This is an important time for us in the peace movements in the USA and around the world. We are finally gaining a mass of heroes around which we can raise generations to think, act, and serve the country and the world differently. The struggle for resistance to a militarized American mind is important. As a lifelong educator, I wish to share part of the process and insights from my early life. I also lift up new heroes.

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A major problem facing America today is that both our individual minds and the communities we form have been infiltrated by a military-industrial mindset. Since this influence takes hold in the early years of life, I recently wrote the first of what will be a series of articles proposing that the peace community promote a holistic approach to the problem of raising children, in our schools and in society.

The magnitude of the challenge confronting those who oppose America's military mindset can be inferred from observations made by the scholar Martin G. Clemis, who notes a striking collaboration between the American academy and the US military in developing effective counterinsurgency methods. Clemis points out, for instance, that "the new US Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual reflects a unity of effort between the military and academic worlds rarely seen at the doctrinal or operational level. [This is b]ecause counterinsurgency operations are predicated upon an intimate understanding of human behavior as well as the social, economic, and political forces that can aggravate and encourage insurgents to take up arms against the standing authority." [1]

Making a more general point, Clemis adds that "the American military has called upon scholars to lend their expertise towards developing nonmilitary or "nonkinetic' prescriptions for battling "internal' war over the years. Since the early 1960s many within the academic community have answered that call. Such participation, however, has sparked a bitter debate among members of both academe and the military." [2]

My own first writing on this subject, which focused on Whistle Blowers, indirectly raised the point of America's need for heroes who will stand up to the infiltration of our society by war hysteria and the values of those who advocate endless war. In this second article, I want to share my own thoughts and thought experiments of three decades ago to 1) show how we have come to the level of bad thinking that dominates our society's acceptance of a militarized state, and to (2) motivate readers to think about and bring to the attention of others heroes for peace they have come to know or to read about in their own lives. 

Some of My Own Whistle-Blower Heroes

In my short article about whistle blowers, entitled "The Relationship between an SS Whistle Blower in Nazi Germany and What We Need To Be Witnessing MORE of," the principal hero was Kurt Gerstein, a Nazi death camp officer. You can read the piece at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005840.

In addition to Kurt Gerstein, I referred in this article to six more recent figures that can be cited in educating Americans about heroes in our own country who have sought to marginalize the military cast of our national mindset that has been dominant for many decades. These recent heroes are:

(1) "Chelsea" Bradley Manning, US Army Whistle Blower

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chase-madar/why-bradley-manning-is-a-_b_821378.html

 (2)    Edward Snowden, NSA Contractor Whistle Blower

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/americas-spies-want-edward-snowden-dead

 (3)    Kirk Wiebe, NSA Whistle Blower

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/17/opinion/wiebe-snowden-amnesty/

 (4)    Ed Loomis, NSA Whistle Blower

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/21/1038595/-NSA-s-Fake-Classification-Didn-t-Prosecuting-Whistleblowers-Embarrass-the-Government-Enough

(5)    Tom Drake, NSA Whistle Blower

http://www.whistleblower.org/action-center/save-tom-drake

(6)    Bill Benny, NSA Whistle Blower

http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/12/before-edward-snowden-there-was-william

Please refer to these links, or do your own Web search, to learn how these heroes of critical thinking fought to promote the right--the moral--side of issues relating to war, peace, justice and constitutional law.

Naturally, in addition to the whistle blowers I've listed, any education in these issues to which American youth should be exposed before leaving high school would also include an introduction to Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. [3] John Kiriakou, the man who revealed US torture programs, would also be added to the list.

https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_kgb_would_have_been_delighted_by_the_nsas_toys_20121130

All of these whistle blowers were persecuted, and many were prosecuted and/or arrested for their activities. Of course, as with any of America's youth today who may be contemplating joining the military or an intelligence agency, all of these men knew even before beginning their career that they would face danger in carrying out their professional duties. However, only a few knew before signing up that many of the threats they would face--on their lives, their health and their well-being--would come not from some enemy abroad (or terrorists in the streets of their homeland), but from their very own government, family, and friends. From among these groups, they would find little support for their own ideals of justice, fairness, democracy, freedom, and a better future.

Because of their willingness, against great odds, to serve as beacons showing the way for modern Americans and others around the globe to reform themselves and their nations, I look on whistle blowers as an important type of moral heroes. Now, it's time for ordinary Americans, and parents and societies around the world, to take on the same role. We have to encourage our children (and fellow countrymen) to envision and work toward an alternative sense of self that supports civil activism aimed at putting our society on the right side of history and justice, rather than allowing it to remain on the side of a powerful but destructive war machine.

