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Yesterday morning I drove into town to call in to the Hagmann and Hagmann show to ensure good phone reception. Ten O’clock rolls around, I call, and the show is not on the air. What happened!? I rechecked the time; it’s good. I rechecked the number; it is correct. The problem? I was early, too early, about 12 hours early! I was told 10 O’clock and assumed it to be 10:00 am instead of 10:00 pm. Oh how I miss Military Time!

Twelve hours later I made the trip again and successfully connected to the show. What I thought was to be a 30 minute interview ended up turning into an hour. The time passed without me making note of it and I don’t mind the extra time to talk. Douglas Hagmann, the primary host, loves to throw unscripted and pointed questions at you. I don’t mind that though. We live in a time where open questions and debate are needed more than ever. Using your offense to what someone says is a poor excuse to not reason with the point that was made. Cries of “You can’t say that”, or “Don’t be offensive” are merely debating tools to silence your opposition without having to answer their points. I believe most Americans have bought into this mind-set and turn their brains off with the slightest justification of offense. Yet we argue about the “Truth” or “Setting the Record Straight” as if there was an honest attempt at finding it. I was not prepared for some of Doug’s questions and some were beyond what I could honestly vouch for. However, I answered them with what I knew and with a free conscience. I’d have it no other way.

Overall I enjoyed the interview and loved talking with the Hagmanns. They expressed a curiosity which I honestly am not accustomed to from civilians. When the subject of the Iraq War comes up the usual response is a more reserved and stand-off demeanor with the usual and expected phrases. “Thank you for fighting for our freedom” or maybe, “Thank you for your sacrifice” are archetypical type expressions. Yet beyond that, there is no further inquiry into what the sacrifice or how the fight was. An awkward silence then follows and is usually broken by an abrupt change of the subject or an “Oh, look at the time” type gesture. After a while most veterans just don’t bring it up unless it is to someone they know who will relate.

There is one particular line of questioning that Doug used which I want to further expound upon here. In a conversation it is easy to miss certain things and I can better write it out using hindsight and a more thorough examination of the points made. I was asked if I thought US soldiers, and also if I would willing face off with their civilian counter-parts to suppress a movement against a tyrannical government (I am paraphrasing in my words…listen to the actual interview if you want to know the actual questions). I gave the opinion that some will and some will not; we are not all mindless robots. A reference was then quoted from my book were I talked about how it is amazing what years of conditioned obedience can do. I suppose they were trying to rectify that statement with the answer I made to their question, and rightfully so.

Army organizations, and worse, their governments have been around for a while and know how to use their forces. Conditioned obedience is a necessary ingredient for any army. Without it, there literally is no army worth that name. No one ever asks an army if they are willing to do such and such. In all the brief moments and rare historical examples that we have, any attempt to do so met with failure and a return to enforced authority. Surprisingly, though, this does not mean that ALL soldiers mindlessly obey without question every order given. It may surprise some of you that there are times when orders are ignored or disobeyed, even by leaders. The more the mistrust of the soldiers for their higher leaders, the more ramped this is. Yet the Army functions, how is this?

Here is my explanation of a typical approach that our Army uses in getting their soldiers to do things they expect won’t be received well. The first approach will consist in the “philosophical” appeal, the official reasons why we are to do it. This is intended to get those naturally motivated by the “noble” appeal to fall in with the mission, and there is always someone who will for each and every reason. Their motivation will be the most genuine and they will naturally influence many others to carry things out even if they are unsure of it. One example to come to my mind is the LA Riots in the early 90s. I was a Private at Fort Ord, CA when these broke out and some battalions of Infantry were sent to help keep order there. I was not in that battalion, but we were briefed about the events in case we were called upon. They didn’t tell us that US troops were being used to put down a rebellion or to enforce the government’s will, etc. That would not have gone over well. We were told that we were there to prevent the further spreading of violence and to prevent gangs from taking control of the city. To any reasonable soldier this sounds sufficient for them to do their duty.

