188. Socialization File, Pt. 70 (Sutton & Louis., pt. 1)

I wanted to get back to talking about my dad, and it's possible I'll do this in dribs and drabs as things come to me that might be pertinent to inclusion here. In my last post devoted entirely to him you could have come away thinking he was virtually without flaws. (I forgot to mention that he didn't have a temper either. If he ever got angry when I was growing up he'd just go out for a walk. After that if something needed to dealt with, he did so calmly. But this was very rare, anyway.)

Of course in talking about flaws, I mean things I had issue with but other people may not agree with me, so this is very much a personal view and is about my relationship with my dad.

I think dad believed in his work and I don't have any indication that he any moral issues about it. Oh, I know, for example, he hated wearing a tie so that was irksome to him in his work, but that's not what I mean; I mean the big issue things like working as a defense contractor, working in star wars (SDI) in particular, the impact his work might have on his family.

Before he worked for Boeing he had been in the Air Force, having been called up by the draft at the end of the Korean War, although the war ended before he finished boot camp, so he never went overseas. But, as I understand it, that experience at some point got him pegged to work in aerospace at Boeing.

As you can undoubtedly understand, I tried to learn a bit more about what he did and I eventually came to the view that SDI wasn't very effective anyway and as such was a waste of tax payers money.

Well, be that as it may, dad had a job and I think he found some satisfaction in it as he got rewarded for doing good work. But over the years I've thought a lot about moral and ethical issues in various professions, and some professions I'd rule out as unethical in their very essence. One of the issues in anything military-related is how it might affect the family. At one point I tried to find out if there was a group or association out there of people like me who'd been affected negatively by family members (esp. parents) in military positions. I never found a group like that, but I've always wondered if anyone out there had every gone through anything like my troubles in trying to have a ministry in Eastern Europe. Of course, it would also depend on the type of military-related position too, as some positions might have more effects on family members than others.

Family members of the Vienna missionaries had restrictions put on them because of the nature of the mission work, but these were pretty well up front and commonly acknowledged. But what happens when one's work limits the professional opportunities of a family member, like a child? How does that then reflect on the morality of the position that results in the family member being limited? Or is that just a price we have to pay for the sake of the country (or democracy, or freedom, etc.)?

I understand that did did make some sacrifices for me, such as telling me once that it affected the type of contracts he could work on.

Well, the thing was that at every turn I seemed to have problems and I did everything I could, I was tenacious, I worked hard, but it never was enough. There was always something to block my way. Now it would probably be reckless of me, however, to presume that all of my troubles were related to my dad's work. But it's hard for me not to think that a good chunk of them were. I also don't know if he fully realized what I was experiencing or what was happening to me. He often tended to explain things away, unless there was something so obvious that he had to acknowledge something. That was the case when, after my return home from Vienna, I called the FBI to report the suspicious actions of a Soviet Goodwill Games guest, and when dad got the call from them at his work the next day we talked about it and he told me that sometimes the Soviets got a hold of employee lists. But this semi-admission of is work affecting me only happened because the FBI had acted on it. So that's pretty much what he needed in order to believe that any of my experiences were related to him. Of course, I don't know why he wouldn't admit these things unless pushed into a corner, so to speak, but this is how he seemed to me, for whatever reason.

I think he dealt with the conflict between my interests and his work by trying to find a balance that would let him work while trying to minimize possible impact on me. This makes me wonder how things would have been if he hadn't done that at least. I also wonder what he knew about the possible affects his work could have on me. He obviously was somewhat familiar with potential security problems and risks in his line of work, but there might have been gaps so that areas he didn't know about he dismissed, which also would take any responsibility off of him.

In recent years I've come to the belief that this country (the USA) is altogether too focused on defense and not enough on other areas. But dad didn't think that way. Still, his way of trying to take into account the possibility of his work affecting mine was to turn down certain contract assignments at work. This didn't seem to be enough, though, because I was affected by his work, despite his efforts to minimize that possibility. I'll probably never be sure how many of my problems were directly related to him, though.

***

Now I should say a little about what all this kind of thing made me feel. I think I always could think about these kinds of rational explanatory perspectives, but it still often made me very angry at him, to the point that I cut off or severely limited relations with my parents for much of my time in Russia. I guess I still have some anger about it, but it's mellowed a lot as I've gone through other crises, most recently health ones, but also financial and relations with one of my brothers that tainted relations with the rest of the family. So now that I'm more distanced from those things the anger isn't as fresh.

But if I think of how my life could have been different and I wouldn't be where I am now, that I realize that I still have a tinge of anger left in me. I think though, that there are so many variables along the way that it's too mind-boggling of an exercise to try to figure out what might have been the best (or even just better) possible outcome at any particular juncture. It's sort of like the trails in the Wienerwald (Viennese Forest); I lived about 1/2 mile from one trailhead and enjoyed going hiking there, but I never could figure out the marking system. So if I were going to use the Wienerwald trail system as an epitype of my life, I'd right now be somewhere in the middle of the forest scratching my head looking at posts with a myriad confusing painted stripes of various colors on them, wondering how to get home again. And I might be thinking, "And which turn was it that got me in this mess... lost out here in the middle of nowhere?"

It's funny now to think that I used to make plans for my life, concrete goals, if you like, as to where I wanted to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. It never turned out how I wanted it to. So now I live day to day and that's all I can keep up with any more. And I'm only 51. I wonder where I'll be in 5 years? or even in 1 year?

***

This next article is:

Sutton, Robert I., & Louis, Meryl Reis. (1987). How selecting and socializing newcomers influences insiders. Human Resource Management, 26(3), 347-361.

***

The first figure in this article provides a jumping off point for commenting. Across the top there are 4 broad areas (prior to interviewing, interviewing, hiring, socializing) presented on a time continuum. Then under each of these 4 broad areas are events that are situated on a diagonal to show time and sequence.

Since I've pretty much told you all I know about the "hiring" process (the word "hiring" isn't usually used in the faith mission setting), I'll just explore a bit the hiring and socializing events.

Under "hiring" there are 3 events in sequence: hiring, initial arrival (ceremonial) and orienting. I think my initial arrival did seem somewhat ceremonial in that I was practically smothered in efforts to welcome me and make me feel important and long-awaited. It was nice, but then what followed - the work itself, for example, was practically diametrically opposed to that lavish welcome. The orienting I got was mostly regarding logistics, such as registering my residence, where the grocery store was, how to use the laundry machine I could use at the office, etc. This orientation seemed pretty thorough and quite adequate.

Under "socializing" there are 3 more events: formal training, informal training, and telling newcomers stories about the organization. The mission, as far as I knew, never did formal training, so that didn't happen (including the German language classes we were supposed to be able to have). I didn't get much informal training, unless you count reading software manuals as informal training, but my secretary-mentor (my boss's boss's secretary) made herself available if I had any questions. She probably did things like show me where to get replacement supplies (paper, pens, etc.) and how the phone system worked, for example. As far as "telling newcomers stories about the organization" goes, I mostly got that kind of thing in the "big group" settings, although sometimes I might have heard some of these things ad hoc in other situations, but these weren't things that were part of socialization per se.

***

Most of the article is devoted to "Seven Situations in Which Newcomers Can Influence Insiders." I'm going to skip over a bunch of these and go right to "Socialization" which is the only one (of the 7 situations) I'm going to address here.

"A member of one fraternity on the Stanford campus argues that, while passing through one's own initiation rites is important, a new member only becomes a 'true brother' in the fraternity after helping to plan and implement rites for others. His assertion is consistent with sound social-psychological principles. Planning and implementing initiation rites (or a training program for new executives) entails working with more senior insiders. Senior insiders are likely to explain to the rookie socialization agent the socially agreed upon reasons for various initiation rites - these inputs to sense-making may enhance the rookie's knowledge of organizational values and norms." (p. 356)

I think this was true of the Vienna mission context too. For example, it was interesting (I'm not sure that's the best word) to watch the secretary from Alaska who'd arrived just a few months before me. She did eventually, it seemed, become socialized and towards the end of my stay took a more active role in dealing with me (I don't know that by that time they were necessarily socializing me, but I still had relations with the mission so they had to do something with me.)

