James M. Dixon

In recent times, (i.e. as goosecap), I’ve only read one other military memoir so far: “Company Commander”, about WWII. I liked this better than CC, as a book, since it covered enlistment and training; MacDonald (the company commander) cut out all training and limited everyone’s backstory to listing the town they were from. Dixon isn’t exactly a war poet, but he gives you a little bit more than that, I think.

I guess the military/the US Marines are a bit like a country within a country, a little subculture. I’m not quite sure what makes them feel that brotherhood, after the lying recruiters and cursing drill instructors, but since at this stage in my life I both can’t and don’t want to find out, I suppose it’s one of life’s many mysteries, like violently exploding stars and hungry eagles out on the hunt.

I had read at some point that the military tried to close ranks or something, separate themselves off for the sake of brotherhood and morale and carefully training people, after Vietnam, so it’s surprising for me that they were doing many of that same subculture building in 1965. For me I think it would be easy to exaggerate the difference between a WWII and a Vietnam memoir, between one we won and one we lost. I’m more interested in the writer’s character, than in things they can’t control—one of the reasons I thought MacDonald was a bad memoirist with his thousand different references to G.I. Joe #880, of Anytown, U.S.A. Dixon wasn’t shockingly revelatory, but I felt like he wasn’t holding back or numbing, and indeed said he was writing to heal.

…. I would say that this book has helped me, in that now if I see a Marine flag, I think more of that subculture’s shared experience and trauma bonding, than of their stereotypical political views. I know that not all of our wars have been just—Vietnam didn’t need a war, and having a war in the 60s caused lasting damage to the notion of patriotism here—but I think even if I came from a country with more political mess on its plate, I would have to come to terms with all suffering, without exception, and not just the quiet respectful people. (The stereotype Marine is brash etc, rude, even though some Marines and other military personnel are quiet and respectful, or assertive and respectful maybe.) Even living away from ‘civilization’ in a military camp brings a certain amount of hardship, and in active war duty it is obvious that one lives surrounded by death—one’s own possible death is there, and death is all around you. ‘In the midst of life….’

…. Dixon certainly seems very educated; he worked as a teacher after the war and starts every chapter with something about his post-war life. Of course, he also has to have some engagement with the military culture of having ragging nicknames for the enemy ‘country’ (ethnicity), and also the different kinda rival service branches of the military. I mean, sometimes you have to engage with insanity or you really lose your mind; Marines in Vietnam didn’t spend time learning Vietnamese and propagandizing the peasants, you know. I engage with insanity too, just by being an American…. Of course, I do think that it’s truly shameful for us as a culture that we sent the combat units there, the guys in the actual fighting elements having such a good chance of getting killed, and letting them spend their last days and moments getting mistreated by officers and cursing at non-combatant personnel, who in turn saw them as, almost as ‘downstairs’ types. I understand you can’t reform the military the way you can reform the post office or whatever, but it’s really sad that these are American people, and that this is what our culture produces much of the time, not only the war with countries decided on by the politicians, but the kinda class crap in the military where there are basically ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ soldiers. I’m not questioning the need for authority, and differentiated functions. But on July Fourth or whenever, we talk about soldiers and the military being Americanness or whatever, but clearly Americanness does not necessarily bring them together into one big happy tribe. I guess that’s not the way they were raised or educated, you know. It’s not just ‘out there’ among ‘those jarheads’ (which is actually what say an airman might call them).

…. So yeah.

Military thinking, if there is such a thing, is pretty ugly. I don’t think that we really have freedom when we have military thinking. Even after the legal racial integration of the military, (and the dissolving of racism, bibbidity bobbidity boo), there were obviously divisions between military thinking and some others in the society, you know, violence is the “only way”; doing things without “honor” is okay because “war is ugly”…. And it’s what we need! I don’t know, it’s easy to say this, but why are you in a war if you’re afraid to die? What’s worth more than your honor? Maybe I would do something bad too I don’t know…. (I mean, maybe I would do the wrong thing, but really I think that that “we should not have done that” feeling is worse than the “I’m dying” feeling, unless you’re so dead inside that you’re already dead, you know.) But what I mean is, military thinking and freedom are opposites—because it’s Us and Them, and then if there’s no clear division against Them, even if it’s your pacifist parents, then they’re Out, and that for me a problem, you know. That’s not a healthy polity—we’ll kill for you, but your values are a big no no, freedom’s a no no—although I guess it could still be the tyranny of the majority, which is what most people mean by democracy, you know.

~ But anyway, it’s nothing that wasn’t also wrong in more popular wars, despite Vietnam being I guess famously unpopular. I was actually thinking that the US military might have been less sad after the 50s than before, but, in the end—not so much, more or less the same thing.

~ So we killed him. It wasn’t legal, but it was convenient, necessary, even.

But I mean, the purpose of war is politics, and the purpose of politics is spirituality, unity. So I mean, I know many intellectuals, and especially midcentury intellectuals, don’t care if the common man can understand them, and the military and the government certainly doesn’t care about them, because they’re supposed to be like living tools, you know…. But it’s like, Hey buddy, I know your house doesn’t look good, but I have some great tools, and I like using them on houses, and I’m not a pussy, said the contractor.

…. Re: “search and destroy” ie “kill everything that moves”—I mean, I don’t know how I would have behaved there; obviously there really wouldn’t be much I could do, especially in light of them knowing how blood-thirsty the whole thing was; it wasn’t like it was a secret. It was just…. Killing. And it was like, Yeah!

But it’s like, so your “counter-insurgency strategy” is to kill everything that moves in an area rumored to be relatively supportive to the enemy. I mean, that’s not counter-insurgency, that’s just, sad. What are you going to do, just blow up the whole country village by village unless there’s a village that’s just so terrified, you know—and stays that way, forever. But I mean, at least there’s no need to torture prisoners to find out who really is and is not sympathetic to communist insurgents in South East Asia! It’s just like…. Gotta fight this war, by the demographics, you know. Too many of Them, in general….

And it’s also true that the Vietnam War was also a bloody business for Americans too. (Many Baby Boomers weren’t drafted, obviously, and many military men weren’t in combat units exposed to fighting, but about a third of the grunts who got shot at got killed, even taking into consideration what in another war might have been a ‘short’ average tour of duty—13 months. 1/3 killed and another third wounded in 13 months is quite a fight, you know. Quite a fight. If they had stayed there long enough, they all would have died.)

…. And sometimes when life on land makes the heart heavy, men go out to sea.… (mais)