I've looked through all the boxes of books, thinking that there might be some papers in them, but I still can't find the articles. I did find some books though that I can scan in pages from for the blog. For example, I mentioned the history atlas from the DDR (East Germany) that makes Martin Luther out to be a revolutionary; that's one of the books I found.
But for now I'll start chapter 4, which has ca. 50 pages of text followed by 15 p. of footnotes. I'm not going to use the footnotes here, but I just mention that because it's the kind of book that has references and the like. I'm just skipping over them for the purposes of our discussion here.
***
Chapter 4 of The Taming of the Troops
Co-optive Rational Control Through Behavioral Science Management
***
"The most nonconfrontive of domination on the social control continuum is based on two, but usually compatible principles. One is the liberal principle of inclusion and co-optation, and the other is the principle of rationalization - the application of social scientific knowledge to redesign human relations." (p. 88)
Basically, co-optation, as the author describes it with examples and the like, would be like giving dissidents a chance to air their grievances, so then just by virtue of having "been listened to" they are somewhat pacified and then on top of it, the army will make some other improvement completely unrelated to the grievance, and that co-opts the dissidents.
The rationalization part is the use of aptitude tests and the like to match soldiers to specific positions.
I've skipped over a lot here, because it doesn't seem to apply to Vienna. However, here's an interesting tidbit to chew on:
***
"In educational background, dissidents are more likely to have had college training than typical Army soldiers. Those having college training were most often listed as organizing dissident activities, whereas high-school graduates tended toward less serious activities." (p. 106)
I don't think this applies to Vienna either. I think I was the closest thing there was to a dissident, at least during my tenure there, and I certainly wasn't among the most educated there. I didn't even have a master's degree at that point yet, and the place was swarming with people with Th.M. and Th.D. degrees (masters and doctorate of theology).
***
"Officers could monitor potential dissidents or transfer them to some position where they would have little responsibility or contact with other soldiers. They could be kept out of power or sensitive positions, such as intelligence, aviation, or military advisers to foreign nations." (p. 107).
I was eventually side-lined in Vienna, and I also often didn't have much work to do, and the thinking described here is probably part of the reason, but there are other approaches to describing my experience than what is given here. Hopefully we'll get to them. But this reasoning here isn't completely off-base as far as my experience in Vienna is concerned.
***
After a discussion of attitude studies in the Army, the author has this to say:
"Why is such detailed information so important? Subordinated people have complex attitudes: they may, at the same moment, hold contradictory conceptions of themselves. For example, if a GI is continually told he is lowly and worthless and it is always demonstrated to him what an incompetent bumbler he is, then he beings to accept this image and to view himself in the same terms his "superiors" use to define him. He may indeed feel that he could not run the Army any better than it is already being run, and that he really is not enough of a man to measure up to Army traditions. Repression produces a feeling of worthlessness in the repressed. But simultaneously, repressed people are often conscious of their powerlessness, and they resent those who have power over them." (p. 111)
I won't say I was constantly berated like in the army, but somehow the process did result in some of the reactions described in this chapter. Except in my case fear was also a big thing, more than anger.
The author continues this discussion showing how this process can lead to an intense one-person revolt. Then he refers to Hegel:
"Hegel argues that the most important struggle is within the slave's own mind, rather than between the master and the slave. I think this interpretation of reactions to oppressive conditions is what is missing when idealism and psychopathology are given as the only reasons for resistance." (p. 111)
It sounds like there are 3 possible internal bases, on a personal scale, for responses to repressive situations: 1) from an ideological basis; 2) from a psychopathological basis (e.g., insanity); and 3) an internal struggle between being made to feel incompetent and his resentment of those over him.
I think I came from the first of these, but there are people who would prefer to say I am coming from the 2nd or 3rd basis. It's possible that the third one was used a bit in socialization, to break newcomers guards down. I certainly experienced it, but I'm not sure how widespread that was.
***
Here's one that's not related to Vienna:
"Officers, reflecting their more educated backgrounds, feel that since soldiers are resisting the army, they must be highly political and ideological and opposed to imperialism and to United States policy." (p. 115)
Are the officers really that brash about being pro-U.S. imperialism? I would definitely make a very terrible soldier on that count alone!