Also, this kind of a system assumes that you are willing to take part in something before you understand it well, since the "rookie" in this text was already a functioning part of the organization, but was still in a position to not fully understand the values and norms of it, or even to understand these enough to pass on the basics of them to someone else. This was untenable for me in the Vienna mission, as I've already discussed many times, because of my not believing in their way of doing things and the apparent values that under girded their actions.

***

"Commitment is likely to increase because planning and implementing the initiation rites of others are acts that occur under conditions of high perceived choice, are explicit indications of commitment to the organization, are impossible to revoke once completed, and are public." (p. 357)

I agree with this, in that it probably fits the Vienna context, and it's even possible this happened intentionally, although I don't know for sure about that. I would add that being able to socialize others indicates that you have internalized the group's values and norms, because if you hadn't it would be very difficult to take part in passing these on to others and if you tried, because of the nature of the values and norms of the mission, you'd probably be found out - that you hadn't internalized them as much as was thought.

While typing this text I thought of another situation that might bear enough resemblance to be helpful. A couple years ago, when I was up north in New England living in an apartment my brother made available to me when I lost my last job for health reasons, I started getting massages by a nurse turned alternative medicine guru. As part of her work, she joined with a group that sold health products of various kinds that if used together could form a personal health system or "wellness home". Some of the things really intrigued me, but being the cognitive type I tried to find research confirming their claims but never could find any, and even the resources available for their representatives were more replete with testimonials and had practically no evidence of scientific research having been done on the effectiveness of their products (I looked at other places too like the National Library of Medicine).

Eventually my thinking about the organization developed like this: a person would begin to be interested in the products and would buy a few of the lower priced items. Eventually s/he might indulge in one of the more pricier pieces of equipment, and at that point s/he'd be eligible to become a representative his/herself and earn money off of others buying products. The more you get drawn into this system, then, the more you have invested in it and and committed to believing in it (otherwise you might find yourself thinking you were a fool for being duped). So, it's sort of self-feeding that way and hard to extricate oneself from without serious damages to one's ego (and possibly reputation among all those you'd sold items to).

Can you see how there could be a bit of a corollary between this illustration and rookie socializers? The thing is that you keep getting more responsibility and more knowledge and the more you've passed it on to others and the more you've gone public about your support of the mission's values and norms, the more you have invested in it and the harder it might be to extricate oneself from it, even if one wanted to. Anyway, it's just a thought. I think it's possible that there was a certain amount of this kind of thing in the Vienna mission.

Thankfully, I never had to socialize anyone. Can you iimagine what that would have been like? The mission would really have been in for a shocker.

***

That's all for this article, and for today.

93. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 17 (Radine, pt. 11)

I still can't find the MIA articles.

I enjoyed a walk earlier in the day than usual today because it was overcast and cooler, although my Weather Bug reading says it's currently 89.5F.

***

Chapter 7: Military Prisons and Rehabilitation

***

"Unlike inmates in the [United States Disciplinary Barracks(USDB)], soldiers who pass through the [Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] are fully expected to return to active duty, and the CTF are fully expected to reintegrate them into the rest of the Army. It does this (and maintains social control internally) by manipulating the convicted GI's self-image and his 'definition of the situation.' CTF principles may well be an anticipation of future trends in Army corrections." (p. 221)

I felt like I was experiencing some of this for the 6 months I was in the States (including time spent working at the U.S. office). I guess I was eventually deemed "reformed" enough (take that as you wish) to return to my original post, at least for a while. I never did fully conform, though, and I think they knew that, although they didn't know what I was thinking, because I never gave them any opportunity to know. But I was intentional about that too.

There are some other things I could say here, but it would be difficult without going into the narration of what exactly happened, so I'll just have to hold off and hope that I remember my train of thinking.

***

"A legal clerk, whose responsibility it was to interview stockade prisoners prior to their trials gave me his impression of stockade conditions at a large midwesern Army post:

... Once you come in, you're assigned to a barracks and you go to the barracks on the first night and that's invariably when the beating takes place... [and if] the guy says anything at all they put him in the box ["administrative segregation"] and continue to beat him, [and leave] him in the box for a couple of days... Then that subdues him... and they let him out of the box. By then they're pretty well beaten into the system... You can't get these guys who were beaten in pre-trial to testify to anything because they know they're going to be convicted and that they're going to go back." (p. 225; brackets in the original in this case)

That's a lot how I felt. Being sent to a mental hospital was like getting beat up and tossed down the stairs (this is in the original text) and scared out of my pants. The text tells about a guy with a cast on who comes to his trial and he's asked how he got the cast, to which he answers that he fell down the stairs. Then he's asked if he was beat up and he denies it. Then he's asked if anyone pushed him and he denies that too. This is how you learn to lie. This is how you learn to say "I work for an international publishing company." I know, I know, it's a partial truth. But another part of the truth is that the publishing end is NOT in Vienna. The closest thing Vienna has to the publishing end is (or was) people involved in the writing of the textbooks - authors, if you will. Just for clarification purposes I would like to explain here that authors are not the same as publishers. I know this can be confusing to certain people who've been taught to say otherwise, but I think you'll find that Webster's and Collegiate and Oxford and whatever English language dictionary source you choose will bear this out.

And yes, I was pushed down the stairs (figuratively, I mean).

***

Oh, here's a good one.

"In 1954, according to the provost marshal general of the Army, each new prisoner at the USDB was given an indoctrination session concerning the purpose of the prison and an orientation interview by the commandant or one of his representatives, where he would be assured that 'he is part of an institution where the entire staff from the top officer down through the enlisted ranks has a warm interest in her personal problems and needs and his future welfare.' Later on he would be given what GIs call an 'attitude check' to see how well he had responded to the 'warm' concern. He was also interviewed by a social worker who elicited information on previous problems with school authorities, pastors, relatives, and employers, which was then worked up into a report of the psychiatry and neurology division... Thus, the main functions of psychiatrists and social workers were in screening and classifying. Psychiatrists kept a close watch on each soldier-prisoner to determine when he had 'improved' himself sufficiently to be released before his full term had been completed. A chaplain was involved in this setting, although only in an advisory capacity to the classification board. He was to ascertain the influence of religion in the prisoner's life... Rehabilitation in 1954, then, was officially a combination of some indoctrination, vocational training programs, and several 'open doors' back to duty or out to civilian life... From the recent prison experiences of Dr. Howard Levy, the basic principles of the USDB seem relatively unchanged." (p. 227-228)

The author goes on to describe some modernizations (as of the late 70's), but I'm going to stop here for now.

The attitude check is something that was informally in place in Vienna. I don't think I ever had a problem with that - like I said, I wasn't a complainer or anything. I think my taking everything in stride might have made me more of an enigma and it would have been easier for them to deal with me if I had complained or raised a fuss.

I am not sure whether I thought about this so explicitly, but I think I felt that I didn't understand enough of what was going on to make a fuss; I was still trying to figure out the rules. So I left there not really ever understanding them. But since I didn't understand them I didn't know what kind of response I'd get anyway if I, for example, complained too much about not having enough work to do. Most of the time I was in Vienna I felt like my time and the money of my supporters was wasted because even though I did my best, including outside efforts, I was just doing grunt work which a lot of the time didn't really need to be done. But there was something else going on, I think, and these things were intentional, so I just smiled and did my job the best I could. I was friendly and sociable and took initiative in social activities several times. So I passed the attitude check.

That having been said, though, I'm not sure what kind of a change they might have expected or wanted from sending me home. I probably was somewhat subdued by that experience, but I certainly wasn't overcome by it. The last six months or so I think it was starting to get to me more so I was starting to cave in to pressures, such as attending the English speaking church (instead of the Austrian one I was going to), even though it wasn't really what I wanted. But that was about a year after I was sent back to the States, so it wasn't a direct consequence to that action they took against me (that's how I perceived it and still do).

