Wondering....

I have often wondered how the military of a declining super-power would respond if ordered to turn their weapons on their fellow citizens to quell an uprising against their tyrannical government?

Being a veteran myself I know that as an Infantryman I was taught to follow the lawful orders that I was given by my superior officers.  As a squad leader I trained my people to perform the tasks and to gain the knowledge required to complete the mission and to survive as an infantryman. My motives were different, in a sense, than the motives of the officers that were giving the orders.  They had the "Big Picture" to look at.  I had my squad to protect. You train and train and train so that, when given that order, you will function flawlessly.   Constant training and discipline are the glue that binds it all together.  They are the two things that, if done correctly, make you successful in accomplishing your mission and in keeping you alive.

The hope is that the training is so well ingrained into your mind that you will act and react without thinking.  If your training is good and your tactics are sound your chances of success, and survival, are greatly improved.  That's the goal.   Success.  Survival.

Still I wonder, would they turn their weapons on their fellow citizens if ordered to do so by their superiors?  It's something that I never even considered being ordered to do when I was in the Army.  Of course, that was over 30 years ago.  The times were different then.  The world was different.  We had The Cold War, The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union, the East Bloc, Arab terrorists blowing up things at American military bases in Europe, the Olympic murders, little civil wars all over the world, mostly in Africa. 

It was different then, yet the same.  America had war protests going on all over the country when I was in High School and when I first enlisted in the Army.  I was spit at in the Philadelphia airport in the summer of 1972 while running through the terminal in uniform to catch a bus to Fort Dix.  That was an awakening for me.  My second awakening.

A bunch of Liberal Hippies yelling and screaming and protesting the immorality of the unjust war in Viet Nam.  Big Bad Amerika killing innocents in the jungles of South East Asia.  Corporations getting rich off of the war and the sweat and blood of the workers. 

What I find astounding (insert sarcasm) is the fact that the instant that President Nixon announced the end of the draft, the anti-war protests ended.  That's when I realized what Liberals were all about.  They weren't protesting the war.  They were using the war to protest the draft.  They didn't want to serve.  They didn't want to give back to the country that was giving them so much.  All they wanted was their tie dyed tee shirts and their dope.  And to take over the world.  They wanted to destroy "The Establishment".  They wanted "social justice" for the poor and downtrodden....  They wanted to rule the world.  Peace.  Love.  Dope.  They just couldn't get behind that "Duty, Honor, Country" thing.  They suffered from too much self interest, I guess.

Today these people are the elected representatives in the Senate and the Congress of the United States.  They are the people who are tearing this country apart.  They still don't think.  They still don't listen.  They "feel".  They still run their mouths, they still call those who don't agree with them names the way a junior high kid would. 

I guess some things don't change.

My first awakening?

About a week before completing Basic Training. 

We were marched to the range to qualify with the M-16 rifle.  Record Range.  Something we had all been looking forward to for quite a long time.  I wanted to earn that Expert Marksman Badge so badly that I could taste it.  It was a good day.

After we were finished with the range we were marched out to a heavily wooded area of Fort Leonard Wood for some additional training.  The Drill Sergeants were being very friendly with us for the first time since we arrived at Basic.  They brought us hot chow as the sun was starting to set and let us take it easy and relax.  We all felt like this was going to be something special.

After the sun went down we noticed that there weren't any Drill Sergeants around.  That was weird.  We hadn't been out of their sight for over 7 weeks, now they were gone.  We started talking amongst ourselves, wondering what we were supposed to do.

It didn't take long before we found out.

5 or 6 "soldiers" in strange looking uniforms with strange looking helmets came out of the woods firing their weapons and yelling and screaming.  We were confused and just sat there, looking stupid.  Feeling stupid.  We all knew we should be doing something!  There were probably 60 of us in the company and we all sat there dumbfounded.  When the 5 or 6 strange looking soldiers yelled at us to get on our feet and form a file, we did it without question.  When they told us to move up against the guy in front of us and lock our arms around his waist, we did it.  Without question or hesitation.  60 "soldiers" who were about to complete Basic Training standing in a file, tight enough to "make your buddy smile", arms wrapped around the waist of the man in front of you. 

Talk about feeling uncomfortable.  And scared.

