I Research
Why do some U.S. military personnel take part in unethical behavior when they hail from a Christian nation that imposes strict taboos on such behavior? Why did American troops take part in what became known as the Massacre of My Lai, which occurred on March 16, 1968 in the region of Quang Ngai province, during the United States involvement in the Vietnam War? What was the reason that army personnel humiliated and tortured prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq in 2003? While many people believe that being raised in a Christian nation will inoculate American military personnel from taking part in unethical behavior there are many factors that will cause Americans in the armed forces to rationalize immoral behavior.
The overwhelming majority of people in the United States consider themselves Christian. Prior to 1990, the percentage of Christians in the United States was at 87 percent. In 2008, the percentage of Americans who consider themselves Christian had fell to 76 percent (Robinson, 2004). 76 percent of Americans claim that they follow the Christian bible and adhere to Christian standard. For example, the “Golden Rule”, which reads, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12) Why is this principle so readily ignored by some American military personnel?
Soldiers form a deep loyalty for each other, through shared sacrifice and hardship, a member in the United States military knows that he/she can count on the soldier next to him/her in life threatening situations. However, if loyalty is misguided it can lead to murder. On March 16, 1968 the men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, led by Lt. William L. “Rusty” Calley marched into the hamlet of My Lai in Quang Ngai province and killed 450-500 men, woman and children (Hersh, 1970). The people that were killed were not combat troops. In fact, the soldiers under Lt. Calley did not receive any enemy gunfire before or during the massacre. United States Army personnel, like rifleman Paul D. Meadlo, a soldier who was giving children candy the day before the massacre, gathered up everyone in the village, old men and young girls alike, woman with infants in their arms and ordered them into one of three large ditches and methodically shot them to death (Zinn, 2001). On two previous missions, Charlie Company was hit from behind and lost personnel due to booby traps. On one mission Charlie Company lost 15 men, and on the next mission Charlie Company lost 28 men without seeing any Viet Cong. The men of Charlie Company were angry and frustrated at the invisible enemy (Hersh, 1970). The United States soldiers in Vietnam must have been confused and disorientated, due to the guerrilla tactics used in the war, unable to tell friend from foe (Bilton, 1993). Anyone who ran away once the killings began, were gunned down because they were suspected Viet Cong. Anyone who stayed was considered to be a possible enemy and killed. Lt. William L. Calley was charged and convicted of 109 counts of murder of civilian Vietnamese people. Lt. William Calley served three years of house arrest at Fort Benning for his crimes (Bilton, 1993). Ted Nelson wrote “A Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” in his honor.
Many people will obey authority or an authority figure even if one thinks that the authority figure is wrong. As was observed in the Milgram experiment, participants were willing to administer an electric shock to another person if the other person gave a wrong answer to a question. In Milgram’s experiment, the more questions that the actor answered incorrectly, the higher the voltage was administered. The actor, who was in another room, would make sounds of discomfort and eventually pain. If the subject began to question if they should continue, the authority figure would encourage the subject to continue on. Amazingly, 26 of the 40 subjects gave the highest, voltage of electrical shock to the actor, even though the switch had signs on them that said “danger: severe shock (Milgrim, 1963). Spec. 4 Max Hudson of the 2nd Platoon testified that the night before the massacre at My Lai, orders had come down from Captain “Mad Dog” Medina. “He (Capt. Medina) stated that My Lai was suspected a VC stronghold. With this he ordered to kill everyone in that village” (Hersh, 1970). Obedience to authority is a very strong mechanism of persuasion especially if the authority figure, or origination, is perceived to be of a respectful source or if the person feels that they can pass on the responsibility to someone else (Milgram, 1963).
Some may argue that the American soldiers now, in our current time, are too evolved to take part in barbaric behavior as torture, humiliation, or prisoner abuse. Sadly one only has to point to the acts of United States military personnel in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Photos emerged of United States military personnel posing for photos while torturing and humiliating their prisoners. Lynndie England was famously photographed humiliating Iraqi prisoners while giving the thumbs-up gesture that made her infamous. According to Bageant, the low education standards in rural America, where some of the military personnel who were working at Abu Ghraib were from, was a contributing factor for the dishonorable acts that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison. Bageant suggest that if one had a better education they would be less likely to commit such acts of unethical behavior. Bageant continues on to suggest that the non-stop violence in American culture (e.g. TV, media, movies, videogames), has had a direct effect on the minds of American children, and can be a contributing factor for the lack of moral integrity demonstrated by some of the American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison. “From the time I could walk I played games in which I pretended to kill Japanese, Indians, Germans, Koreans, Zulus….with plastic army men we tortured with flame, firecracker…We went to bed dreaming of the screams of the evil brutes we smitten that day… enemies of democracy and our way of life” (Bageant, 2007).
