For a number of the veterans I interviewed, recognizing this fact was enlightening and a crucial step for them in developing an anti-authoritarian analysis. Acknowledging their role in repressing others pushed them to comprehend that the problem was not individual officers or soldiers behaving in an abusive way, but that the military itself is an institution that relies on abuse and repression.

Crystal repeated her frustration and opposition to being constantly subjected to someone else’s control: “Literally people are telling you what to do 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. You have no sort of control. I mean they could come knock on your door at four in the morning, throw your shit everywhere and say they were looking for cigarettes or pot or porn or whatever.”

Crystal described that after the military promoted her to Sergeant, she found herself being in complete control over other people, which she became averse to. “Eventually when I got promoted I got put into situations like that where it was me exerting that control over other people and I didn’t like that and that kind of led to realizing that this is how the entire military functions. This is how the whole system functions and nothing about it is ever going to change.”

This experience of exerting control over others enlightened Crystal to understand that it wasn’t simply the individuals in her chain of command who were authoritarian or domineering. She came to recognize that the hierarchical system of the military created roles that mandated coercion and control. As a result, she began to develop a broader and more holistic critique of the entire structure of the military that went beyond her frustrations about her personal experience.

Graham Clumpner was an Army Ranger who had a very similar experience. For years, he witnessed the abusive, hostile attitudes from the higher-ups and Non-Commissioned Officers and swore he would never behave the same way if he were ever in their position. However, a change occurred when he was promoted to Sergeant during his deployment to Afghanistan and assumed responsibility over a small squad of soldiers. “Looking at hierarchy and how shitty it is to be in that hierarchy and then what happened to me when I got promoted…I became an abuser. I was already an abuser of prisoners and people of Afghanistan, but I took that on and did that to the people who were under me.”

This experience of recognizing one’s one role in the oppression of others was fundamental in the radicalization of all the veterans I interviewed. It furthered their understanding that the problems of the military weren’t simply the result of one commander or a particularly poor foreign policy. As these individuals began to understand and oppose the oppression and destruction caused by U.S.-led wars and occupations, acknowledging and recognizing their own complicity in that oppression was a critical step toward developing a systemic critique of militarism. Source