Tom Matlack looks at how the romanticization of U.S. Special Forces is linked to dangerous myths about manhood and war.
BAGHDAD | Tue Mar 20, 2012 6:16am EDT
(Reuters) – At least 16 near-simultaneous explosions struck cities and towns across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and wounding more than 200, despite a massive security clampdown ahead of next week’s Arab League summit.
It was hard for me to read Michael Kamber’s most recent devastating reality check on our foreign policy in Afghanistan and just how much we didn’t learn in Iraq. I have never been to either country, whereas he has spent much of the last decade there, taking images of crying Marines, dead civilians, and the brutality of war. He called our policy “magical thinking,” the idea that if we just believe hard enough, everything will work out the way we want it to. That was what made it hard for me; like a lot of people, I’m very attached to magical thinking, to mythology. I want to believe in the good guys. The badass Americans saving the day. John Wayne as the epitome of manhood, shooting the bad guys with impeccable moral authority.
I had no further than the cover of Newsweek to find what I was looking for. A pack of macho men in white t-shirts and combat boots charging, covered in muscles and dirt. The man in the lead is screaming like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. There’s manliness for you, right?
“The SEALs,” is all the headline had to say to put my mind at ease and forget about Staff Sergeant Bales, forget about the hundreds of thousands of men and women suffering from PTSD as a result of our war efforts, forget about the civilian damage, and about the fundamental inability of our policy to accomplish positive change in the Middle East. Mythology comfortably reasserted; thanks, Newsweek.
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For all my GMP cred, there’s a part of me that wants to believe in that myth of manhood. I want to believe that real men are some form of superhero, all muscles and action. Screw complex, nuanced stay-at-home dads. They are pussies, says some hardwired part of my brain where the neural pathways have been burnt in place by watching too much James Bond and Jason Bourne.
A couple summers ago, I picked up Lone Survivor. The story involves three SEALs who crawl onto a cliff overlooking an Afghan village. The village holds a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold, surrounded by a small but heavily-armed force. The SEALs move with painstaking precision and patience to get into position over the course of hours and days, ready to take the enemy out. But just as they have made their way unnoticed into the kill zone, a herd of goats comes up from behind them with an innocent-looking shepherd. They have to make the choice as to whether to kill the shepherd to protect their position or let him go. They guess wrong.
Shortly they are under direct attack from the rear. The SEALs tumble down the cliff. Two are killed and one survives the immediate firefight. The plot of the book is first person account of how six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell, manages against all odds to find his way to safety.
It’s one hell of a tale. But perhaps even more fascinating, as the authors knew it would be, is the backstory of all the training that led up to his becoming a Navy SEAL. The testing of human limits on the beaches near San Diego where men are forced into the frigid water until just before they reach hypothermia, then ordered out to roll in the sand, and then back in the water for more. The bell that they can ring to call it quits, and how they resist ringing it. The forced marches, the dragging of boats up sheer rock in crashing waves. The men who make it and those who don’t, the teeth-grinding tenacity and machismo of it all, is the heart and soul of the manhood creation myth for guys like me. I’m not afraid to admit it. I lapped up every word like so much cocaine to a drug addict.
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What’s not to love about the Navy SEALs? They took out Osama bin Laden, for goodness sakes. They saved a 53-year-old American hostage, Richard Phillips, onboard the Maersk Alabama. They rescued aid workers held hostage in Somalia. They took out key al-Qaeda terrorist Saleh Ali Nabhan. And that’s just the shit we know about. And all under a President that some folks love to call inexperienced and soft on terrorism.
According to Newsweek, the budget for Special Operations Command has more than doubled from 2001 to $10.5 billion and the number of deployments has more than quadrupled.
If Desert Storm and every operation since then has been of questionable outcome, up to and including the pending actions in Iran and Syria, these bad boys are the ones who are going to save the day in the best superheroic style. Right?
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In the current film Acts of Valor, which features real SEALs in action, one SEAL about to parachute into a dangerous mission turns to another to announce, “I’ll tell you what, the only thing better than this right here is being a dad. Except the whole changing-diaper thing.”
Damn, and I was just getting my buzz going. The magical thinking was so deep I was really thinking these guys could save the world from Mr. Freeze and the Joker.
