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Lyrics to James Blunt's "No Bravery"

27th March 1979 was a pivotal day in my life. It was the day I left Little Rock, never to return for anything more than a few days every several years or so. At the time of this writing I have not been there for over 10 years.

Deep down inside I knew I was making a mistake. I secretly felt the military was beneath me, but I allowed a friend to talk me into enlisting one day when I was feeling blue.

The route to me joining the Air Force was rather strange. I was with a group of friends who decided they wanted to eat a meal at Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant, and not pay for it. I tried to convince Sherry, my errant friend, not to do it, but she would not listen to common sense. As a result, the police were called and my friend was arrested.

Because Sherry was not yet 18, she hade to spend the night in Juvenile Hall. During her stay she was required to speak to a counsellor, and during the counselling session it was decided that my friend should join the military.

Personally, I think those counsellors who speak to troubled young people quite often do more harm than good. I believe they are told they have to plant the idea of joining the military into the minds of these young, impressionable people as a short term measure. Encouraging young people who have behavioural problem to join the military solves the problem of how to get them out of their area of jurisdiction. I do not think that Sherry really seriously wanted to join the military, but the counsellor suggested it to her. Being quite disturbed through her various life experiences, Sherry felt that joining the military would answer all of her problems. I believe the counsellor who spoke to Sherry was instructed to plant the idea of joining the military into the minds of all young people he met, thereby putting the problem of dealing with a disturbed person who had been neglected, abused and traumatised into the hands of another agency far away from Arkansas. Sadly, those counsellors are not solving problems, but merely moving them so they do not have to deal with them.

I suppose the authorities believe that they are doing what is best by encouraging young people from dysfunctional backgrounds to join the armed forces. For many young people the military affords young people with a much better life than many of them have had with their own parents and guardians. For many young people, life may have been bad in the military, but it was much worse at home.

In my case I did not have a home or any family who gave a damn enough to care what I did. Although I phoned my mother and told her that I was leaving to join the Air Force, she could not even be asked to see me off. Now, if it had been one of her girlfriends leaving, she would have made the time to say goodbye: that is something that I know for a fact.

Sherry did not want to join the Air Force on her own, so she pestered me relentlessly until I gave in. I really didn’t want to join the military, but I went along with her to the recruiting station to speak to the recruiter.

Personally, I thought it was all a big joke, but went ahead and answered all of the questions to the best of my ability. At the end of the interview we were all weighed, and I was told that at 141 pounds, I was 3 pounds overweight and therefore not eligible for military service.

I really didn’t want to join the Air Force anyway, so was not upset in the least to learn that I was overweight. I The strange thing is that although I did not even try at all, I suddenly lost my appetite. In the span of a month I had lost seven pounds and was therefore within the acceptable weight range to join the military, if that was what I wanted to do.

Destiny has a funny way of working because in addition to losing my appetite, I was also in the process of letting go of personal relationships that might have kept me in Little Rock. I had been dating a local rogue and he promptly dumped me and abandoned me on the outskirts of Little Rock when he found out that I would not go to bed with him. This man was definitely not a gentleman!

With no decent accommodation, no job worth having, and no boyfriend, there was not much keeping me in Little Rock. Therefore, on the spur of the moment I decided to trade in my pathetic existence in Little Rock for an adventure that would take me to different states, countries and even continents. If I had never joined the United States Air Force, I may never even have left Little Rock.

While the military has many good points, it also has many detractors. It is a very difficult profession to enter into and is a disciplined, regimented organisation. Because such a career is so taxing on the body, mind and soul, it would seem reasonable to assume that they would recruit only the smartest and best elements of society, but instead the opposite is quite often the case.

Instead of recruiting people who have stable backgrounds and good standards of education, they look for those individuals who society has overlooked, those persons with no qualifications, a dysfunctional family background, and no stability. Because the military tends to recruit those people from socially and economically deprived backgrounds, is it any wonder that there are so many problems with bullying, harassment and abuse within the profession.

The simple fact that the military actively recruits people who do not have a very high standard of education and are from highly unstable, dysfunctional backgrounds means that they have created an excellent breeding ground for disaster to occur.

