The following is third-hand and very recent from a counter-recruitment listserv. It rings true to me, as no doubt it will to you. (The name and some spelling and grammar have been changed.) It is a letter of gratitude to a counter-recruitment organization for the help they gave a mother trying to get her son out of the Marines.
I am trying to get him to write his experience down but right now he is just enjoying being home and in the throes of looking for a job. While I can't do his story justice, I will share some things he told me that I found to be particularly disturbing.
Mike said it didn't take long for him to know he was in the wrong place. He is a major history buff and has been watching the history channel since he was in elementary school. A few days into boot camp he attended a "history" class. The instructor asked the platoon, "How many of you in here hate history?" The entire platoon with the exception of two, my son and another young man raised their hands. "That's probably because you were taught history by some liberal hippy. Here is the real story." Mike said what followed was a one-sided view of history that could only be defined as propaganda. The scary part was that many of these young marines bought into this view of history that gave skewed numbers of battle, i.e., we killed 4,000 and only lost four of our guys.
The second rude awakening was the class on rules of engagement for land warfare. The Geneva Convention was discussed however the overall message was that the rules of the Geneva Convention could be broken as long as one didn't get caught. Mike said the instructor actually said, "Now you are supposed to provide medical care to an enemy soldier who is down but say they are bleeding, there is nothing wrong with applying more force than you need to stop their bleeding." My son was appalled by this since it seemed especially cruel. He won't go into details but he did say it only got worse.
In addition to the classes, Mike was stunned by the fact that "Kill, kill, kill" is used both as a chant during PT and as a "motivational statement." When they weren't yelling kill they were chanting "Slap that bitch" and "We're going over to get us some!" My son was struck by the sexism and the homophobia that was so prevalent, and saw the connection to the horrible behavior of some of our service men.
He was also sickened by having to force other Marines to do “Water It.” Basically recruits are ordered to drink water until they throw up and then continue to drink until they are ordered to stop by their drill instructor. Other recruits are ordered to bring the water to the punished Marine and continue to hand them glasses of water even if the recruit drinking is throwing up. It seems to be a particularly dangerous and cruel practice.
There are many other things that pushed against the grain of his values. They placed a bayonet in his hand and urged him to visualize slicing open the guts of the enemy. That is about the point he realized he was a conscientious objector and could not find a single reason that would justify doing this to another human being.
Mike did go to his drill instructor and explain his concerns. He was laughed at, mashed, and sent back. He decided he would do whatever it took to get out. He mustered all his courage and went into himself and stopped obeying orders. He peacefully and quietly held his ground even when five drill instructors were yelling in his face. His standoff lasted about two days. The only time he almost gave in was when they threatened to mash his entire platoon. He is a kind, loyal and community-oriented man so this was almost more than he could bear.
The DI persuaded him to at least do PT and promised him that they would then send him to talk to someone about a discharge. He overheard them talking and discovered they were stringing him along.
He decided he needed something pretty dramatic to show them he was serious. During PT he made a run for it. (It should be mentioned he had the highest PT score in the company and the fastest running time.) He had no idea where he was going but at that moment to him it didn't matter. At this point he realized he was being chased by a DI in a golf cart who threatened to tackle him or run him over. He ended up meeting with an officer who soft sold him, and encouraged him to keep an open mind and train for 10 more days. He was told that if he still wanted out that they would let him out.
Mike honored his end of the agreement. He kept an open mind and put everything he had into it. He trained so well that they were talking about making him squad leader again, which is pretty major given his previous insubordination. (It should be noted that he was fired as squad leader because he used the word Please to address his Squad. It should also be noted that the squad leader who sucker punched another recruit in the mouth kept his position.)
Mike wrote me and told me that he believed that he could be a good Marine but being a good Marine would require him to not think or feel and to do things that rocked his conscience. After the ninth day he knew he could not in good conscience continue. He asked his DI if he could become a non-combatant and was laughed at.
At his next meeting with the officer he was honest and told them he could not in good conscience do what was required of him. The officer broke his word, blew him off, and sent him back to his platoon.
But Mike was determined and was getting ready to go on a hunger strike to get out. One of his drill instructors pulled him aside and inquired about the meeting he had had with the officer. Mike told him the officer blew him off, and also told the DI he would stop at nothing, including a hunger strike to get out. The DI told Mike he was contaminating the rest of the Platoon with his conscientious objector crap. (It should be noted that Mike is articulate and charismatic and while voicing his concerns was apparently resonating with others.. two more recruits from his platoon left after he did.)
The DI told him to go to sick hall, admit to being depressed and to somehow let it slip that he was desperate enough to do something on the rifle range. Mike felt this was pretty ironic since he had been saying for two weeks that the reason he wanted out was that he couldn't in good conscience harm anyone. Nevertheless Mike said the key phrase and was immediately processed out.
He is home now. His hair much shorter, his arms quite a bit bigger from all those push ups and more importantly he has a new focus. He plans on going back to school and is still considering politics. I asked him what he would do if his discharge ever became an issue. He told me this: "I will tell them the truth. I was young, and enlisted for something that at the time I thought I could do. I realized that I in good conscience could not do what was required of me. As soon as this came to my awareness I did everything I needed to do to act on my values and follow my conscience. It would have been easier to stay in, to follow along, to stop thinking or feeling but I had to stand up for what I believe in. I told them the truth and when the truth didn't work, I played by their rules to get out."