[cody evans]

I am going to preface my remarks with the following. The Myers-Briggs Personality
Sorter supports something that I have noticed for a long time. For the majority of people,
when they are faced with hideous news, they generally deal only with the factual data of
the hideous event and do not dwell much more on it beyond what the factual information
is that they have received. But there is a minority of people who, when faced with news
of a hideous event, have an imagination that can run away with them and exaggerate the
hideousness of the event beyond what the bare facts of the situation would support. I
confess to being a member of that minority.

For that minority, I can recommend the following book: What Every Person Should Know
About WAR by Chris Hedges. This book is meant to be read by a person entering a
service, or considering doing so. The reason I recommend the book is that, backed up by
medical and psychological studies and even statistics, it factually answers the following
kinds of hot button (and even morbid) questions:

What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war?
What does it feel like to get shot?
What do artillery shells do to you?
What is the most painful way to get wounded?
Will I be afraid?
What does it feel like to kill someone?
What are the long-term consequences of combat stress?
What happens if I am taken prisoner?
Can I withstand torture?
What are the most common forms of physical torture?
What will happen if I survive my torture and imprisonment?
How will I die?
How long will it take me to die if I am wounded?
What does it feel like to die?
What will happen to my body after I die?
What are the likely effects on my child if I die?
How will my parents cope with my death?
How common is PTSD?

These are hideous questions for which the author gives bare, factual answers that will
rein-in your imagination. You will not catastrophize beyond the facts given (though some
of them are, frankly, catastrophic in themselves).

And most importantly, if you read the answers to these questions in this book, you will not
be asking these kinds of stupid, nosy questions of a service member who has more
important things to think about.

If I had read this book before the current war, I would not have made some of my stupid
early posts on this forum, which have, thankfully, been since deleted.

PS: Chris Hedges has also written a book called War is a force that gives us meaning
I don’t think I’d go that far.

[iron-bound]

Well, I lost all respect for Chris Hedges after that speech in Illinois where he said people join the military simply because they couldn't find better jobs.

Apparently, he hasn't spoken with very many actual military personnel.

Much has been made of the fact that Jessica Lynch joined the Army to escape unemployment and pay for college. It seems as if some people are reluctant to admit that perhaps she may have joined out of patriotism and a true respect for the military, which seems to run in her family. First her brother Greg, then Jessica, now Brandi...signing up for military service.

Wasn't it Brandi who said, "It's the Lynch blood," when speaking of her own decision to enlist?

That indicates to me that there are far deeper motivations for the Lynch's military service than simply seeking money for college.

[cody evans]

QUOTE

Well, I lost all respect for Chris Hedges after that speech in Illinois where he said people join the military simply because they couldn't find better jobs.

Holy Cow! THAT was the guy that got booed off the stage at Rockford College! I didn't realize.

My only reason for recommending the above book was that what I read of it did not seem anti-war at all but strictly frank and factual, and backed up by psychological and medical studies. His introduction to the book states:“I have been in ambushes on desolate dirt roads in Central America, in firefights in the marshes in southern Iraq between Shiite rebels and Iraqi soldiers, imprisoned in the Sudan, captured and held prisoner for a week by the Iraqi Republican Guard in Basra during the Shiite rebellion following the 1991 Gulf War, strafed by MiG-21’s in Bosnia, fired upon by Serb snipers, and pounded with over 1,000 heavy shells a day in Sarajevo. I struggle with the demons all who have been to war must bear. There are days when these burdens seem more that I can handle.”

However Khan, you are right. In the book he’s got a question and a answer:

Why do most people join the military?
Most people join the U.S. armed services to fund their education (33 percent of men, 33 percent of women in 1998) or for job training (34 percent, 31 percent).

Here is the transcript of his actual speech at Rockford College:
http://www.rrstar.com/localnews/your_commu...gesspeech.shtml

And this is one thing that he said in that speech:

QUOTE

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them.

In both places he is plainly wrong. He does not give enough credit to patriotism. He does not credit the Jessica Lynches in our military who have it in them to be soldiers and have decided from patriotism to put their lives on the line for our defense. That he has ignored.

But, seeing his whole speech, and having read the introduction to the above book, I’m seeing that he is anti-war, not solely because of ideology, but because he has been in wars, and a lot of them. In my mind that makes him different from anti-war people who are anti-war because they are left-wing ideologues, or have had their heads filled with mush by left-wing professors. A person who is anti-war because he or she has been in wars is someone who has earned a right to at least a hearing.

And I’m looking at his Rockford college speech, and yes, he is saying that our intervention in Iraq is a war of imperialism, just like the larger anti-war crowd is. And I know that’s B.S. We are in there to defend ourselves from further attacks by our enemies. But I can’t help thinking that later on, if we fail to keep our word and leave when it gets time for us to leave, something of what he is predicting will indeed happen to us, if only because he has been there and knows a few more things about Iraq and its people then we do.