Right back to the stay-at-home dad and nuanced image of what real men are like. Myth gives way to reality with the usual thud of maturity.
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None of what I am about to say is meant to in any way undercut the bravery of our special forces. I respect what they have done when called upon to risk their lives. Nevertheless, to talk about manhood, real manhood, and the reality of the devastating impact of our foreign policy over the last decade, we have to move away from the fantasy of America’s supermen as portrayed in movies and media, and start to look at reality.
Manhood has always been defined by cartoonish archetypes. A “real man,” in our media-saturated subconscious, is the Marlboro man or we are some Bud Light commercial, Batman or Captain America. Somehow these images tend to exclude the father, the husband, the guy who actually reads books and has feelings.
So the idea that we should all genuflect before the ultimate Rambos of our generation, as much as I can get sucked into the idea like any other guy who has been trained to think that way, is flat out wrong. More than that, it’s dangerous.
It’s dangerous because it undercuts the more realistic view of manhood and it’s dangerous because it keeps the magical thinking alive. We’d rather focus on the awesome surgical strike than think through the implications of ten miserable years of boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, how many lives have been ruined, and how grim conditions are in the Iraq and now Afghanistan that we have left behind. Of course we’d rather do that; it’s more fun. But part of being a man is accepting responsibility even—especially—when it’s not fun.
Reality is not an action movie. There is no cool-looking poster or pithy catchphrase to fix or justify what we as a nation have done. Magical thinking will get us nowhere. I can’t understand why, in the public discourse, in the Presidential campaign, in the press day in and day out, nobody is talking about just how off base our foreign policy has been. More, it worries me that nobody’s talking about how the men we should look to for inspiration aren’t a few camera-friendly superheroes, but the guys facing manhood in the trenches every day, whether the Marines facing inhuman conditions on the ground, fathers facing unemployment, or dads staying home with their kids while mom goes off to work. If we exclude those men from our images of manhood, we are refusing to wake up from an adolescent dream, and the results will work about as well as magical thinking has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To see a gallery of Michael Kamber’s powerful photographs from Iraq and Afghanistan, click here.
Photo— Rennett Stowe/Flickr
asc. I expect several levels of command will suffer for letting Bales get to where he got. However, there are issues with such things. I think the report was that nine officers in a position to explain to the Army that Maj. Hasan was a nutcase with appalling performance are going to be investigated (aka, careers ruined). Their excuse that they didn’t want to be accused of islamophobia will be discarded, although almost certainly a valid one which they probably saw in other cases. Lower-level commanders will not be excused by pointing to pressure from above to fill their slots… Read more »
Leadership is a vocation of decisions, some easier than others. Choosing to take the easy way out seems to have run rampant in the chain of responsible officers managing Hassan. Consequences hover when faced with a situation, the risk to leaders’ careers as a result of their actions is part of the commissioning deal. Their families, livelihoods and potential losses are not concerns to me, or the public. Execution of their responsibilities should make them feel all of that weight each time they make a decision. Hassan got the Peter Principal treatment, falling down only as he intentionally shot unarmed… Read more »
Special forces are epitome examples. Individuals less in need of leadership as they are voracious consumers of support in the forms of intelligence, ordnance and logistic resources. The average deployed military member is not as able to perform at the utmost levels or operational stress or perceive the evolutions of the operational environment. The leadership they require becomes the principal focus. SEALS provide one end of the operational spectrum for easy journalism. They do their job, they suffer the high operational burdens quietly and they produce results they will not disclose. Toward the other end of the spectrum are all… Read more »
Terry. I haven’t seen Act of Valor. But, so I can be prepared, where in the movie does it say “all” problems can be solved by violence?
Being British, I believe that I may bring something to the table when we discuss the hero worship not just of special forces but of certain regiments( SAS, SBS, Paras, Guards, Royal Marines). This whole “Act of Valor” business strikes me as a dangerous militarization of thinking and intellectual discourse. Emperor Napoleon was once urged by his brother Joseph to use his Army’s bayonets to suppress a peasant uprising. The Emperor sighed and wearily remarked “Brother, you can do everything with bayonets -except sit on them!”. Contrary to “Act of Valor” NOT every conflict or issue can be solved by… Read more »
Another issue ref WW I. It was the first war in history in which more men died of combat than of disease. (Zinnser) IMO, that would have a different impact on the veterans, who would have seen a majority of their dead friends killed, instead of taken off the hospital and later found to have died. The reverse was the case in previous wars. In addition, though lacking antibiotics, the medical people had gotten a handle on sepsis. Guys who in earlier wars would have died of infection instead survived. This had two results. One was that a substantial number… Read more »
I see the Marines have a new recruiting commecial.