***
And continuing directly from that quote:
"The real explanation is precisely the reverse. Soldiers resist the Army because they find it oppressive. They do not like regimentation, pretty uses of authority, constant, useless formations and marches, and, to them, ridiculous constraints on their lifestyle. Once they express their hatred of the Army, then they are predisposed to think in more ideological terms. They being to search for a justification to legitimate their feelings because they feel no civilian would support their resistance in merely the kinds of terms that preserving their own humanity would require... So being anti-war or anti-imperialist is often the consequences of being anti-Army." (p. 115)
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Humanity is over-rated anyway, who needs it? It's really nice and pleasant to be treated like a robot...
Have you ever read the book "We" by Zamyatin? It's a satire along the lines of Animal Farm, but pokes fun at totalitarian regimes. Zamyatin predated Orwell and influenced his work. Anyway, this book is great for considering life as a human robot. It's probably almost as fun as life in the Army.
But getting back to Vienna...
My responses to what I was experiencing in Vienna probably had a tinge (or more) of wanting to preserve my own humanity. And the experiences that I've had in the last couple decades have very much been a cause of trying to understand them and thus developing changes in my ideology. I don't know that I've thought about it like this, but it's very possible that I've had hatred for those people in Vienna for how I was treated. Initially, upon arrival in Vienna, I didn't react so much to how I was being treated, but to how the mission seemed to operate. But eventually as my experiences indicated that I was being singled out for bad treatment my reaction became more personal. My problem, unlike the hypothetical resister in the Army was not so much whether a "civilian" would support my resistance, but whether those back home would even believe me... which wasn't helped by the fact that it was so hard for me to even explain what happened.
I must admit that my becoming a pacifist was initially because of my own treatment in situations that I feel were aggravated by virtue of me being my father's daughter. But I also see the things that affected me as having somewhat systemic roots, so it's not just for myself, but that I've had a glimpse into some awful things that are built into the system, sort of like a dormant virus as far as some specific emanations of the system are concerned. By "system" I mean things like the missions and military-related systems, but which are actually part of larger systems, like the missions being emanations of western evangelical Christianity. These missions, for example, didn't just sprout up from a vacuum and it's the churches back home that support them.
***
"...the Army's reluctance to present strongly ideological propaganda to its troops is a result of a variety of forces in addition to survey research, such as the civilian furor resulting a few years ago from General Edwin A. Walker's extreme right-wing ideological indoctrination programs." (p. 116)
ECM didn't have any such inhibitions or external constraints regarding right-wing ideological indoctrination, albeit it was a very minor part of the Candidate's Course. I don't know that I remember anything like this from SGA, though.
***
In this section, the author discusses some changes in the leadership style that took effect in the 70s. He finished discussing some things that are becoming more lax, but now introduces new aspects being add to the leadership repertoire.
"The change is one from a fatherly role to closer to a counselor, therapist or labor-relations expert. The change is partly one of a different attitude towards soldiers. Since many soldiers seem unwilling to learn 'followership,' the leader cannot deal with them as dependent, loyal, but errant children, but, rather, must see them as a potentially oppositional class.
..."According to a West Point leadership text... nondirective counseling is the best approach... In this way the soldier should not feel that anyone is trying to manipulate him or sway him. Nondirective counseling allows a wide range of sentiments to be expressed and many kinds of complaints can be aired. An officer could give the impression that he will redress these grievances or otherwise correct the problem, or he could deal with the soldier as a therapist, helping him surmount his maladaptive behavior and feelings.
...This emphasis on understanding social psychological processes is apparent in The AWOL Soldier - a Challenge to Leadership... This pamphlet is typical of many recent Army leadership documents that de-emphasize punishment and emphasize getting the men to set standards for themselves through exploiting knowledge of their motivations." (p. 125-126)
It's possible that this was one approach to leadership in Vienna, although there were "punishments" (negative reinforcements) in play there too, although the leadership would probably deny any use of these things. But it sure felt like it anyway, and I think this may have been used with other new people too, but not to the extent it was with me. They did use a kind of counseling approach though, and I think it wasn't uncommon for secretaries to go to their bosses for spiritual guidance and help with personal problems, for example. I didn't really do this though. I don't remember ever talking about personal problems with my boss, although it's possible I did, but if so, probably regarding something incidental.
***
"Democratic, decentralized organizations have high morale, respond well to changing conditions, and are quite productive in certain kinds of tasks. Instead, with co-optive techniques, the Army tries to create an illusion of the unity of officers and men but not the reality. Without a true unity of purpose and a diffusion of power, co-optive techniques can be only a smokescreen for class relationships." (p. 127)
This author really cuts to the chase here, and I find it refreshing. I am not sure that the Vienna mission was co-optive, although the leadership may at times may have used these approaches, and it was certainly not democratic and didn't claim to be.
