More Black bodies needed for endless wars?

By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Nov 27, 2013 - 2:39:08 PM

Will there ever be an end to the expansive American ‘military industrial complex’?

“The U.S. government: racially profiles and then fundamentally misleads people about the military before they enlist, exposes active-duty soldiers to an environment where at least 71 cases of sexual assault or rape happen every day, and then abandons them when they have returned—leading to a veteran suicide every 65 minute.”
—Ali Issa, New York-based War Resisters League

(FinalCall.com) - Discussions continue regarding the role of American troops in Afghanistan after combat operations end in 2014. No firm decision has been reached yet.

Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, while Israel continues its effort to disrupt peace and move nations towards war, major talks have resulted in an agreement that could reduce tensions and possibly result in the easing of crippling sanctions that have been placed on the proud nation of over 75 million. (See related story.)

Despite the fact that worldwide opinion and outspoken protest efforts recently averted a war on Syria, on December 13, the U.S. Congress will wrap up budget negotiations. While they continue to spend over $1 trillion on militarism, public programs and services are being slashed in many states and municipalities.

Many are now beginning to question the efficacy of the “military–industrial complex”—the term President Dwight Eisenhower used during his farewell address in 1961. Anti-war organizers such as Ali Issa, Field Organizer for the New York-based War Resisters League are calling on the masses to “shake off the scourge of militarism,” which has become the defining characteristic of the U.S. government.

“Organizing against the Military Industrial Complex means understanding that the U.S. government: racially profiles and then fundamentally misleads people about the military before they enlist, exposes active-duty soldiers to an environment where at least 71 cases of sexual assault or rape happen every day, and then abandons them when they have returned—leading to a veteran suicide every 65 minutes,” said Mr. Issa. “That’s not to speak of the incalculable harm the U.S. military has caused in (the) past and continuing interventions in the global south,” he added.

Mr. Issa and the WRL are involved in initiatives such as the Right to Heal which involves anti-war U.S. veterans partnering with Iraqis in calling for reparations, as well as projects like the Under the Hood Cafe in Kileen, Texas—which provides a space for anti-war veterans organizing near Ft. Hood, the largest military base in the country.

‘Be all that you can be?’

Fahrenheit 911 movie still photo of U.S. military recruiters approaching young men outside of local mall in Flint, Mich.

Many young Black men in the cities of America are lured by the promises of military recruiters visiting their high schools, or college campuses. In many inner cities, the lack of employment opportunities leads many to recruitment offices where they sign up to travel and see the world, not knowing what other possible perils and pitfalls lie ahead. Their reasons for enlisting vary.

Andrew 3X of Chicago’s Mosque Maryam had a history of military service in his family. Both his brother and father were enlisted men. He was a promising collegiate basketball player with a full-ride scholarship to the University of Illinois. The social aspects of college life got to him and instead of practicing and studying, he found himself partying and mingling with the cheerleaders. He subsequently lost the scholarship. Somewhat embarrassed, and not wanting to tell his parents what really happened, he decided to sign up for the Marine Corps at the age of 19.

“I didn’t really want anybody to know that I had lost it, so I kind of made it like ‘college wasn’t for me’ and that’s what I told my parents. I was probably the easiest recruit they ever had,” he said.

Andrew said there was an environment in which racist jokes were told, but everyone was equally targeted. He said he met some Whites in the Marines that had never seen a Black person in real life.

Two million WWII veterans were able to attend college under the G.I. Bill (officially titled the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) however, many eligible Black veterans were still excluded from White universities. The G.I. Bill allowed many Whites to establish comfortable middle-class lifestyles, while Black soldiers were denied the same benefits.

It has been true throughout history that many Blacks soldiers who believed the empty promises of military recruiters, have been frustrated and fooled time and time again.

Although President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order #9981 in 1948 officially ending segregation in the military declaring “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin,” some question whether this laudable goal has been achieved.

According to the Washington D.C.-based Population Reference Bureau’s report “Army Recruitment Goals Endangered as Percent of African American Enlistees Declines,” since discontinuing the draft in 1973 and moving to an all-volunteer U.S. military, Blacks enlisted in the armed forces “at much higher levels than the percentage of the total U.S. population.” In 1979, after reaching a high of 28 percent, enlistment levels have hovered around 20 percent until the year 2000. There has been a “precipitous” decline in Black enlistment most notably in Army and Marines.

“The degree to which young American adults perceived the military to be a racially discriminatory workplace had increased during the 1990s. The percentage of Black high school seniors who perceived that the military discriminates against African Americans ‘to a great extent’ or ‘to a very great extent’ had hovered around 10 percent during the late 1970s and 1980s. But that percentage doubled in the 1990s,” the report stated.

Following the Vietnam War, many Black soldiers returned still finding rampant discrimination and inequality. In some cases, there were extensive administrative hurdles erected preventing them from receiving services set aside for those who received injuries. Many suffered from drug addiction.

An epidemic of suicide, unemployment, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder haunts the veteran community. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said 22 veterans take their own lives each day. The number may actually be higher because many individuals thought veterans are not in the VA system, and in other cases, because of the stigma attached to suicide, family members may not want to share the true cause of death. In other possible suicide cases, a homeless person found dead has no one to verify their status as a veteran.

