What Transforms People

[3113]

In the Omaha Beach thread, Jenny Jackson asserted (and/or implied) that every young person should be drafted into the army as it transforms them into a good person (specific to that thread, it makes us equal minded). Not wanting to threadjack that discussion further, I'm responding here. But invite people to discuss how people have been transformed for the better by certain groups or experiences military or otherwise. While I'm sure the military is a very effective, transforming experience for a lot of people, I do not believe that there is a one-size-cure-all for making us all unbias and responsible adults.

I can speak for my cousin, Steve (mother's brother's kid), though. He's the same age as me and was the worst little shit that ever lived until the AirForce got their claws in him. Now he's quite a different person.

And I'll match that up to a cousin of mine who was the worst little shit that ever lived. He joined a cult and became quite a different person (in a kinda good way). Oh, and there was another cousin of mine who was really horrible, and now is on medications and wow, what a difference that has made, great guy. My own brother was horrific as a child, but puberty and some family troubles cured that, he's awesome now. And this really awful friend of my husband who finally admitted he was a alcoholic, is sober, and that has made an amazing change in him. And that girl I knew who was a really spoilt brat until she had cancer. Nicest person in the world now. Works for homeless charities.

I'll also go in the opposite direction, where one person I knew was really wonderful--until they went into the army. They came back and the change was not for the better. It included racial slurs which I'd never heard from this person before. He's now in jail.

The KKK had it's biggest surge ever in membership after men got home from WWI, and, currently, the military--starting most notoriously with the Air Force that "saved" your cousin, in trouble for promoting religious bias. President Clinton, a man famously not in the military, wanted to end discrimination against gays in the military and was told by his military leaders "We'll resign if you do that!"

We ended up with DADT madness because of that. So if you're going to tell me that the army magically transforms all men into seeing that we're all equal, then I'm going to argue that you're wrong and it's bullshit. It might magically transform some individuals like your cousin. But as institution, the army can't be argued to have always, or even now, promoted equality. There is no one-size-fits-all cure for bigotry or even to "make a man" out of irresponsible shits.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think you have to consider the source: the kind of person you're trying to transform and what transformation you're trying to bring about.

Boys go into the army at a crucial point in their life--just when they're leaving the nest. It's the same change a lot of guys go through when they go away to college, so I wonder how much of the change is due to military training and discipline and how much is just due to the Rite-Of-Passage aspect of the experience: going from boyhood to adulthood.

Personally, I came of age during the height of the Viet Nam war resistance, and I myself don't know of anyone who came back from that conflict changed in a positive way. Of course, most of the people I know who were drafted were fairly anti-war to start with, and quite a few of them came back pretty thoroughly damaged or deranged. I never heard anyone speak positively about the experience. One guy ended up driving heavy equipment in Thailand and he enjoyed it. I can't say it changed him for the better though.

One friend, who left college to enlist in the marines, was stationed in Japan and came back more or less unchanged but seemed more mature--if you consider taciturnity and a certain kind of cynicism to be signs of maturity. He hadn't enjoyed the experience, though, and would never talk about it.

Still, you get to shoot things and drive dangerous machines in the army, and how bad can that be?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I was in the Vietnam War and it changed me in many ways. It was hot, encrusted with flies and shit, and thoroughly disgusting much of the time. I also hadd a fractured skull and lost several of my teeth. I wouldnt trade the experiences for anything, and sure as shit wouldnt go back.

I've been to college and been in the military and they arent the same experience; you cant substitute one for the other. The military, for one, had some serious penalties for inept performance, and you couldnt quit and walk away.

But mostly I learned two things most people never learn: Whatever doesnt kill you or damage your health is an inconvenience; and when you go out to kill a man aint nobody with you but God and maybe a comrade. You get intensely close to your comrades.

I've never seen the psychological wounds Doc reports. I didnt see them in Vietnam, and I havent seen it in real veterans. But I've met plenty of phoney vets.

I was a fireman long ago, it can change you pretty quickly when you must go inside an inferno or remove burned & broken people from car wrecks.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

My father was in Viet Nam too, JBJ. I remember him when I was a child waking up in the middle of the night screaming and shaking. Of course, that was before anyone recognized Combat Stree Disorder. During the day he was a very quiet man and loving father. One day he just left without saying a word to anyone. Several yeas later I was discovered dead in Chicago. He was 44.

Yeah. The military changes people. With few exceptions they are changed for the better.

I still stand by my original statement. The loss of the draft coupled with lazy parenting has put us where we are now with overweight, ignorant dirtbags roaming the street with nothing on their minds but where there next drug is coming from and how to get it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JENNY

I agree with you.

