Twenty years ago this day, May 15, I took the commissioning oath to become an officer in the US navy. I took it to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.“ I took it “…without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion…. So help me God.” I had no purpose of evasion, but especially after the unjust invasion of Iraq the year prior, I admittedly had much mental reservation. On the whole though, I still believed that the US military—and I in it—could be a force for good.
I no longer hold that view, to say the least.
Constitutions are probably good things for states to have, but I no longer think that ours is some grand document worth supporting and defending, even though some good has been squeezed from it by people’s movements, in spite of its reactionary authors. And, I no longer believe in oaths, for that matter. Also, I am not sure I believe in a so-help-me god.
Tangentially, I no longer believe in existent long arcs bending toward justice (MLK) although I wish they were true.
At the same time, I don’t believe in long arcs bending toward injustice either. That is, while this country was birthed through racialized-genocidal settler colonialism, none of us is pre-programmed by that history. I don’t believe in essentialist “it’s in our DNA” or “original sin” narratives. There are only human beings and choices. We make our own history, even if not under the circumstances of our choosing (K. Marx). “Timshel,” Steinbeck tells us at the end of East of Eden. “Thou mayest,” but also, “Thou mayest not.”
“Do you love your country?” What does it mean to love a country? If by country, you mean its myths, anthems, violence, flags, and pageants, I do not. But if you mean its soil, waterways, air, mountains, beaches, and its people--and their health, education, music, and art--then I do.
A year into the navy, I toyed with a conscientious objector application. I did not submit it because I am not entirely a pacifist. Under military law, a CO must prove they’re against all war. I think war is always lamentable and horrible, but on some occasions, it may be justified. That does not mean, though, we are to sit on our hands and let war happen. I believe we have the duty to mitigate those conditions that cause war in the first place. “If you want peace, work for justice” (Paul VI).
In the navy, I don’t believe I protected anyone’s freedom. Looking at that long arc, it seems, with some notable exceptions, that the US military and its precursor Anglo settler militias have mostly intervened against peoples’ liberation, from the Powhatan to the Palestinians.
Maybe some people in the military protected some other people’s freedom. As for me, tied to the pier in Texas or doing circles in the Pacific, at most I think I protected the status quo. At most, I protected the freedom of a handful of firms to accumulate ever more capital. To the degree I helped protect the “American way of life”--and it is debatable that I did so--I protected the American way of subsidized mass consumption, entertainment and distraction, and amnesia.
I love the many friends and other shipmates from the navy, both those still in and those out. Both the true believers and those just slugging through it to get their pensions. I don’t like the military, and from a privileged position, I advise my students not to join it, but I love and support those who do, often out of economic necessity. I think it’s an important distinction: “Be kind to people. Be ruthless to systems” (Michael Brooks).
At the end of “Assumed the Watch. Moored as Before.” (book plug, 15 years on), I tongue-in-cheek dreamed of a world without gray ships: no more ships that demanded sleepless watchstanding, flooding drills, and excel spreadsheets from me. Now, I think in order for humanity to survive--to flourish and actually be free--we must really dismantle the gray ships.
The US military is the largest institutional carbon emitter in the world. It emits more CO2 than many entire countries. Meanwhile, each year, our planet breaks record high temperatures. Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice is melting rapidly. Sea levels continue to rise. Global ocean surface temperatures have been at record highs the past year. Storms get worse and more frequent. And yet, we continue to extract and consume.
From Hawaii to Warminster PA, the military poisons the water. From Vieques to the Marshall Islands, the military bombs entire habitats, for practice, and for some private firms, profit. All in the name of “readiness.” We sacrifice so much human and non-human life in the name of readiness and in the name of “security.”
This empire must be dismantled, so that its people may live and flourish. All empires must be dismantled, so that all people may live and flourish.
The extreme contradictions of this political moment have unmasked the realities of the empire. The campus protests and the absurd reactions to them, for one, illuminate the hypocrisy of the ruling class.
When I was an ROTC student at Notre Dame, I was told that because I went to an elite (and Catholic) university that I would make better decisions in the murky morality of potential war. I would be smarter and holier than my navy peers, and the navy needed that, apparently. I believed that line of thought. It made me feel good about myself and a little smug. As if that Notre Dame aura--real or imagined-- would stick on me and just roll off of me and automatically lead us into the promised land: no hard choices required; maybe some minor ethical decisions to make; but never questioning the larger system of extraction and empire; just play your role.
That is the inertia these university trustees and presidents want. They preach that their students will change the world, but the change they’re prepared to accept is severely limited. They can’t imagine another world. They can’t imagine not investing in weapons. They try to convince the young people they’re bigoted, mentally unwell, or naive for suggesting to not invest in weapons. This is the ecocidal inertia that drove Aaron Bushnell to self-immolation. Afterwards, supporters of the empire called Bushnell unwell, unstable, mad. I think that’s projection.
The young people give me hope. But there is no inevitability there. They may be beaten down into submission and consumption and finally amnesia like the rest of us. Or they may not. There exist choices and many paths to take.
“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” —Dorothy Day
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” (Arundhati Roy)
So help us god.
