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Smart, beautiful, female, liberal and interested in art, culture and global politics: These words are not the words you would usually see in military recruitment advertisements, but they describe a friend of mine who willingly entered the military after high school.
When it comes time for most of us to consider the people who end up joining the military, all too often the idea is influenced by the limited nature of public relations campaigns – the few, the proud, the brave.
Unfortunately, it is all too common for some people to also buy into the stereotype that the few, the proud and the brave are also the gullible, the stupid and the macho.
Neither of these stereotypes do any justice to the complexity of what it means to be a soldier.
When my friend from high school completed her time in the Air Force, she ended up at an Ivy League school where the general culture was not, by nature, “anti-military,” but was in fact “militarily disinclined,” if you will. People were shocked that “someone like her” would join the military. It’s not that they dislike the military, it’s that they assume the people who sign up are either crazy or mislead.
It’s an idea that does a lot of disservice to people who are, by all accounts, just as likely to be as brilliant or as foolish as anyone in any other profession. However, the stereotype does an equal disservice to the people who most commonly hold this position, who are, frequently, opposed to war or to American foreign policy.
The old trope that to be anti-war is to be anti-military isn’t true. A lot of anti-war sentiment is driven by respect for the military and the people who serve in it. However, it’s the anti-war contingent’s idea that those who enlist were coerced that I take the greatest umbrage with.
The problem is that, on all counts, caricatures of the people who hold a viewpoint – or who engage in certain activities – reduces the understanding of the human cost of any war. To assume that people who enlist don’t understand something is misguided and offensive. It also makes the loss of lives during wartime mean less. Both the left and right, when politically convenient, argue that soldiers “knew what they were signing up for.”
This doesn’t leave a lot of room for understanding the lives of the people who are at the greatest risk. While it is statistically true that people in the military tend to come from poorer backgrounds – and that African-Americans are vastly overrepresented – I don’t think this serves as a testament to anyone’s lack of discernment or intelligence.
Instead, I think it serves as a harsh condemnation on the people who propose to further expand America’s reach abroad while failing to enlist. Entanglements overseas seem a lot more comfortable when one is calling for them from the safety of a classroom.
Just as people who aren’t in the military might want to think twice about callously commenting on how many lives a democratic Iraq is worth, the anti-war movement should cease its psychoanalysis on the motivations individuals have for joining the military.
American policy isn’t popular anywhere. A majority of Americans are opposed to the war, but our political culture is still not in a place where we can begin negotiating what to do about it. The division in our country today is less about whether or not we should end the war and more about how. We’d be a lot closer to a conclusion if we could all agree to speak to one another without resorting to outlandish stereotypes of others’ beliefs.
It is a fundamental question of respect for human beings. When stereotypes exist – no matter how subtle they may be – a basic piece of human dignity is removed from people who face struggles none of us in a university can begin to comprehend.
Eryk Salvaggio is gullible, stupid and macho.
