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2 The Pseudo-Reflective Life Battle Sleep I have two books at my bedside, Lieutenant: the Marine Corps Code of Conduct and the King James Bible. The only proper authorities I am aware of are my commanding officer, Colonel Nathan R. Jessop, and the Lord our God. —LT Kendrick, from A Few Good Men And so Kendrick uttered an ideological military commonplace in his own defense at the trial. In this fictional account, a marine officer draws moral understanding from doctrinal teaching: a book of military doctrine and a book of religious doctrine, military and religious authority. At the same time, this narrative is part of popular culture and informs through example; hence it is a particularist example of moral education itself in the real world. In the story, Lieutenant Kendrick passes on an order from his commanding officer to conduct a code red, which in this story is the name for a dangerous, underground—yet tolerated and even secretly encouraged—practice among marines to severely discipline those in their own ranks for displaying weakness , a lack of the warrior spirit. This particular code red results in the tragic and wrongful death of a marine. Kendrick’s courtroom testimony pleads that he was carrying out the orders of his commander and helps us understand that he believed he was justified, that by following orders he had not done anything wrong. The story presents to us an example of the moral error that can result from morality being dependent upon indoctrination or a simple appeal to authority. This cinematic representation of the story symbolizes illegal , immoral, or unsafe traditions that actually still exist in the military, from garrison excess to battlefield excess, from excessive blood-draining peacetime rituals such as blood wing ceremonies meant to enhance discipline and esprit to excessive blood-draining practices in battle meant to enhance the chances 29 of victory. These practices can be carried out and sustained because they are condoned and encouraged by those in positions of authority. They are also sustained through the stories used to indoctrinate and socialize the warriors. I begin this chapter self-consciously with a quotation from a story—a story that became a popular movie—that portrays the military as a morally wanting institution. And while I am sympathetic to the idea that the morality of the military is at times as the movie portrays, I do not want to propel this view simply by way of this story. Many people, including some philosophers, suggest that we can get moral truth and guidance not from abstract principle, but from particular circumstances, from particular stories or images portrayed in literature, history, poetry, art, or even film. Narratives can and do provide tremendous insights, and, as a great fan of good literature, film, history, and art, I am not claiming that we should never turn to these modes of expression. Joseph Heller captures much of the military ’s pathological sociology in Catch-22 and Tom Wolfe depicts the psychosis of the flying culture, the warrior ethos, in The Right Stuff. Instead of suggesting that we discard particularist modes of thinking about morality, I want to suggest caution when looking toward these approaches while seeking moral guidance or drawing moral conclusions. A steady diet of unschooled or unreflective consumption of popular narratives may be soothing and satisfying for the psyche (the original Greek root for the word “soul”). Sometimes our souls, or psyches, can use a good cleaning rather than soothing. Perhaps instead of chicken soup for the soul people should use Listerine® for the soul or something even stronger, a purgative, an emetic, such as epicac for the soul. Consuming nonpalatable material, material that forces people to think, can be painful; it can burn or turn one’s stomach inside out. Reflection is hard work and not often pursued outside of the classroom. Outside of the academic classroom, warriors are not reading Joseph Heller or Thomas Wolfe or others who powerfully critique the military. Instead they are reading the more romantic narratives that drive home the message that war is sublime and ennobling, enabling the warrior spirit to be sustained: Once an Eagle, Killer Angels, or We Were Soldiers Once and Young. The military’s cinematic tastes have gravitated away from moral and cautionary tales toward romantic and patriotic films. The military embraces, for example, Saving Private Ryan because it brings lumps to people’s throats and leaves them with a positive feeling by the end of the film.1 But...

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