On the point of Veteran homelessness, according to additoinal statistics supplied by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, of the over 62,000 Veterans who are homeless in America, 41 percent of them are Black.

The phrase “Support Our Troops” is nothing but an empty slogan with little meaning to many Black Veterans who served. They deserve more than simply prescriptions and perfunctory compliments. A range of emotions are felt whenever Veterans Day comes around. Glad to be alive, sadness because of the friends and comrades that were lost, and in some cases, confusion and regret fighting for a cause they didn’t fully understand.

In retrospect, there are more responsible and analytical views emerging related to the complexities of being Black in America. An acknowledgement that America also belongs to the sons and daughters of slaves whose blood, sweat, and tears soaks the land and built this country. In their view, military service should not be viewed and discussed from an emotional and patriotic standpoint, but instead, a a search for true understanding regarding this multidimensional issue.

Michael C. Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad Mosque No. 32 in Phoenix said upon registering in the Nation of Islam in 1991, at first, he was somewhat hesitant to discuss his time in the military, not knowing how well it would go over with the brothers.

He wasn’t sure how they would react to a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Marines Corps and spent time in the “devil’s military.”

He was fully aware of the Most Hon. Elijah Muhammad being arrested in 1942 on false charges of draft evasion, as well as Muhammad Ali’s battle against the highest courts of the land as a consciensious objector.

Mr. Muhammad said his reasons for enlistment were far from patriotic.

He was a young 19-year-old trying to escape gang life in Philadelphia. As many young Black men do, he got into some trouble and was facing possible double-digit jail time.

In the actual courtroom on the day when the sentence was to be handed down, the Marine Corps recruiter, who was in the back of the courtroom and had already met with him weeks earlier came forward. Young Michael joined right then, avoiding prison, but headed to Vietnam.

He says there is racism in the military, and it was clear that there was a racism battle going on in America, but on the battlefield, those barriers go down, when you are “back to back fighting for survival.” said Mr. Muhammad.

“I was in the trenches the day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed,” said Mr. Muhammad. “We were fighting for our lives in Vietnam in Khe Sanh where I was, and the civil rights war was still being fought in the United States.”

He was wounded in battle shot several times in the lower body attempting to rescue one of the men in his unit when they came under enemy fire during an ambush. He believes that his experience in the street, and in combat all led to him becoming the man he is today, and can be used to benefit others who may one day in the future need to fight to protect and defend a nation of their own.

He received a “Cross of Gallantry” and a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, however, it did not come from the United States government, it was given to him by the South Vietnamese government, who was America’s “ally” in the war. Some may refer to them as a client or puppet regime, he said.

He has vivid memories of what he directly experienced in the theater of war, and it was nothing like what is romanticized in movies. “There was no music,” he said.

Mr. Muhammad was especially overcome with emotion when he recalled trying to save 19-year-old Sammy Watson, a young man from St. Louis, who was walking point in the military formation when the ambush occurred. After Mr. Muhammad was wounded, and extracted from the area in a medical helicopter, he didn’t really know what happened to Mr. Watson until decades later, when he visited the Vietnam Veteran’s war memorial in Washington D.C. and saw Mr. Watson’s name, a fallen soldier.

HBCUs & Black military achievement

There is also a strong history of the military at many historically Black colleges and universities. For example, Tuskegee University has produced more Black general officers in the military than any other institution, including the American service academies. The school also has the distinction of producing the first Black four-star general in the Air Force, Daniel “Chappie” James, after whom their campus athletic complex is named. And of course, the bravery of the world famous Tuskegee Airmen is a point of pride for many with Benjamin O. Davis Jr. as their famous commander. His father, Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Sr., was the first Black general officer in the U.S. Army.

Perhaps the most well-known Black military figure is General Colin Powell who in 1989 was appointed by President George Herbert Walker Bush to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military. He was the first and so far only Black to hold that position. Later he served as Secretary of State during the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001-2005.

White fear of Black military training?

In his Saviours’ Day 2013 keynote message, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke very clearly regarding what he wanted to see from Black men currently serving in America’s military.

“We have 400,000 Black soldiers fighting someone else’s wars—come on home Black soldiers! Come on and stand with us!” he said. “We don’t believe we should take part in wars which take the lives of humans especially where we have nothing to gain from it, unless we have the necessary territory where we have something to fight for!”

He used the example of Geronimio ‘Ji Jaga’ Pratt, former Black Panther Party leader, as one who would use what he learned in the theater of war, to help teach and train young men presently in the cities of America who are taking the lives of others in senseless crimes.

“Do you know why Geronimo Pratt had to leave America, and died in Africa? It’s because Geronimo had military science and he wanted to share that with young Black people,” said Min. Farrakhan. “They do not want leaders that organize young Black men.”

Geronimo “Ji Jaga” Pratt, a leader in the Black Panther Party was imprisoned for 27 years many of which in solitary confinement, for murder but was later freed after a protracted legal fight proving that he was innocent of the crime. He was a decorated veteran, serving two combat tours in Vietnam, being elevated to the rank of sergeant and earning two Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts.

The dirty world of military recruiting (FCN, 07-21-2004)

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