***
There was a lot in this chapter that I just zipped through and didn't see at all relevant and even what I did get out of the chapter wasn't anywhere near as helpful as the previous one was, as far as a tool for making sense of my experiences is concerned. The next chapter is a shorter one, but I'll pick it up next time.
Good night.
~ Meg
Showing posts with label dissidents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dissidents. Show all posts
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
82. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 7 (Radine, pt. 1)
I guess I really should at least get one more text done today. It's not that I haven't been working on this today, it's just that it's been more behind the scenes work. Now I think there are 2 articles I can't find. So that makes me think I may have more material stashed somewhere, so I've started rummaging through things trying to figure out where that might be.
I don't know if you know what it's like to move and then not be able to find everything for a while afterward... well it's like that, except I've had 2 moves back to back where a lot of things weren't unpacked between moves. I got handy the things I use all the time, but when I was arranging things for ready access to what I thought I would need, I didn't know I would need these things yet. I thought I'd get better quicker and be able to get a part-time job sooner. With my health demands and limits working part-time might not make it so feasible to work on this blog, certainly not as much as I have been.
Also, I have bad news on the garden front. I haven't heard back from the the extension people yet, but I'm getting more and more problems with the squash and cucumbers, so I'm seriously considering just digging them up. The good news, though, is that more of the plants from the butterfly garden seed packet that I planted have started blooming. Some are still just coming up too, so there will definitely be more to come. I would have felt badly if the flowers came out as badly as the vegetables seem to have, since it's something I did for the neighbor and not for myself. It's one thing for things to bomb out if you're doing it for yourself, and it's another thing if you're doing it for someone else.
***
Okay, the next one is a big one, so fasten your seat belts...
Radine, Lawrence B. (1977). The Taming of the Troops: Social Control in the United States Army. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. (Contributions in Sociology, No. 2)
***
"Manipulative controls are difficult to recognize because they are subtle and rational and seem liberal in contrast to coercive controls....
The Taming of the Troops develops two key themes: (1) the overall shift in Army controls from coercion to manipulation and (2) the change in military controls to more closely resemble civilian controls... The result is an organization that, in my opinion, is all the more capable of controlling deviant and politically outspoken soldiers....
Furthermore, some of the techniques developed in the Army have been borrowed by civilian sectors... Some leadership and organizational principles discussed in this book have been taken up by industrial organizations... [T]he Army can be viewed as a vanguard bureaucracy in the development of new techniques of control, as well as a recipient of civilian controls." (p. ix-xi)
This is a little different tack then we've taken before. We saw earlier that there were some authoritarian aspects of the Vienna mission, but this might go further in explaining some things I experienced. We'll see if the Vienna mission picked up any military approaches to things.
***
"This pattern of increasing oppressiveness is effective because repression is difficult to respond to when it is applied in small increments; no one step is sufficient cause to rally opposition around... Thus, repression on the installment plan can institute a form of domination that would almost inevitably be resisted if one of the later steps were applied to early... Thus, there is an internal logic to techniques of domination: they are most effective when applied in a sequential pattern." (p. 4)
A couple of things here. First of all, I don't know how the mission in Vienna got to be the way it was. Since it was an agglomeration of a bunch of missions, I assume you'd have to look to those founding missions, and then the others as they were added too, and the governing board, which met twice a year. Those of us who came after it was well up and running didn't see that incremental aspect, if it existed.
As far as how I personally was treated - my experience of the mission - I don't see anything incremental about it. Rather, I see a patchwork hodgepodge of back to back encouragement and being knocked down. As such, it was hard to make sense of, as far as what was really wanted of me. That's how I felt.
***
"If an individual resister is considered to be a security risk, evidenced by his having belonged to a subversive organization or committing certain politically motivated acts, his personnel file is flagged. His file is thus spotted as belonging to someone whom the Army will not assign to certain positions, such as missile duty, Army intelligence, and so forth." (p. 7)
About the only thing I could have been flagged for before arriving in Vienna is disagreeing with some of the things the Slavic Gospel Association did. Unfortunately, they were a very powerful mission and one of the founding missions of the collaborative mission I was assigned to work with. ECM, my sending mission, knew of these issues from discussions during Candidates' Course, so that probably followed me there. But I don't think they thought they'd have any problems with me. Maybe I'm just too American for my own good - after all that's why we fight most of our wars, isn't it (at least on paper). so we can keep our freedom. I just happen to like thinking for myself, especially where values are concerned.
