Mariscal and Astore- Enlistment

Astore points out that progressives and other liberals who critique the military, only do so because they opt out of really trying to understand the reasoning behind enlistment. The critique relies on the assumption that all aspects of the military are negative and really just rely on the exploitation of the people who do enlist, which are the majority male middle- and working-class elements of society. These people are often racial/ethnic minorities, and the progressives and liberals he's talking about are not. He thinks that it is easy for the progressives/liberals/elites to focus on the economic factors of enlisting and the continuing militarization of our society/culture and ignore any others. His main point is that until you try to understand the real reasons behind enlistment, you will never be able to direct our nation down a less militaristic path. And if your engagement with the military stops after you decide it's bad, you will never be able to understand the reasons for service.

One of Mariscal's points is that economic status is a huge factor in enlistment, a fact that is being manipulated by the recruiters, even though there are many other reasons for individuals to enlist. He argues that until the US government gives young people of lower economic status better opportunities for life and development, more and more of those people will enlist because they have limited options. This also creates more of an emotional burden on the young people who enlist because they enlist for reasons that are not met after they serve. He also explains that those reasons and needs cannot be addressed if, any time reasons for enlistment are discussed, it is seen as a question of patriotism: those who enlist and support are patriotic and those who question reason are unpatriotic. But that forces the discussion into black-and-white terms, which will never get anything solved.

I think both arguments have valid points. In order to understand why less economically well-off people enlist at larger rates, there needs to be an open discussion of the factors, reasons, and motivations for enlistment. Until that discussion happens, enlistees are going to be manipulated, ignored, and forgotten about because nothing can be done to address those reasons. I think that until people are willing to step out of their ideological comfort-zone, there is going to be a large gap between those who want to help soldiers in the ever-changing military and those who refuse to acknowledge the changes and get defensive. It really bothers me that so many people are so ready and willing to dismiss the reasons for enlistment on simple terms, nothing is EVER as clear as those people would want it to seem. I hate blanket statements about how people are thinking (and I know I just sort of made one myself), but how can anyone know what anyone else is thinking, it totally invalidates the principle that everyone is capable of forming their own opinions?

I know that I have a different perspective than a lot of people in our class, which I will share with anyone who wants to come talk to me about it, but I do not want to get into all the reasons why I find this troubling because it's a difficult topic for me discuss in front of large groups of people. So if anyone wants to know my story they can come talk to me about it, but I don't want to be the practically the only one who doesn't have a mostly negative view of the military. This is definitely an emotional issue for me personally, and I don't even know what to say anymore.

Thoughts and Questions for Pondering Drawn from Multiple Readings

I apologize in advance for any lack of continuity or organization for this post, but I needed to state some things I've been pondering before I could focus on the readings/topics at hand.

Karen Hall's idea of false witness is where the immediate revenge killing of enemy soldiers is linked to the process of grieving for a fallen comrade. especially if the soldier doing the killing did not witness the fall of their comrade directly. Hall example is from the movie Platoon, where one of the American soldiers kills several villagers after some of his comrades have been killed by enemy soldiers. After killing an old woman he remarks that she probably cut the throat of one of his fallen comrades. Where does this false witness end? Only after all available "enemies" have been slaughtered? Does the sense of false witness from that scene from Platoon also lead to some kind of justification for the extermination of Native Americans during the first couple of hundred years our country has been on this continent? I find it hard to personally relate to false witness, I would like to hope that I would not be drawn into that kind of mindset.

Karen Hall, Philippa Gates, and Stahl all discuss the appeal of the realistic portrayal of warfare in the entertainment industry. But does this kind of realism not also make people want to stay away from warfare? I know that when I saw Saving Private Ryan for the first time, I was considering the military/West Point/ROTC as a possible career. The opening scene made me NOT want to do join, the only way I could justify that image was that the technologies of warfare had changed significantly since WWII and that there were other military careers that did not involve getting slaughtered trying to take a stretch of unprotected beach/cliff. In that respect, I think that realism in war movies does not encourage military enlistment but it does lead to a sense of guilt that we, as civilians, are less brave and courageous than the people who put their lives on the line for (in the movies) nonexistent political ideals.

While we were discussing the Hall reading in class, I was wondering what people from the minorities being vilified in the Hollywood war movies thought of those portrayals as Americans and as descendants from those "enemies". How would those movies shape and twist their concept of their self identity?

The film Hollywood and the Pentagon was fascinating. I had no idea the Pentagon did that, but I didn't go out of my way to find that information either. I prefer to decide to see movies based on what I see on the trailer and how I'm feeling, I do not research movies before I pay to see them and I definitely do not rely on reviewer to make my movie-viewing decisions for me. If I did do that, I might have noticed some of the Pentagon influences. But I go to movies to be entertained, and I'm aware of the fact that if I go to see a war movie, there is going to be some kind of war message--pro or anti-- mixed into the story. If you go to see a war movie and think you will see a completely unbiased depiction of war, you will leave the movie irritated and paranoid. I don't see a major insidious ethical dilemma in the collaboration between the Pentagon and Hollywood, rather, I see it just as a symptom of our government, our society, and our culture. The Pentagon does not force directors to do as they say, if the director's artistic vision is being neutered too much, the director can walk away from the Pentagon's help, making their movie will just be slightly less easy. The director makes a choice to either accept or deny the Pentagon's help but that does not mean that the Pentagon controls whether or not a war movie will get made. The collaboration is not absolute authority by the government in all matters relating to the military, and because there are alternatives, no one's rights are being denied and directors can make the movies they want to with or without Pentagon aide.

I actually think the collaboration has a positive side too, for consumers of entertainment and not just the producers and directors of war movies, who wants to see a war movie with obviously CGI and plastic weapons? And if movies are how average people experience war, why not make it as accurate as possible? Who would be a better resource for authenticity than the Pentagon? I do not see this form of militarization as all bad or as all good, and to characterize it as one or the other is to ignore many subtleties.