May 2010 Volume 7, Issue 1M i l i t a r y C o u n s e l i n g N e tw o r k

These are questions you justdon't ask...By Douglas Lillibum*

MCN is a Project of the German Mennonite Peace Committee

...continued on pg. 4

Since the last issue..

...G.I RIghts Conference attended.

...21 new cases.

...12 speaking engagements.

...2 Discharges from military

Service.

...Sound Off redesigned.

S ODNU FO FFFNN

Content:

• Honorable Discharge..– Page 2• Numbers and Quotes:– Page 3• Book Review: On Killing– Page 5• How to Give, How to Get:Contact and donationinformation for the MCN office.– Page 6

This story has its roots in the valleybehind the mighty Soyosan Mountain.It was a cold night in South Korea. Theleaves had fallen and the ground wasglazed with a light frost. The icy windmade it almost painful to breathe. Itwas on that night I decided I’d hadenough.

I was out on my cigarette break fromStaff Duty with a Non CommisionedOfficer (NCO) who was braggingabout having been in Pakistan with hislast Ranger Unit. At the time I didn’tunderstand the significance of what hehad told me, so I decided to researchwhat he had said.

At first it was difficult to hear thetruth, but the more research I under­took, the more it became clear that theofficial story the government wantedyou to believe just would not hold anywater.

The illusion of the bearded Arabsporting an AK­47 and RPG’s, cursingyou and your family and promisingdeath and destruction to everythingyou believe in and stand for quicklyfaded.

I had decided that being a human be­ing capable of emotions and conscious­ness, I wasn’t going to kill anyone inthe name of “freedom”.

The “freedom” we fought for was

covertly serving the interest of Amer­ican neo­conservative imperialism,who had no scruples about sendingthe young blood of our nation to theslaughterhouse, for more power andinfluence in the private economic sec­tors by feeding the greed of the milit­ary industrial complex.

With a revelation like this it becameclear that there was no way I couldfunction as soldier any longer. Thiswas when I first contacted a mannamed Tim from the Military Coun­seling Network. We regularly ex­changed emails about what was goingon, and tips to help me get through,but it quickly became clear that Ineeded out. Tim's help paved the pathout of the very hell I had signed up forsix months earlier.

In mid February 2009 I was sent toGermany to join the 2nd Cavalry Re­giment stationed in Vilseck. It was arelatively smooth transition. I expec­ted the same harassment that wascommon at my old unit. Personal at­tacks and unprofessional abuse ofrank was not an “isolated incident”(as my 1SG in Korea described theharassment). But I was welcomed intothe Dragoon family immediately andmy NCOs were happy they wouldn’thave to break in a brand new“cherry”. Our platoon only had sevenprivates to begin with, so any ablebody was welcome. Except for that Iwasn’t.

In Korea you did the “Manchu Mile”twice a year; A 25 mile march with30lbs in the assault pack, plus weaponand Kevlar helmet. The only problemwas that I was a 240­gunner (a 30pound machine gun) and was deniedthe option of passing it off during themarch by my superiors (a pass­off

MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK2

Over time, some soldiers realizeinternally they want out, that theycannot commit their lives and bod­ies to the military any longer, buttake it no further. The soldiers wework with, however, take it fur­ther. They overcome the internal­ized ethic of "soldiering on" andnot rocking the boat, and begin tosearch for ways to take back con­trol of their lives. J.T. is the mostrecent example of such a soldiersuccessfully navigating this path.

In our first conversations, J.T.expressed his misgivings about be­ing in the military, fearing that hewas stuck with a bad decision. De­pressed and stressed out, he washaving a hard time adjusting to lifein the military and life in Ger­many. Members of his unit noticedhis mood, and told him to suck itup and soldier on. In looking intodischarge options, it was hard tofind the best option. Like manycases, there didn't seem to be justone answer.

First of all, he was new and hav­ing a hard time adjusting. It iseasier for the military to get rid ofa new soldier, especially one thatcan't adjust to military life, so thisseemed like an option. But under­neath an inability to adjust is oftenmuch more, and this was the casewith J.T. Unfortunately, he hadalready been in the service forover 180 days, the length of timethat the military has given to allowfor (somewhat) easier dischargesof soldiers having difficulty ad­justing.

The more we talked, the morehe opened up about his misgivingsabout the military. He talked abouthow it bothered him to hear hiscomrades in his unit brag abouttheir drug, sex and alcohol fueledescapades, but much more so as

By Daniel HershbergerHonorable Discharge: J.T.*

they joked about being bloodthirstykillers, hungry for their first kill,hungry for war. In these moments, itslowly became clear to J.T. that he wasa part of something that he could notbe a part of, and he knew that heneeded out.

