A Few Good Men — or Not
BY Herschel Smith
17 years, 5 months ago
It seems as if half of the blog-0-sphere has spilled ink on the issue of young Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his ugly charges: mass graves in Baghdad (in my city we call these ‘cemeteries’), mental abuse of IED victims, and other such things (see here, here, here, here and here). I have resisted as long as I can, and feel that I should have shared my thoughts long ago. So now, TCJ weighs in on the young Private.
I think we should have an investigation. The PAOs and lawyers could lead it. Perhaps we should transfer Beauchamp. Yes I suppose that’s right. I suppose that’s the thing to do. Wait. Wait. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s transfer the whole squad off the base. Let’s — on second thought, the whole division … let’s transfer ’em off the base. Go on out there and get those boys down off the fence, they’re packing their bags.
Get me the President on the phone; tell him we’re surrendering our position in Baghdad. Wait a minute. We won’t call the President just yet. Perhaps we ought to consider this a second. Maybe we have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charged with its security are trained professionals. Yes. I’m certain I once read that somewhere. And now I’m thinking that our idea of investigations and hand wringing and surrender, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be in a manner of speaking, the American way.
Young Private Beauchamp has had a lot of extra time on his hands. He has had time to send e-mail, make telephone calls, and perhaps even eat ice cream. After all, they have a dining hall, a place to actually sit and eat chow. After considering surrender, I have changed my mind and I advocate training young Beauchamp. Yes, that’s it! There are Marines in Combat Outposts in Fallujah who have no chance to eat ice cream in dining halls. They take showers by using baby wipes, and they have to burn their human waste in pits of stinking fire. They have no electrical power, and no amenities. They certainly don’t write e-mails home to use as articles for or against anything. They are busy 20 hours out of the day, and sometimes 24 hours out of the day.
Young Beauchamp needs to be trained. He badly needs to stay busy. Young Beauchamp needs to be on patrol, picking up a rifle and standing a post, and contributing to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Let’s send him out to the Combat Outposts where he will learn to work. His unit badly needs discipline and motivation. The United States of America has an obligation to instill these things and train young Private Beauchamp. I am certain that I read that somewhere.
On July 27, 2007 at 4:56 am, Dominique R. Poirier said:
I’m not surprised at all; to the point that the contrary would surprise me. Not that I personally experienced or witnessed such behavior in times and places of war, but because I read some books and accounts detailing similar misbehavior, and which explain why such things happen during wartime. In particular, I remember some things I learned from a psychiatry study published by the French ministry of defense whose title, I still remember it, is Psychiatrie Militaire en Situation Operationnelle (Military Psychiatry during Operational Situation)—sorry to those who would like to read this book, but I have unable to find it on Amazon.
This interesting study describes the psychological troubles experienced by soldiers during wartime and after, and other post traumatic effects. Cases relating to different wars were introduced to and analyzed and explained.
For very obvious reasons, soldiers may succumb to psychological troubles. A soldier is not a cold and insensible machine. He is a human being who, before he enlisted, has been taught to be polite, respectful towards others human beings, and to be careful toward domestic animals, and law abiding, etc. Also, he has been taught that he could expect similar behavior from other human beings.
But all those values collapse when one put one’s feet on a battlefield and is confronted to wartime in general. To some ones the omnipresence of violence may even get overwhelming and it overwhelms their mind, indeed. They just get no longer able to clearly make difference between good and bad behavior; what is normal and what is not. To some of them a a less or more conscious need to escape the situation installs; a need to psychologically escape, I mean. A need to escape the feeling of insecurity which arises when one sees his fellows wounded, mutilated, burned; smells the unbearable staunch of burned meat; sees burned and half burned cadavers still stuck in their last motion as if stultified; experiences the repeated sight of people crying and weeping, etc. There is an obvious and perfectly normal need to escape all this, because it is a sign of immediat danger and because it is just unbearable for anyone is psychologically well balanced and has been raised with care in a normal middle and in peacetime and in a civilized country.
This is at this point that a particular psychological phenomenon happens, which psychiatrist name “compensation.
On July 27, 2007 at 1:30 pm, Catharsis said:
Why PAOs?
On July 27, 2007 at 11:12 pm, Herschel Smith said:
The second formal communication I saw (one of the links I gave) was from a PAO. Nothing intended about PAOs or anyone else. Just in case the sarcasm doesn’t come through loud and clear, I don’t really want an investigation conducted by lawyers and PAOs, or anyone else for that matter. Pvt. Beauchamp’s fantastical tales bore me. I believe we should train young Beauchamp and get back to the business of OIF.