English Professor Carol Burke’s interest in military culture led her to research the prevalence of superstitious charms in the military through a series of interviews; she published these findings in “The Things They Bring to War.” In Humanities Core lecture, she further analyzed military culture through the lens of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), which explores how military training psychologically wounds many soldiers. Our most recent Humanities Core project is the Literary Journalism assignment, in which we have to interview someone who has experienced war—such as a veteran or someone who was displaced due to war—and write a story that recreates their experience. Since I interviewed a veteran for this assignment, it was interesting comparing my interviewee’s experience during army training with the points Professor Burke brought up in lecture.
Representations of military training usually reveal superfluous verbal and physical abuse. Professor Burke claimed, “Basic training is a highly ritualized military rite of passage designed to transform identity, one that will allow its members to execute violence on command in the name of the state.” In Full Metal Jacket, this depersonalization of soldiers is epitomized in Private Pyle’s transformation from a joyful, goofy soldier who has a hard time performing tasks correctly into a sullen soldier who excels at following commands. The drill sergeant and soldiers’ harsh treatment of Private Pyle eventually drives him to abandon his individuality and concentrate on perfecting shooting, running the obstacle course, and the like. In my interview, Joseph admitted that during training, “There was so much yelling going on that sometimes it makes you crazy a little bit. You got people yelling at you and then you end up yelling like they do ’cause it makes an impression on you.” I thought it was interesting that in Joseph’s experience, “their power [is that] they [can] write you up and they fine you.” In addition to the verbal abuse, they added another powerful incentive to get soldiers to obey their commands: money. Based on all of these representations of army training, it does seem like the commanders and drill sergeants aimed to drive the soldiers to the brink, break them down, and reconstruct them as depersonalized killing machines, as Professor Carol Burke addressed in lecture.
However, regardless of how unethical and mentally taxing military training is, it does create an efficient military. If soldiers go into battle with more lenient training, they would probably still retain their individuality and would not see themselves as part of a unit. In this case, it is likely that the soldiers will have an “every man for himself” mindset and will be reluctant to follow orders that endanger them. Soldiers in the military have to endure extremely rigorous training in order to be prepared for combat; compared to the risks of being unprepared on the battlefield, such as severe physical injury or death, depersonalization seems to be the lesser of two evils. In my interview, Joseph explained that a large chunk of his training included classes about safety. He stated, “They wanna get you ready for the real thing so you won’t make mistakes that are gonna cost you your life. They want you to be programmed like a robot, almost.”
Although military training seems more stressful and cruel than necessary, it has been proven to be effective. As my interviewee Joseph clarified, the commanders were very concerned about not letting the soldiers leave training unprepared for combat.
Humanization through Empathy 
Pingback: Looking Back on Humanities Core – Humanization through Empathy