***

"Psychology (and psychiatry) in the last few decades has taken the place of religion in maintaining mass discipline. Like religion, it operates by trying to convince the individual that it is trying to help him and has his interests at heart, all the while fairly self-consciously going about its role in creating and maintaining social order. Psychology not only provides techniques of control, such as various types of therapy and consultative assistance to those in authority, but it also parallels religion in providing an ideology. This ideology is one of 'cooperation,' 'communication,' 'normalcy,' and a distinct view of reality. In addition, psychology has a normative function, creating in individuals a sense of guilt, such as the anxiety that comes from feeling that one is not normal or socially acceptable. Instead of being sinful, today one is 'sick.' Like religion, psychology ministers to the guilt and anxiety that it was instrumental in creating." (p. 230)

This sounds a lot like Vienna: We care a lot about you and want you to succeed here, this is what you need to be able to succeed. I think the head of h.r., a military chaplain, even said something like this. Of course, under the circumstances I wasn't sure that I believed him, but that seemed to be what they wanted me to believe, and in this I don't think I was alone. It's just that I got worse treatment than others, so maybe he had to come out and say that before breaking the news, with the journal article on culture shock that they thought I was having culture shock and should go home for treatment. If taken at face value, this kind of approach cold be disarming, I think. I think I signed the papers to go not really believing it was actually going to happen. Maybe I was in shock or denial that this could be happening. And the thing was I was only having problems because of the mission, not in my Austrian activities and functioning. I'll go more in to this in the chronological narration though.

The army ideology of cooperation, communication, etc., has a counterpart in the Vienna mission, that's not exactly the same. I have a whole file on organizational behavior that touches on this too.

***

"... Another correctional therapist said that the character and behavior disorder (a category that includes most soldiers who get in trouble with the Army) must 'be made to see that there is something wrong with him and not with society.'" (p. 231)

I really feel like a fish swimming upstream here. I have a strong enough sense of who I am and my values that I'm able to get by and stick by what I believe even if I'm the only one. This might not be as bad as what the Nazis did, but Bonhoeffer is a good role model for me in standing up to what I believe is wrong. I don't always do it right, but I do the best I can in whatever given situation I'm in.

A textbook of mine from an apologetics class in Bible school has gotten a lot of use throughout the years: it describes various logical fallacies.

Here's a description of "Appeal to the People" a/k/a argumentum ad populum:

"As Immanuel Kant said, 'seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few and number not voices, but weigh them.

As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, counting noses may be a great method of running a government (even there it has limitations), but it is no necessary criterion for truth. Another name for ad populum could be 'Misuse of Democracy.' If the majority thinks something is true, it must be true. If the majority is doing something, it should be done. The majority is reading this book, therefore it must be a good book. Non sequitor!

Nietzche quipped that 'public opinion is nothing but private laziness.' Ad populum is a lazy way of thinking, a device to bypass independent reasoning. Let the people do your thinking for you. Just drift along with the popular current." (Hoover, A. J. (1982). Poking Holes in Faulty Logic: Don't You Believe It! Chicago: Moody Press).

You will note that in my chronology Bible school came before Vienna, so I had that text with me in Vienna too and had long since studied it for class. Just because you're different doesn't make you wrong or bad.

***

"Since World War II, psychiatrists have been expanding their role in corrections. They have had a greater hand in designing corrections programs, and their participation as therapists rather than screening agents has increased somewhat. But this increased involvement has not come without costs to psychiatry. Psychiatrists have increasingly been compromising their techniques of therapy with military techniques of control.

In particular, the practice of therapy becomes much more oriented to social control of the individual by the small group or team, which is characteristic of military organization in general. I have suggested that the offenders who must see therapists do not view themselves as ill... This new role for therapists, that of forcefully attempting to transform soldiers' minds, results in a shift in the therapists' role." (p. 238-239)

My knee jerk reaction to these texts at this point in time is: Does Guantanamo and water-boarding ring a bell? How about those mental health workers involved?

Okay, that's another subject, but the Guantanamo situation didn't get where it was in a vacuum, and what this text describes sounds like it's the kind of setting that could eventually lead to the Guantanamo participation of psychologists.

Although military chaplains aren't mentioned in this text, it seems that they must at the very least be aware of this kind of thing going on in a field not so completely detached from their own. How would this be affecting them? Is it possible that the military chaplains in Vienna understood this reformative use of psychiatry? I'm not sure I want to go farther with this or not... There's a part of me that says do it, and another part that is more hesitant, but I'll just lay it out since I've been trying to be open and not have to deal with this horrible secrecy stuff that I just have grown to hate. Is it possible that the military chaplains / human resource staff at the Vienna mission intended this (mental "transformation," "personality changes") to be the end result of my going to the states for counseling?

***

"Some of these young men may be able to lead fuller, more developed lives with the benefit of some kind of therapy. But the value of personal freedom, it seems to me, requires that these people should have the choice of whether they want to undergo such personality changes. The only real alternative they have to undergoing therapy is being sent to a harsher prison." (p. 239)

In Vienna they would call this kind of thing "spiritual growth", which has a decidedly chaplain-y ring to it. I hate to say this, but over the years, including some things even after Vienna, I have come to approach pastoral leading more critically.

***

I'll just put this here for further documentation, but I've already commented on the substance of it:

"The most important function of the interview, which each prisoner went through when he arrived at the stockade, was to lay the groundwork for the rest of the program... The prisoner was shown that lack of social conformity had been of little value to him." (p. 242)

***

In another Army correctional facility the soldier-prisoners basically have to go through a repeat of basic training, perhaps with closer supervision. This process is intended to be "useful in helping to restore the offenders to duty (but this time with an acceptable attitude)." (p. 242)

Attitude was really important in Vienna too, mostly expressed indirectly, and this was part of what made my experience there feel like brain washing.

***

"The chaplain branch of the [Army's Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] appears to be quite active, offering a series of day-long retreats, formal instruction in 'Life Issues Series' classes, and group counseling sessions that stress 'freedom of expression on appropriate issues' and understanding the rights of others... In a manner consistent with my earlier commentary about psychology supplanting religion, the chaplains brought two California psychologists to the facility to present a series of lectures and conferences on gestalt psychology and transactional analysis to selected CTF cadremen." (p. 245)

I know there had to be a stronger connection between the chaplains and psychiatry! So here we have it. I wonder if either of the chaplains in Vienna had ever worked at this particular Army prison. Also, however, I don't think the chaplain/HR director in Vienna was working alone, so it's not completely fair to just single him/them (I didn't have much contact with the other one), when probably other leaders of the mission were involved in that decision. How exactly that transpired (the decision to send me back to the States) is something that we may never know.

***

"What is the best explanation for deviance? I have suggested that some correctional psychiatrists and social workers argue that deviance resides in the sick individual. Yet, oddly, psychiatry does not come into the military setting with a notion of what the diseases are that it should be curing. Psychiatry's definition of the individual as ill is based on the Army's response to that person's behavior." (p. 246).

If I may, I would like to insert a quotation from another source (I'm finding all these things in search of the 2 MIA articles):

"Security professionals must strive to be extra vigilant about their own ethics. It is too easy to say, 'everyone is doing it' and look the other way from such behavior or even join in... The bottom line is this: If your professional code of ethics conflicts with company policy and management's behavioral standards, you may have to stop being a part of the management team and uphold your professional ethics... you will be expected to make ethical decisions that may conflict with administration or corporate policy. Making these decisions won't be easy, but it is the only way to live up to - and with - your professional ethics." (Simonsen, Clifford E. (1992). what value to ethics have in the corporate world? Security Management, 36(9), 224-226)

What we have here is a clear case of the Army co-opting (not the rank and file soldiers but) professionals. How could they not have a pre-existing definition of such a basic part of their work?

Be this as it may, I submit that whether or not I was considered ill in Vienna was purely and simply seen as a matter of how I related to the mission, similar to how the Army viewed it in their soldiers.

Maybe we should send a few security professionals to Vienna (or the Army) to teach ethics to certain professionals there. Just don't send send any evangelical protestants to Vienna, please; they won't be at all objective.

***

"The result of allowing the military to define psychiatrists' problems is that the therapists dutifully adapt their definitions of syndromes to match the criminal act. Specifically, in terms of labeling the deviant, one finds circular, ex post facto clinical terms of personality and character disorders. A passive-aggressive personality is really someone who resists in a covert way. A disorder of the 'immature' category is a soldier who impulsively reacts against domination.