The military gave me an opportunity to travel the world (Alaska, Japan, Azores, Italy, Germany, Spain, Vietnam, Canada, etc) and have plentiful experiences no college affords.

Parents are lazy, and theyre intimidated by their kids. My youngest was the teen from Hell. In 1992 she informed me that if she couldnt do thus-n-such she was calling the cops. And I said GO FOR IT BITCH. She did.

The cops and child protection and the fire department came to the house. I told them...TALK TO HER, EXAMINE HER, AND WHEN YOU CANT FIND SHIT...GET OUT. She eventually got in trouble and I persuaded the judge to lock her in jail for 90 days then send her ass to a wilderness camp. He did. Six months later she was a different kid. No drugs, no drinking, no failing her ass off, no scumbag friends. She's now 32 and you cant name a better person and mom.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Speaking from personal experience, I think having children can transform a person. I know there are a lot of shitty parents out there, so obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but it was for me. I was the most selfish, self-destructive, irresponsible, and vengeful person before I had my child. But, I think you either suck it up and try to be a good parent or you walk away. There was no in between for me. I had to stop partying and grow up in a very short time, but it probably saved my life.

As for other stuff, I do know a lot of people who credit finding religion with personal transformation. My husband credits going back to church as a big part of the process of quitting drinking. Personally, I think there are probably a variety of reasons why being part of a group identity situation like church, the military, organized sports, or a social group helps in transformation. Primarily, people are probably more afraid to fail in front of their peers. So, it really does become much like a support group.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SCARLETT

Yep. Kids will do it! They expose every nerve, weakness, and strength you have.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have a friend who is a recruiter. When he called me with a 'career plan' for my son, I told him that I could not trust his Commander in Chief to do right by the people under his control.

He agreed with me.

The army in general indeed does instill discipline. But fighting in an injust and illegal war? That's not going to be good for anyone.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

What seems to transform many people is a discovery that they can be part of something larger. I, too, entered the military during Viet Nam. Due to injuries in Basic Training, I was judged unfit for combat and spent my first three years in the states and Europe. When I got out, I never wanted to see a green lawn again, let alone a green suit. However, within a year I was in a Reserve unit and stayed in the Reserves for most of the next twenty-three years. It gave me something I needed. It was years before I figured out what that was. The Army is the world's biggest commune. Really! You work together, play together, eat together and watch each other's back. The community it builds is crucial to its effectiveness. Anyone who really fits into a unit develops relationships with everyone else in the unit. Not all the relationships are close, of course, but most will be. You have to. If the day comes when there are a bunch of other people out there trying to kill you, it's your buddies that will help you get home alive. It doesn't take long before you realize that they are depending on you, too. "We don't leave our people in there" isn't just a bad cliche' from Hollywood. It's an ethic. It builds responsibility. When that breaks down, it breaks people.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Unless you like to kill people. and wanna learn how.

My kid joined back in 1988 and they trained him to assassinate and reconnoiter. He killed some terrorists along the Panama Canal and in Iraq. He killed Polar Bears in Greenland. He tested security at missle sites (captured some politicians at one site) and captured a few security people. Twenty years later he does intelligence work.

If youre on a cruise what do you care if Dubya sends the ninjas to kill the people wanting to kill you?

 

[Recidiva]

I think transformation comes from one solid "fact" that you've relied upon in your life shifting and becoming unreal and untrue. That's not the only factor, because having a foundation crumble on a person doesn't always work out positively. Sometimes it results in denial efforts and going double down on the old strategy.

Admitting you can be wrong and moving forward in your life as if you are fallible is transformative.

It can happen anywhere and doesn't have to be traumatic or long term. It can be an observation or a thought or seeing something real that you didn't think was possible. And then following through on the vertigo.

 

[DeeZire]

As I mentioned in the other thread, there is enough crap going on in the military to illustrate that the transformation is not always positive.

 

[Recidiva]

Speaking from personal experience, I think having children can transform a person. I know there are a lot of shitty parents out there, so obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but it was for me. I was the most selfish, self-destructive, irresponsible, and vengeful person before I had my child. But, I think you either suck it up and try to be a good parent or you walk away. There was no in between for me. I had to stop partying and grow up in a very short time, but it probably saved my life.

As for other stuff, I do know a lot of people who credit finding religion with personal transformation. My husband credits going back to church as a big part of the process of quitting drinking. Personally, I think there are probably a variety of reasons why being part of a group identity situation like church, the military, organized sports, or a social group helps in transformation. Primarily, people are probably more afraid to fail in front of their peers. So, it really does become much like a support group.

Being a parent is absolutely transformative. Of all the things in the world I could have cared for, or I could have done, I had no real traction on why I was here or what my purpose was.

