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A Satori: Why I Rebelled in the Military
novaw0lf
Veteran
Sitting in meditation today, I achieved a satori.
I think that, at its core, was the deepest reason for my resentment toward the military. It had nothing to do with having to shave, or cutting my hair, or getting up early, or wearing a uniform, or having a deeply rooted dissatisfaction for having given up the Navy SEALs; these were all minor annoyances that I understood were part of the territory of raising my right hand to enlist, or preemptively weighing the consequences of my decisions in contrast with my priorities before I made them.
I realize now, after much deliberation, that I went into the military thinking that my job would somehow align with my beliefs, for I've always been a peaceful loving person but was enthralled by the glory of war depicted in video-games and movies. I've always loved being American, and always will, but my identity and self-awareness was strong enough to acknowledge and reject the gravitational pull felt to satisfy the need for social acceptance within the militaristic community; I perceived such a pull to be a brainwashing tactic, mental conditioning meant to cultivate hatred for my fellow man.
So naturally, once enlightened while serving on the Emergency Response Team in the Middle East, I rebelled, and began to reject everything that I had been taught to believe what was right about war. I began to hate my job for it being a contribution to death, despite my talents and however direct or indirect a murderer I may have been, and I also began to hate myself for having been naive enough to have willingly sworn my allegiance to it.
However, I do not regret joining the military; I wouldn't be the man I am today if I hadn't.
I did my job, got an honorable discharge, and here I am today.
I think that, at its core, was the deepest reason for my resentment toward the military. It had nothing to do with having to shave, or cutting my hair, or getting up early, or wearing a uniform, or having a deeply rooted dissatisfaction for having given up the Navy SEALs; these were all minor annoyances that I understood were part of the territory of raising my right hand to enlist, or preemptively weighing the consequences of my decisions in contrast with my priorities before I made them.
I realize now, after much deliberation, that I went into the military thinking that my job would somehow align with my beliefs, for I've always been a peaceful loving person but was enthralled by the glory of war depicted in video-games and movies. I've always loved being American, and always will, but my identity and self-awareness was strong enough to acknowledge and reject the gravitational pull felt to satisfy the need for social acceptance within the militaristic community; I perceived such a pull to be a brainwashing tactic, mental conditioning meant to cultivate hatred for my fellow man.
So naturally, once enlightened while serving on the Emergency Response Team in the Middle East, I rebelled, and began to reject everything that I had been taught to believe what was right about war. I began to hate my job for it being a contribution to death, despite my talents and however direct or indirect a murderer I may have been, and I also began to hate myself for having been naive enough to have willingly sworn my allegiance to it.
However, I do not regret joining the military; I wouldn't be the man I am today if I hadn't.
I did my job, got an honorable discharge, and here I am today.
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Comments
I'll paraphrase George Macdonald Fraser's comment about soldiers, "They were the biggest violent scoundrels, cheats, and thieves...and yet they were the best, most honorable men I have ever met."
Just curious, how many years were you in? What MOS? And what are you doing post-military now?
My rate (because I was Navy, not Army) was an IT. I was only in for four years. Post-military, I am going to college and building an emerging book publishing company.
Kids grow up playing games like Call of Duty, Metal Gear Solid, etc, and think that it's cool. I thought: I'm going to grow up, become a bad-ass Navy SEAL, kill me about 30 "rag-heads" and get attention and adoration as the drunkard veteran with a dark mysterious past.
You may laugh at that, but it is nonetheless honest. The reason being? ...I admired men like that; they were glorified in my mind because of video-games, stories, and movies. I had a SEAL instructor named Smith, who said that he became a Navy SEAL because of Charlie Sheen.
Today, in our modern society, our "legends" are found in what? ...books, movies, and video-games.
However, the thrall of this admiration was in direct conflict with my beliefs about love and forgiveness, my philosophy of compassion. When I snapped free from my childish delusions, I realized that it was not the place for me.
But what @novaw0lf's tale reminded me of was a nine-year span I spent going to a particular Zen center. There was a lot of meditation (zazen), a lot of retreats, and I took it all pretty seriously. But over time there were scandals that involved the Zen teacher. I called them the Fuck Follies ... incidents in which the teacher imposed himself on women students, sometimes with horrific results. These scandals were very upsetting. And after Fuck Follies III, I quit. And today I look back on it all perhaps with some of the same spirit as @novaw0lf: I wouldn't trade my Zen training for all the tea in China ... and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
In my personal experience, a person who would speak out and say: Those "towel-heads" may be monstrous in our eyes, but they are only doing what they believe is right, because they were mentally conditioned, bred, to hate just like we are.
^Would be socially rejected, and thought a traitor.
We've done countless monstrous things to them as well, both before and after the foundation of America; this is why they refer to us as "The Great Satan", because they think that we're evil too.
Their methods may be completely extreme and demonic in our eyes, but understand that we are only on one end of the battlefield.
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers." -Francois Fenelon
When I realized this, about two years in, I realized that I had become another functioning cog, a nonentity swept up into the propaganda and blinding gravitational pull to hate them or to discount them as people simply because they were on the opposite side of the battlefield.
They arguably killed 3,000 of our people at 9/11, and what happened? The country was rallied into a force one step below genocidal, not much different than the Nazis of old Germany.