There are other explanations for the character of deviance. Some sociologists have asserted that there is nothing inherently deviant about any act, either in terms of individual pathology or societal needs. Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.' Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label as deviant. If the definition of deviance is located in the reaction rather than in the act or the actor, then there is little necessarily in common in terms of clinical characteristics among individuals who perform the same deviant behavior.

Looking at deviance as residing in the labelers might result in psychiatrists' examining their own preconceptions and affiliations. But this analysis is avoided as a consequence of focusing exclusively on the characteristics of the deviants themselves." (p. 246-247)

I like this discussion about deviance. I don't know if you follow it or not, but it's basically saying that a norm-setting group decides if someone is not following their norms and the person who is not following their norms is deviating in relation to their norms.

One thing that this does is makes deviation a very relative "truth": It only has meaning in reference to something normative. For example, lying in some cultures might be perfectly acceptable, but in other cultures it's not and the act of lying would be considered deviant in reference to their norms, but not to the norms of the other culture. So deviance is not a static thing in and of itself. It only has meaning in relationship to a particular set of norms.

On a certain level I was "deviant" in Vienna in not fully and completely 100% submitting to their norms. It felt like that's what was required to succeed there, and, like I said earlier it felt like brainwashing.

***

"Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders... Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label of deviant...

As I have emphasized, the self-image can be manipulated. One continues on as a soldier or an offender mostly on the basis of pressures of the small group and other reference persons. So managing the definition of the situation becomes very important for the rationalized co-optive style of corrections." (p. 247-248).

The Army sets the rules and makes the definitions, take it or leave it. Not a very forgiving (or democratic) approach to things, but you almost expect that in the Army (not that that makes it right).

But should this also be so in missions? In some ways, such as the theology, you might expect this to be reasonable. But should it be as totalitarian as an Army correctional facility? I don't think so, but the mission leaders might take issue with this either by asserting that they do have the right to do this, or by denying that they do it (the totalitarian aspects I mean).

I think this kind of thing could be true in the Army too, although I don't really know that, but sometimes I wondered how much of the social pressures were intended and sort of masterminded in a top-down way (like my feeling like I was being pitted against another gal for a certain position towards the end). Was this just sort of common office politics, or was it intentional. There were enough things going on that I wasn't always sure, and still am not. Since there was such a high level of secrecy, I think it's possible that some of these things were intentional, for whatever reason. I mention this in this context because that would also be part of the mission leadership controlling things and defining the issues and norms. I think that once you control the knowledge base you can do a lot with that by withholding something or strategically revealing something else, and in that context I don't think it would have been beneath them to have used disinformation (intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately).

***

It's late again, and I've got to start getting ready for bed. We finished this chapter and it's also the end of the book.

Good night.

~ Meg

91. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 15 (Radine, pt. 9)

I got a few little things done now... such as taking a peak at my garden and do a little watering. There don't look to be any new little green caterpillars setting up home on my vegetable leaves, what's left of them. But after uprooting a few that seemed to be in the process of giving up the ghost, I did find that there seemed to be something wrong with the roots, which had a lot of bulges in them. So I think that could be affecting my harvest, and it's probably advisable to just uproot the rest too, knowing that's the case. The Stevia, which was all but enveloped by sprawling suspended vegetable vines seems to be escaping everything unscathed, thankfully. But the boxwood basil is showing signs that I should pick some more leaves that look unhealthy again. I'll do that later today.

I need to open some business mail and deal with that today, take a walk (for exercise) and also try some more to find the MIA articles that are probably somewhere under my nose that will bring on one of those knock-on-the-forehead how-stupid-of-me reactions. Hopefully that will be the case.

In the meantime, however, I'd like to continue with this chapter, especially as it's bringing up some things that might require some continuity of thought on my part.

***

"According to Glass and others, the prevention of psychiatric casualties can be divided into three approaches or levels. 'Primary prevention' consists of attempts to influence living, working, or fighting conditions to minimize the likelihood of disabling maladjustment and is a recognition of various influences upon morale and the experience of combat. 'Secondary prevention' is the early recognition and prompt management of emotional or behavioral problems that some individuals might develop. This is carried out on an out-patient basis, so the individual remains a member of his unit. 'Tertiary prevention' is used for persistent and severe mental disorders that require hospitalization. Here, milieu therapy is the main therapeutic tool. As in secondary prevention, this technique is oriented to rehabilitation back into military duty and the reduction of chronic disability." (p. 161)

These approaches all assume that the desired end is the continuance or return of the the soldier to active duty. Would this apply to Vienna, in particular as regards to how I was treated? It is still not completely clear that my treatment in Vienna was unique, although it certainly was unusual (not common); I was told of 2 other women (wives of workers) who had received similar treatment, but I wasn't there to know the circumstances and the like to make a comparison with them, but it does seem to at least be worth noting that these other earlier cases did exist prior to my coming to Vienna. These 2 women were still there when I was there. But since I wasn't there and can't really speak for what happened regarding them, I'm just going to discuss my case, as I know of no others.

If the Vienna leadership had similar goals vis a vis their approach to dealing with me was similar to how the Army approached apparent mental instability in it's soldiers(that is, to make me a valuable & reliable soldier / missionary according to their specifications) then it might have also used the same step-wise system described in this text, although not necessarily so. But let's just see how my treatment compares to the process described here.

Regarding primary prevention, it is very clear that there was absolutely no attempt at this kind of primary prevention. In fact, my contention has been all along (although I was afraid to say this at the time) that my stressors were contrived and intentional. This begs the question, of course, as to why they would do that, and I only wish I could give you the answer with 100% certainty. But I can't. I do have my suspicions which range from broad intentions they had toward all newcomers to intentions toward me that were very unique. But in any case I am 100% sure that primary prevention was never used in my case.

Moving on to the secondary prevention, as described in this text. This one is a little more ambiguous as far as my personal experience is concerned. The mission leadership, those involved with me, would probably say that they did this, but in my mind they might have gone through the motions of doing this, but what they were doing wasn't rehabilitative in the standard understanding of the term, not like you'd expect from counseling. Rather, it was a kind of counseling that was part counseling, part mentoring, part "discipleship" (in the sense of spiritual growth development), and a very large part socialization. In fact, the other aspects, in my belief, were all guises for socialization, and that's what it was - not counseling.

So now we see that the first level wasn't used, the second was only on a surface level (is it safe to call this manipulative?). But, and I'm dropping a bomb here, the third one was used. What would you think in such a situation? I was shocked and didn't believe it till it was reality.

Why would they do this? What kind of mindset would lead them to treat me like this? How could they use this as socialization, if that's what they were intending? And I'll tell you this, that they didn't get any professional opinion before taking this 3rd step according to the Army system. The details are chilling, but I'm not going to go there now. You'll have to wait till the chronological narration, which won't be too long now.

***

"It was discovered that the 'fixing' of psychiatric symptoms (or their becoming permanent, like an image on a photographic plate) would occur less frequently if the soldier were treated as close as possible to his own unit. This allows other, functioning, soldiers to exert a social control function over the soldier-patient." (p. 162)

This principle was apparently widely recognized because its stated in other articles I have too.

As such, if the leadership wanted to help me recover from what they, as non medical professionals of any kind, had deemed serious enough to hospitalize me for, they should have had me treated nearby, right? Wrong! Well, partially wrong.

What they did was send me back to the States near the U.S. office, where most of the publishing was actually done (not at the Vienna office), and not only that, but they sent me to a hospital where the lead psychiatrists were famous evangelical Christians. If I had opened up and told about the things going on in Vienna, how likely do you think such doctors would believe me over the missionary leadership? Now if I had been sent to just any old hospital I might have been able to open up and have someone believe me... like the psychiatrist in Syracuse in January who asked if my dad was a spy and didn't think I was paranoid either. My chances of that thing were like my chances of sprouting wings tomorrow and flying off to the moon.

