US Marines in Afghanistan caused a stir last week when an online video leaked of soldiers urinating on a Taliban corpse. The issue has been the subject of controversy and exhaustive media attention, but I can’t help but feel like the dialogue over this controversy is decidedly misguided.
Dubbed by comedian Bill Mahr “Urinationgate,” the debacle has been a firestorm involving just about everyone at the top. The Obama Administration has publically condemned the acts and, never ones to agree with the incumbent president, GOP candidates like Rick Perry have condemned the condemning.
What should be taken from this headline, though, is not political rhetoric, but rather a second thought about America’s wartime machine. As readers of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” may remember, the teenage characters of the novel, ripped from society and thrown into the jungles of Vietnam, too engage in occasional corpse-disrespecting activity. This behavior, in addition to a newly desensitized attitude, is a product of war, not a deviation from it.
As Ron Reiner rightfully put it, “war does make people a little crazy.” That’s what Americans are too ready to forget when watching from the sidelines. As is, our military system recruits 18 year-olds who are completely developed neither emotionally nor cognitively, sends them into hostile, traumatic situations that alter one’s thinking for life, and feigns shock when the psychological damage results in something like this video.
In 2008, the Pentagon lowered recruitment standards for the Army and Marines, even taking measures to waive more criminal records. The intention: avoid drafting civilians to fill the countless positions demanded by two Middle Eastern wars. Perhaps unsurprisingly, recruiting 18 year olds (increasing quantities of them generally under qualified) to fight overseas does have its consequences.
Prior to deployment, adolescent sensitivity to death is an issue we civilians can relate to. Once engaged in battle, though, sensitivity levels take a dramatic dip and we can no longer judge them as if we see eye to eye. And yet that’s just what we do.
American citizens like to pretend that wars are demonstrative examples of patriotism. When proof that it is rather an egregious corruption of our youth emerges, though, discomfort ensues. In the wake of this video leak, we should be discussing proverbial cake—specifically how we can’t have it and eat it too. If the government wants to fight two wars, utilizing impressionable adults and lowering recruitment standards, they should blame themselves for the backlash that inevitably occurs.
In the wake of this incident, its time to rethink our military presence and remember that just because we can’t see war doesn’t mean we can distance ourselves from its realities.