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29 June, 2002
Soldiers and freaks

This column came to me, as almost all of my column ideas come to me, as a result of an exchange with another person. When I asked this person what she did for her livelihood, she said "Don't hate me; I'm in the Army." I told her I am glad she is in the army. I could never be in the army, so I am grateful that other people can.

This person's admission of her occupation, combined with events concerning the upcoming (as I write this) G8 summit, caused me to ponder the popular opinion of the Armed Forces.

Mainstream cinema has contributed to a poor reputation for the army. On the big screen we have seen barking, power-tripping superiors training pathetic young men who are eager to become like the automaton training them, human beings being transformed into sociopathic cruelty machines, videos of sadistic hazing rituals, and examples of corruption, megalomania, and dishonesty.

We have also seen heroism, strength, and selflessness. Movies may have helped to create a bad image of the army, but they are not the sole source of this image. This is particularly true because most, if not all, mainstream films portray American forces, not Canadian.

I believe that many negative ideas regarding Armed Forces may, ironically, have been formed, in part, because Canadian and American armed forces have generally been successful in protecting their nations.

Since September 11, the media has been proudly declaring that we Canadians and Americans are free to live as we please, so long as we hurt no one and pay taxes. We can go to church, go to a mosque, practice wicca, or sleep in. We can watch children's cartoons, go to a hockey game, or watch adult television programming received via satellite. We can love men, women, and ourselves. These are the freedoms that our Armed Forces are sworn to protect.

It would seem that teamwork, faith, leadership, and obeisance are vital to the successful functioning of our Armed Forces. In games which simulate actual warfare, such as "Risk" or "Axis and Allies", players move icons representing the forces they deploy. These simulations are accurate in that real forces must be deployed by a centralized entity, be that a ranking officer, a group of military intelligentsia, or the nation's leader. If every member of the forces acted as they saw fit, chaos would ensue, hence the saying "divide and conquer". Thus it seems that the more tightly the military adheres to a "command and obey" process, the more effective it will be.

The free system the army has made possible for society now heavily promotes--via advertising--a lifestyle in which we freely kickback and enjoy ourselves. This lifestyle clashes with the military way of thinking.

Many have heard stories about military men who believe that they are superior to civilians and about the physical violence that can result. Yet the strict army lifestyle exists to protect the right of civilians to live whatever lifestyle they choose, including dying one's hair purple and screaming gibberish in a punk band or being a flaming homosexual.

Military people who live within a strict set of rules and ranking are a by-product of having a well-defended nation. Having individualist deviant freaky people is a by-product of well-defended free nation. Freedom within this society cannot exist without producing these types of people. Some known alternatives are martial law, communism, or fascism. Thus a balance has been struck. As long as facially pierced heavy metal weirdos can co-exist with stern, regimented members of the militia, we can remain as free as we are now.

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