The path that J.T. took to the militaryis a sad one. Before joining the milit­ary, J.T. had already experiencedenough death. As a teenager he lost hisfather in a car accident, and shortlythereafter his mother to a drug over­dose. With the loss of his parents, J.T.moved in with his grandparents, wherehis grandfather became like a father tohim. Mere months later, his grandmapassed away. On the day of the funeral,J.T. heard a loud bang from downstairsand feared the worst. It had soundedlike a shotgun, but denial and the painfrom his previous losses kept him fromgoing searching for the source. Hourslater J.T. came downstairs to find hisgrandfather dead. He had shot himself.

With no one left, J.T. went to themilitary at age 18. It didn't matter tothe recruiter that J.T. showed signs ofconditions that rule out military ser­vice, or that he had barely gottenthrough high school with a learningdisability. Instead, the recruiter saw inthe young, well built J.T. characterist­ics of an excellent infantryman.

Here was a young man who had lostall those important to him, and saw themilitary as his chance to makesomething of his life. Admittedlysomewhat naive, he did not know whathe was getting himself into. It was notlong, however, before he knew that hestood for values contrary to those ofthe military. At target practice he wasnot able to fire at the human shapedtargets. The more it became clear whatit meant to be an infantryman, first andforemost a killer, the more he becamedepressed by his surroundings. Eventu­ally, suicide seemed to him to be theonly way out.

It was in this state that J.T. firstcontacted the Military CounselingNetwork. We explored his optionsat getting a discharge for depressionand anxiety, and urged him to beopen to his command about his sui­cidal thoughts. Thankfully, theytook him seriously, putting him onsuicide watch and beginning to lookmore closely at his overall well­be­ing. After talking more, his bud­ding conscientious objector (C.O.)beliefs started to surface, and he de­cided that this would be the dis­charge that he was going to pursue.During the C.O. process, the milit­ary began to take seriously thePTSD­like symptoms J.T. had in­curred through all of the deaths inhis life, and began putting thepieces together that maybe J.T.should be discharged from the milit­ary.

One day, J.T. was informed by hiscommander that he would be dis­charged for medical and psycholo­gical reasons. The long, difficultC.O process would no longer be ne­cessary. For J.T. it had all comedown to having courage to presenthis issues to the military, and in away that they could understand, andhaving the strength and courage tonot give up. Approaching the chainof command with a straight requestfor discharge will likely get laughedat, and so we encouraged J.T. topresent the symptoms and not somuch his overall desire to get out.

In the end, J.T. was rewarded forhis strength and courage. He washonorably discharged in May, andwas able to keep his enlistment bo­nus and benefits, both of which willbe very important as J.T. makes thetransition from soldier to civilianand seeks healing for all that he hasalready experienced.* Name changed

3MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK

Numbers and Quotes....

40-Number of troops that committed suicide in January, 2010, morethan the number killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.Time.com

"The fact of the matter is, we just don't know. It's beenvery frustrating to me with the effort that we made overthe last year, and we did not stem the tide." ­ Army Chief of StaffGen. George W. Casey Jr. , when asked about why suicides have increased. Time.com

761-Number of troops killed in Afghanistan.Time.com

817-Suicides among active duty troops since the start of thewars.Time.com

"I did break down and lost hope and even planned to end it the nexttime I went out to the field....I thank you so much for you help youwere some one to talk to that I knew cared and i feel that made allthe difference." ­ J.T, See pg. 2

"We train our warriors to use controlled violence and aggression, to suppressstrong emotional reactions in the face of adversity, to tolerate physical andemotional pain and to overcome the fear of injury and death." While requiredfor combat, "these qualities are also associated with increased risk forsuicide." - Craig Bryan, a University of Texas psychologist, in an interview with Time Magazineafter briefing Pentagon officials in January

MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK4

happens every 2 miles throughoutthe platoon). They’d found outabout my anti­war­on­terrorstance, and my squad leader eventold me that he wished he couldphysically injure me.

I sustained a fractured left footand an undiagnosed shin conditionwhich made even walking withminimal gear a teeth grindingagony. I was on profile for nearly 9months, which is where the bulk ofmy problems began.

The worst kept secret was that thechain of command rejected tosending an ailing private to sickcall multiple times, only to havethe private hospitalized with pneu­monia and as it also turned out,had cancer. It got swept under therug, as so much did under that 1stSergeant (1SG). Little did I know Iwould soon be in a similar situ­ation, at the mercy of his apathy.

I was stationed in Germanythrough the favor of an E­7 (Ser­geant First Class) whom I workedwith in Korea. I told him about mymother’s ongoing health issues. Iproduced two notes with signaturesby doctors, stating that I needed tobe at home to actively help mymother. He was the only person inthe military who ever cared to lookat the documents. This includedthree 1SG’s, two CO’s(Commanding Officers) and nu­merous NCOs from my formerchains of command who decidedto avoid the issue.

