I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread, and the whole psychology behind the military machine (IMHO, of course). When I see people like Airman grappling with deep issues, I equate it to what I call the Conscience Canary.
When you are called up (or sign up), you enter a very dark place. And in this place the people who rule have one objective, to find and kill that canary.
Sleep deprivation, shitty food, physical and psychological abuse - everything is designed to find and silence that canary. Every time you stumble onto the parade ground for yet another mindless PT session, every time you collapse under the weight of the biggest fuck in your platoon, every time you leopard crawl through someone else’s puke, and then puke yourself - every time this happens, the closer they get to that canary’s cage. And when eventually they find the cage (as they inevitably will) and crush it, they rejoice - ooowahhh.
But for some people the canary somehow manages to escape, and retreats to the dark corners of the coal mine of the mind, and there it sings its song. And it continues to sing, drowned out by the sergeant’s shouting, the thunder of mortars, the coughing and spluttering and puking of a comrade doubled over from tear gas.
And then one day the clouds of basic training clear, and you are sent to wherever the piece of paper says you must go. And then you start getting the silences. The clikkity clack of the train, the long hours on guard duty, waiting in line for more crap food. And in those silences the canary’s singing rises up and then drifts away, up and away.
And then the questions start. Questions you have been ordered not to ask. And then you realise that this is the mother of all movies, this is hardcore XXX pawnography.
