Corporal punishment (1984)

From the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most inner-city High Streets have an army-recruiting office where the raw are taken in (literally) to find themselves in plush surroundings; where the harvesting recruitment sergeant patronises the newly-germinated with smarmy small-talk about ski-ing and discos on far-off shores, using all the underhand skills and techniques of a sales representative for Cannon Fodder Incorporated. The process of recruitment from the High Street Office to the training camp can be as little as two weeks. During this period there is hardly enough time for the recruits to read the large-print in the glossy magazines, let alone the small-print surrounding their twenty-two-year contracts.

At the High Street Office the unsuspecting windfalls are tested in Arithmetic. English and Physical fitness, after which there is an interview. The Arithmetic and English are to ascertain the recruit's degree of simplicity. The medical decides whether the next in line can walk or hold a gun. The interview is perhaps more sinister. This is when the would-be soldiers are asked — prior to taking the Oath of Allegiance — if they are Communists. Have they ever been a Communist? Do they know any Communists? Answering "No" to these questions. they receive their one-way tickets to the training camp. Recruits are then trained like animals in a circus, with tit-bits for the good dog and a crack of the ringmaster’s whip (the Regimental Sergeant Major's pace stick) for those who don’t sit up and beg.

To obtain discipline and control the Army has more subtle methods than boot bulling and potato peeling. They have a long history of expertise in military psychology on which they can draw. The tools they use for processing the recruits are Conformity, Alienation and Competition.

Conformity

To impose Conformity the recruits must first be robbed of their individuality. This is done by inflicting uniformity of looks and behaviour on all soldiers. Uniformity of personal appearance is achieved at the first stop in camp, the barber's shop. The haircut and the clean-shaven look strips many young people of a part of their identity. If they were a little green in joining the Army in the first place, they become greener with a visit to the Quarter-Master's stores where they are issued with about six suits of varying sizes, just as many hats and the obligatory identity tag. informing them of their new name: an eight-figure number. Loaded with more new clothes than they have ever had at any one time, they set off to their accommodation having almost forgotten their frightening new hairstyle.

Impressed by the self-confidence of the reception Corporal, the new recruits are under the misapprehension that all they need to do is put on one of their new suits and they will be transformed into the new macho man. The dormitories each house twelve to twenty and are furnished in the most basic fashion — one bed, one locker and one chair for each person, laid out in a military style which is about as welcoming as a nuclear winter. With so little furniture you could think it easy to keep clean. The recruits soon discover that this isn't the case. For the forthcoming weeks they are cleaning the floor and removing dust from 5am to breakfast and then later from 5pm until lights out. with short breaks in between to clean their kit. Complete uniformity of behaviour is hammered into those with any remaining personality of their own during square bashing. Here marching, saluting and rifle drills are choreographed to such a degree that Lionel Blair would be envious.

Alienation

Alienation is another wrench in the mechanism of the military machine, used to twist the squaddies away from social interaction and to tighten the nut of docile acquiescence. Few of the trainees have much experience in letter-writing and many of their families cannot afford a telephone. so it isn't too long before they become isolated. This separation from family and friends, coupled with the confinement to barracks that most training camps impose. make it impossible to make new friends in the local community. The new soldier becomes so lonely and introverted, bullied helplessly into shape. For the smallest mistake the recruits are humiliated, bawled at and in some cases physically beaten.

A recent case of bullying was that of a new boy, or “sprogg" who, after a kangaroo court in the barrack room, was found "guilty” of not polishing his floor space to the required standard and was sentenced to be hung. He was beaten up by a dozen others, stood on a chair, blindfolded and a noose was tied around his neck. After a lengthy pause in which he broke down pleading for mercy, the chair was kicked from under his feet. Fortunately for him the rope was not secured to the rafters above.

Black balling is common among recruits. and many of the dangers they face in training are from each other, as each tries playing at soldiers with little more than an Action Man comic to go on, plus the stories learned from dad down the pub the night before they left. The recruits show a willingness to participate in any community pursuit and try to to impress anyone and everyone with their mixed-up league of priorities. They will take part in the humiliation of others, pleased that it is not happening to them. They have the childish notion of one who does not know right from wrong; if everyone else does something then it must be right. The alienating process has them so frightened that when they do join in group pursuits they often show their insecurity with violent reaction. 

Competition

Competition is the third bracket that straps the cogs to the tank tracks. Recruits are told from the outset that they must shape up to perform with team spirit in an endless cycle of competition that ends up like a game of snakes and snakes. Those who fail to perform well enough at individual and team skills are made to go back in training (back squadded). Competition strains at every level of the Army. At Battalion level there are about 600 men divided into four Companies, each of which has four Platoons of 30-40 soldiers. They are divided further into four sections of 8-12 and competition is intense for promotion and the cushy life. The sections are at loggerheads to be the best section in the platoon. The platoon is rife with the obsession to be top in the Company and the Company, predictably, is all-out for the coveted Battalion premiership. Of course the Battalion has its role to play at Garrison level and every Garrison goes all-out to be the best in the Army. The question is. where you go with the best Army in the world? Afghanistan? Grenada? or the Falklands?

Armies compete on behalf of the nation-states they represent for strategic positions on the trade map, areas rich in mineral resources and trade routes. In the name of defence they are often sent by governments to embark on expansionist imperialism. The sporting competitions of football and rugby, much advertised in the glossy brochures that could well have been composed by Saatchi and Saatchi, fall by the wayside when the Army enters the big league of politics at its sickening best. With such an extensive conditioning attack it is little wonder that the trainees soon appear to be the unthinking patriotic morons that the drill sergeants, non-commissioned officers and officers have set out to make them. The Army has disrupted everything that was important to the ex-civilian and imposed a new set of values. It is by treating the recruits in this way that governing them becomes easy and so effective.

The Queen's Regulations (the bible of the British Army) make interesting reading. For example, under Section 69(a) of the Army Act 1955 are listed offences against their god — good order and discipline — under which it is possible to charge someone with anything, including breathing. It is not uncommon for soldiers to be charged with “dumb insolence” when there is no better excuse than the face not fitting. Soldiers are caught by the jankers under these Acts. 'Frying to quote from the Queen’s Regulations in their defence can lead to another charge of insolence.

The ranks above are continually reminding the soldiers that they are not paid to think, with the old cliche:

Yours is not to reason why;

Yours is but to do or die.

This is shortly followed by a reprimand for not using their initiative. In recognising that the soldiers go through a very severe conditioning process we ask ourselves a few questions: Does it work in every case? Are there any long-term effects? and Is this conditioning a barrier to socialism? The answer to the first question must be that the conditioning of the soldier does work in most cases, proof of which can be found at the graves of Verdun or the Somme or Arnheim and the countless millions of nameless graves across the world where worker has killed worker for countries in which they had no stake. There are a few trainees who get out of the Army in the first few weeks but the majority feel compelled to stay, under the misbelief that it would be cowardice to leave. Secondly, are there any long-term effects? The sad answer is yes. We are familiar with the war wounded who were never hit by the enemy’s bullets, but were struck by a life in billets and camp songs for whom the last war has never ended. Many workers, however, have learned that no workers' interests are at stake when the capitalists make battle. Thirdly, what about the conditioning process? This is not a barrier to our achieving a socialist society. We have seen American soldiers conscripted to fight in Vietnam desert to the safety of Sweden. We have recently seen a film of the Russian soldiers defecting in Afghanistan and must conclude that as the individuals mature, so do the ideas and vice versa.

Jimmy Bob