Author and decorated U.S. Marine Elliot Ackerman was recently interviewed on PBS Amanpour and Company. I encourage others to view or read the entire interview. Below is an excerpt regarding the draft with and other reflections on war, peace, and the effects of combat. [Emphasis added]
ISAACSON: And you said that when you killed somebody in war, it felt like murder. What do you mean by that?
ACKERMAN: I wrote that specifically about fighting in Fallujah. In one case where we had moved very deep into the city, and we basically set up an ambush. And the sun came up one morning and we saw a group of insurgents who were basically walking to the front line and we initiated our ambush. They weren’t expecting it. In those moments, that’s what it is, that’s the nature of war. The nature of war — and Klauswitz said it in the 18th Century. The nature of war is slaughter. Lest you ever be confused about that, that’s what it is at the end of the day.
ISAACSON: And you think it would be useful for at least most Americans to have the potential or possibility of being exposed to that before we go to war again?
ACKERMAN: I think it would actually be the quickest way to bring us to peace. I think these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have gone on for 18 years, they haven’t gone on for 18 years because we haven’t been able to find the exact calibration of policies to bring it to an end. They’ve gone on for 18 years because we’ve allowed them to go on for 18 years. Imagine in this country, we just finished a few months ago the furor over this college admissions scandal where we saw what, elite families, in this country would be willing to do the lengths they would be willing to go to to get their children into college. Imagine if those same families of elites had a child who’s eligible for the draft. Even in those 1 in 20 chance that that child would be draft into the U.S. military, do you think we would still be fighting an 18-year war in Afghanistan, or do you think we would be flirting with the idea of going to war in Iran? It would be far more difficult to continue these forever wars and to engage in wars in the future. So when I say I support a draft, I don’t support a draft for the militarization of America, I support it for the demilitarization of American society.
ISAACSON: How would you structure it?
ACKERMAN: People often assume that a draft means everyone who serves in the military is conscripted and it’s never been that way. It’s always been a percentage. In fact, the majority of people who fought in Vietnam were not actually draftees. They were volunteers. So a draft could be as little as 10 percent, 5 percent of the U.S. Military. But having a limited component would have a significant result in all Americans feeling like they had some skin in the game, if there was the potential that they themselves or their child could be drafted, but it wouldn’t necessarily diminish the overall effectiveness of the Armed Forces. Another criticism that has come up in the past, and you particularly saw it with Vietnam, was this idea that people with names, people who were elected, who were well-connected will be able to find some type of deferment and way to get out of the draft. And I think that’s worth looking at. And so I would suggest that people who are drafted only be allowed to go into — sent to combat arms, meaning the infantry tanks would be men and women because women can serve in every single capacity in the U.S. Military now. And furthermore, that the people who would be eligible for the draft would be children whose families register in the top income bracket of this country. So you wouldn’t wind up with a war like Vietnam where only people who have a lower socioeconomic status were drafted, where people who were wealthy were able to get out of the draft, student deferments or well-connected podiatrists, for instance.
ISAACSON: In your novels and in your memoir, you talked about a sense of purpose. When you left the military, did you feel for a while that there was even in your life no longer the exact feeling of purpose?
ACKERMAN: One of the things the military does is it gives you a very acute and clear sense of purpose. And I think all of us to be happy in life, we need to have a purpose. So to give you like a very basic example, there’s a man, he works a job, a job puts food on the table for his family, sees his family grow. They then get a better education than him. That gives him his purpose and from that he directs his happiness. When you go off to the wars at 19, 20-years-old, you develop a dysfunctional relationship with purpose because it’s so intense. You have a mission. Let’s say it’s to secure mountain top in Afghanistan or a few city blocks in Baghdad, and you’re trying to achieve that mission with a group of of people who will probably become some of your very best friends. So a purpose is this drug that induces happiness at 19 and 20-years-old and you’re sort of free basing the crystal meth, the purpose. Like there is nothing more intense than what you are going to do. And you do that for two years, three years, four years, however long you’re going to do it, and eventually you have to come home. When you come home, you have to repurpose yourself. So maybe you’re going to go back to college, maybe you’ll get a job at Home Depot or sell real estate, whatever you’re going to do. And you look at the various things you can do and the various purposes and there not that crystal meth, the purpose, they’re like Coors Light. And you realize that you’re going to spend the rest of your life basically sitting on your front porch drinking Coors Light and a certain depression sets in. And there are people who have acute PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares, things like that and this is a very real thing. There’s a far greater swath of people I know who pressed with something much more insidiousness is that type of purposelessness. And for myself coming back, I needed to repurpose myself. I did that by becoming a writer, becoming a journalist and that’s allowed me to channel that energy into something positive. But I think for anyone, when you feel as though you’ve reached the summit of something, you then have to reckon with the dissent.