The empathy of the E­7 lead to aswift phone call to the Infantrybranch, making sure I got pinpointorders for my next duty assign­ment to hopefully help my situ­ation. It’s sad that the E­7 was theonly person who I met who tookthe well being of his soldiers soseriously.

In May of 2009 I got promoted to

Specialist with a waiver. I quickly no­ticed that I was still getting paid as aPrivate First Class, so I informed myfirst line supervisor (an E­5) aboutthe problem. I was told to wait untilwe had time. We always had time.Weeks and months had passed. I wasalways fed the same crap of “Oh, nottoday. We are busy” or “Remind meon Friday”.

The military proclaims that a sol­dier’s pay problems are to be takencare of right away. So I sat andwaited. For four months. I then de­cided I wouldn’t wait any longer so Itook off and went straight to the fin­ance office and explained the situ­ation and maltreatment. The Armyhad owed me a total of around$11,000 and my company level chainof command was more than aware.

I reminded them daily that Ineeded to go to the finance office tofix my problems and help an ailingmother back home. But instead ofhelping their soldier, I was ignoredand mocked for being injured and onprofile. My team leader even told meto my face that he would not take mebecause I didn’t deserve the moneythat was guaranteed in my contract,and everyone up to the 1SG was incahoots with this. Little did I know, amajor factor in this was a botchedpromotion on their behalf and theywere just covering themselves frombeing roasted. I never should havegotten promoted while on profile, orso I was told by the squadrons fin­ance office. It would still take untilAugust, after the entire chain of com­mand had shipped out, to receive themoney. It was during this time I re­membered Tim’s advice. Be persist­ent. Make your problems known.Make them feel that they’d be off bet­ter without you. And so I did.

I began voicing major malcontenttoward the Army’s maltreatment oftheir own soldiers to everyone fromthen on. I told them I was leaving,one way or another. I had already

These are questions you just don't ask...continued from page 1

...continued on page 6

been seen by a psychologist for de­pression on a regular basis, but whatraised the red flag was that I slowlybegan to become angry. Even theArmy, in their state of denial and ig­norance, knew better than to justshove me aside on this one, for theyknew I was in the right. I had majorissues that were out of my controland the mental health specialistsknew this. At first they wanted meto take anti­depressants, but Isoundly rejected, because the prob­lem wasn’t in my head. The systemhad pushed me too far.

One Sunday night in July, I calleda sergeant whom I knew I couldtrust, and told him I wasn’t comingback. I had gone home to my moth­er’s house in a city in the south westof the country and the pain of leav­ing and knowing what I was goingback to became too much to bear.

The sergeant was familiar with mysituation. I’d always talked to him,but I wasn’t his soldier so there waslittle he could do to help me, espe­cially with the team and squad lead­er, platoon sergeant and 1SG havingtheir cross­hairs on me, desperate tokeep their incompetence and fail­ures as leaders on the down low. Hetold me I needed to come back topost ASAP and that everythingwould sort itself out. But I knew itwas too late. I went on to the nextmorning’s formation on purpose, forI had carefully planned the nextsteps. I knew what I was about to dowould be wrong. But sometimes inorder to do right, you have to dowrong. That’s just the way it goes.

I arrived around noon the next dayand instantly had all eyes on me.My fellow soldiers knew somethingwas about to happen, like monkeyshigh up in a tree watching the jaguarstalk its prey, wide eyed, payingclose attention. But little did they

5MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK

By Daniel Hershberger

the Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Societyby Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Despite our preconceptions and the best efforts ofHollywood to teach us the contrary, soldiers have avery difficult time with one of their basic tasks: killing."There are no atheists in foxholes," the saying goes,but according to this important book there are manyconscientious objectors. In World War II and before,only 15 to 20 percent of soldiers fired their weapons atvisible enemy soldiers, even if their own lives were en­dangered. In his book "On Killing", Lt. Col. (Ret.)Grossman, a military historian, psychologist and teach­er at West Point, builds upon the findings of Gen. S. L.A. Marshall in Men Against Fire (1978) and evidencefrom Napoleonic, Civil and other wars. "Throughouthistory the majority of men on the battlefield wouldnot attempt to kill the enemy, even to save their ownlives." (p. 4)

The resistance to killing occurs in close combat situ­ations, when the distance between the killer and thekillee is small enough to recognize that the targetshares some characteristics with the one about to pullthe trigger. If similarities can be recognized, the strainon the conscience is too great. As a soldier looks downthe barrel of his rifle, if he can see his enemy and sayto himself “he looks to be about my age, I wonder if hehas kids as well”, he will very often not be able to pullthe trigger."