To choose conformity over common sense is a sad fact of human behavior. “Group pressure to conform despite individual misgivings” is the definition of “groupthink” (Brym & Lie 2007). In the Asch experiment, actors purposefully chose the wrong answer when asked which lines that were drawn on two different cards matched in length. The subject would 75 percent of the time give the same answer of the group even when they knew that the answer they were giving was incorrect. The Asch experiment famously demonstrated how group pressure can make someone choose the wrong answer or do something against one’s convictions just to be part of the group and not be “the odd man out” (Asch, 1955). Giving in to group pressure, or conforming to “majority rules”, can be the cause of acts as small as teasing a classmate that can lead to bullying or to large acts of unethical behavior. Lynndie England had a strong sense of wanting to belong, and was very eager to please. These traits that Lynndie England demonstrated prevented her from trying to stop the “bad things” that she said were going on at Abu Ghraib (Bageant, 2007).
The Jenness experiment again demonstrates how the desire to conform to the majority can be very powerful. In the Jenness experiment, Jenness put a glass bottle of beans on a table and asked participants to guess how many beans were in the bottle. Jenness interviewed participants individually and then again after the subjects talked with the group. The result was that the majority of the participants wanted to change their answers after consulting with the group (Jenness, 1932).
It is easier to commit inhumane acts to fellow humans if you dehumanize them.
If one thinks that one is hurting a fellow human who has a family, or the person is someone’s mother, wife, or father one will be less willing to treat the person with humiliation, torture or inhumanely. But if the perceived enemy is dehumanized, viewed as less than human, and not deserving to be treated justly, fairly, or with respect, then it is easier for one to hunt and kill the enemy or extract information by means of an enhanced interrogation processes (Maiese, 2003). If one attaches a disparaging label (e.g. “Slant-eyed”, “Gook”, “Towel-head”) to the perceived enemy then that label will further dehumanize them and make them susceptible to acts of cruelty. International law demands that all humans be treated with respect and dignity. The idea of meeting the basic needs of others is lost to a perceived enemy that has been dehumanized. Dehumanization can lead to intense hatred that can eventually lead to killing or genocide (Maiese, 2003).
The majority of American military personnel conduct themselves in an honorable fashion; however, it is the dishonorable acts that the media exploits for both good and bad reasons. The world has heard of the horrific acts committed at the village of My Lai and at Abu Ghraib prison-this fact hurts America’s reputation and casts an air of distrust on the American military. “The U.S. intervention in Iraq is troubled, to say the least, and now our own forces have handed our enemies a propaganda coup that trumps their best efforts” (Bowden, 2004). By learning about how and why these actions took place, Americans can learn how to avoid them in the future.
II Personal
I have long wondered about why the massacre at My Lai happened. Last year, I worked at the airport. A handful of my coworkers were Vietnam veterans and I would, in a respectful manner, ask them about My Lai. The answers I always received were either “I don’t want to talk about it” or “I would just like to forget about that whole incident”. When I learned about Abu Ghraib, I was still active duty and hearing what happened at that prison made me angry. I thought, “No way, this is my generation and we don’t do those kinds of things. How the heck was that allowed to happen?” In class and by doing research for this paper I feel I have finally gotten the answers I have been long looking for.
Dehumanization of the enemy is a huge reason why unethical behavior is occasionally tolerated in the military; however, the reason it is taught, as far as I know from my military experience, is because when a soldier is given an order, that soldier is expected to follow it, period no questions asked. If the one giving the orders is acting out of rage or fear, and the soldier receiving the order is already viewing the enemy as not worthy of respect, then once the principles of groupthink are added we have a recipe for disaster.
I joined the Marines after September 11, because I wanted to do something to help my country and to protect those who can not protect themselves. I wanted to do something that might help prevent something like the terror attacks of September 11th from happening again. I would hear people saying, “We should just drop the bomb over there and turn the whole place into a sheet of glass”. I didn’t understand why people would say something so mean and heartless…now I realize that they were just scared, angry, and participating in groupthink.
References
Asche, S. E. (1955) Opinions and social pressures. Scientific American (Vol 193 p.31-35) San Francisco, CA.: W.H. Freeman and Company
Bageant, J. (2007). Deer hunting with Jesus: dispatches from America’s class war. (1st ed., p. 288). New York, NY: Crown.
Bilton, M. (1993). Four hours in my lai. (p. 448). Westminster, London: Penguin
Bowden, M (2004) Lessons of Abu Graib. The Atlantic Monthly (Vol 293 p.33-36). Washington D.C.
Hersh, S. (1970). my lai 4: A report on the massacre and its aftermath. (1st ed., p. 305). New York, NY : Random House Inc
Jenness, A (1932) The role of discussion in changing opinion regarding a matter of fact. The journal of abnormal and social psychology (Vol 27 p 279-296)
Maiese , M. (2003, July). Dehumanization. Retrieved from http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/dehumanization/
McKinley, T. (2009, May 19). A soldier’s tale: lynndie england. Marie Claire, Retrieved from http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/lynndie-england-1
Milgram, S (1963 Oct.) Behavioral study of obedience. the journal of abnormal and social psychology. (Vol 67 p.371-378)
Robinson, B. (2004, Nov 14). Religious identification in the u.s. Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org
Zinn, H (2001). A people’s history of the united states: 1492 to presen. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
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