What It's Like Living and Working Authentically, by Amber Mathwig

This is a guest essay written as a response to Adrian's earlier piece. Amber Mathwig is a Navy veteran, a steadfast veteran advocate, and a great friend of the show. 

With my personal and professional life wrapped up in my veteran identity, the amount of times I read an analysis of military culture and say “must be nice to be a cis white dude” in any given week is exponential. Reading Adrian’s essay posted on July 18 was no different. I can not conceive of wanting a world that resembles the one I was part of for 10 years, to set a model for how to deal with the contemporary divisions in our society - divisions that for many are frightening and violent daily - that we are currently fighting our way through. Perhaps because it is because I can not imagine the idea of “If we can take care of each other, the way people took care of each other in those units I saw in the Army, we can cooperate enough not to destroy ourselves” as the way we should want to care for each other in our broader society (or for that matter, in our military microcosm at all). 

As a total institution, defined by Goffman as a place of both residence and work that is largely enclosed and self-administered separately from the rest of society, the military is both representational of our society and also operates in a way that would not be able to function outside of the institution and its overt and covert rules for belonging. When people look to the military to set an example of how things could be, there is often an erasure of the systemic faults of the institution. In the case of getting individuals to act as a group in support of the larger institutional goals over personal goals, we need to acknowledge that to achieve a group identity that “takes care of  each other,” there was also a reality of a much bigger erasure of individual identity “quirks” than what cars or hobbies one might gravitate towards. The military demands an adherence to whiteness, masculinity, and conformity; to ensure personnel can be viewed as a blank slate that is wielded as propaganda by and against civilians and civilizations. Failure to conform is punished, both physically and mentally, in ways that have long lasting and damaging effects on both the institution and the individual. 

It’s strange that what Adrian seems to yearn for is a homogeneous culture, one that more closely resembles the identitarianism he claims is ripping our stabilized society apart. Rather than celebrate our differences and the challenges that come with questioning and speaking out against the society we currently live in, he’s chosen to identify one as a model that in no way resembles our larger society or even has space for most in our society to live and thrive. 

The specific world of the infantry has historically consisted of people who have been 100% assigned male at birth, zero percent known to be disabled at time of service entrance and training (not to mention the stigmas against physical and mental health disabilities that are pervasive throughout the military), a large majority white, and an unknown but also very likely high percentage of heterosexuality or (re)enforced heteronormativity. To support each other in this environment is also to reward behaviors that are considered good and supportive of the mission to dominate others such as displays of masculinity like strength, speed, sexual prowess, and acceptance of homoerotic behaviors as male bonding. To hide oneself in this environment is to recognize the physical or mental harm that would likely happen if one does not conform. While many military commands have toxic and harmful behaviors, it is those harms specifically wielded against the non-hegemonic identities - non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, differently abled - that bring concern. Just as “patriots and nationalists depend for their idea of self on a small, fragile, and fungible idea rooted in violence”, so does the military, particularly those units at the very front of our imperialist endeavors. 

Transformation can only be made possible when we recognize that our seemingly most stabilized and functional institutions are harmful to most, if not all, people who are part of and subjected to the violence that is wielded by these institutions. It is time to reimagine what our whole society, from the individual to the world wide, looks like. Not in the least, to start reimagining a society in which care is provided for all, regardless of their ability to be part of these always exclusive institutions.