So I'll just leave it to your imagination to consider how this all might have affected me. After all, I'm not a rock and no matter how strong I may be I do have a limit. At that point I had several things I had to decide between as to what was the most important:

1) spilling my guts and being determined completely and utterly insane (especially since I couldn't describe things then like I am now years and years later)

2) deciding to reconcile the dissonance I was feeling between what I felt was right and wrong and what I was witnessing and experiencing; which would mean conceding and accepting their values, which would then be internalized and become my new gold standard or rationalization

3)deciding to try to make myself strong in spite of this incredible dissonance which just exploded in size with my being treated that way

4)walking away of my own accord, which would have meant returning home and having to face all my supporters, including giving a reason for my leaving the mission; but who would believe me at that point?

That was it, really, what I faced and what my options were, and I survived and I'm here to tell about it.

There are other principles provided in the text (besides being treated near the unit, but there's not really anything to say about them).

***

In going through the rest of the chapter I don't think I have any other comments to make. So I'm going to take another break to do some other things.

~Meg

90. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 14 (Radine, pt. 8)

I overslept, so I missed church again. I need to try to get to bed earlier, but it's hard. I woke up with a rash around my neck, which I assume is a heat rash, as I've been getting those in the inside of my elbow sometimes recently, but never on my neck.

I found out yesterday (via mail) that the Vocational Rehabilitation people classified me in group II, which is the second most disabled group. Last time I, before I lost my last job which landed me up north with my brother because of resultant lack of income, I was in group I. I'm not as disabled as I was then, but now I have more health maintenance things I have to do for conditions, if properly maintained, shouldn't be too problematic. But if I stop the health maintenance things for most of them my health would deteriorate significantly. It's sort of a catch-22; I'm not as disabled as long as I keep up with these things that take more time, which in itself is emotionally discouraging (who wants to spend so much of their time - and money - on health?), but if I free myself up and for whatever reason stop doing some of these things, I might be able to do more because of having more time and money (and not having to deal with the psychological aspects of having to spend so much time and money on health maintenance) my health will subsequently deteriorate.

All the health maintenance things are a large part of why I don't think I could work more than part-time, which would continue to keep me dependent on SSDI because of the health insurance issue, because of all those other constraints on my time when my health isn't optimum no matter how you look at it.

Still, I think I'm reaching a point where I could work part-time now. But being classified as second tier disabled by V.R. means I'll have to wait longer to actually move on to the next step, which is developing a work plan with them and actually gaining their assistance. I've gone through the application process, and now I have to wait for an opening to come up so I can actually get their assistance; this waiting is because the state doesn't have enough money budgeted for dealing with all applicants as they apply and are deemed eligible.

To seriously look for work, though, I would like to have assistance because of the delicacy of working around SSDI. Since I don't know when I'll actually be able to start getting assistance from the state (V.R.), I should probably call the large legal firm that handled my SSDI hearing appeal. They have a system set up where they can help with this kind of thing, although I'm not sure exactly what they'll be able to do. I imaging it entails some kind of legal counseling regarding working around the SSDI situation. I hope to find out for sure this week though.

I still don't have money to pay my co-pay to get in to the allergy doctor for tomorrow's re-scheduled appointment (it was re-scheduled from last Monday because I didn't have the money then either). I would really like to start on allergy immunization, which the doctor said he intended to do. That would at least address one issue, and anyone who has multiple conditions can understand how there's sort of a compound effect when you start adding conditions on top of each other, and as a result dealing with even one condition can have more positive impact than you'd expect if just dealing with the one condition by itself. This is especially true when one conditions is something like fibromyalgia which can be aggravated by other things going on in the body.

***

Chapter 5 of The Taming of the Troops is titled "Psychiatry in War and Peace".

***

"There are, of course, many soldiers who are not controlled by the collective techniques analyzed in the last three chapters. These men are processed by a variety of deviance-controlling sectors, including military psychiatry, the military justice system, and military prisons...

... The balance between expulsion (through discharges or incarcerations) and resocialization (or therapy) depends on the manpower needs of the Army... I will argue that psychiatrists in garrison situations as well as those who deal with combat neuropsychiatric casualties have a strong tendency to define as ill as few soldiers as possible so the Army will not lose manpower." (p. 157)

First of all, I really don't like the word "control" as it's used here, although I'm sure it's appropriately used. Control brings up images of total institutions and authoritarian organizations.

Control through military psychiatry, however - if control is the proper term vis a vis "military psychiatry" brings up images of Soviet abuses of psychiatry. After all, wasn't the Soviet Union's purpose "deviance-control"?

Now clearly (?) there is a distinction between the chaplaincy and psychiatry, even in the military, but there certainly is some overlap, don't you think? After all, most pastoral training programs (Th.M. programs, for example) include at least one class on parishioner counseling or psychology, right? And pastors do do some kind of counseling, although the more serious cases would be properly referred to professional psychologist. I did find a file (a rather thick file) on military chaplaincy, but I haven't reviewed it yet, so I'm not sure exactly what's in it. But I wouldn't be surprised if chaplains in the Army might find themselves somehow in similar positions as in civilian settings, so they probably have to have to at least be part of the adjunct participants in military psychiatry. So I'm going to assume in this chapter that military chaplains aren't unfamiliar with the kinds of things discussed here and are even at least passive accomplices in military psychiatry.

The other thing in this passage is that it's not ultimately the condition of the soldier but the needs of the army that determine his treatment schedule. Is this consistent with the Hippocratic oath?

***

"Why would a psychiatrist succumb to these organizational pressures?...

To begin with, the structure of the psychiatrist's tasks makes long-term therapy impossible. The army places so many demands on a psychiatrist's time that he cannot function in the therapy role for which he may have been trained as a civilian." (p. 157)

The text goes on to explain demands on the soldier's and the psychiatrist's time, and also how either party being transferred can disrupt the continuity. This doesn't apply to the Vienna situation.

***

"Another source of difficulty is the fact that military psychiatrists do not enjoy the close relationship with their patients that most civilian psychiatrists do. Their communications are not privileged, and what a soldier tells a psychiatrist may be held against him in court. For example, during the Vietnam War many symptoms that soldiers complained of were related to combat violence and atrocities or violent attitudes toward superior officers. If a soldier went to a psychiatrist to talk about his problems, one of two conditions would have to prevail for psychotherapy to continue: either the psychiatrist would have to (illegally) tell the soldier he would not reveal or record anything that occurred in interviews, or the soldier would have to withhold his 'illegal' thoughts or acts from his conversation with the psychiatrist." (p. 158)

One thing here that might apply to Vienna, is that if the military chaplain/h.r. director was playing a counseling-type role (which was also one style of relating between boss-secretary), then the HIPAA-type privacy constraints of a counselor-counselee would not have been in effect, any more than it would have been in the boss-secretary relationship. That is, I think those in the higher positions discussed these kinds of things and others were fed tidbits as deemed appropriate, such as for "control" purpose. This kind of thing would be hard to prove, though, unless I had kept detailed journals of my experiences there that could have pointed to things that were said by people who couldn't otherwise have known the specific thing about me that was revealed. For example, if I'd told my boss about something and he was the only one I told, and later another secretary gave me indication to believe that she must know about it. I hope you can see how if this was indeed happening it would be very hard to trust anyone who might be part of that, and also how any information revealed could be used to sort of tow you in.

In Vienna the "'illegal' thoughts or acts" would have included anything involving serious questioning of the organization and also anything that might "blow their cover" or be what they perceived to be a potential risk to them. Since 1) I had a lot of questions about their modus operandi and the underlining assumptions that must accompany them and 2) I was sort of a loose cannon, there were a lot of things I didn't want to talk with them about, and which was why I didn't keep a journal - although I couldn't have expressed it as succinctly as I am now. But I was very cognizant, nonetheless, even at the time of there being things I could not reveal about my thoughts. This could, of course, make me look very paranoid unless there was some justification for these fears. However, my contention is that I wasn't any more paranoid than the soldier who withheld his "'illegal' thoughts or acts from his conversation with the psychiatrist." But in my case, it wasn't just the psychiatrist. It was like living in Romania under the crazy man Ceausescu who just seemed to repress everybody but not in a consistent or otherwise logical way. In Romania, where the churches were growing at a phenomenal rate, the authorities managed to pretty well divide the church against itself as no one trusted anyone else because of the seemingly all-pervasive monitoring system of informants and the like. As far as I was concerned, the whole of the mission organization was one big informant, all committed to the cause, not questioning the organization's basic underlying tenets and ready to protect the mother ship on a dime. Or maybe the illustration of being alone on a tiny raft in the middle of the ocean, away from friends and family, surrounded by sharks helps you appreciate what it was like. One wrong step and I would be toast... dinner so-to-speak, in shark terms. I was not at all convinced they had my best interests at heart, but I suppose some would say that they did and I mistakenly identified them, when they were really harmless dolphins.