The News of the World published the following article on 28th July 2002:-

‘Four soldiers based at America’s top Special Forces barracks have murdered their wives in a month.

‘Three of the men had just returned from dangerous duty in Afghanistan.

‘All of the soldiers were based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina – home to elite troops who are the equivalent of our own SAS.

‘The American special forces tough training regime is famed for teaching troopers to kill instinctively and without compunction in hand to hand combat.

‘First wife to die was Teresa Nieves. Her husband Sgt 1st Class Rigoberto Nieves, shot her at their home on 11th June.

‘He then shot himself. Nieves had been home from Afghanistan for just two days on leave “to resolve personal problems”. In the second murder Master Sgt William Wright strangled his wife Jennifer.

‘Her mother, Wilma, said Wright, who hade been back from Afghanistan for only a month, was “getting attacks of rage”.

‘Third to die was Marilyn Griffin. Her estranged husband, engineer Sgt Cedric Ramon Griffen, is charged with stabbing her 50 times. Sgt 1st Class Brandon Floyd made his wife the fourth victim, shooting her and then himself.

‘Floyd was in the ultra-secret-anti-terrorist Delta Force and had been home from Afghanistan since January.

‘Andrea’s mother, Penny, said: “I believe his training was such that if you can’t control it, you kill it.”

‘The murders were the first at Fort Bragg for two years.

‘Garrison Chief Col Tad Davis was “surprised and saddened” by the killings and pledged an urgent review of procedures.’

Something must be terribly wrong with a profession that teaches its members to be misogynistic wife-beating murderers, but that is exactly the philosophy the armed forces instils in its service members.

The military brainwashes its members into believing that having a spouse and a family is not compatible with serving their country, and as a result they soon treat their wives and children with the same amount of disrespect and disregard they must endure in their profession. Is it any wonder, therefore, that military children are the worst behaved children in the world and military wives are often unkempt and shabbily dressed, with no respect for themselves and their bodies.

The famous military brainwashing slogan goes something like, ‘If the Army (or Air Force, Navy or Marines) wanted you to have a wife (or family) they would have issued you one.’ I must have heard that saying a thousand times. Unfortunately, if people tell you something long enough, you will actually start to believe it. Service members are made to feel guilty for wanting a family, so it is not surprising that they treat their partners and children so badly.

Don’t be fooled, America is just as good as propaganda as their enemy countries. If anything, America is better at it. How else could the American establishment get grown men and women to forsake their families and their own personal destinies for causes that they do not really believe in if they were not good at propaganda, manipulation and brainwashing?

Because people in the armed forces must often carry weapons and are expected to lay down their life for their country, it would be reasonable to expect service members to have a fair amount of control. Unfortunately, the opposite is often the case. A damaged individual from an unstable background must be able to work through his own past traumas and put them into perspective before he can reasonably be expected to exercise self control. The fact is, however, that while in the military he is often thrown into a very stresssul 24-hour a day vocation with no time to rest his soul and reflect on his and others lives. As a result, many military members are living on borrowed time, waiting for that one crucial moment when they will lose control and do something they will later regret.

The following article appeared in the 22nd August 2002 issue of the Daily Mail:-

‘A British soldier serving in Afghanistan shot his sergeant eight times as he relaxed in a hammock and then turned the gun on himself….

‘….It was reported that Sergeant Robert Busuttil and Corporal John Gregory, both 30, had been drinking at a farewell barbecue at a small British military base near Kabul airport when they died.

‘The Defence Ministry did not say how the 2 soldiers, both members of the Royal Logistics Corps, were killed.

‘But yesterday Sergeant Busuttil’s father released his version of the incident after speaking to an officer on peacekeeping duties in Kabul.

‘A family statement said the pair had argued on Friday night and that Corporal Gregory from North Yorkshire shot sergeant Busuttil, from Swansea, before killing himself.

‘During the evening, banter took place between Sergeant Busuttil and Corporal Gregory’ the statement said.