But to be honest, they could have been as puzzled about me (what I was thinking) as I was of their behavior toward me. And in going through my materials, what little I have left, of that time, I see that I seem to have seldom let on what I was really thinking. I think that was because I didn't trust them and there was a certain amount of fear of them too, although not right away.
Although I'm currently not involved in anything, after my return to the States from Russia I did quite a lot that would have flagged me as a potential troublemaker. For example, I hadn't yet been arrested for trespassing on Lockheed-Martin's property in a protest near Philadelphia. We just stepped foot on the grass and were arrested for trespassing.
***
"As we shall see in the next chapter, basic trainees are usually too psychologically disorganized and overwhelmed to think of formulating a coherent resistive response." (p. 8)
Since we already know I never left the boot camp/introductory socialization phase in Vienna, I think this is a pretty good one-sentence summary of why it would have been very difficult for me to openly protest. At least part of why it would have been difficult. I didn't understand it myself at the time, which is why years later when my life just seemed to go from bad to worse (well, maybe awful to more awful), I did the research that I'm sharing with you now. It really was hard to make heads or tails of what was going on.
And I'm also generally the kind that doesn't stand up for something unless I'm pretty well convinced I'm right and I have something good to back up my position too. I was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school, and that summer, since I could work full time with no school commitments, I was in charge of pictures and pets - two small departments. That meant I had to do the ordering, keep the shelves looking nice, set up displays for sales, etc. However, I didn't have to do this all the time, so I also worked a lot in the garden shop, home improvement and building materials departments. The garden shop manager had been asking me to help him a lot and I always tried to accommodate, but it was getting so that I was neglecting my departments and we were in the back room, where the ordering was done, and I stood up for myself and laid out what had been happening and said I couldn't right then. It just so happened that the marketing manager was in the room too and heard the whole thing and nothing else was said about it. I think Randy was pretty taken aback that I'd be so firm and logical in my response.
But I couldn't do that in Vienna because, beside the issues being a lot bigger, I didn't understand what was going on well enough and I felt like anything to make myself vulnerable was just an opportunity for them to just sort of swoop down and snatch me away. Well, not exactly, but it would give them an in, a hook to drag me into this thing that I didn't think I wanted to conform to. That's how I felt, although I'm probably being clearer in expressing it now than I could have then.
***
"Many people maintain a fiction of their omnipotence: they feel that if they were really committed to something, they were not back down to any power. But GIs I have interviewed have asserted that the Army, at least during basic training, seems to be interested in destroying that self-confident state of mind that is so important for resistance." (p. 8)
The GIs should be glad boot camp lasted only 8 weeks (or however long), because I had this kind of treatment for 2 years!! I know it's not exactly the same - the other components of boot camp, but this part is strikingly familiar to me. In my 1989-1990 journal after returning home I laid bare and even wrote that I was afraid to even write my true thoughts in Vienna, and I was devastated, convinced that I had all these bad qualities that had finally sunk in from those 2 years.
Of course, then the question is, if it was that bad, why did you stick it out even? Well, getting out wouldn't have been quite as hard as trying to get out of the military early, but it would have been pretty hard. Think about it: I had prepared for 8 years (1978 to 1986) for that ministry. I had worked part-time with one of the most influential missions to that world and had major ethical disagreements with them. I had written a questionnaire to 30+ missions to that part of the world and only 2 had responses that I thought were at all reasonable. So what would I have done if I'd left? In fact, when I did leave, after my 2-year term had expired, I eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn't work with a mission, although even when I was in Russian I contacted a couple groups working with women.
***
"Rather than being carefully assigned, a flagged soldier may temporarily be unassigned to any permanent work detail or base but held in what is called a holdover company. Thus while everyone he knows is sent off to various bases, he exists in a kind of limbo, unable to develop his organization or maintain contacts." (p. 10)
This could very easily have been written with me in mind. Technically, I had a position, but I wasn't treated as if that was really what they wanted... Sort of like how the Komsomols (Young Communist League) got me to Siberia a few years later. Be upfront people... what do you REALLY want? I'm ready to be a secretary; I brought my little secretary handbook, which I assiduously studied before arriving. I offered to take a computer class, but couldn't be told what software I'd be using. And being a secretary is more or less 9-5, right? I mean, okay, you have other little things that need doing here and there, social interactions and helping others, but otherwise, I'm not supposed to be a secretary, right? My job descriptions says I'm a secretary, right? Right? Hello? Hello? That's a little of how I felt.
