I totally agree with this
piece from Salon by David Masciotra:
Put a
man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans
will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike
culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and
police officers as “heroes.” The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual
shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the
military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of
nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it
also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the
maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
It
has become impossible to go a week without reading a story about police
brutality, abuse of power and misuse of authority. Michael Brown’s
murder represents the tip of a body pile, and in just the past month,
several videos have emerged of police assaulting people, including
pregnant women, for reasons justifiable only to the insane.
It is
equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning in the syrup
of patriotic sentimentality, to stop saluting, and look at the
servicemen of the American military with criticism and skepticism. There
is a sexual assault epidemic in the military. In 2003, a Department of
Defense study found that one-third of women seeking medical care in the
VA system reported experiencing rape or sexual violence while in the
military. Internal and external studies demonstrate that since the
official study, numbers of sexual assaults within the military have only
increased, especially with male victims. According to the Pentagon, 38
men are sexually assaulted every single day in the U.S. military. Given
that rape and sexual assault are, traditionally, the most underreported
crimes, the horrific statistics likely fail to capture the reality of
the sexual dungeon that has become the United States military.
Chelsea
Manning, now serving time in prison as a whistle-blower, uncovered
multiple incidents of fellow soldiers laughing as they murdered
civilians. Keith Gentry, a former Navy man, wrote that when he and his
division were bored they preferred passing the time with the
“entertainment” of YouTube videos capturing air raids of Iraq and
Afghanistan, often making jokes and mocking the victims of American
violence. If the murder of civilians, the rape of “brothers and sisters”
on base, and the relegation of death and torture of strangers as fodder
for amusement qualifies as heroism, the world needs better villains.
It
is undeniable that there are police officers who heroically uphold
their motto and mission to “serve and protect,” just as it is
indisputable that there are members of the military who valiantly
sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. Reviewing the research
proving cruelty and mendacity within law enforcement and the military,
and reading the stories of trauma and tragedy caused by officers and
soldiers, does not mean that no cop or troop qualifies as a hero, but it
certainly means that many of them are not heroes.
Acknowledging
the spread of sadism across the ranks of military also does not mean
that the U.S. government should neglect veterans, as they often do, by
cutting their healthcare options, delaying or denying treatment, and
reducing psychiatric services. On the contrary, if American politicians
and pundits genuinely believed that American military members are
“heroes,” they would not settle for sloganeering, and garish tributes.
They would insist that veterans receive the best healthcare possible.
Improving and universalizing high quality healthcare for all Americans,
including veterans, is a much better and truer way to honor the risks
soldiers and Marines accept on orders than unofficially imposing a
juvenile and dictatorial rule over speech in which anything less than
absolute and awed adulation for all things military is treasonous.
One
of the reasons that the American public so eagerly and excitedly
complies with the cultural code of lionizing every soldier and cop is
because of the physical risk-taking and bravery many of them display on
the foreign battleground and the American street. Physical strength and
courage is only useful and laudable when invested in a cause that is
noble and moral. The causes of American foreign policy, especially at
the present, rarely qualify for either compliment. The “troops are
heroes” boosters of American life typically toss out clichés to defend
their generalization – “They defend our freedom,” “They fight so we
don’t have to.”
No American freedom is currently at stake in
Afghanistan. It is impossible to imagine an argument to the contrary,
just as the war in Iraq was clearly fought for the interests of empire,
the profits of defense contractors, and the edification of
neoconservative theorists. It had nothing to do with the safety or
freedom of the American people. The last time the U.S. military deployed
to fight for the protection of American life was in World War II – an
inconvenient fact that reduces clichés about “thanking a soldier” for
free speech to rubble. If a soldier deserves gratitude, so does the
litigator who argued key First Amendment cases in court, the legislators
who voted for the protection of free speech, and thousands of external
agitators who rallied for more speech rights, less censorship and
broader access to media.
Wars that are not heroic have no real
heroes, except for the people who oppose those wars. Far from being the
heroes of recent wars, American troops are among their victims. No
rational person can blame the soldier, the Marine, the airman, or the
Navy man for the stupid and destructive foreign policy of the U.S.
government, but calling them “heroes,” and settling for nothing less,
makes honest and critical conversations about American foreign policy
less likely to happen. If all troops are heroes, it doesn’t make much
sense to call their mission unnecessary and unjust. It also makes
conversations about the sexual assault epidemic, or the killing of
innocent civilians, impossible. If all troops are heroes, it doesn’t
make any sense to acknowledge that some are rapists and sadists.