At some stage, Sergeant Busuttil made a comment and Corporal Gregory swung a punch. Sergeant Busuttil retaliated and punched Corporal Gregory twice, at which point the altercation was halted.

‘The two men then sat and talked and had a drink together - as far as everyone was aware, the issue was resolved.

‘When then function drew to a close most people, including Corporal Gregory, left. “Some 40 minutes later, Sergeant Busuttil was outside in a hammock, chatting with two fellow soldiers, when Corporal Gregory approached.”

‘The family said Corporal Gregory then fired five rifle rounds into Sergeant Busuttil’s stomach and, as he slumped forward, a further three rounds into his back. “Corporal Gregory then aimed the gun under his chin and fired the weapon, killing himself.”

‘The family saw this version of events had been told to them by a British officer, with the permission of the Ministry of Defence.

‘We could have eventually accepted, however sad and difficult it would have been, if Bob had died in military action, but to think he was killed by one of his own fellow soldiers is incomprehensible.

‘Right now, all of our thoughts are focused on bringing Bob home to Swansea and ensuring he receives a dignified funeral. We hope the formal investigation into the awful events is carried out swiftly.

‘The two soldiers were part of a small British contingent in the Internal Security Assistance Force.

‘The commanding officer of British forces in Kabul said a police investigation is underway and a coroner’s court will be convened in England. The MoD refused to comment.

‘The deaths bring the total number of fatalities involving British troops in Afghanistan to three.’

The above article clearly illustrates that rather than having self control, service members quite often lack it. They live their lives to excess in many ways, such as smoking, drinking and sexual promiscuity. On some military installations, such as in the Far East, airmen and soldiers are actually given condoms when the leave the front gate. Although those condoms are meant as a safety measure to prevent against highly dangerous venereal diseases, such as the “black syph” (a highly dangerous form of syphilis), they are nonetheless sending the wrong message to young men. The message is, “sleep with as many women as you like, just make sure you protect yourself”.

The military also creates a lot of bullies who thrive on threats and intimidation. In fact, the prospect of dominating others is one of the things that attracts many damaged souls to the profession.

On 28th July 2002 the News of the World published an expose of Deepcut Barracks, a British Army installation. The goings-on at Deepcut have sparked intense media attention, so much so that in November 2002 it was revealed that the military installation is to be closed down altogether because they will never be able to overcome the stigma surrounding serious allegations of misconduct by officers in that camp. If Deepcut Barracks is closed, hopefully speculation into what really went on at that installation will die down. Well, that is the plan anyway.

Although the article centred around the British Army, it is highly unlikely that the Americans would have behaved any differently. This expose should be seen, therefore, as a reflection of the military institution as a whole, and blame should not be placed on one particular culture or nation.

‘Police have reopened enquiries into the deaths of four privates who all died from gunshot wounds. The original Ministry of Defence ruled that all deaths were suicide.

‘The News of the World investigated the situation and found that the Army had destroyed key documents within hours of one of the deaths. They even got rid of one man’s kit.

‘Since 1995, when the first “suicide” took place, there have been 28 courts martial for violent conduct at the base.

‘Bullying goes on in most camps, ‘ said a retired major, who spoke to the News of the World on the condition that his identity was protected. ‘Most units try to stop it, but not at Deepcut.’

‘It was physical, mental and intimidating. They would get a guy on a table, strip him to the waist, hold a red hot iron half an inch from his chest so he could feel the heat.’

‘When he was trembling with fear, his eyes closed in terror, they’d slap an ice cold mess tin on him instead. The first sensation of extreme cold is much like extreme heat. Obviously the victim thought it was the iron and was terror struck.

‘His tormentors thought it was great fun. I tried hard to stamp it out.’

‘Warrant Officer Michael Nation, who ran the Sergeant’s Mess for seven years until January 2002, told the News of the World he was appalled with the mess when he took it over.

‘It was like a brothel. There were 90 rooms and everyone seemed to be at it. When I’d arrive in the morning I’d see women dashing out of NCO’s flats and going off to work. In many cases they never came out of the same flat twice.