I’m thinking I may have been just a tad hasty about cheering on Rockford College for booing him off the stage.

[iron-bound]

Had he not made those brilliant comments at Rockford, I would have considered purchasing that book. However accurate, factual, and well-researched it might be, I will not be reading it.

I believe he was booed at Rockford not only because his speech was an anti-war rant, but also because it was neither the time nor place for it. He was invited to be the commencement speaker for the graduating ceremony, and the first words out of his mouth were, "I want to speak with you today about war and empire."

Obviously, the graduates weren't very interested in hearing that.

Personally, with the exception of that comment about poor kids joining the army, I did not find his speech offensive. It was the setting in which he gave it that backfired on him.

[cody evans]

On second thought, you're probably right. Not the time or place for that speech.


Reading a little further, I'm seeing some controversial statements made in the enlistment chapter that I think should have had more documentation than he's given.

[david_2000_13206]

"there are far deeper motivations for the Lynch's military service than simply seeking money for college." - Khan Benjamin June 7, 2003, 6:07 P.M.

You have an excellent point. I beleive that few if any join just for college money although that is an incentive that the Army offers and it is for many a factor in the decision to join. But if a young person making this decision were not patriotic and did not want to serve their country in addition to funding their education, surely they would choose another way. There are federal grants for students from low income families and most states also have grants. There is the student loan option. There are work study programs in which corporations pay part of an employees tuition if they are majoring in a high demand field. And of course, one can always work their way through college. Someone like Jessica Lynch joins the Army with college money as one factor of many in their decision.

[iron-bound]

dilligafst,

Older members of my family volunteered to go to Vietnam. They weren't drafted; they volunteered. I know several people who asked for infantry duty again after 9/11, and when they were refused, they became depressed. My brother-in-law asked to go to Iraq with his signal company that's currently operating out of one of Saddam's palaces. But they wanted him with the XVIII Corps headquarters instead. Obviously, when people join the military they are expecting certain benefits, but I have yet to meet a single soul who joined "because it was all that was offered me." I won't say those personalities don't exist, but to categorize the desire to serve your country and patriotism under "other various reasons" is not only incorrect, it is semi-insulting.

[papags46]

QUOTE (Khan Benjamin @ Jun 8 2003, 01:46 PM)

Obviously, when people join the military they are expecting certain benefits, but I have yet to meet a single soul who joined "because it was all that was offered me." I won't say those personalities don't exist, but to categorize the desire to serve your country and patriotism under "other various reasons" is not only incorrect, it is semi-insulting.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Many people don't just join the military because they have many benefits. They join because they ALSO get many benefits. Many soldiers could be getting paid more in a civilian job but they choose to serve their country and make a difference.

[cody evans]

I'm sorry for the length of this, but it looks like I felt the book needed an essay.

I spent the day reading the entire book. And it drained me emotionally to learn what the
risks are that our service members undertake when going to war.

But the book is not with out faults, and some of them very serious.

The first problem I see is with the authors whole structure of putting most of it in the
form of questions in the first person singular (i.e. “How much will I have to march?”). It
is written as if it is a manual of some sort for a potential recruit. But by the time you finish
the book, the global impression you get is that this man, Chris Hedges, who has been in
many wars, is doing his level best to try and warn young persons away from the activity of
war.

On many levels I sympathize with him. But I also realize that he stands in the tradition of
the pacifists of pre-WWII. Those pacifists knew the trench warfare horrors of WWI, and
had decided that any war could never be justified. That turned out to be the very attitude
that emboldened the then Axis powers into bringing on exactly the world war the pacifists
were trying to avoid. History’s hindsight has revealed that there were several times before
1939 where a smaller, limited war would have been enough to bring Hitler down. Instead,
he got bigger, and we got another world war. I believe the current war that we are
embarked on must be pursued to its ultimate conclusion, because the enemies we have are
bent on nothing less that our ultimate destruction.

So, there is the problem with the first person singular questions. There is also, along with
that, the fact that he answers many of these questions with a starting, “Perhaps”,
“Maybe”, “May not”, or “Probably” and “Probably not”. The total effect is that by the
time you get to the end of the book, you’re left thinking that nearly every bad thing that
can happen is likely to happen. Again, he’s loading the dice in favor of his dire warnings.

But there is also the problem of some very calculated insults he gives to our service
members by framing his book as first person singular questions followed by statistics. This
is mostly done in the chapter called “Enlistment.” The question I showed above about the
reasons why service members join up is one example. I’ve give some more.

