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| December 22, 2006 Alaskan in Exile by Neil Zawicki That breathy flute keeps blowing like rain from the little speakers. And a trumpet and some plucked bass. Wham rods on a snare drum. It’s late and I’m thinking about war. We’re all, in some way or another, thinking about war. Some fear it or hate it or ignore it or fight it or fight with it. There’s a running conversation here about war. Nova Stubbs asks what makes people go and then Kevin Morford talks of the fanaticism of enlistees and Aaron Selbig speaks from experience and talks of interviewing returning soldiers who are proud to have been picked to serve longer, because they are conditioned to think that way. Consider this: I’ve dealt with the military information machine. I’ve spent time trying to get real quotes from real soldiers, and I know that nobody is allowed to talk to the press unless they’ve been approved by the Public Information Officer, so the ones you get are team players. They read from the Gospel according to High Command. I’ve got nine dollars that says the guys Selbig spoke to in Fairbanks were delivered unto him through the military information machine, because it was assured they would say the right thing to the media. That is not to say they didn’t mean it, I’m certain they did. But it’s a safe bet there are troops in that unit that have had enough. There are troops in that unit that would not say what those guys said. Command knew that, and so they made sure to give Selbig the right ones to talk to. They run a good illusion, to be sure. Michael Herr was a freelance war correspondent during the Vietnam War. In his book, Dispatches, he described a military press conference like having a flash bulb pop in his eyes, sending him back to his hotel room blinded, where he would have to smoke a joint and spend a couple hours just trying to get at what they had told him. Still, Selbig is right. There is a very specific conditioning that takes place in basic training, and it stays with anyone who has been through it. I can remember when I looked Selbig up at Fort Benning. We were both trainees in different units, and spent a Sunday afternoon together. As we walked down the road, a formation of troops came running by and we both instinctively assumed the position of ‘parade rest’. Then we glanced at each other and laughed at how goofy it was. Another time, at the very beginning of training, they gave us all a large pill to take, but they would not tell us what the pill was – even though I asked. They just ordered us to take it. I put my pill under my tongue and then spit it out later. That was the beginning of my attempted rejection of the process; I’d been in Civil Air Patrol as a kid and had read all the right books and seen all the right movies, so my notions of training were a little tainted and a little too aware. The brainwashing element scared the piss out of me. Months later I was walking through the Atlanta airport in my paratrooper uniform, having completed my training, and a sales person approached me. “Hey airborne, got a minute?” she said. “Who the fuck are you calling airborne?” I said to her. “What do you know about it?” That reaction surprised me. Maybe it shouldn’t have. After nineteen days leave, I deployed to Italy and then accepted an early separation from service. Seven years later, the Army sent me my honorable discharge (that’s right), which I immediately turned into an art piece. Why do people go to war and how do they stay and why do they enlist? Big questions. Here’s another one: What’s the spirit of the bayonet? Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at hondo23@gmail.com 'Alaskan In Exile' appears on insurgent49.com every Friday. |
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