***

"During the Vietnam War with the accompanying widespread anti-war sentiment among soldiers, how would a liberal, anti-war psychiatrist have resolved the role conflicts inherent in his position as an 'internal pacification officer'? Thee are probably as many resolutions as there are psychiatrists, but I think the response of one politically liberal psychiatrist is instructive. In 1970, I asked him if he would support resisters in the Army. Surprisingly, he said it never was a problem for him because he did not think there were any. This psychiatrist, however, held rather narrow standards of what constituted resistance; to him, a definition seemed to require a commitment to pacifism or some other 'ism' and therefore had to be articulated, explained, and maybe even justified in philosophical terms. His view restricts the term resistance to those who can speak in middle-class terms, particularly college-educated terms." (p. 158-159)

In my case the situation would have been more difficult, because, although I was college-educated, it wasn't just a situation of war and peace, but trying to make sense of something you were in the middle of that didn't seem right but was hard to make out - which is why I had to do all this research resulting in me having these texts to discuss now.

Like the psychiatrist described in this passage, however, I don't think the people in Vienna knew how much I was questioning them, although one person especially near the end of my time there repeatedly told me something that made me think they did think I was not completely conforming. I'll get to that in my chronological account, however.

***

"Daniels argues that military psychiatrists' definition of what constitutes mental illness has adapted to the organizational needs of the military. As a result, there is a tendency to stress adjustment rather than introspection or self-awareness. There is also a tendency to view adaptability as both a voluntary act of the soldier and a result of psychiatrist's denial of symptoms." (p. 160).

If we take this at face value and apply it to my Vienna experience (assuming, for example, that the military chaplains on staff had also been privy to this kind of thinking in their military experience and succumbed to it, then anyone who exhibited what could be psychiatric distress of one kind or another would be similar, namely, to help the troubled staff (or family) member would be encouraged to learn to adjust to live in the Vienna mission context. In my mind, this defines the problem as being one involving contextual problems - problems adjusting to Army life, or, in my case, problems adjusting to the life in the Vienna mission, rather than primarily internal problems.

Now, I'm not a psychiatrist, not even close, but my understanding of the human being is that while there are many different parts (physically or otherwise) to the person, all the parts are very closely interconnected and cannot always be readily and easily disentangled. This seems to me to be a situation where that could be the case, where the context, the relationship of the individual to the context and the individual apart from the context, could all come into play. My contention is that without a little investigation into the matter, it would often, or at least at times, be hard to quickly discern which aspect needs addressing.

It sounds to me like these psychiatrists determine fairly quickly that the situation is relational (between the person and context) and not particularly personally internal (psychological). Upon making that determination the psychiatrist then furthermore assumes that the soldier, the individual, is otherwise internally/psychologically healthy and is capable of surmounting these relational problems on his own without professional health. If I'm right, this sounds like a lot of assuming to me.

Nevertheless, we need to bring this back to Vienna. If the military chaplains in Vienna (who may or may not have been "infected" with this kind of military thinking) were to follow this line of thinking, would it result in something akin to my experiences in Vienna? The answer, I'm afraid has to be a pretty sound "no."

The kind of thinking described here is looking out for the host institution's (military's or Vienna mission's) apparent best interests in trying to keep as many soldiers as possible in circulation in a situation where manpower is needed and not easy to replace. There are several things here that don't fit the Vienna situation. First of all, I think I mentioned elsewhere that I developed a sense that no one was indispensable and also that I often had little work to do, and as such the manpower restraint would appear to not be a significant consideration in the Vienna context.

But also, if this were the case, our Vienna military chaplain (one of them in particular) would have done everything he could have to avoid taking me out of circulation, even temporarily, right? Wrong. This did not happen.

I will say, however, that although these combinations of assumptions don't fit the Vienna context, individual components taken separately do. That is, I find it hard to believe that they (not just the military chaplain) really had my interest at heart and indeed primarily had the mission's interests at heart, or maybe even the U.S's best interests at heart if this involved an indirect attempt to get me out of ministry to that part of the world in order to protect my dad and information he would have had access to. This is all hypothetical here, but I'm just laying these theories out as possibilities to be tested, in as much as is possible at this point in the game.

***

Here's a direct continuation from the previous quote:

"This approach to mental disorders is transmitted to individual line officers. Some of my interviewees have asserted that their commanding officers refer soldiers whom they do not know how to handle ('troublemakers,' for example) to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist typically will simply send them back to their unit after minimal counseling. Some psychiatrists tell commanding officers not to refer them any mental cases unless they want to (1) discharge the soldier under AR 635-212 (unfitness and unsuitability) or 635-89 (homosexuality), or (2) court-martial him and require certification of sanity, or (3) evaluate him for security clearance. In this manner, psychiatrists and line officers can cooperate in denying illness (and treatment) except in those cases where they want to get rid of the soldier." (p. 161)

First of all, if line officers are privy to this approach to "mental disorders" I would be pretty surprised if military chaplains weren't also, and even a part of this approach to mental health and the soldier.

Secondly, I'm going to look at these numbered items in reference to the Vienna mission to see if they shed any light on how things were done in the Vienna mission, and my experiences in particular.

The second item hardly implies, and certainly not in a legal sense as in the Army. The only possible corollary I can think of with the Vienna mission would be if it were suspected that there was a spy, a plant, or something along those lines in their midst. If they could prove the ill intentions of the person they could have person expelled, which they would easily have had the right to do under such circumstances. How hard could it have been to convince, given sufficient evidence, the supporters and churches back home (not to mention the mission's governing board of directors) that the person was being expelled for being an informant, or whatever the exact determination was? In fact, this kind of think would undoubtedly serve to loosen any possible accountability leash that might have existed even more so that they could strengthen security measures, which, of course, would probably mean more secrecy. The possibility of this happening or ever having happened was very small, very close to nil, I think. I'm not just talking about someone walking in the door as a visitor or repair person (for example), but about someone who was one of "them".

The first case, being referred patients as being potentially either unfit or homosexual, is more of a possibility, however. In this case, the Vienna mission might have doubted whether I was really fit to work with them, if I was emotionally stable enough to withstand the stresses of their work and how they carried it out. I find this a reasonable possibility. If it were indeed the case, they should have made every effort to see to it such a person in question was treated and restored to functionality if at all reasonably possible. So we'll keep this option in mind regarding how they might have operated and how they treated me in particular.

The third and last case given here, namely to be evaluated for a security clearance, doesn't exactly apply to the Vienna context, in as much as "security clearances," in the standard sense of the word, were not issued for that work. However, that being said, the work did involve security issues and the mission as a whole and individual colleagues in particular had to be able to trust each individual in the organization to be able to withstand the stresses that would possibly apply to their particular positions, duties and responsibilities within the organization. It could be, then that psychological-type processes (we didn't actually have a psychiatrist on staff that I'm aware of) were used in this process and that anyone with questionable emotional stability could have been referred for professional help to assist in making this determination. But since they didn't have a psychiatrist on staff and it might raise some questions or even eyebrows back home if it were known that psychiatry were used in this manner, they would have probably had to do this indirectly. That is, the psychiatrist might well not have known what the precursor was to the person's coming to him/her for help regarding institutional experiences and demands, which were, of course, secret and meant to be kept secret. In this case the person would go to counseling and manage to resolve any of his/her problems that might exist without mention of the "secret" aspects which would make him/her look paranoid or worse anyway, because who would believe such nonsense? So if the person on the receiving end of this treatment were to spill the beans and be open and frank about everything, that person would be found to have some serious mental illness and their testimony to these things would then be tainted as coming from a person who had serious mental problems, right? Or the person could avoid mentioning the "secrets" but internally not resolve the conflict of knowing what s/he had to do to overcome the conflict, and since the conflict inside remained there were signs of emotional disturbance, none of which pointed to the mission, because these things were kept "secret". So these are the options that I'm suggesting here is the security clearance case were a possibility:

1) The person resolves the internal conflicts vis a vis self vs. the mission and comes out clean and healthy

2) The person spills the beans about everything going on in the Vienna mission that is disturbing him/her in direct conflict with his/her beliefs and expectations about how things should be, and is deemed crazy, thus an unreliable witness

3) The person does not spill the beans but also does not resolve the internal conflict, thus resulting in emotional instability apparently not directly related to his/her experiences in Vienna.