***
Speaking of the experience of some organizers in the Army: "The Army labeled the incoming organizer as a troublemaker by telling company members that a communist was being transferred into their unit" (p. 12)
I had a friend, the same one that was with me in leaving the USSR after we'd left our study group, who was from a small rural town in the Northeast (USA) who said that sometimes people there thought she was a communist for studying Russian. When I returned from Russia for good in 1997 and people who knew me began to realized that my socio-political views had changed I think there was some of this labeling of me going on, but not so much to my face. Of course, some people in the USA seem to be think that in order to be saved you also have to be a Republican. They might not say that, but it's true. And if you're not a fire-breathing die-hard Republican they'll just as likely treat you as a sinner going to hell, even though you may be otherwise a strong Christian.
***
After some discussion about how the Army escalates its treatment of organizers, leading to harassing inspections which can turn up evidence that can lead to direct punishment:
"This demonstrates the usefulness of a military justice system in which substantive law is based on protecting the organization from the individual rather than the reverse." (p. 14)
In the Vienna mission there was NO protection for the individual. In fact, I was very much let down by my sending church's mission board who did nothing in my defense, even writing to the mission or anything. There was absolutely no recourse for a missionary in that setting. The only thing you could ever have had any recourse about is if they blatantly broke the law. But there's a whole machinery in place to support and defend the mission, and the business of that machinery does not include a system of redress. Heck, if I get a secular job and I have a complaint against my boss, there is a whole grievance procedure in place as to how to deal with it. Not so in the Vienna mission. Thee is no recourse, none, zip, nada, and zilch. None.
***
"The training military intelligence men receive for handling enemy prisoners of war can easily be put to use in intimidating anti-war GIs." (p. 14)
I've wondered since leaving Vienna what exactly military chaplains do. I mean, I have copies even of some of the manuals explaining how they are supposed to lead religious services according to their church's tradition, when in port make contact with religious leaders there, etc., etc. I do know that they're supposed to be part of the system to keep the morale and the morals high. And they do advise other officers on certain issues in their sphere of work. So it seems they must have to know something about the military and support what it does. This is the kind of think in adult education I didn't like (I wasn't in this aspect of adult education but it's strong in the USA and elsewhere), that human resource development is really ultimately there to build up the organization, so you're like that propaganda person in the Soviet factory, right? And does the mindset of the military rub off on these chaplains? What kinds of things might the 2 chaplains in the Vienna mission human resource office have brought with them from their military experience. I haven't found good answers from the literature.
***
"[The Defense Investigative Review]'s director has testified that every request to carry out 'covert surveillance' on a GI anti-war group has been granted." (p. 16)
Those are even worse odds than civilian activists are confronted with. I wish I knew some of the laws and loopholes about things that affected (or seemed to) me later on.
***
"Given the vagueness of military law, even the most competent organizer can be arrested eventually by a military authority." (p. 16)
Sounds a bit like what dissidents in the former USSR faced. Not that things are completely cleaned up now, but they're certainly a lot better than they were there. But Putin hasn't exactly been a friend of dissidents.
***
Here we are! -
"And at another base, Actions 'that have been taken to minimize the impact of dissident activities' included the following:
... (4)... Counterintelligence efforts have been used for the early identification of dissidence and violence...
(7) Under the sponsorship of the local Chaplaincy, an on-post coffee house activity was initiated in 1969." (p. 26-27)
A couple of things here. First of all, it's nice that they put that in about the Chaplaincy. So the chaplain is involved in quashing dissident activities and religion is a nice guise to do that in. The text goes on to explain how the coffee house did actually provide an outlet for gripes to be aired, which helped reduce tensions that might have otherwise surfaced in less helpful ways.
But also, I would like to bring up another subject that I've wondered for years and my dad consistently balked at, preferring to think of me as mentally unstable, is that there were times when things happened that were otherwise not your everyday occurrence and I wondered if there wasn't something political going on. I mean, really, us Westerners find it much easier to believe that my phone was bugged in Russia than, say, in Vienna. I never thought it was bugged in the USA though. But there were other things in the USA that were puzzling.