A Kansan's Education in the 1970s

As many readers know, I came of age in one of those rare periods in modern American history when the US had no major wars in sight and was actually interested in avoiding them. I first went to a Kansas high school in 1976, when the US got out of the Angolan Civil War, the Church Committee was still shaking up the CIA, and the DOD had already left Vietnam. The election of Jimmy Carter that same year brought on a very short period when the US--for the first and only time--based much of its foreign policy on improving or promoting human rights. The late 1970s was also a time when some high schools, like my own in Sterling, Kansas, severely restricted military recruitment of its students. ROTC was unknown in most high schools in the state, or substantially reduced from what it had been in the early years after WWII.

I played on a very successful football team in high school, and also played trombone in the high school band. These activities gave me some confidence as an individual, but also taught me how to work together with others as a team. 

At the same time, I was a peculiar high school footballer. For example, one Monday morning following a victorious Friday night varsity game, I went to my coach's office before school started and confronted him about what I thought was a very legitimate issue. I wondered why he hadn't allowed a greater percentage of players on the team the same privilege I had been allowed of actual playing time in the game. My position was that, by giving all of the players a regular chance to play, each individual would get better and more confident, and the team as a whole would grow stronger.  

In short, my mindset even as a high schooler was very egalitarian--as my father had tried to raise his children to be. I was also encouraged by my schooling to think about things and not be afraid to ask adults difficult questions. There was a reason I had asked my coach why more lower-classman and non-starting athletes weren't given playing time: We were winning in any case, and in the overall scheme of things there wasn't a great deal of difference between those who were playing and some of those who were not.   Fairness for me is imperative. It is one reason I feel that a system, such as the one in the US, where trillions of dollars are heaped on the military and military contractors each decade, while the rest of society scrounges for help and assistance, is far removed from any standard of fairness.

During the late 1970s, Americans made an effort to figure out what their relationship to the rest of the world should be. The era of Détente had brought some relaxation in the long-running Cold War, and America, under Carter, looked south to Latin America, returning, at least at first, to Roosevelt's hands-off, or Good Neighbor, policy toward the region. One result of that policy was to allow a people's movement in Nicaragua to force out of power the despotic regime of the Somoza family and its cronies.

In dealing with the echoes of national crises, which had enveloped the US during the Vietnam War and Watergate eras, movies with mixed messages on heroism emerged. In 1976, All the President's Men came out. In 1978, there were Coming Home and The Dear Hunter. Apocolypse Now followed the next year. For my high school generation, these films were the source of almost everything it knew about the Vietnam War-era. Fantasy hero films, like the ones with Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo character, would not come to theatres until 1982.  

Sadly, by the time my high school years ended with the first half of 1980, a combination of events, including the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the second oil shock of that decade, and the rise of Moral Majority politics, pushed President Jimmy Carter and the misguided US Congress to call for the start-up of Selective Service Registration for America's male teens.

I was not raised in a wealthy family, and many of my cousins and my older brother would enter the military to earn a few bucks over the next decades. I, however, never pursued that route with any seriousness or sense of national pride or mission.  In my Kansas hometown, that indifference was true of almost my entire graduating class. We were a cynical lot, and most of us simply sat back and recoiled at the disasters our elders had faced with Vietnam and other events of the 1960s. In the late 1900s, we often turned up our noses at the thought of reinvigorating our nation's military industrial complex by offering to actively join it. [4]

My Teenage Thought Experiment

Without much in the way of financial means for college, however, I certainly did have to take some time during my senior year in high school to consider entering military service. That meant I had to decide whether it was important to be ready to come to America's aid if the hot war in Afghanistan (or elsewhere) came to affect our lives at home.

In a meditation state one evening, I pondered what kind of military I would like to have and be a part of. I asked myself, "What kind of military men would I like to have on my team if were called into action as a draftee or as a volunteer?"

In my simple thought experiment, I concluded that if I were to become a leader in the military, I would be as egalitarian as possible and encourage my men to think and to speak up on important issues. I would not want to head a group of non-thinking beings who would simply march off to another unjust war in blind obedience to their leaders' decisions. That had clearly been the case when US troops and CIA agents overthrew regimes in Latin America, Iran, and Southeast Asia in the preceding two to three decades. 