The
same principle of clear-eyed scrutiny applies to law enforcement
agencies. Police departments everywhere need extensive investigation of
their training methods, qualifications for getting on the job, and
psychological evaluation. None of that will happen as long as the
culture calls cops heroes, regardless of their behavior.
An
understandable reason for calling all troops heroes, even on the left,
is to honor the sacrifice they make after they die or endure a
life-altering injury in one of America’s foolish acts of aggression. A
more helpful and productive act of citizenship, and sign of solidarity
with the military, is the enlistment in an antiwar movement that would
prevent the government from using its volunteer Army as a plaything for
the financial advancement and political cover of the state-corporate
nexus and the military-industrial complex of Dwight Eishenhower’s
nightmares.
Given the dubious and dangerous nature of American
foreign policy, and the neglect and abuse veterans often suffer when
returning home wounded or traumatized, Americans, especially those who
oppose war, should do everything they can to discourage young, poor and
working-class men and women from joining the military. Part of the
campaign against enlistment requires removing the glory of the “hero”
label from those who do enlist. Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of
divinity studies at Duke whom Time called “America’s best theologian,”
has suggested that, given the radical pacifism of Jesus Christ, American
churches should do all they can to discourage its young congregants
from joining the military. Haurwas’ brand of intellectual courage is
necessary, even among non-Christians, to combat the hysterical
sycophancy toward the military in a culture where even saluting a
Marine, while holding a coffee cup, is tantamount to terrorism.
The
men and women who do enlist deserve better than to die in the dirt and
come home in a bag, or spend their lives in wheelchairs, and their
parents should not have to drown in tears and suffer the heartbreak of
burying their children. The catastrophes become less common when fewer
people join the military.
Calling all cops and troops heroes
insults those who actually are heroic – the soldier who runs into the
line of fire to protect his division, the police officer who works
tirelessly to find a missing child – by placing them alongside the cops
who shoot unarmed teenagers who have their hands in the air, or the
soldier who rapes his subordinate.
It also degrades the collective
understanding of heroism to the fantasies of high-budget, cheap-story
action movies. The American conception of heroism seems inextricably
linked to violence; not yet graduated from third-grade games of cops and
robbers. Explosions and smoking guns might make for entertaining
television, but they are not necessary, and more and more in modern
society, not even helpful in determining what makes a hero.
A
social worker who commits to the care and advocacy of adults with
developmental disabilities – helping them find employment, group home
placement and medical care, and just treating them with love and
kindness – is a hero. A hospice worker in a poor neighborhood, providing
precious comfort and consolation to someone dying on the ugly edges of
American healthcare, is a hero. An inner-city teacher, working hard to
give essential education and meaningful affirmation to children living
in neighborhoods where bullets fly and families fall apart, is a hero.
Not
all teachers, hospice workers or social workers are heroes, but
emphasizing the heroism of those who do commit to their clients,
patients and students with love and service would cause a shift of
America’s fundamental values. It would place the spotlight on tender and
selfless acts of solidarity and empathy for the poor. Calling all cops
heroes too often leads to pathetic deference to authority, even when the
results are fatal, and insisting all members of the military are heroes
too often reinforces the American values of militarism and
exceptionalism.
The assignment of heroism, exactly like the
literary construct, might have more to do with the assignment of
villainy than the actual honoring of “heroes.” Every hero needs a
villain. If the only heroes are armed men fighting the country’s wars on
drugs and wars in the Middle East, America’s only villains are
criminals and terrorists. If servants of the poor, sick and oppressed
are the heroes, then the villains are those who oppress, profit from
inequality and poverty, and neglect the sick. If that is the real battle
of heroism versus villainy, everyone is implicated, and everyone has a
far greater role than repeating slogans, tying ribbons and placing
stickers on bumpers.
David Masciotra is the author of Mellencamp: American
Troubadour (forthcoming, University Press of Kentucky). He writes
regularly for the Daily Beast and Splice Today. For more information
visit www.davidmasciotra.com.