Basically, the message, Some people run toward the sound of chaos. Which way would you run?
Sorry to say but I am leaving this site and will no longer be posting. I just looked at some of the most recent articles and it appears there is too much interest in anti-catholic sentiments as well as the anti-conservative points of views, I don’t think this is a place for me. I “thought” this was the mens project but it appears that the articles are more toward liberal feminist views and there really isn’t any interest in what all the men have to say …. I’m outa here.
Take care and God bless
John. Not Obama. But let’s look at a couple of things: Truman was an artillery captain in WW I. Ike was in the army but didn’t get overseas in WW I. Nixon was a rear-area Navy officer, which is sort of a luck of the draw issue. Different day for assignments and he might have been closer to the front. Ford was a carrier pilot, as was the first Bush in WW II. Ford is supposed to have led a damage control party that saved his ship after an explosion and fire. Bush 43 flew interceptors for the National Guard,… Read more »
Terrific piece, Tom. I love the way you have held both aspects of our masculinity–the tough and the tender–without needing to jettison either. We need both. Since we emerged as a species, males have been the primary protectors of the tribe. And as long as there are dangers, we need that part of ourselves; it is naive and foolish to pretend otherwise. At the same time, the hard work for men over the coming decades is to cultivate our tender side as well, particularly as the growing influence of women in the workplace will demand significant changes in how we… Read more »
Brilliant essay, Tom. It’s obviously stirred a lot of strong feelings—which is great. The subject of manhood in all its manifestations—even including changing diapers—is not one that’s going to vanish or recede. I recall, when as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, I was assigned to a Corps headquarters that numbered a lot of high-ranking officers. I was the lowest of the low, but captains and majors weren’t much more highly regarded. I remember a newly assigned captain chewing me out because he didn’t like the fact that my brass belt buckle wasn’t as shiny as he felt it… Read more »
John. It’s been said that King George II was the last British king to actually lead his armies in battle. Perhaps he was the last European monarch. Can’t recall. Royals have served, KGVI at Jutland, iirc, currrent princes in South Asia and the Falklands.
But prior to the change, you frequently found kings and other magnates not only leading armies, including their own offspring, you might have found them in the first line–see various battles of the Hundred Years War.
That period, say from the fall of Rome to the mid-eighteenth century, was not notably peaceful.
You are correct Richard , but do you think the morals , ethics of the politicians today are such that they would truely lead an army. I also think that Royalty owned the land over which they were fighting, and if I remember my history correctly, they were obligated to protect themselves.
Could you really see any president in recent history being on the front lines.
John Sctoll.
Then, in that case, western nations would not fight to defend themselves until too late. Not a good idea.
But the question is WHY wouldn’t they. Why does it appear to be so much easier for a leader to sacrifice 1000s of young men and women to a cause but he is not willing to sacrifice one member of his own family. That is the big question. Although the US doesn’t implement the draft right now, it wasn’t all the long ago that they did and in fact they fought a war (Vietnam) that wasn’t against an enemy per se, but rather an ideology. The majority of the people who fought in that war had very little choice in… Read more »
I think you mean the majority of MEN who fought in that war (Vietnam)…I don’t recall American women being drafted in any significant number for that specific war. You might be referring to the Viet Minh who I believe did employ some women as soldiers. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Kinda, There were some people who volunteered to fight over there and since women didn’t get drafted, (I think), any women that were over there were volunteers.
Some women enlisted but were not on the front lines. Even today, age 18 means that the young men of this country have to sign up for selectiv e service. No draft that the moment but when and if it comes, our “guys” will be called up. Back in the days of Vietnam, if your number was low, ya may as well enlist. It’s simply the way it was. Of course if wasn’t easy because ya had the bimbos like Jane and Joan doing their anti-war tours. Nothing nicer then returning home and people spitting on ya. Gives you a… Read more »
What IF.