This is only one example of active troops being used to keep order in our country. The first example that comes to my mind is the Whiskey Rebellion where Washington himself, as the President, led a large army to suppress it. More modern examples are the deployment of troops to the devastated areas of Hurricanes Hugo and Katrina. Throughout our history as a nation, like it or not, agree with it or not, there is precedent for the deployment of troops to keep law and order. It is not a newly invented idea. Americans traditionally do not like to subscribe to such a measure, but even democracies don’t tolerate rebellion and disorder.

What if this “philosophical” appeal does not have the desired effect? Then the Army will resort to enforcing it. In the not too distant past armies used flogging, hard confinement, and execution (among other rough measures) as means to ensure troop obedience. These are not common anymore in our Army, but the enforcement is still there. Threats and hampering of privileges are now common. It is made known that even though you do not like what is happening, you are still going to do it, or face the consequences. This by no means is appreciated and it causes a more disgruntled spirit within the ranks. Nonetheless, it has the desired effect of pushing the unit into its desired action. This is usually sufficient in mobilizing a sizable portion of the unit to act.

This must be viewed carefully though. Many soldiers executing orders that they despise do so grudgingly and with the most minimum of efforts. Often times the appearance of carry out the orders are made for the show, but in reality they are often not. Even still, the presence and half-hearted efforts of the soldiers gives the impression that they are willfully carrying out their despicable orders. This gives the commanders of forces and their political leaders a useful weapon in inspiring fear in their enemies. The downside of this is that such a force is subject to effective psychological warfare.

Consider Saddam’s army during the retaking of Kuwait in 1991. It was one of the largest armies in the world with combat experience from fighting a conventional war with Iran. They possessed tanks, aircraft, artillery, chemical weapons, and helicopter capabilities. On paper it was an impressive force and it answered unquestionably to the orders of Saddam.  It is easy to condemn those soldiers from a distance for following Saddam’s orders, but those who do, do so in ignorance. Those soldiers endured what soldiers worldwide go through. They were coerced into action by its political and high ranking leaders. Honestly, that is what an army is for. To just fight such an army only, will help bind it together. When their friends are killed, when they country is devastated, and they have you to blame, it strengthens their resolve. Why did this not happen? We didn’t just fight that army, we appealed to its conscience. Many of their soldiers did not want to fight us for the sake of Saddam and this was played on heavily by us. Many surrendered rather than fought. This would repeat itself again in 2003 where Saddam lost control as his instrument of terror eroded.

Even with the coercion, you may still at times have soldiers who will not do a certain action no matter the consequences. What does an army do about this? They remove them. In our Army such soldiers are removed from the scene to keep them from having an influence on the rest of the body and to further try to convince the removed soldiers to recant and execute. Any influence they may have had is then minimized and usually a slandering campaign about those individuals will begin.

These are what I call the typical responses that the Army has in dealing with unattractive issues. It is unappealing and inglorious, but effective in getting the mission done. Worse, especially nowadays, the Army’s “apparent” ability to make anything work is used as a sort of proof to support political agendas. It does not matter if its ranks agree with it. It does not matter if it is practical or achievable. It does not matter if it puts a harder burden on our forces and hampers its war fighting abilities. What matters is the appearance of making questionable things work to use as a political proof to shove down someone else’s throat.

To sum up all of this, I restate that some soldiers will fight against civilians and some won’t. You just won’t know of the ones who don’t. Conditioned obedience will certainly leave it effects on the operation. In the end the Army will carry out the assigned tasks of its political masters, and rightfully so. Would you want such a force deciding for itself how to use such power? The focus then should be on the political leaders who would wield such a force. In our nation, that means the focus should be on the citizens who tolerate such leaders for their own selfish gains. Our nation was birthed with an ingrained desire to limit central political power for good reasons, reasons we have forgotten or trivialized.

You can listen to this interview on the Hagmann and Hagmann show at the following link: Talk Radio Interview

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