![]() We knew the outside world would never be able to see that truth. When we referred to Iraqi civilians as towelheads or children as terrorists in training, it made us feel like we understood the world for what it really was - like we’d developed a second sight that cut through the politically correct shades of gray that the civilian world is mired in. I wanted to kill because the military billed its dehumanizing philosophies as wisdom - something special we’d received. But by then I was no longer a quiet, lost, empathetic kid who partied a little too hard and struggled with self-harm but still liked to read Stephen King and Star Wars novels and draw. I’d only been in the Marines for eight months before my first deployment. I developed ethnocentric thoughts that I shared without shame. They called Iraqi children terrorists in training, and meant it. Our senior Marines joked about raping Iraqi women, so we did too. We screamed “kill” for every repetition of cadence during stretching exercises and calisthenics - “1!” “KILL!” “2!” “KILL!” “3!” KILL!” - to make the thought of killing commonplace. ![]() The infantry taught us to use language like “haji” and “raghead” and “target” and “towelhead” to dehumanize not just enemy combatants, but every Iraqi or Arab person we encountered. They called our girlfriends Susie Rottencrotch, and told us fictional bull studs back home were having their way with them - women were not to be trusted. I shaved my head like one of my drill instructor’s and copied from my senior Marines hard turns of phrase that relayed disgust of everything feminine, anything vulnerable. I had more fathers than I knew what to do with. We weren’t allowed out in the civilian world without a partner to watch our backs, a “battle buddy.” We were at war even when we were at home. We were given a common language that sought to bond us, ensconce us in groupthink and separate us from the outside. My fellow recruits and I suffered together. The Marines have “How to Become a Man 101” down to a science. I didn’t have a clue what to do with my life. I drank and snorted myself into blackouts and eventually drunkenly crashed my car into a fire hydrant. I burned myself with the heated tips of Bic lighters to try and vent my anger out. ![]() But in my teens, when I needed my adoptive father for direction, he wasn’t around and when he was, I wished he were someone else. As a kid I was quiet - I read books and drew pencil sketches of cartoon characters. He had two present and loving caretakers who kept him in line. When he and I first met, he’d just ended his junior year in high school. They raised my brother and our siblings in a small, beautiful Massachusetts town. My biological parents reunited years after they gave me up for adoption. But we grew up in different places, with different people. I’m eleven years older than my brother, who was four when the U.S. Then, they tell you, at the end of your active service you’ll be left with a marketable set of skills so desirable employers will be lining up outside your door begging for you to take their jobs. The military fashions itself the last bastion of true manliness, and in a world that feels unstable, it promises four years of a steady job, decent pay, health care and moral high ground over those who didn’t serve. My youngest brother leaves for basic training in April.
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