Prejudice in the military
EDITOR’S NOTE: Columnist John Ostwald will submit daily columns for the two weeks prior to Veterans Day. The columns cover a variety of armed forces issues. The information in the columns comes from interviews with veterans and family members, research and John’s perspective as an educator and veteran.
According to Grison, Heatherton and Gazzaniga, prejudice involves negative feelings and opinions toward certain individuals and/or groups. Discrimination is the inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people based on the groups they belong to. The attitudes are learned in a variety of ways from various people and institutions. The actions are sometimes copied but are under conscious control.
In Gordon Allport in his landmark book, The Nature of Prejudice, stated, “All human societies have prejudice in some form and to some degree.”
Angelo, a Navy Seabee, who spent a year in Vietnam, said that his buddy from the South called him, “A wop from New York.” Politically incorrect comments like this seem to be more the rule than the acception in the service. A sergeant in the National Guard said, ““No nationality, race or religion gets a break. No holds barred joking.” Joking that might be considered offensive was used to bridge racial, ethnic and religious barriers.
As you might imagine, ones duty station, branch of the service and time period influence feelings about various groups. It is often a complex picture.
An army veteran stationed in Germany in 1961 told me that it was very apparent that the southern whites hated back Americans. He also said that he was made acutely aware of the injustices done to this minority group. Our drill instructor, in boot camp, made the only black man in our unit the company commander. It was clear that he knew that there was prejudice toward Afro-Americans so he brought the issue to the fore so people could deal with it directly.
One Vietnam combat vet said that he will never forget that, “Charlie (North Vietnamese soldier) killed my friends.” He was consumed with negative feelings toward all Asian people in the United States upon his return after the war.
An Iraq veteran told me when he was working an ECP (entrance control point) where people are frisked and cars are searched that some vets had this mantra, “Everybody is the enemy.” Another vet who served in Afghanistan said, “We only shoot Muslim terrorists, not all Muslims.” Retired Iraq veteran Colonel Daniel Travers said, “There is zero prejudice in combat zones. We were not at war with the Iraq people, just terrorists.”
According to an editorial Sept. 5 in the Albany Times Union newspaper. “More than four decades after women were first admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West point, a misogynistic culture prevails in which female cadets are marginalized, subjected to routine harassment and pressured to conform to male norms. “Retired Colonel, Chris Rem, who served in Iraq, also mentioned that she observed significant prejudice toward women officers especially. “They were denied medals, and an OER (Officer Evaluation Record). The report is especially important as we try to achieve a higher rank.”
I have noticed an interesting form of what one might call ethnocentrism in the ranks of the armed forces. It doesn’t seem to be prejudice per se. Ethnocentrism is the belief in the intrinsic superiority of the group to which one belongs. The groups that I am speaking about are the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Combat Veterans Association. These groups for reasons that are not clear, exclude other types of veterans from membership.
Many military personnel have sacrificed years being away from home and being trained and ready for deployment. Most people know that there is a lot of luck involved in where you are stationed and what duties you are called to perform. Carl Ostwald and Josephine Smith were two local Army WW II veterans who could not join either group due to being stationed stateside.