4) I'll add this one here, for the sake of completeness: the person is actually mentally unstable, apart from anything particularly connected to Vienna, except maybe as that experience's being the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. In this case, one would think (speaking as a layperson here) that the person would exhibit signs of mental instability throughout his/her life, which may or may not have surfaced before the relationship with the Vienna mission.

If there are other options, I am not omitting them intentionally.

***

I need to take a break and do some things at home, but I'll be back to discuss this more later.

~ Meg

86. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 10 (Radine, pt. 4)

Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself in making the kinds of comments I did in my last post, and there's a lot more to be said about each of the things mentioned, but it'll all come together eventually.

I started the laundry and watered the garden a bit. It's too hot out this time of day to do much in the garden though. I've been cutting back the cucumber and squash plants for various problems, like some kind of green worm that seems to be not only eating the leaves but also possibly trying to set up cocoons. I think I really need to cut back a lot and see if there is any chance of getting any produce out of these, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point if I ended out having to give up altogether on those two vegetables. I have other seeds I could try, though.

But back to our text...

***

"In their writings, World War I generals told young officers to make personal acquaintance with all the men in their company. They should know them all by name so the soldiers would not feel that they were unimportant to the Army. Officers should try to know the men's personal problems, such as homesickness, or family problems to create an impression that the officer is interested in the soldiers and that he will try to take care of them. This concern will benefit the officer because he will be able to locate any morale depressants quickly, such as problems with the company mess. The soldiers will do more for an officer who looks out for their welfare.

Professional paternalists are not particularly lenient...

Professional paternalism is an elitist style of leadership that is based on a clear class separation between officers and enlisted men, just as parents feel justified in telling their children how to behave." (p. 60)

This is interesting too. I think that it's possible that this was a part of the leadership style in Vienna. There definitely was this whole caring atmosphere there and the leadership did evidence this kind of behavior (I even have some written documentation from said leadership that could be seen in this light; I took at least one of these that way even at the time, which was about 6 months after I'd returned home from Vienna.

Also, if I can change gears here, I think this could help me in understanding some of the sexist things I was talking about in an earlier post about not being taken seriously.

***

"Discipline (meaning here willing obedience) should not be based on the club. Officers should understand that soldiers fight and do not run away in spite of their fear of the enemy because they are afraid of losing each other's respect. The main control over soldiers, then, is the result of pressures from peers, not superiors, as least in a unit with high esprit de corps..." (p. 61)

So the glue that holds everything together (the cause of obedience) in these instances peer pressure. There was some peer pressure in Vienna, but it felt like it was more in the bigger areas like being like "everyone else" (not literally everyone, but by far the majority) in attending the English-speaking church. It felt to me that a lot of things I experienced in Vienna, originated in a top-down manner. It even felt like some of the competitive issues, where I felt like I was being pitted against someone else, was probably fed from above, for whatever reason. They could have done this for several reasons, including: 1) to increase my sense of ambiguity in the organization or 2) to make me feel more vulnerable in and less needed by the organization. Perhaps this is similar to in the Army, though, as it seems very possible or even likely that there too it was or could have been social engineered from above.

***

"The question that emerges from this early analysis is: How does a military officer create this very important esprit de corps? The soldier's intense desire for a sense of pride initially can be built up as a result of the humiliations in basic training and is used as a basis for creating esprit de corps. Here is one instance in which coercive techniques may support paternalistic techniques." (p. 61)

So let's get this straight: the army tears the new soldier apart to create a tabula rasa which allows the army to then recreate what the person wants the soldier to be, which results, at least in part, in esprit de corps.

Personal psychology in the service of group psychology in the hands of an evil master-mind. The "evil" part, of course, depends on how you look at it.

So, basically, after going through this great personal transformation (which happens conveniently for a whole cohort all together), results in individuals identifying very closely with others who've been through the same basic experiences, and having developed the same basic values (more or less) in the process. And by this time the feeling of being different than those in the civilian world after going through all that personal and collective trauma, results in the soldier doing what most people do, namely, relate to those most similar to themselves, which in this case, is other soldiers.

In Vienna it would have been other missionaries, instead of soldiers, and there wasn't a cohort going through it together (at least the initial socialization / boot camp), but other than that how I'm re-phrasing it seems like it would be a good fit for the Vienna mission.

***

"The object was to create in each man an automatic response to orders and a sense of acting in concert with other men. The fact that actual movements and activities on a drill field were irrelevant to the confusion of a battlefield was seen as not being as important as the habit of acting in concert without thinking." (p. 61)

The parts here about needing an "automatic response" and I'm not sure that acting "without thinking" was exactly what was wanted or in play. I think being unquestioning, especially in any of the major or most fundamental issues, would apply better to Vienna. But maybe the differences (between "without thinking" and "unquestioning") are only a matter of looking at it from a different angle; I'm not sure. But I feel more comfortable with my wording vis a vis the Vienna situation.

I'd also change the wording of the part about "acting in concert with other men" to be more along the lines of "functioning within our norms and customs." As such, once the rules of the game were (apparently) internalized then one could function as part of the group, and since it was a pretty closed system, there was, I think little room for deviation from the group norms, and the result could be something akin to "acting in concert with other men."

***

"Symbols and ceremonies were specifically designed to promote discipline and morale among troups... intended to inspire a feeling of group pride and expressed in perfect teamwork and instant response." (p. 61).

These kinds of things are, I think, almost run of the mill in the corporate world, for example, and in and of themselves, I don't think there's anything wrong with these things, and I don't think I was ever bothered or concerned about them while I was in Vienna, either. But these are also more akin to "high culture", which I did accept in Vienna.

***

"In discussing out non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were given some leadership opportunities, the author says that "oversupervision is to be avoided because it slackens initiative and morale." (p. 63)

Although I wasn't in a position comparable to NCOs, I must say that I don't remember ever feeling like I was over-supervised, in the sense of a boss breathing down your shoulders.

***

"Paternalism is not an 'ours is not to reason why' kind of doctrine. It is based on a notion of human nature that assumes that people are more motivated when they understand why they are told to do something." (p. 65)

Here's a situation where I think it was worse in Vienna. Because of the "security" concerns and the resultant segmentation of knowledge, you couldn't always be told "why" and it would be possible that "whys" that were provided could at times have been misleading. In this sense, Vienna was more like a spy agency, I think than the military.

Maybe the leadership style I experienced, then had only some superficial resemblance to the paternalism style of leadership, at lest how this author defines paternalism.

***

"Clearly an officer who adjusts the manner in which he gives commands shows the importance of knowing the personality of the subordinate and the atmosphere of the unit." (p. 66)

I can't recall any examples of adjusting how commands/instructions/etc. were given in Vienna. So this might help me understand something else I've felt in my experience in Vienna and then later, and which I've become possibly over-sensitive about; namely, that in not treating me as a unique individual I balk and a big defense shield goes up inside me. Vienna was the first time I think I experienced it, and most certainly the first time so strongly and for so long, but it was also present in my dealings with my first employers in Russia and by the time I got to my doctoral studies I had zero tolerance for this kind of thing, so if I was going to be pushed into a mold (becoming a professor) that I didn't want, I wasn't going to have anything to do with it, so out the door I went. If they would have listened to me, in my doctoral studies, if they would have helped me try to reach MY professional goals, I would have stuck it out. Why they didn't do that, I don't know. All I know is by that time I had zero tolerance for that kind of thing and my dad understood my leaving the program to be evidence that I didn't "trust anyone" (his words). With the help of this text, I'd rephrase it to be I didn't "trust anyone who won't treat me like an individual, but who insists on forcing me into a mold, for whatever reason." I'm talking of important things, not like "Should I go to the movie or the beach?" If someone I was with (a friend or whoever) insisted on going to the movie, I'd probably go along (as long as it wasn't, say, a horror movie). That's no big deal.