‘In my naivety, when I first saw female recruits streaming to the flats at the back of the mess, I thought they were going to do fatigues for officers like cleaning, washing and ironing. I soon learned.

‘These guys were regulars at a local nightclub called Joe Bananas. They’d march on to the parade square, pick out female recruits they fancied, then find some fault – anything would do.

‘Then the recruit would be told something like, “I won’t put you on charge now. Just make sure you’re at Joe Bananas tonight.”

‘I became friendly with women sergeants who knew how to look after themselves but even they were frightened of the bullying. Even young male officers were demanding sex from the female recruits. It was going all over the place.

‘I remember on one occasion – it was a very hot day – when an officer and his cronies were making the unit patrol around the parade ground. The unit was in heavy No.2 uniform and they were melting. But the officer and his pals watched with their shirts sleeves rolled up – and they were sipping port!

‘They were always picking on the waitresses. One sergeant major always made them take his breakfast on a tray to his flat and sometimes made them give him his breakfast in bed, which raised more than a few eyebrows. We had to put a stop to that and told the girls to leave the tray outside his door. But I also remember once the same officer made a girl go to his flat and cut his toenails!

‘The first of the four soldiers to die was 20 year old Private Sean Benton, from Hastings, East Sussex. In July 1995 he was found dead with five gunshot wounds to the chest, apparently fired from a long range. The initial Army finding was suicide.

‘This was confirmed by a coroner but Benton’s mother Linda believes he was shot by someone else. Former soldier Trevor Hunter who was at the base with Sean, said his friend was beaten up and even thrown out of a second floor window by Deepcut bullies.

‘Mr Hunter, who quit the Army 2 years ago after 6 years service, told how just a day before this apparent suicide, Pte Benton was singled out because he said he didn’t like football. He was made to pray in front of a jerry can painted in Newcastle United colours and told to ask “Private Jerry Can” for forgiveness.

‘I’d took Sean under my wing because I could see people were picking on him,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘He was an easy target because he had a creaky voice, he spoke his mind, and his kit was a mess.’

‘In November 1995 the body of Pte Cheryl James, 18, was found in the woodland just outside the Deepcut perimeter fence. Her rifle was by her side. Initial Army finding: suicide. But this time an inquest did not agree. A coroner recorded an open verdict.

‘Last September Pte Geoff Gray, just 17, was found dead with gunshot wounds above each eye. Initial Army finding: suicide. But a coroner ruled emphatically that he did not think the private took his own life.

‘Pte Gray’s father talked to a forensic expert who examined photographs of his son’s body.

‘He said it was unlikely that Geoff could get into that position and get one bullet into his head, let alone two. The spread of powder burns on his face was desperately unusual.’ He also emerged that all of Pte Gray’s clothes had been destroyed after his death. So were log books recording the serial number of the S-80 rifle he was using.

‘Mr Gray commented, ‘It means the police don’t know whether the gun which killed my son was his or not.

‘An army spokesman said the disposal of items was routine procedure after initial enquiries into a death were completed.

‘In March 2002 Pte James Collinson, also 17, died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Initial Army finding: suicide. His father, Jim Collinson insisted, “The Army have tried to sweep this whole affair under the carpet and seem to believe they have no one to answer to. It’s disgraceful.”

‘According to insiders at the camp there has been fresh scandal in the past few weeks. A private is said to have taken an overdose and a corporal was caught having sex with a young female soldier.

‘The MoD has confirmed that an “inappropriate” relationship between a corporal and a private took place and said an internal investigation was taking place.

After having read the above news clips, which were all written within a brief period of time, it seems clearly evident that something is terribly wrong in the military establishment. The military recruits individuals from economically and socially deprived areas, and they bring their morals and values into that environment. Those who were once victims become victimisers. Those who were once abused become abusers. Those who were once bullied become bullies.

Child abuse and the military establishment have very closely defined links because only a person who has been harmed can even contemplate harming another living soul. Sadly, the military is often the perfect vehicle that will allow damaged wounded souls to express the deeply repressed, unresolved rage they feel about the injustices done to them as children.