What if in order for any western nation to go to war the leader of that country had to sacrifice his closest family member, be it, a wife, a husband or a child.
How many wars do you think we would be in. Probably not many.
If you agree with this, ask yourself this. Why is it OK for a leader of a country to sacrifice 100s or 1000s of other peoples family members BUT not 1 of his/her own.
i disagree, what would happen is that western leaders who WOULD happily sacrifice one of their nearest and dearest would emerge from the pack. War would continue at the same rate
In WW2 – FDR’s kids served as well as his cousin (Teddy Jr.) So did Eisenhower’s son. Some of them (especially Teddy Jr.) served in highly dangerous operations.
Since then? I absolutely agree with you.
Remember this folks.
We live in a world where
10 men hijacked 4 airplanes and eventually killed everyone on board and 1000s on the ground, including themselves , the people they killed they considered their enemy and the world we live in calls them ‘cowards’.
Meanwhile 100s of men and women sit in absolute safety in the western US controlling drones half way around the world, dropping bombs killing people they consider the enemy and the world we live in calls them ‘heros’.
War is all a matter of perspective.
Which is why I hate it when we glorify war.
From an old war vet ….”‘Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident. Then there are the wolves that feed on the sheep without mercy. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial. Then there are sheepdogs, and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.” It’s obvious by the responses who the… Read more »
@Tom: you made a very common mistake. I never said don’t glorify the men and women who defend out nations. I said don’t glorify war. there is a huge difference. And quite frankly it is the same difference but on opposite sides of the political spectrum that people who protest against the soldiers instead of against the war.
BTW, 32 years of military service here so I ain’t no sheep and I am not naive enough to believe that war are waged for reasons other than the stated ones.
Hey John, God bless ya …. Many confuse honoring the military with honoring the war or try to make the two the same. You and I know that’s purposeful propaganda. Men win wars and they are the ones that are to forever be honored.
I kinda figured you weren’t a sheep.
Every nation that wishes to survive MUST glorify its military- the only real guarantee of its existence.
Being part of an elite combat unit, where success hinges upon training, team work, strength and endurance is one aspect of masculinity that is visceral and obvious. Why not celebrate an endeavour where being a man and exhibiting a specialised subset of the qualities of men promotes success? Considering governments make countries go to war, not the individual soldiers and not even the civilian voters, the responsibility for the deaths lies with the politicians, not these well-trained men.
Well said. The problem stems from the fact our leaders don’t respect us, and they’re living in the past. They have little idea how to deal with the unique problems our future will bring.
rapses. There was a post on nation building. Having said we need to kill and kill to win a war–the other side isn’t going to quit until they’re convinced they’re beaten and that takes a lot of killing–the commando/specops guys are useful in operations-not-exactly-war. Somebody, for example, was likely lasing the nuke site the Syrians didn’t have that the IAF didn’t destroy several years ago. Somebody will be wandering around Iran gathering intel, and possibly knocking off relevant Basij or IRGC officers. Keeping opposing forces from getting organized to start a real war is a good thing. And while there… Read more »
That is true you have to convince the other side that they are beaten by killing great many of their fighters. Even a small batch of determined insurgents can really create very big problem.
You solve that problem by shocking the enemy, his culture, his army, his society so badly that there are no replacements from among them for the last band of insurgents.
The famous quote of Genghis Khan is really true. “It is not sufficient that I win. Others must lose.”
And be convinced they lost.
Case in point – Japan 1945. The entire country was gearing up for a war of attrition fought on Japanese soil. All citizens (no matter what age or gender) were going to be soldiers. Iwo Jima wasnt enough to shock them. Nor was Okinawa. The incendiary bombing of Tokyo didn’t change their resolve. Not even the first atomic bomb changed the strategy. It took the Nagasaki bomb to sufficiently demonstrate that they faced either the inevitable elimination of their culture against an overwhelming force. Only then did they accept their fate.
In order to avoid the horrors they’d experienced on the Western Front in WW I, the Brits in the subsequent round kept looking for the magic bullet. The horseshoe nail. The choke point. The one thing that, if destroyed, the Germans could not do without and would therefore have to crumble. They tried it with sabotage. They tried it with skilled bomber crews–Dambusters–and wonder weapons such as Tallboy and Grand Slam. We and they bombed Ploesti up until the end of the war and managed to slow but not stop its production of fuel. There is no such thing. To… Read more »
I take it you mean WW2 in the first part.