QUOTE

Will I be more likely to abuse my spouse? Yes. One Army survey of 55,000 soldiers at 47 bases showed that one of every three families has suffered some kind of domestic violence, from slapping to murder.  This is twice the rate found in similar groups of civilians.  The Pentagon has disclosed that an average of one child or spouse dies each week at the hands of a relative in the military.

Even given his statistics (which we know can be fudged), the possibility of spousal abuse
has a lot more to do with who the “I” is who is asking the offensive question than with
entering military service.

Here’s another egregious example. He has the following statistics:

QUOTE

Forty-two percent of female military personnel are married, versus 60 percent of the adult U.S. population. Fifty-three percent of military men are married.

And how does he frame his question?

QUOTE

Are men less attracted to the women in the military?

That is plainly a scare tactic, and an insult to boot. There is such a thing as having a calling
for which one is willing forgo marriage and children in order to be completely committed
to it. And it has been my personal observation that women tend make such a commitment
more than men. And I know of a least one comely missionary woman who made such a
commitment because it was the demand of her vocation.
http://www.discerningreader.com/chantodieele.html

But THE most outrageous question he frames is one for which, in answer, he quotes an
anecdotal statement concerning navy personnel on aircraft carriers. I will not repeat it
here, except to say that it concerns the results of Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
What is so rank about this item is that for so inflammatory a statement, he provides only a
single footnote to back up what he says.

Those are the kinds of flaws that are found in the chapter on “Enlistment.”

The chapter on “Life in War” asks simple questions concerning daily life during a
deployment. Questions like “What will I eat?,” and “How will I go to the bathroom?”,
and “How can I avoid diarrhea?” Most of it is stuff a loved one of a service member might
want to know. For example,

QUOTE

Can I call home?

The answers is yes, but you might have to wait in a long line.

QUOTE

Will I have access to a computer with email service?

The answer is: probably, but you will have stiff competition to use it.

Etc.

But the remaining chapters entitled “Weapons and Wounds”, “Weapons of Mass
Destruction”, “The Moment of Combat”, “Imprisonment, Torture, and Rape,” “Dying”,
and finally “After the War,” are all decidedly heavy waters to go through indeed.

As I said, I was emotionally drained by reading them. And I have very mixed feelings
about having read them and about who should be reading them. As I said above, my
original reason for reading them was because I have a type of imagination that runs in
excess of what actual facts would warrant. Television, and the movies frequently
exacerbate my imagination. For example, in television and the movies, everyone seems to
be a professional sharp shooter. And the most frequent wound seems to be a head wound
(typically in the forehead) and thereby instantly fatal.

The book asks the following:

QUOTE

What part of my body is most likely to be wounded?

Answer: legs and feet 40% of the time, arms and hands 25%, head and neck 15% chest
10%, abdomen and pelvis 10%.

So with this information I then begin a macabre calculus (which I know is going to really
irritate the grunts out there who may be reading this). I figure in a kevlar helmet, and
kevlar flak vest covering the chest and abdomen, and I figure in what the military has now
learned about “the golden hour” for treatment of wounds, and I start to bring my
television and movie infected imagination closer into line with what I now conceive to be
the actually probabilities involved. It gives me a measure of peace when thinking about
the risks our services members are running in a warzone. ( Though I know it does nothing
for the service member who may actually fall into the 15% that gets a head wound even
with a kelvar helmet on.)

That is what I was up to in reading those heavy chapters. Some facts gave me a measure
of peace. Others decidedly did not. But I believe I am better off for having read them.

Should a service member’s loved one read this book? I am very unsure. I recall that when
all we knew of our captured POWs was the videos the Iraqi’s broadcast, there was one
father of a POW who did not let his other family members view the video, but made a
decision that he himself had to view the video. I think it would require that kind of a
decision for a service member’s loved one to read those heavy chapters.

Should a potential recruit read this book? Well, I’ve already described how Mr. Hedges
has weighted the book’s dice game against entering the service. But I suspect any young
person would probably see that. And young people already have a predisposition towards
believing they are indestructible. I must confess that there is a part of me that wishes
young people would do for their military service, what Christ enjoined his followers to do
before becoming his disciples: counting the cost. (Luke 14:27-33). If the heavy chapters
of this book are anything, they are a register of what the costs of war fighting may,
but not necessarily will be.

Should a citizen of our republic read this book? With its faults taken into account, yes.
Citizens vote. They should have as good an understanding of the costs of what they vote
for as any book can convey. And we would better value the sacrifices our service
members have made and the risks they run if we had a clearer notion of what they are.

And that in the end is what I feel has made me better by reading those heavy chapters.
They have shown me, in the small way that the written word can, just how very brave and
great hearted our men and women are who have decided to stand between us and those
who have taken it upon themselves to become our enemies. They are, all them, pearls of
exceeding great price.