Alice Miller is a psychoanalyst who has worked extensively on the causes and effects of child abuse; on violence towards children and its cost to society. She has analysed the lives of many Germanic figures in history, to include Adolf Hitler and Fredrich Nietzsche. In her work, The Untouched Key, she makes some insights that aptly reflect the mind of a battred child. Alice Miller has noted that every aggressive reaction on the child’s part to abuse is suppressed, and the suppression laid the foundation for destructive behaviour in adulthood. And yet there must always have been individual parents who were capable of giving love and who provided their children with a counter balance for the cruelty they suffered. Above all, however, there must have been helping witnesses present in the person of nannies, household staff, aunts, uncles, siblings, or grandparents who did not feel responsible for raising the child and who were not camouflaging cruelty as love because they had experienced love in their own childhoods. If this were not the case, the human race would have died long ago. On the other hand, if there had been more mothers and fathers capable of love, our world would be different today; it would be more humane. People would also have a clear understanding of what love is because they would have experienced it in childhood and it would be unconceivable for biographers to call something of an expression of material love that in its essence was a prison, concentration camp, refrigerator, or brainwashing institute. Yet according to most of today’s biographers, Stalin and Hitler had “loving mothers”. It seems utterly inconceivable that the world at large is being led to believe that two of the biggest murderers in the history of man had “loving mothers.” Surely, if they did indeed have loving mothers, they would not have been compelled to commit all of the atrocities they did.

When punishment is held up as proof of love, children are filled with confusion, which bears bitter fruit later in life. If these children become involved in politics, they continue the work of destruction initiated with them in childhood, and they camouflage it by taking on the role of saviour, just as their parents before them. Both Stalin and Hitler claimed that they only wanted to do well. This ideology was passed on to them by both parents. If this had not been so, if one parent had served as a helping witness and shielded the child from the other parent’s brutality and coldness, the children would not have become criminals in later life.

Thus, politicians can profess to be peace loving Christians and at the same time advocate the production of weapons five million times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. These politicians can defend without a qualm the necessity for an absurd arms race because they learned long ago not to feel. It is therefore possible for those caught in this kind of mental system to plan multiple Hiroshima catastrophes and still to pray in church every Sunday for peace; what is more, they consider themselves entitled to bear the responsibility for the fate of the whole world because they are advanced in years, because they have experience in wars.

Like children who endure psychic death to preserve the illusion of having an intelligent, foresighted father, soldiers go to war to die for the leader who misuses them. That has been the way of the world.

So there you have it. A battered child from a highly dysfunctional family entered into an equally dysfunctional profession. I had never been given a chance to heal the wounds caused by my childhood traumas before I went into an equally destructive job.

I completed my Basic Training in Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. It was there were I was indoctrinated into the many mind games that military leaders play on their soldiers, sailors and airmen to get them to tow the party line.

Our Training Instructors, or TI’s, would make us get up at 5:00am each day, when we would have to complete compulsory exercises and run around a track. By the end of our 6-week basic training we would be required to run a mile and a half in less than 15 minutes. Our day was filled with lessons and exams to prepare us for life in the military institution.

I was an easy person to brainwash because I had come from such a dysfunctional family and had already experienced many traumatic events. Through years of abuse and neglect, I had learned that any attention was better than no attention at all. The military had become my family. It had replaced my biological family, who never really wanted me around anyway.

I remember with clarity how our TI’s would yell at us for any real or imagined wrong. One day a young recruit had had enough of her TI barking commands at her, and at the top of her lungs, she retaliated, “Fuck you!”, to a rather astonished group of people in the centre of the dining facility, commonly called a chow hall.

After the irate recruit had said her piece, she stormed out of the chow hall, to the amazement of everyone who heard it.

I remember being totally aghast that the young recruit would say such a thing. I would never have declared my feelings to one of the TI’s, who I saw as almost on an equal par with God himself.

Although the young woman could have made her feelings known in a more educated and tactful manner, the point was that she thought enough of herself not to tolerate another person verbally abusing her, no matter who that person might be. She did not see the TI’s as superior beings, but what they actually were, bullies.