It wasn't until parenthood that I really felt I had a place and a purpose, and no doubt about how to go forward.

I can't express how transformative it was in so many aspects of my life, or why I feel it was the best thing I've ever done, not for other people, but for me. It brought perspective, depth and meaning to things that I'd never particularly cared about before.

 

[Epmd607]

What seems to transform many people is a discovery that they can be part of something larger. I, too, entered the military during Viet Nam. Due to injuries in Basic Training, I was judged unfit for combat and spent my first three years in the states and Europe. When I got out, I never wanted to see a green lawn again, let alone a green suit. However, within a year I was in a Reserve unit and stayed in the Reserves for most of the next twenty-three years. It gave me something I needed. It was years before I figured out what that was. The Army is the world's biggest commune. Really! You work together, play together, eat together and watch each other's back. The community it builds is crucial to its effectiveness. Anyone who really fits into a unit develops relationships with everyone else in the unit. Not all the relationships are close, of course, but most will be. You have to. If the day comes when there are a bunch of other people out there trying to kill you, it's your buddies that will help you get home alive. It doesn't take long before you realize that they are depending on you, too. "We don't leave our people in there" isn't just a bad cliche' from Hollywood. It's an ethic. It builds responsibility. When that breaks down, it breaks people.

The day I graduated from Infantry Training Brigade I fingerbanged my then girlfriend(now wife) in the bathroom of the Ft. Benning movie theater -- she wouldn't let me do it during the actual movie.

I don't think you leave the army with values you didn't have going in. Military just gives people a sense of belonging and most people get a supreme self-confidence that's almost priggish.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The day I graduated from Infantry Training Brigade I fingerbanged my then girlfriend(now wife) in the bathroom of the Ft. Benning movie theater -- she wouldn't let me do it during the actual movie.

I don't think you leave the army with values you didn't have going in. Military just gives people a sense of belonging and most people get a supreme self-confidence that's almost priggish.

Yep. I recall how confident I was at the end of boot camp. Kick ass and take names. I was worse after Vietnam. I went to Germany afterwards and thought those guys were pussies. They were.

 

[wife2hotblk]

Pain...and change have always worked for me, but it hurts like hell.

 

[PREMwriter]

I've seen people transform for a myriad of reasons. Be it a traumatic experience and the perseverance to go on. Pain that is so debilating it sucks the life out of you, but a will to go on and get past it drives them to transform. The transformation of one's self comes from within and the need for fight or flight. Those that fight, survive and live on, despite what life has thrown at them. Those that choose flight will die because they can't cope with what life throws at them and crumble. Self discipline is one key factor in transforming a person. Telling yourself everyday to survive and live the best life you can creates a will to live that can't be broken by anything less than death itself. The army helps instill that in people who can't do it for themselves.

 

[rgraham666]

Personally I don't like the idea of conscription at all. To paraphrase Heinlein, if I'm in combat I don't want someone covering my back who doesn't want to be there.

There's also the simple fact that a society that can't find enough people to defend it is in so much trouble that conscription isn't going to help it, in my opinion. Again quoting Heinlein, "Early on, Roman mothers told their sons, 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later this custom declined. So did Rome.

The transformation that military service puts someone through is not always a positive one. I know that if I had signed up I'd have ended up like Vincent D'Onfrio's character in Full Metal Jacket; sitting on a toilet with an M14 in my mouth and my brains decorating the wall behind me. Some people aren't meant to be soldiers.

 

[PREMwriter]

It's not so much being a soldier Rob, as being disciplined. Some people can't do it for themselves and that's where the armed forces comes in. I'm not advocating for men and women to become soldiers and go to war, but they instill discipline to a point where you practice it on your own and do what's needed to survive. If there was a better way, more people would do it.

 

[JamesSD]

I think you have to consider the source: the kind of person you're trying to transform and what transformation you're trying to bring about.

Boys go into the army at a crucial point in their life--just when they're leaving the nest. It's the same change a lot of guys go through when they go away to college, so I wonder how much of the change is due to military training and discipline and how much is just due to the Rite-Of-Passage aspect of the experience: going from boyhood to adulthood.

Personally, I came of age during the height of the Viet Nam war resistance, and I myself don't know of anyone who came back from that conflict changed in a positive way. Of course, most of the people I know who were drafted were fairly anti-war to start with, and quite a few of them came back pretty thoroughly damaged or deranged. I never heard anyone speak positively about the experience. One guy ended up driving heavy equipment in Thailand and he enjoyed it. I can't say it changed him for the better though.

One friend, who left college to enlist in the marines, was stationed in Japan and came back more or less unchanged but seemed more mature--if you consider taciturnity and a certain kind of cynicism to be signs of maturity. He hadn't enjoyed the experience, though, and would never talk about it.

