Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific

7. Uncomfortable Fatigues: Chamorro Soldiers, Gendered Identities, and the Question of Decolonization in Guam

147 7 Uncomfortable Fatigues Chamorro Soldiers, Gendered Identities, and the Question of Decolonization in Guam Keith L. Camacho and Laurel A. Monnig Let me tell you something about Chamorros . . . they are one of the most decorated, motivated, sophisticated soldiers in the world, man. When they join any of the armed forces, they are there to prove themselves . . . so when we go into the military we tend to be the best of the best. And I hear this from everybody else . . . from generals, sergeant majors. —Olympio I. Magofña, U.S. Army recruiter I could balance the two, I could never be confused. Like a lot of the people, a lot of my peers who served with me in the military cannot understand the dichotomy that on the one hand there is this warrior, a highly American soldier, right? And then, on the other hand, he is also an advocate for indigenous rights. They cannot balance that. But with me, I could balance the two of them. —John Benavente, U.S. Army veteran and activist First Sergeant Olympio I. Magofña, a Chamorro recruiter in the U.S. Army, extols in the opening epigraph the virtues of Chamorros in U.S. military uniform—that is, male Chamorro soldierhood. As with every military around the globe, soldiering in colonial Guam is predominantly a male and an overtly masculine occupation. In the second quote above, John Benavente , a Chamorro man in his sixties, reflects on his life in fatigues as a retired U.S. Army enlisted soldier.1 He is also a contemporary Chamorro rights activist, a path certainly not pursued by all Chamorro soldiers. Benavente shares his views in an interview about Guam’s political status as 148 · KEITH L. CAMACHO AND LAUREL A. MONNIG an unincorporated territory of the United States, as well as his activism in Chamorro decolonization movements.2 These movements have struggled with the motives and consequences of U.S. military rule on Guam since the turn of the twentieth century. Calls for recognizing and legitimizing Chamorro land rights, Chamorro language programs, and Chamorro selfdetermination are some of the concerns voiced by these movements in their quest to decolonize the island and its indigenous Chamorro people. Yet, Benavente is conscious of how militarist and masculine narratives garnered from his experiences in the U.S. military inform his ideas regarding Chamorro decolonization. Indeed, he peppers his conversations about the decolonization of Guam with “militarized” acronyms, metaphors , and terminology. Like some Chamorro activists, for example, Benavente now sees himself as a “warrior” of indigenous cultural, economic, and political rights. He finds no contradiction between his history of U.S. military service and indigenous activism, which both shape his conceptions of identity today. In his narrative of life experiences, Benavente thus does not recount any conflict in being a veteran of a colonial army and an advocate for indigenous rights in Guam. He could, as he puts it, “balance the two of them.” Not all Chamorro male military personnel or veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces have such ease in reflecting on the problems inherent in U.S. militarization. After all, their participation in the U.S. military demands their loyalty. In fact, the stated goal of military service is to foster, upon command, discipline, obedience, and violence among individuals and collectivities; ambivalence is not deliberately cultivated. Further, critical thinking and questioning of the process of military indoctrination are not actively promoted by and among U.S. military personnel. But what about the life story of John Benavente? What does his story, and others like his, offer in terms of a gendered analysis of U.S. militarization and masculinity in Asia and the Pacific? What strategies for resistance do indigenous experiences in the U.S. military present activists and scholars concerned with the increased rise in U.S. militarization at home and abroad?3 In this chapter, we explore the interrelated processes of militarization and masculinization among Guam’s Chamorro men in the U.S. Armed Forces and the implications these processes have for the decolonization of Guam. By decolonization, we mean it in the broadest sense of individual and collective acts of self-determination, especially as framed in response to these processes of U.S. colonial militarization and masculinization.4 UNCOMFORTABLE FATIGUES · 149 While a fuller account of gender relations considers women as well, the scope of this chapter is conceptually restricted to issues of masculinity. However...