Military Culture and Education by Higbee Douglas;

Author:Higbee, Douglas;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Inez:

They look frightened.

Garcin:

Frightened? But how ridiculous! Of whom should they be frightened? Of their victims?

Inez:

Laugh away, but I know that I’m talking about. I’ve often watched my face in the glass. (8-9)

What makes one courageous? What makes one a coward? How can we determine when one and not the other drives human action? Likewise, the bombs set off in A Raisin in the Sun offer excellent conversation opportunities regarding America’s past and our operations abroad. Here I am tempted to say the cowardice of the “compact majority,” to borrow Ibsen’s phrase. Hansberry’s play draws attention to minority empowerment as well as to economic struggle, without forgetting women’s advancement into a predominantly male upper-tier labor pool. As a civilian, I can also use just such a text to broach the taboo topic of the glass ceiling in the military, perhaps in a less problematic way than a male or female officer could, due to a possible perceived bias. Our students live in a military setting, yet the works we cover needn’t be limited to war literature. On the contrary, opportunities to discuss values in a civilian setting help them to rebuild their identity and explore their commitment to stay in the military.

At our institution, a text’s relevance to current conflicts or world events must also be considered. Without this wider significance, a work remains limited for the students in time and scope—thus interesting to know, yet students conclude with, “well, I won’t have to face that.” For civilians, knowledge of future officers’ potential challenges must be gleaned by seeking personal accounts of field experience, as relying on media reports provides only a partial picture. Understanding current difficulties in this way enables instructors to select texts appropriately. Today, the tumult during and after World War I interests the increasingly skeptical postmodern student, distrustful of institutions in general and aware of discrepancies in the rules and their application within the institution they temporarily call home. Similarly, the uncertainty and terror of Vietnam, recounted in Tobias Wolff’s In Pharaoh’s Army and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, resonate with students’ second-hand understanding of the current conflict, while the abuses as investigated in Tiger Force find their contemporary reflection in Abu Ghraib, albeit on a far smaller scale. Great effort is expended in discussing our own expectations of these writings as well as our shift in perception by the end of the book. Ken Bain, in What the Best College Teachers Do, helpfully describes the method of one successful teacher: “she carefully planned ways to challenge assumptions and put students in compelling situations in which their existing models would not work” (2004: 51). Leaving this step out would be a grave error in a military academy, as officers in the field rarely benefit from a second chance to get things right. Discussing this in an informal setting, developing careful reflexes, before sending them out to be decision-makers can, without a doubt, save lives.

Once we have set aside preconceived ideas via discussions of prior wars, we

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