As to the upset I felt within the maelstrom of Fuck Follies I, II, and III, it took some time and it took some meditation ... and it wasn't all that joyful. If what you find fascinating is the facts and figures and times frames, you can always look at the The Shimano Archive and get some sense of how things evolved. Otherwise, feel free to PM ... I don't want to bore the socks off people here.
You cannot be blamed for the context in which you lived your life - there are many paths - the lesson your learnt however is profound for you and it led you to where you needed to go - your sharing that with others is a treasured gift and your motivation in that is inspirational to others.
For what it is worth, I commend you and wish you every fortune on your journey.
Right and wrong can't hold a candle to what is true. Each of us can wriggle and squirm, pontificate and demean one aspect or another of our lives, but in the end, each of us has to face the facts and then make an effort based on those facts. Will that effort lead to an improvement? There's no knowing until we try.
In Japan, there is a saying: "Fall down seven times, get up eight." This, in brief, is not a bad description of a Buddhist practice.
So what you think about gender apartheid, religious theocracy, sawing off heads, and stoning of adulterers is just a relative matter of perception?
Arguably killed? I think "triumphally" would be a better adverb. Really....so who have we committed genocide against since 9/11? And the Nazi canard was only a matter of time. Try reading Masters of Death and try and find anything comparable in America's past decade.
I am ambivalent about strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but both were attempts to remove some of the worst tyrants in the world. Unfortunately, we've left Sharia governments in their wake, but genocide? You have one broken moral compass to have worn the uniform and believe that.
And and Guatanamo bay where people of Middle Eastern origin were tortured and have been held for years without a trail.
I bet there's loads more.
He is a talented writer with a little bit of stage fright.
We are merely trying to support his creative outlet.
Please be kind.
I have more and more friends who have served and sometimes they open up to me about this sort of stuff -- one of my friends constantly splits the world into "good guys" and "bad guys" and I think thought-streams like that can be very difficult to overcome. Despite what you might have experienced, it seems that you know that we are a human team, not a human race, and I commend you for your bravery and honesty in sharing your moment of insight with us.
Sometimes I confuse emotional response with what triggered the response, and it takes some focused awareness to re-equilibrium.
@KnightofBuddha, if I may ask, what does the uniform represent to you?
I think it's completely savage and wrong; that's not what I'm defending about them. What I'm defending is their right to be treated like human beings, regardless of what they do, to demonstrate compassion and forgiveness for all.
I said "arguably" because that all depends on whom you think was the actual cause of it; there's plenty of propaganda floating around that strongly implies that our own government was the cause of it. Saying "arguably" was to take a more neutral stance, in consideration to whatever anyone else may believe that may or may not be differently than I. I never said genocide; I said one step below genocide. After 9/11, there were multiple news reports from all over the country telling the stories of innocent cab drivers, stop-shop owners, of Indians who weren't even Islamic experiencing the wrath of America's hatred for a perceived kind of people.
I'm pretty sure my moral compass is just fine. Lady_Alison, thank you very much for the support, but there's no need to defend me. One of the reasons why I have "stage fright" to begin with is because of having to defend myself and my arguments against people like Knight, only I was surrounded by it for four years...24/7...
...I know quite well how to tactfully handle what I say and how I say it when dealing with criticism. It just doesn't make it any easier, though, that conflict must happen...but I also understand that to be part of the territory.
This very conversation is a live example of what it's like to think the way that I do in the military. Imagine counter-arguments tenfold the intensity, in person, and being outnumbered. It's quite a harsh way of living those four years, in staying true to myself and my beliefs, but it strengthens you nonetheless.
However, this is the exact social gravitational pull that I was referring to: do I stay true to my beliefs and rebel, or do I conform with the hatred for the sake of social acceptance?
Thank you, though.
........the social pressure is so much worse.
I don't believe in killing civilians, and I'm not going to kill civilians for the United States Marine Corp."
The Lancet, one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate. The first was published in 2004; the second (by many of the same authors) in 2006. The studies estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both direct (combatants plus non-combatants) and indirect (due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poor healthcare, etc.).
The first survey[1] published on 29 October 2004, estimated 98,000 excess Iraqi deaths (with a range of 8,000 to 194,000, using a 95% confidence interval (CI)) from the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq to that time, or about 50% higher than the death rate prior to the invasion. The authors described this as a conservative estimate, because it excluded the extreme statistical outlier data from Falluja. If the Falluja cluster were included, the mortality estimate would increase to 150% over pre-invasion rates (95% CI: 1.6 to 4.2).
The second survey[2][3][4] published on 11 October 2006, estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006. The new study applied similar methods and involved surveys between May 20 and July 10, 2006.[4] More households were surveyed, allowing for a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths. 601,027 deaths (range of 426,369 to 793,663 using a 95% confidence interval) were due to violence. 31% (186,318) of those were attributed to the Coalition, 24% (144,246) to others, and 46% (276,472) unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56% or 336,575), car bomb (13% or 78,133), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13% or 78,133), accident (2% or 12,020), and unknown (2%).
And the 2nd World War was a 'win win' situation for the US by absolutely every economic measurement while hardly a bomb touched their soil.
Oh, and while I'm ranting, cut those green house gas emissions!
Metta!
(I'm only winding; please don't take me seriously)
@Tosh,
I'm well aware. Obviously the uniform doesn't represent to me what other countries have done in the past. It's about the contribution the service made to those causes I cited.