I would not want any of my men ever to be involved in My Lai Massacres or in invading countries in the midst of a civil war, as had occurred with American ventures in Southeast Asia and Angola.

In my experiment, I also concluded that I would not want or allow troops to do constitutionally illegal things, as some CIA agents and DOD-assigned forces had done earlier, in the Cold War. There would be no backing of dictators or CIA thugs against the masses--simply because in the short term it might be beneficial. Nor would my men be involved in selling drugs and making private gains through war, as many had done in "Nam or Laos.

I thought, too, that, because I had been raised in the ethical code of the Catholic Church, a war would have to be just before my men and I could agree to be involved in it. Before we consented to participate in a war, or to kill any "enemies" in an ongoing war, we would have to sit down and discuss the legitimacy of doing so.

After reading these words, you would be right to expect that the criteria or standards I was setting in my Thought Experiment led me in time to end it with the damning cry, "My dream seems so UNREALISTIC!"

Most everyone would claim that it is not possible to run a military in the way I wanted to--with democracy, justice, and rationality leading the way. Moreover, even if it were possible to run an army that way, the existing power structure could not allow it. Its very nature is to find error on the side of justice and democracy, rather than in the use of violent force.

Therefore, after thinking all of this through, I had determined by the time I left my Kansas high school that I would not join the military--even though other family members would do so in the following decades.

Moreover, by the time I was 18, I had made one other decision. If I was not going to be able to stop my country's military-industrial regime from doing horrible things--like invading other countries, supporting dictators, etc.--by being part of the system, I was also committed "not to sign on the line" come January 1981. That month was the deadline for my age group in the US to sign up for Selective Service. "In 1980, Congress [had] reinstituted draft registration for men 18 to 25 years old. If there were to be a crisis, registered men would be inducted as determined by age and a random lottery." [5]

During my last spring in high school in 1980, I discussed the topic of selective service registration with only one person, a Quaker friend of mine who I knew had also thought all this through. My Quaker friend had also played football in high school, and he too had determined not to make the mistake many young men made: namely, to believe that joining ROTC or the military is just another way, maybe a notch above playing football, to support your local community on Planet Earth.

That same autumn, when I went off to college, I was relieved to find that I was not alone in my decision to not support the proposed system of selective service registration. Dozens of young men on that very small Bethel College campus (in Kansas) had made similar decisions not to sign any selective service document that would put America into the same cultural, spiritual, and social mess it had experienced during the Vietnam War and in Super Power overreaches in the early post-WWII era. In fact, in March of 1981, a major conference of the non-registration and anti-draft movement was held on the Bethel campus.

Within a year or so, the US government would take three of my college mates to court for failure to register. I could feel for each of them. One of them, like me, eventually registered under duress. Another pleaded guilty on religious grounds and did community service in lieu of a sentence (as the local Kansas judge was supportive). A third peer beat the system, as he based his rationale for non-registration   on the same philosophical ground that had guided my own decision to not register throughout 1980. [7] In a sense, the act of non-registration is an activity of speech and resistance against a larger system, which has for too long dominated America's hearts and minds.

In that small college campus community, I met many lifelong heroes and role models who helped sustain my thinking about peace, justice and democracy for decades to come. I learned about other heroes of draft resistance at college, too. (What a great education! In subsequent years, we would fight against US wars in Central America and to get human rights restored in other lands, like Guatemala. We would work to end Apartheid in South Africa--the state against which Nancy Landon-Kassebaum as US senator led the divestment movement in Congress.) What's more, I learned at college that there is already a national network in place to oppose not only another possible selective service in the US, but also the nuclear arms race and other Cold War-era nonsense.

Dear America,

We need to make the peace and justice movement mainstream and permanent, and we need senators, like Kassebaum, who will tell the world again: America stands for human rights, peace and justice everywhere--at home and abroad.

Kevin Stoda, a Kansan in Exile

A Concluding Note:

In my third article, I'll continue my discussion about the need for heroes and role models to promote resistance to war and the U.S. military industrial complex, and to related power structures in our world. I'll also continue the story of my personal journey, which includes much focus on the education of youth and the older public aimed at fighting off the dominant image of America, portrayed as mainstream by the major media, as a nation committed to permanent war. What we need now is a counter-insurgency against the dominant American mindset that war is inevitable.

References:

[1] Clemis, Martin G. (2009)   Crafting non kinetic warfare: the academic military nexus in US counterinsurgency doctrine. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 20:1, 160-184.

