Page 3 of 3 Marching out of step in the US military
By Dahr Jamail
His actions, he's convinced, have affected the way his fellow soldiers are now
looking at the war in Afghanistan. "The topic has come up a lot in
conversation, with soldiers on base now asking, 'What are we doing in
Afghanistan? Why are we there?' People feel compelled to bring this up when I'm
around. Even the ones that disagree with me say it's great what I'm doing, and
that I'm doing what a lot of them don't have the courage to do. If anything,
the people I work with have now been treating me better than ever."
On May 27, rejecting an Article 15 - a non-judicial punishment imposed by a
commanding officer who believes a member of his command has committed an
offense under the Uniform Code of
Military Justice - Agosto demanded to be court-martialed.
According to Agosto, the army has now begun the court martial process, but has
not yet set a trial date. Bishop, too, awaits a possible court martial.
On June 1, a day when four US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, Agosto told
me in a phone call from Fort Hood, "I haven't had to disobey any orders lately.
A sergeant asked me if it'd be okay if I had to follow orders, and I said no,
and they didn't force it."
Agosto and Bishop are hardly alone. In November 2007, the Pentagon revealed
that between 2003 and 2007 there had been an 80% increase in overall desertion
rates in the army (desertion refers to soldiers who go AWOL and never intend to
return to service), and army AWOL rates from 2003 to 2006 were the highest
since 1980. Between 2000 and 2006, more than 40,000 troops from all branches of
the military deserted, more than half from the army. Army desertion rates
jumped by 42% from 2006 to 2007 alone.
US Army Specialist Andre Shepherd joined the army on January 27, 2004. He was
trained in Apache helicopter repair and sent first to Germany, then was
stationed in Iraq from November 2004 to February 2005, before being based again
in Germany. Shepherd went AWOL in southern Germany in April 2007 and lived
underground until applying for asylum there in November 2008, making him the
first Iraq veteran to apply for refugee status in Europe.
He, too, has refused further military service because he feels morally opposed
to the occupation of Iraq. While he awaits word from the German government and
is still technically AWOL, Shepherd is being supported by Courage to Resist, a
group based in Oakland, California, which actively assists soldiers who refuse
to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.
A counselor and administrative associate at that organization, Adam
Szyper-Seibert, points out that "in recent months there has been a dramatic
rise of nearly 200% in the number of soldiers that have contacted Courage to
Resist". Szyper-Seibert suspects this may reflect the decision of the Barack
Obama administration to dramatically increase efforts, troop strength, and
resources in Afghanistan.
"We are actively supporting over 50 military resisters like Victor Agosto,"
Szyper-Seibert says. "They are all over the world, including Andre Shepherd in
Germany and several people in Canada. We are getting five or six calls a week
just about the IRR [Individual Ready Reserve] recall alone."
The IRR is composed of troops who have finished their active duty service but
still have time remaining on their contracts. The typical military contract
mandates four years of active duty followed by four years in the IRR, though
variations on this pattern exist. Ready Reserve members live civilian lives and
are not paid by the military, but they are required to show up for periodic
musters. Many have moved on from military life and are enrolled in college,
working civilian jobs, and building families.
At any point, however, a member of the Ready Reserve can be recalled to active
duty. This policy has led to the involuntary reactivation of tens of thousands
of troops to fight the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lieutenant General
Jack C Stultz, the chief of the US Army Reserve and Commanding General of the
US Army Reserve Command, told Congress on March 3 that, since September 11,
2001, the army has mobilized about 28,000 from the Reserves.
There have been 3,724 marines involuntarily recalled and mobilized during that
same period, according to Major Steven O'Connor, a Marine Corps spokesman.
(According to Major O'Connor, as of May 2009, the marines are no longer
recalling individuals from the IRR.)
Ironically, under a new commander-in-chief whom many voters believed to be
anti-war, the army is continuing its Individual Ready Reserve recalls. "The IRR
recall has not seen any change since Obama became president," Sarah Lazare, the
project coordinator for Courage to Resist, says. "It's difficult to predict
what the Obama administration's policy will be in the future regarding the IRR,
but definitely they haven't made any moves to stop this practice."
Needing boots on the ground, according to Lazare, the military continues to
fall back on the Ready Reserve system to fill the gaps: "Since these are
experienced troops, many of them have already served tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan." Lazare adds, "When Obama announced his Afghanistan surge, we got
a huge wave of calls from soldiers saying they didn't want to be reactivated
and to please help them not go."
The future of military dissent
Right now, acts of dissent, refusal and resistance in the all-volunteer
military remain small-scale and scattered. Ranging from the extreme private act
of suicide to avoidance of duty to actual refusal of duty, they continue to
consist largely of individual acts.
Present-day GI resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan cannot
begin to be compared with the extensive resistance movement that helped end the
Vietnam War and brought an army of draftees to the point of near mutiny in the
late 1960s. Nevertheless, the ongoing dissent that does exist in the US
military, however fragmented and overlooked at the moment, should not be
discounted.
The Iraq war boils on at still dangerous levels of violence, while the war in
Afghanistan (and across the border in Pakistan) only grows, as does the US
commitment to both. It's already clear that even an all-volunteer military
isn't immune to dissent.
If violence in either or both occupations escalates, if the Pentagon struggles
to add more boots on the ground, if the stresses and strains on the military,
involving endless redeployments to combat zones, increase rather than lessen,
then the acts of Agosto, Bishop, and Shepherd may turn out to be pathbreaking
ones in a world of dissent yet to be experienced and explored. Add in
dissatisfaction and discontent at home if, in the coming years, American
treasure continues to be poured into an Afghan quagmire, and real support for a
GI resistance movement may surface. If so, then the early pioneers in methods
of dissent within the military will have laid the groundwork for a movement.
"If we want soldiers to choose the right but difficult path, they must know
beyond any shadow of a doubt that they will be supported by Americans." So said
First Lieutenant Ehren Watada of the US Army, the highest-ranking enlisted
soldier to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. (He finally had the military
charges against him dropped by the Justice Department.) The future of any such
movement in the military is now unknowable, but keep your eyes open. History,
even military history, holds its own surprises.
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