After my experience in the US Army back in 1967-1969, I came away with the conviction that every citizen should experience being in the military.  I figured that about two weeks of that experience would give you all you needed to know.  More than that was unnecessary.

In basic training we were explicitly told that the purpose was to break us down so that we could be rebuilt as soldiers.  It makes sense if you think about the need to get rid of the ordinary human resistance to killing another human being.  Of course demonizing the enemy was only part of the process.

I resisted such indoctrination, but I realized that in resisting it, I would fail to become an effective fighting man.  Thank goodness I was permanently assigned to Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia, PA. Had I been sent to Viet Nam, I probably would have gotten myself killed in the first 15 minutes of an engagement with the enemy.

However, people returning from war who had been turned into effective soldiers have a real problem.  How do they get back their civilian minds that were broken down by the military training? It wouldn’t surprise me that this struggle is not always waged successfully. After all there are no 8 weeks of training at the end of a military career to undo what was done in basic training at the beginning of that career.

I don’t want to detract from my previous post, Reconsidering George Bush’s Memoir, by leaving the impression that my Army experience is the only one I had to justify the  following comment that I made in that post:

If you read the book “The Shock Doctrine” you will learn how the idea of destroying a person’s mind came to be an acceptable goal in psychiatric circles. I know some of this information first hand without having to have read it in the book.

What I have written is not a criticism of the basic training in the army. I stated why I knew it was necessary. Also note that I am not making a special criticism of the U. S. Army.  That is the only military experience that I have.  I don’t imagine it is any different in any other military organization because of the military necessity of training an effective fighting force. However, it is important that the military and the citizens who delegate the job to them understand the full consequences of sending people off to war.