Why Young Men Go to War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28miniseries%29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo

The episode covers what goes into training young people who enter the marine core. It features candid interviews with drill sergeants and the recruits themselves about their motivations. Well worth a watch.

One of the main points the episode makes is that the job of being a soldier is ultimately about killing and dying, something that doesn’t come naturally to most people. The method for turning young men into soldiers is basic training.

According to Dyer the secret of basic training is that its not really about teaching people, its about changing people. He claims that if you want to change people quickly and radically, you put them in a place where the only right way to think and behave is the way you want them to. You isolate them and then apply enormous physical and mental pressure. i.e basic training. Essentially he claims that basic training is all about brain washing.

In the linked interview Sebastian Junger talks a lot about what it means to be a man. In particular:

“In that kind of environment,” Junger continues. “If you dare talk about what it means to be a man, what you’re saying is men are different from women.”

and

“We aren’t asking, ‘What does it mean to be a human being?’” he says. “‘What’s it mean to be a man?’ Once you have that conversation you offend a lot of academics.”

and

“Men are clearly wired for [war],” he continues. “The male response to war is an evolutionary adaptation that clearly works for our species.”

He doesn't quite claim that young mens desire to go to war has its roots purely in biology but he comes close. Personally I don't buy it.

I think the concept of going to war as a rite of passage, particularly in the USA, is a social construct that’s largely the result of pervasive propaganda. The US military has an impressive marketing budget and aggressively recruits in schools right across the country. In the US, joining the military is not seen as a weird or embarrassing thing to do. In contrast, in my country (Ireland), joining the military is seen as a somewhat odd choice.

What’s interesting about Dyer’s documentary is that it interviews recruits before they go through basic training. Many of them are poor with few job prospects and no sense of direction. The military gives them a sense of purpose and is socially acceptable thing to do.

The article is about young men choosing to go to war, in our all-volunteer military, but there wouldn't be a war to choose to enter if the mostly old, mostly white, mostly men in Congress didn't choose to have one.

This for me was an unbelievable experience as a German, where if the army would be involved with any kind of school it would be a major scandal. But while in high school in america it was normal to be propagandaed on during your lunch hour.