Then they screamed at us to run.  Don't let go of the man in front of you.  In the dark.  In a wooded area like the picnic area of a park. 

As we started to clumsily run we could sense very bright lights coming on behind us.  A light similar to a porch light came on in front of us, perhaps 200 yards away through the woods.  We ran toward the light.  The enemy soldiers screaming orders at us all the time.  That "porch light" was a low wattage incandescent bulb on the side of a white wooden building.  When we got to the building it looked like a small machine shed with a walk-thru door on the front at the far end of the building.  They screamed at us to go inside.  We complied without question.  There were lights and bleachers in this building.  It's dimensions were probably 12 feet by 30 feet.  We sat in the bleachers and were left alone. 

Soon we started asking each other "what the fuck just happened to us"?  We got that giddy nervous laugh that comes as the adrenalin starts to dissipate from your body after being terrified.  Terrified for 9 or 10 minutes that seemed like an hour.  We figured that an instructor would soon appear to talk about night land navigation or something.  I suppose we thought that because we had heard the Drill Sergeants talking about it amongst themselves at the range earlier that day.  Glad that was over.

The door burst open and one, JUST ONE, of the soldiers in the funny looking uniforms came in the building.  He was screaming and swinging a soaking wet white towel.  We again cowered as he used that towel to hit anyone he could in the head.  Terror.  5 minutes of terror.  Pure terror.  No one did a thing.  60 of us.  Nothing.

He ordered us outside.  We formed our centipede file again and were forced to run toward the bright lights 300 yards away.  Barbed wire.  12 feet high.  We went through the gates and they were closed behind us.  A fucking camp.  Shit.  We were all scared.  They were screaming at us.  Making people get on the ground in the dying cockroach position.  Some were forced to their knees and made to take their fatigue jackets off.  Their tee shirts were pulled over their faces and water from canteens was poured over their mouths and noses.  Can't breathe.  Panic.  No place to go.  I was forced into a wall locker that had been laid on its back in a hole in the ground.  They closed the doors and started throwing dirt on it.

Soon the lights went off and the yelling stopped.  The lights came back on and the "guards" were gone.  Someone who was unfamiliar to us but who seemed concerned and knowledgeable told us that we had to leave the compound and head through the woods.  It was a mile to a road where buses would pick us up and take us back to the barracks.  We only had an hour to get there and there were enemy in the woods.

Somehow we all made it back to the buses.  The Drill Sergeants were there and they treated us differently than they had in the past.  More respectfully.  They weren't calling us Knucklefuck and Maggot and Dickhead any more.  Those of us who had longer and more difficult to pronounce last names suddenly heard those names being pronounced correctly for the first time in almost 2 months.

That night, those few hours, were a life changing experience for me.  I learned that people are sheep.  All of us are, at one time or another in our lives.  I learned that you can be scared to the point that you cannot make a rational decision no matter how hard you try.  I learned that 60 men who could have easily overpowered their "guards", didn't.  Training.

I made a decision right then and there that I would never allow myself to be put in the position of being a cowardly sheep again.  I have never been so ashamed of myself as I was when I went over that night in my mind.  Perhaps ashamed is too strong a word, perhaps disappointed in myself is a more appropriate  description of how I felt.   I wasn't prepared for what was happening to me....

That was almost exactly 39 years ago.  So far, I have been successful in not feeling so helpless or useless in any situation I have encountered.  I have been through a lot in my life, both in the Army and out.  I've learned from it.   I'm no longer that naive 18 year old who was learning to be a soldier.

That experience made me a better man.  I learned more about myself and those around me in those few hours than I had learned in my entire life up to that point.  Training.

That night was burned into my memory in a way that is even stronger than my memories of my wedding day or the births of my 3 sons.  It prepared me for every other thing that was to come in the remainder of my life.

But I digress....

If the leader of a "free" country ordered his Generals to turn their weapons on their countrymen to quell an uprising against what they believe to be a tyrannical government, would those Generals give the orders?

Suppose the Generals do give the order to quash the insurrection....  Would the Colonels follow through?  The Majors and the Captains? 

How about the troops?   Would the Grunts follow orders to carry out an illegal, immoral order?  An order with no basis in law?  An order to keep a tyrannical government in power?

Would anyone have the balls to just say NO!?

This is something that I wonder about sometimes.

Stay safe.