-Pursuit.
The Brits refer to WW I as “the great war”, generally, and WW II as “the 39-45 war” In the second go-round, they only lost half a million men, as opposed to a million in “the great war”. For a long time, the former had a much greater social impact, so I’ve heard.
So, yeah, “subsequent round” is WW II.
Oh hello. Maybe I should learn how to read again. Sorry about that. Didn’t know that about the Brits referring to WW2 as the 39-45 war. Interesting.
here in the uk for those of us over 35,
ww1 is called either ww1 or ‘the great war’
ww2 is called either ww2 or ‘the war’. (39 to 45) might be a military term amongst uk soldiers, as it is not in common use
i dont know what the under 30 brits would use, im guessing now just ww1 and ww2
here in the uk for those of us over 35,
ww1 is called either ww1 or ‘the great war’
ww2 is called either ww2 or ‘the war’.
with the younger the person is (and also less exposed to history), the more likely they are to use only ww1 and ww2. i myself use all four terms equally, though my use of ‘the great war’ would be to show erudition
In the second go-round, they only lost half a million men, as opposed to a million in “the great war”. For a long time, the former had a much greater social impact, so I’ve heard. Yeah, both wars coming in such short time had a massive impact. My understanding is this(and from a Uk perspective): The wars were civilisational-ending in Europe. The wars brought about a collapse in the old order, the horrors of the war made people great and small question the very foundations of their world: 1. Christianity, the existence of god – where was god amongst all… Read more »
Poul Anderson had one of his characters say that WW I was Europe cutting its own throat. History since then has been a long dying.
@ Richard I completely agree. During my brief stint in army I learned that commando actions are only effective to a certain extent. After the element of surprise is lost, a direct assault is the only option. These operations cannot win the war. In a war the only principle is to “kill or get killed.” Former should be your priority and latter an eventuality. It is political leadership that surrenders and never the army. Soldiers are under the oath of fighting till the last man is alive. Therefore to win a war it is essential to be willing to kill… Read more »
These eleite units are sexy now becuase well, they do dramatic things and also, and more to the point, however much each slodier costs, the units are far CHEAPER than amintaining convnetional forces. But you nail it by saying that war is about grinding down the enemy. Some wars are just little squabbles between elites, and elite forces can swoop in SWAT style and decapitate the enemy. Some are national wars and require mass mobilzation of resources and years of maneuvering. And some are tribale wars, in which the womb is the ultimate weapon and success is measured in settling… Read more »
Every time I read something by the left on the military, I start to get scared. The left is in charge now and will be in the future. It needs to understand the military cultural, the warrior ethos, basic strategy, basic tactics, and what’s a valid mission and what isn’t. The left has more to bring to the table, but won’t be able to do so if they don’t or can’t understand the topic. And yeah, I know, the right has been a cluster at times as well. Maybe everyone needs to do a 2 to 4 year tour to… Read more »
Since when does “the right” own military culture?
I don’t see anyone “owning” the military culture. It is what it is. A reality based animal of unique characteristics. The left doesn’t seem to understand it. The right assumes it does and gets it wrong as well. The left has brought some great things to the military. In order to continue that influence I think they need a better understanding of what the US military is. They approach it with way too much bias.
Maybe it’s not that “the left” doesn’t understand it, maybe it’s that “the left” either disagrees with, or has ideas about, its execution. This notion that “the left doesn’t understand” the military has been very usefully exploited by the right in the same way they’ve muzzled soldiers from expressing their views so that they could tell people that all soldiers have right-wing views. It’s a spurious and despicable notion that honours no one involved, especially the men and women in uniform upon whom the right has projected their own opinions and ascribed them to the soldiers, who are muzzled from… Read more »
OK. How about the left stop pretending they don’t understand the military. That would help. So let’s start with execution. What would be something the left would disagree with? Also, the muzzling of the military…Are you saying that any military member should give their opinion openly? Would it be OK if they were fired then? Would any subject be allowed? When the military is given a mission they don’t believe in should any military member just refuse to execute it and just fall on their career sword? These are real questions not snark.