This is no new "problem". In the U.S. Civil War,well­trained soldiers fired over the enemy's heads, oronly pretended to fire. Of 27,000 muzzle­loading mus­kets recovered at Gettysburg, 90 percent were loaded,almost half with multiple loads. Further evidence wasthe low kill rate in face­to­face battles. Like Marshall'sassertion about World War II, "Secretly, quietly...thesesoldiers found themselves to be conscientious object­ors who were unable to kill their fellow man." (p. 25)The secrets were well kept, in "a tangled web of indi­vidual and cultural forgetfulness, deception and liestightly woven over thousands of years....the male egohas always justified selective memory, self­deception,and lying [about] two institutions, sex and combat." (p.31).

Killing face­to­face is much harder than killing frombehind: fatalities are high among fleeing troops.

Killing at close range (bayonet, knife, hand­to­hand)is harder than from long distance. Armies have spentmuch of their creative and productive energies in put­ting ever more distance between themselves and theirenemies. Early combat would be been fought hand­to­hand, where the warmth of the blood and cracking ofbone would have made the act of killing not only verydifficult, but also very repulsive. From there, armiesdeveloped swords, spears, guns, bombs and drones tocreate more and more physical distance, removing anyamount of humanity from those about to die, insteadturning them into mere blips on a screen.

After WWII, the military became aware of the prob­lem that “Johnny can't kill”, and set to work on fixingthe problem. The high rate of firing in Vietnam fol­lowed training with desensitization and operant condi­tioning. Human silhouettes replaced bull's eye targetsin shooting drills. A reflexive "quick shoot" responsewas cultivated. Regarding the enemy as less than hu­man overcomes inhibition. Yet soldiers are responsibleto military authority, which both enables shooting andrestricts it. Unauthorized or errant shooting is severelypunished. This control factor is missing in civilian soci­ety where, Grossman alleges, young people are pulledtoward violence by media/video game conditioning anddesensitization proven effective in boot camp.

In the end, On Killing provides a very import look in­to a theme often ignored or misunderstood, providinginsight that can give us hope in moving away from warand violence, while also drawing attention to the awfulreality of desensitization and killing in war.. “Thegood news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. Butarmies have developed sophisticated ways of overcom­ing that instinctive aversion. The psychological costfor soldiers, as evidenced by the increase in PTSD, isdevastating. The psychological cost for the rest of us iseven greater: contemporary civilian society, particu­larly the media, replicates the army's conditioning tech­niques and directly contributes to our rising rate ofviolence crime, especially among the young." Thisvery important work brings to light the techniques themilitary uses to help soldiers kill and raises vital ques­tions about the implications of escalating violence inour society.

On Killingt thhe:

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...from page 4know the prey the jaguar was stalkingwas about to jump out the bushes gunsblazing, going for broke with nothingto lose. The walk to the 1SG’s officefelt almost like a walk to the gallows.He knew that I knew they’d done mewrong for months. In a meeting behindclosed doors, I let it all out. I’d hadenough and felt such a strong malcon­tent for him and the corrupt system heran. I let him know that I was worriedabout not just hurting myself, but alsoothers.

I felt liberated. For the next twomonths of his stay (he would later bedenied an extension of his tour with thecompany, as the Sergeant Major andLieutenant Colonel of the squadron hadgotten wind of what he had been doingto the company) he couldn’t look me inthe eyes.

That very same day the psycholo­gists shipped me off to the LandstuhlPsychiatic Ward at Landstuhl RegionalMedical Center. I spent a total of threedays, a far shorter stay than expected. Iwas interviewed by many differentpeople and they all said the same thing:“You need out”.

It was clear that there was no othersolution. I had told them everything

that had happened over the past twoyears and they were shocked.

A last attempt of “righting” the shipwas made by a National Guard Lieu­tenant Colonel chaplain from Ohio.After finding out I did not belong to hisreligious group, or any, he gave me ahard stare, proceeding to ask questionsabout why I was feeling the things Iwas at the time. When I began talkingabout neo­conservative American im­perialist politics and inside­jobs heraised his voice and huffed “These arequestion you just don’t ask!”

The next four months went relativelyeasy. I had my ticket out, with recom­mendations from anyone who hadsome sort of say on this particular is­sue. The hierarchy ignored me fromthen on out. I wasn’t taken out to thefield anymore and I wasn’t allowed tohandle weapons. No one from my unitmade comments, nobody scrutinizedme for what had happened, and to mysurprise some people even liked me forthe things I said to people in highplaces, that they could never have said.*MCN client discharged in 2009, namechanged.