Of course, the military has it's own laws and rules, which are quite distinct from the civilian counterparts, but if the issue of concern is my dad, and he's in a responsible, high visibility military-related position... if such things were to happen as seemed to happen to me, would that military connection be enough to have whatever loopholes are available take effect? I don't know.
***
I've finished the first chapter (we have 6 more to go), but it's time for me to take a break.
~ Meg
I don't know if you know what it's like to move and then not be able to find everything for a while afterward... well it's like that, except I've had 2 moves back to back where a lot of things weren't unpacked between moves. I got handy the things I use all the time, but when I was arranging things for ready access to what I thought I would need, I didn't know I would need these things yet. I thought I'd get better quicker and be able to get a part-time job sooner. With my health demands and limits working part-time might not make it so feasible to work on this blog, certainly not as much as I have been.
Also, I have bad news on the garden front. I haven't heard back from the the extension people yet, but I'm getting more and more problems with the squash and cucumbers, so I'm seriously considering just digging them up. The good news, though, is that more of the plants from the butterfly garden seed packet that I planted have started blooming. Some are still just coming up too, so there will definitely be more to come. I would have felt badly if the flowers came out as badly as the vegetables seem to have, since it's something I did for the neighbor and not for myself. It's one thing for things to bomb out if you're doing it for yourself, and it's another thing if you're doing it for someone else.
***
Okay, the next one is a big one, so fasten your seat belts...
Radine, Lawrence B. (1977). The Taming of the Troops: Social Control in the United States Army. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. (Contributions in Sociology, No. 2)
***
"Manipulative controls are difficult to recognize because they are subtle and rational and seem liberal in contrast to coercive controls....
The Taming of the Troops develops two key themes: (1) the overall shift in Army controls from coercion to manipulation and (2) the change in military controls to more closely resemble civilian controls... The result is an organization that, in my opinion, is all the more capable of controlling deviant and politically outspoken soldiers....
Furthermore, some of the techniques developed in the Army have been borrowed by civilian sectors... Some leadership and organizational principles discussed in this book have been taken up by industrial organizations... [T]he Army can be viewed as a vanguard bureaucracy in the development of new techniques of control, as well as a recipient of civilian controls." (p. ix-xi)
This is a little different tack then we've taken before. We saw earlier that there were some authoritarian aspects of the Vienna mission, but this might go further in explaining some things I experienced. We'll see if the Vienna mission picked up any military approaches to things.
***
"This pattern of increasing oppressiveness is effective because repression is difficult to respond to when it is applied in small increments; no one step is sufficient cause to rally opposition around... Thus, repression on the installment plan can institute a form of domination that would almost inevitably be resisted if one of the later steps were applied to early... Thus, there is an internal logic to techniques of domination: they are most effective when applied in a sequential pattern." (p. 4)
A couple of things here. First of all, I don't know how the mission in Vienna got to be the way it was. Since it was an agglomeration of a bunch of missions, I assume you'd have to look to those founding missions, and then the others as they were added too, and the governing board, which met twice a year. Those of us who came after it was well up and running didn't see that incremental aspect, if it existed.
As far as how I personally was treated - my experience of the mission - I don't see anything incremental about it. Rather, I see a patchwork hodgepodge of back to back encouragement and being knocked down. As such, it was hard to make sense of, as far as what was really wanted of me. That's how I felt.
***
"If an individual resister is considered to be a security risk, evidenced by his having belonged to a subversive organization or committing certain politically motivated acts, his personnel file is flagged. His file is thus spotted as belonging to someone whom the Army will not assign to certain positions, such as missile duty, Army intelligence, and so forth." (p. 7)
About the only thing I could have been flagged for before arriving in Vienna is disagreeing with some of the things the Slavic Gospel Association did. Unfortunately, they were a very powerful mission and one of the founding missions of the collaborative mission I was assigned to work with. ECM, my sending mission, knew of these issues from discussions during Candidates' Course, so that probably followed me there. But I don't think they thought they'd have any problems with me. Maybe I'm just too American for my own good - after all that's why we fight most of our wars, isn't it (at least on paper). so we can keep our freedom. I just happen to like thinking for myself, especially where values are concerned.
But to be honest, they could have been as puzzled about me (what I was thinking) as I was of their behavior toward me. And in going through my materials, what little I have left, of that time, I see that I seem to have seldom let on what I was really thinking. I think that was because I didn't trust them and there was a certain amount of fear of them too, although not right away.