[2] Ibid.

Read more on the topic in Roberto J. Gonzalez' (2010) MILITARIZING CULTURE:  ESSAYS ON WARFARE STATE, U.S.A.: Left Coast Press.

[3] By the way, Ellsberg specifically referred to six of those heroes in his insightful debate on Democracy Now last month, entitled: "Was Snowden Justified?" See:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/14/debate_was_snowden_justified_former_nsa

[4] The only US president raised in Kansas was D.D. Eisenhower, who had warned Americans of this very military industrial complex. It left states like Kansas without work when the country was not gung-ho for militarization, as it had been with WWII and in the early part of the Cold War.

[5] Infoplease provides a short history of Selective Service in the USA:

Conscription was established (1863) in the U.S. Civil War, but proved unpopular (see   draft riots). The law authorized release from service to anyone who furnished a substitute and, at first, to those who paid $300. General conscription was reintroduced in World War I with the Selective Service Act of 1917. All men from 21 to 30 years of age (later extended 18 to 45), inclusive, had to register. Exemptions from service were granted to men who had dependent families, indispensable duties at home, or physical disabilities.   Conscientious objector   status was granted to members of pacifist religious organizations, but they had to perform alternative service. Other war objectors were imprisoned, where several died. By the end of World War I about 2,800,000 men had been inducted.

The United States first adopted peacetime conscription with the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. The act provided that not more than 900,000 men were to be in training at any one time, and it limited service to 12 months--later (1941) extended to 18 months. After the United States entered World War II, a new selective service act made men between 18 and 45 liable for military service and required all men between 18 and 65 to register. The terminal point of service was extended to six months after the war. From 1940 until 1947--when the wartime selective service act expired after extensions by Congress--over 10,000,000 men were inducted. A new selective service act was passed in 1948 that required all men between 18 and 26 to register and that made men from 19 to 26 liable for induction for 21 months' service, which would be followed by 5 years of reserve duty.

When the Korean War broke out, the 1948 law was replaced (1951) by the Universal Military Training and Service Act. The length of service was extended to 24 months, and the minimum age for induction was reduced to 181/2 years. The main purpose of the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 was to strengthen the reserve forces and the National Guard. It required six years of duty, including both reserve and active duty. The Military Selective Service Act of 1967 required all men between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for service. The regular exemptions along with educational deferments were granted. These loopholes and other technicalities tended to discriminate against working-class and poor men, and thus a higher percentage from these groups were drafted.

Due to this perceived discrimination by class and also because of the great unpopularity of the Vietnam War, conscription became a major social issue. There were numerous demonstrations at draft boards and induction centers. Many young men evaded the draft through technicalities or fraud; thousands fled the country or went to prison. In 1973 conscription was abolished in favor of an all-volunteer army. President Gerald R.   Ford   granted clemency to many draft resisters in 1974, and President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to draft resisters in 1977.

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/selective-service.html#ixzz2v4yCKypd

[6] For an introductory history of the opposition to the draft and selective service registration from 1980 till 1985, please read Marc Becker's

MEN AND WOMEN WHO DARE SAY NO

at   http://www.yachana.org/research/writings/draft/

[7] I finally registered in late January 1981, after my own family (a lot of military medals there) put pressure on me. 

However, I wrote the Selective Service in March 1981 and asked that my name be removed from the registration. The Selective Service responded with a letter stating that they were aware of the national anti-draft meeting on campus that March, but that they would refuse all requests, such as my own, to have one's name expunged.

Authors Website: http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/3-big-paradigms-hol

Authors Bio:

KEVIN STODA-has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades.--He sees himself as a peace educator and have been-- a promoter of good economic and social development--making-him an enemy of my homelands humongous DEFENSE SPENDING and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global issues.

"I am from Kansas so I also use the pseudonym 'Kansas' and 'alone' when I write and publish.- I-keep two blogs--one with BLOGGER and one with WORDPRESS.- My writings range from reviews to editorials or to travel observations.- I also make recommendations related to policy--having both a-strong background in teaching foreign languages and degrees in teaching in history and the social sciences.--As a Midwesterner, I also write on religion and living out ones faith whether it be as a Christian, Muslim or Buddhist perspective."

On my own home page, I also provide information for language learners and travelers http://www.geocities.com/eslkevin/-,- http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/-& http://alone.gnn.tv/

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