***

My first load of laundry has finished, it's almost 2:30, I haven't had lunch or taken my lunch meds yet, and I still haven't finished one chapter! But I've got to stop now to take care of these other things.

~ Meg

83. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 8 (Radine, pt. 2)

Yay! The lost papers have been found. In the process of looking I also realized I hadn't opened a box with some portfolio documents in it, and there are a few useful things in it too. And the box that has the articles in it also has more Vienna documentation and files on other topics.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with this, because I have so many of these files that fitting them in and still getting to my actual chronological narration is going to be hard. One thing nice about discussing these articles, is that I think it provides more insights, at least to my experience of my time in Vienna. I think it gives a lot richer understanding of it than if I just sat down and told the story.

Since I have a fairly small place here, things are stacked up a lot and these files were in a wooden chest that was under another wooden chest and a small bookcase. So I had to move everything to get into the bottom chest. But at least I was rewarded with success for my efforts.

But now I'm ready to sit down an discuss another chapter...

***

Chapter 2: Coercive Control

Here's one advantage the military has over certain Christian missions:

"There are other forces, such as civilian criticism of the military, that are outside the scope of this study." (p. 35)

That would really be a shocker, to see some real criticism of these missions! In my experience with these missions to former East Bloc countries criticism was all but unheard of. I did find one article from a Christian publication that suggested after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe that this might be an opportunity to remedy some problems in these missions. But why couldn't they have tried to remedy these things earlier?

***

"Writing in the 1960s, Peter Bourne, an Army psychiatrist, divided basic training into four stages. First, there was a stripping away of civilian cues, which are ways of telling the world how one wants to be interacted with and identified. This was done to more easily inculcate new identities and appearances. Second, there was a process of insults and mortifications that were intended to break down the individual's pride in himself, which is essential to his capacity to resist. In the third stage the Army began to rebuild and reorganize the personality by providing a few much desired rewards. Finally, there was some kind of final test of proficiency and often a graduation ceremony." (p. 40)

Not all of these stages fit my experience. There certainly wasn't anything akin to a graduation ceremony. And the second stage wasn't as brutal as it would have been in the Army, but still, I think there was some of this too. So stages one to three fit relatively well in the Vienna mission experience. That's a much tougher kind of "socialization" (which is a prominent subject in another file) than for the average job, or even mission experience. I don't think, for example, that Wycliffe Bible translators are subjected to this kind of experience in their orientation, and probably not Child Evangelism Fellowship missionaries either.

Reading this now (the passage), I was thinking to myself, "Wow, if we can't get you to come as a tabula rasa (blank slate), we'll turn you into one so that we can then make you into what we want you to be."

The author develops these stages more in the following paragraphs.

***

"The first few days a recruit experienced in the military were a period of great stress and shock for him. In this first stage, he actually did very little except respond to routine induction procedures such as filling out forms, being issued uniforms, and so forth." (p. 40)

I have a big asterisk by this section. I'll get in to this more when I get to the chronology, but I felt like I was doing a lot of grunt work, unnecessary work and/or not enough work, especially at the beginning, but it never got very good for me in this regard.

***

In discussing the second stage:

"Recruits quickly learned the do's and don'ts that would please the drill instructor and would keep them from being picked out for embarrassing individual harassment in front of others." (p. 40)

I don't think there was public harassment in Vienna, but the learning of do's and don'ts is worth taking a look at here. Because of the great ambiguity (another subject in a different file) for virtually all the time I was in Vienna (it's very difficult to live that long under so much ambiguity, let me tell you!), I never really caught on exactly to the do's and don'ts. But I think that if I had sort of followed the indirect signals, tested them out more, I would have eventually caught on, but by doing so I would have sort of "entered there world" which I wasn't sure I wanted to do - wasn't sure at all that I liked there world.

You could say, then, that it might have been possible do this testing out, and then proceeding to follow the ones that received positive feedback, as a sort of going through the motions and then be sucked into it so that before you know it your thinking as well as your interaction style had changed. Or, you could approach it the other way and start with accepting the apparent values of the group and then have actions follow. For someone who didn't notice any potential problems with values, or who didn't put as high a value on them as I did, you could probably have gone either way. But if someone had a problem with the values, I think the only way to really gain a good foothold in the organization would have been to have the actions precede the change in thinking process, so that incrementally you'd change your thinking and finally accept as not being so bad after all. Somehow, though, the values struck me as so bad that I couldn't even let myself go through the motions of testing the apparent relatively indirect cues. How they treated me early on made me dig my heels in even more and actually served to reinforce my concerns.

***

"In the third stage of basic training, some of the recruit's repressed desires were allowed to come to the for - for example, a recruit's desire for individuality and recognition - and the Army made use of them." (p. 41)

Shortly before my parents came to visit me in Vienna I was sent my one and only teaching trip (other than ESL trips across the boarder to Czechoslovakia, which the secretaries did) into Eastern Europe. I think this was one way they may have tried this with me and also I started to be involved in a planning group for starting work in the Soviet Union. But it never was exactly clear what the significance of these things were and there were also issues of competition with others for positions, that I couldn't figure out the significance of. Ironically, not long after the teaching trip I was demoted to receptionist. So how is one supposed to read these signals? It was like that the whole time, but the ambiguity increased at the end.

***

"Recruits learned that the way to beat the system was to excel in it.

Uncooperative recruits were isolated and ostracized with ridicule and insults, which even the other recruits joined in...


The harassment (although mixed with rewards) that continued through this third stage functioned ostensibly to ensure that soldiers would follow direct orders immediately." (p. 42)

I think the first line fits my experience in Vienna. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

We didn't have the ridicule and insults, but towards the end I was getting more comments pointing to my noncooperation, for example, and I was also ostracized socially.

The last line here is very interesting. This mixing of positive and negative rewards would be a way to test and/or teach submission and obedience. It could have served that purpose in Vienna too, although the "immediately" part wasn't as crucial there, but you could substitute with with "unthinkingly". That is, don't think too much (critically, I mean) about the instructions, just do it.

***

"The treatment in the novel [From Here to Eternity] requires various officers and NCOs to act in concert to pressure a soldier to conform. These pressures entail social isolation, extra duty, disallowing of passes, withholding expected promotions, and assignment to unpleasant details such as KP (kitchen patrol)." (p. 43)

This describes most of my time in Vienna.

***

Speaking of the Army's efforts to quell dissidents:

"And they mobilize their full efforts to drive the guy nuts, to get rid of him, or disband a unit, or how can we court martial him, or put him in a stockade, or do something." (p. 44)

I wasn't an organizer, and I didn't talk about my thoughts in while Vienna, not like I'm doing now, but I still felt like this at times. I might not have been trying to organize anyone and I didn't do anything (not that I can remember) that might have caused others to join me in my internal questioning of the mission, but the very fact that I wasn't progressing well along the intended socialization path was enough to deal pretty forcefully with me. I'm not aware of anyone else there in a comparable position to me, not during my time there or prior to my coming.

***

During an interview with an enlisted soldier:

"I asked, 'Doesn't the Army want solidity?'

Yeah, but it's got to be a different kind, you know what I mean? It has to be their form of solidity. In other words, if it's going to be esprit de corps, it got to be their way." (p. 46)

The concept that the organization determines the rules of play period, no discussion, was my experience in Vienna. Not that it was an issue of solidity or esprit de corps, but in general about how things were done there.

***

"I asked an exasperated soldier what he meant by harassment.

That's really harassment when they keep moving you around. And not just moving to another unit. They say you can't work here any more; you have to move to this other building. Then they say you can't work upstairs any more, you have to work downstairs. You move downstairs, then they say you're at the wrong end of the building, you have to move to the other end. That's harassment." (p. 47)

I had a lot of that. I like the label "harassment".

***

That's all for tonight and it's late anyway. I've had this light headache all day for some reason. I thought maybe it was sinus related so I took a sudafed, but it didn't help. Maybe Aleve would be better.

Goodnight.

~ Meg

***

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