It should come as no surprise to learn that aside from the fact that the military is not a suitable environment for anyone who is an independent thinker, the fact is that the military does not want people who will stand up for themselves, speak their mind, and can think for themselves. Therefore, within minutes the errant recruit was located and promptly processed for discharge.

It was also in Basic Training that I experienced my own share of bullying and harassment. I was an easy person to pick on because I have a strong southern accent and, because of my rather austere upbringing, I lacked valuable social skills to be able to mix with a crowd of people.

The TIs would get on me about my marching technique, my hair, and just about anything else they could think of. Even though I was harassed by the TI on a daily basis, surprisingly I did not get one AF Form 341, which was a document recruits had to carry in their pocket and hand to a TI for any real or imagined wrong that they had committed. The fact that I was not required to give my TI a 341 is clear evidence that I could not have been that bad a recruit.

Although I may not appear to be all there, am not terribly coordinated, and do not possess many of the social skills necessary to be a real success in life, I nevertheless have a will as strong as iron. So many times in my childhood I should have died, as I was starved, beaten and disfigured by those people who professed to care, I lived through it all. Damaged though I was, I was still alive. Therefore, even though I was not pleased about the fact that I had been targeted for bullying, I weathered the storm and graduated Basic Training along with the rest of my flight. I would also like to point out that my TI later told me that he did not think that I would finish Basic Training. How little that man knew about me.

There was one incident that happened in Basic Training that I did not quite understand at the time. A woman in my flight who had a husband and two small children living in the Base Airman’s Quarters, or BAQ, had the horror of having to experience her four year old daughter being abducted.

This woman’s child literally vanished out of thin air. I had blocked my own experiences of childhood sexual abuse, so I could not understand how a child could just disappear. The fact that someone would take the child was a totally alien concept to me. At that time I did not know that virtually all children who are abducted are murdered by their abductors within three days.

Sadly, my TI’s lost interest in harassing me and therefore began picking on this poor woman for any real or imagined wrong. They criticised her for her marching technique and I could not help wondering if they were being a bit harsh on her, especially considering the fact that she had just lost her child. But that is the whole nature of bullying. A bully would never dream of picking on someone who can fight back because underneath his bravado, he is in fact a coward.

One incident that stands out in my mind was one morning when a group of ladies and myself were called into an office to speak to our TI. We were lined up in a row and made to stand at attention. While our TI balled us out because we were less than ten pounds under our maximum allowable weight, mine being 138 pounds.

All at once the absurdity of the situation I found myself in overtook me. Who cared if I was a few pounds overweight. In the grand scheme of things, did it really matter? Even though I was standing at attention listening to my TI rant on about my weight, I could not stop myself from laughing. I tried as hard as I could to keep my composure and appear serious, but it was just too much. I thought for sure that I would be singled out and yelled at some more, but surprisingly, I wasn’t. I suppose even my TI knew that the Air Force was being a bit petty about the weight issue.

It is not as if I had not heard it all before. From the time I was in grade school my mother and father made a big deal about how much I weighed. Because they both were constantly picking on me about how much I should weigh, they sent the message across to my brother and cousins that it was okay to harass me about my weight.

My brother, cousins and father made fun of me, called me names, and generally made my life a misery. To be honest, by today’s standards I was actually quite petite, but to hear them talk one would have thought I was a beached whale.

Much to the surprise of my TI, I finished Basic Training and was sent to Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi to attend a technical training school to become a Radio Relay Equipment Repairman. After 17 weeks of training, I was sent to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland to work in the Electron Maintenance section.

When I arrived in Maryland, I was taken to the barracks, where I had been assigned a room that I would be required to share with another woman who I had never even met.

It is funny, really, to think that I gave up so many of my rights and my own self determination. I was told where I would live, where I would work, and what I would do both at work and on my free time. I had allowed myself to be told what do to for such a large extent of my life that slowly but surely I lost the ability to determine my own destiny. It was such a gradual process that I never even realised what was happening to me.

Before I knew it, the United States Air Force had got me. They owned me body and soul.