Although I'm currently not involved in anything, after my return to the States from Russia I did quite a lot that would have flagged me as a potential troublemaker. For example, I hadn't yet been arrested for trespassing on Lockheed-Martin's property in a protest near Philadelphia. We just stepped foot on the grass and were arrested for trespassing.
***
"As we shall see in the next chapter, basic trainees are usually too psychologically disorganized and overwhelmed to think of formulating a coherent resistive response." (p. 8)
Since we already know I never left the boot camp/introductory socialization phase in Vienna, I think this is a pretty good one-sentence summary of why it would have been very difficult for me to openly protest. At least part of why it would have been difficult. I didn't understand it myself at the time, which is why years later when my life just seemed to go from bad to worse (well, maybe awful to more awful), I did the research that I'm sharing with you now. It really was hard to make heads or tails of what was going on.
And I'm also generally the kind that doesn't stand up for something unless I'm pretty well convinced I'm right and I have something good to back up my position too. I was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school, and that summer, since I could work full time with no school commitments, I was in charge of pictures and pets - two small departments. That meant I had to do the ordering, keep the shelves looking nice, set up displays for sales, etc. However, I didn't have to do this all the time, so I also worked a lot in the garden shop, home improvement and building materials departments. The garden shop manager had been asking me to help him a lot and I always tried to accommodate, but it was getting so that I was neglecting my departments and we were in the back room, where the ordering was done, and I stood up for myself and laid out what had been happening and said I couldn't right then. It just so happened that the marketing manager was in the room too and heard the whole thing and nothing else was said about it. I think Randy was pretty taken aback that I'd be so firm and logical in my response.
But I couldn't do that in Vienna because, beside the issues being a lot bigger, I didn't understand what was going on well enough and I felt like anything to make myself vulnerable was just an opportunity for them to just sort of swoop down and snatch me away. Well, not exactly, but it would give them an in, a hook to drag me into this thing that I didn't think I wanted to conform to. That's how I felt, although I'm probably being clearer in expressing it now than I could have then.
***
"Many people maintain a fiction of their omnipotence: they feel that if they were really committed to something, they were not back down to any power. But GIs I have interviewed have asserted that the Army, at least during basic training, seems to be interested in destroying that self-confident state of mind that is so important for resistance." (p. 8)
The GIs should be glad boot camp lasted only 8 weeks (or however long), because I had this kind of treatment for 2 years!! I know it's not exactly the same - the other components of boot camp, but this part is strikingly familiar to me. In my 1989-1990 journal after returning home I laid bare and even wrote that I was afraid to even write my true thoughts in Vienna, and I was devastated, convinced that I had all these bad qualities that had finally sunk in from those 2 years.
Of course, then the question is, if it was that bad, why did you stick it out even? Well, getting out wouldn't have been quite as hard as trying to get out of the military early, but it would have been pretty hard. Think about it: I had prepared for 8 years (1978 to 1986) for that ministry. I had worked part-time with one of the most influential missions to that world and had major ethical disagreements with them. I had written a questionnaire to 30+ missions to that part of the world and only 2 had responses that I thought were at all reasonable. So what would I have done if I'd left? In fact, when I did leave, after my 2-year term had expired, I eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn't work with a mission, although even when I was in Russian I contacted a couple groups working with women.
***
"Rather than being carefully assigned, a flagged soldier may temporarily be unassigned to any permanent work detail or base but held in what is called a holdover company. Thus while everyone he knows is sent off to various bases, he exists in a kind of limbo, unable to develop his organization or maintain contacts." (p. 10)
This could very easily have been written with me in mind. Technically, I had a position, but I wasn't treated as if that was really what they wanted... Sort of like how the Komsomols (Young Communist League) got me to Siberia a few years later. Be upfront people... what do you REALLY want? I'm ready to be a secretary; I brought my little secretary handbook, which I assiduously studied before arriving. I offered to take a computer class, but couldn't be told what software I'd be using. And being a secretary is more or less 9-5, right? I mean, okay, you have other little things that need doing here and there, social interactions and helping others, but otherwise, I'm not supposed to be a secretary, right? My job descriptions says I'm a secretary, right? Right? Hello? Hello? That's a little of how I felt.