Still, you get to shoot things and drive dangerous machines in the army, and how bad can that be?

I think the military is great for young men who lack a strong male role model in their life, or finish high school lacking purpose or direction, with no real career plan or goal. From suicide bombers to rioters in France to drug dealers, the common thread amongst most young men who get caught up in antisocial actions is a lack of opportunity for economic advancement and stability. Young men without jobs can't afford a wife/child, and formation of family is often a stabilizing factor.

On the other hand, for most skilled, "white collar" professions, years in the military would be wasted in terms of career advancement and skill acquisition. While the army does have doctors, lawyers, engineers and computer programmers, many of these careers through the military aren't that different from the civilian route. From what I've heard basic training for those who come in as officers is hugely different than those who enlist. Going into the Air Force or Naval academy is certainly different from your typical 4 year university, and does offer opportunity for those with the brains who lack the financial means to reach their goals.

I close with a weak, wishy-washy statement of "I think military service is excellent for some people, and would be a waste of time for others".

 

[Epmd607]

Personally I don't like the idea of conscription at all. To paraphrase Heinlein, if I'm in combat I don't want someone covering my back who doesn't want to be there...

On the other hand, what we have now is a mercenary army. People join because they have no other opportunities and only serve as far as they get paid. Most people in the Army don't want to actually be in the Army, not to mention go to an actual war zone.

Officers are a different story... If you're commissioned as a 2nd Lt straight outta ROTC or Officer Candidacy School you're getting sent to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Korea and making as much money as an engineer out of college.

A citizen army, one where everyone serves, would prevent war. No one cared about Viet Nam until there was heavy conscription.

 

[JamesSD]

On the other hand, what we have now is a mercenary army. People join because they have no other opportunities and only serve as far as they get paid. Most people in the Army don't want to actually be in the Army, not to mention go to an actual war zone.

Officers are a different story... If you're commissioned as a 2nd Lt straight outta ROTC or Officer Candidacy School you're getting sent to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Korea and making as much money as an engineer out of college.

A citizen army, one where everyone serves, would prevent war. No one cared about Viet Nam until there was heavy conscription.

Plus, have you seen some of the pics of Israli women posing with their machine guns? Regardless of how you feel about the middle east, I think the world needs more hawt women posing with guns.

 

[R. Richard]

There's also the simple fact that a society that can't find enough people to defend it is in so much trouble that conscription isn't going to help it, in my opinion. Again quoting Heinlein, "Early on, Roman mothers told their sons, 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later this custom declined. So did Rome.

The quotation that you cite is traditionally attributed to a Spartan mother:

http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/dunkle/athnlife/warfare1.htm

 

[Freefall_mc]

What transforms an individual? Environment spliced with the need for purpose.

Whether some people believe in a “citizens’ army” or not would depend on national conditions. An entire culture threatened, the term “draft” would not even cross through the air in any citizen’s circle of conversation. A justified purpose, without any thought of discipline or merits.

Any institution or structured unit can impose upon, or have the masses sanction a common purpose with the human essentials reduced to the basic physiological needs first. Some people need structure first to find what drives them.

I believe we do have developmental stages where people are more impacted by any sudden environmental changes, and traumatic or enlightening events. A transformation in one’s ideology would be more significant during one of those stages of youth. People can say it comes down to will, the personal desire to evolve our ideals beyond that which would easily corrupt us, or destroy us. What generates will then? Purpose.

I have no direct experience with what it must have been like for those who have been enlisted in the military during the most horrific conditions of history. But I do know the characteristics of the vets I have been privileged to know as friends in my past. Those who, unlike some, I was never nervous to be around. Some had apparently simplified their theologies, but with a stronger conviction than those who have their own lengthy “personal ethics” list. Asking one, “What helped you survive? “ He replied, “Basic instinct, there was no time for ethical considerations.”

I can only say I have a fraction of understanding of what it’s like to depend day in and day out on your comrades for survival. It bonds. Personalities, beyond that which may jeopardize the groups’ primary purpose of survival, goes out the window in those circumstances, as well as theologies. A shared purpose.

What makes an individual desire to thrive, after a traumatic experience? A NEW sense of purpose. Many parents find this and their self identity in the rearing of their children. Just one example.

It is not the event so much, as the lack of, or grasping of purpose that can transform an individual’s philosophy. *Wonder if that made sense.*

Were history's mercenaries homeless? Culturally unidentified or unrecognized?

 

[penandpaper]

Transformation happens when one wants it to. That's it. All the rest is just giving in and developing a new set of habits and rules based on the environment. That includes the military, college, and firends. But, to actually transform one's self - it happens when you get off your ass and make it happen, not because someone told you.