the situation was like a strange play I once read about the scum of a mythological country being placed in charge of guarding its borders and twiddling their thumbs while foreign tanks rolled past them.
The one positive experience was the time I saw ordinary soldiers band together as brothers against an incompetent bullying commanding officer, similar to what Norman Mailer described in "The Naked and the Dead."
The American military is a profoundly undemocratic institution that will always be a threat to our democratic heritage. It had already gone beyond the status of a necessary evil when a lifelong military leader and president felt compelled to warn the American public about the military-industrial complex as he left office half a century ago. Dwight Eisenhower's warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Today the military-industrial complex is more pervasive than ever in foreign policy and economic matters and it is fueled from the bottom up by the onerous traditions of military life.