***
Speaking of the experience of some organizers in the Army: "The Army labeled the incoming organizer as a troublemaker by telling company members that a communist was being transferred into their unit" (p. 12)
I had a friend, the same one that was with me in leaving the USSR after we'd left our study group, who was from a small rural town in the Northeast (USA) who said that sometimes people there thought she was a communist for studying Russian. When I returned from Russia for good in 1997 and people who knew me began to realized that my socio-political views had changed I think there was some of this labeling of me going on, but not so much to my face. Of course, some people in the USA seem to be think that in order to be saved you also have to be a Republican. They might not say that, but it's true. And if you're not a fire-breathing die-hard Republican they'll just as likely treat you as a sinner going to hell, even though you may be otherwise a strong Christian.
***
After some discussion about how the Army escalates its treatment of organizers, leading to harassing inspections which can turn up evidence that can lead to direct punishment:
"This demonstrates the usefulness of a military justice system in which substantive law is based on protecting the organization from the individual rather than the reverse." (p. 14)
In the Vienna mission there was NO protection for the individual. In fact, I was very much let down by my sending church's mission board who did nothing in my defense, even writing to the mission or anything. There was absolutely no recourse for a missionary in that setting. The only thing you could ever have had any recourse about is if they blatantly broke the law. But there's a whole machinery in place to support and defend the mission, and the business of that machinery does not include a system of redress. Heck, if I get a secular job and I have a complaint against my boss, there is a whole grievance procedure in place as to how to deal with it. Not so in the Vienna mission. Thee is no recourse, none, zip, nada, and zilch. None.
***
"The training military intelligence men receive for handling enemy prisoners of war can easily be put to use in intimidating anti-war GIs." (p. 14)
I've wondered since leaving Vienna what exactly military chaplains do. I mean, I have copies even of some of the manuals explaining how they are supposed to lead religious services according to their church's tradition, when in port make contact with religious leaders there, etc., etc. I do know that they're supposed to be part of the system to keep the morale and the morals high. And they do advise other officers on certain issues in their sphere of work. So it seems they must have to know something about the military and support what it does. This is the kind of think in adult education I didn't like (I wasn't in this aspect of adult education but it's strong in the USA and elsewhere), that human resource development is really ultimately there to build up the organization, so you're like that propaganda person in the Soviet factory, right? And does the mindset of the military rub off on these chaplains? What kinds of things might the 2 chaplains in the Vienna mission human resource office have brought with them from their military experience. I haven't found good answers from the literature.
***
"[The Defense Investigative Review]'s director has testified that every request to carry out 'covert surveillance' on a GI anti-war group has been granted." (p. 16)
Those are even worse odds than civilian activists are confronted with. I wish I knew some of the laws and loopholes about things that affected (or seemed to) me later on.
***
"Given the vagueness of military law, even the most competent organizer can be arrested eventually by a military authority." (p. 16)
Sounds a bit like what dissidents in the former USSR faced. Not that things are completely cleaned up now, but they're certainly a lot better than they were there. But Putin hasn't exactly been a friend of dissidents.
***
Here we are! -
"And at another base, Actions 'that have been taken to minimize the impact of dissident activities' included the following:
... (4)... Counterintelligence efforts have been used for the early identification of dissidence and violence...
(7) Under the sponsorship of the local Chaplaincy, an on-post coffee house activity was initiated in 1969." (p. 26-27)
A couple of things here. First of all, it's nice that they put that in about the Chaplaincy. So the chaplain is involved in quashing dissident activities and religion is a nice guise to do that in. The text goes on to explain how the coffee house did actually provide an outlet for gripes to be aired, which helped reduce tensions that might have otherwise surfaced in less helpful ways.
But also, I would like to bring up another subject that I've wondered for years and my dad consistently balked at, preferring to think of me as mentally unstable, is that there were times when things happened that were otherwise not your everyday occurrence and I wondered if there wasn't something political going on. I mean, really, us Westerners find it much easier to believe that my phone was bugged in Russia than, say, in Vienna. I never thought it was bugged in the USA though. But there were other things in the USA that were puzzling.
Of course, the military has it's own laws and rules, which are quite distinct from the civilian counterparts, but if the issue of concern is my dad, and he's in a responsible, high visibility military-related position... if such things were to happen as seemed to happen to me, would that military connection be enough to have whatever loopholes are available take effect? I don't know.
***
I've finished the first chapter (we have 6 more to go), but it's time for me to take a break.
~ Meg
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