At Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a sleepy group of young soldiers is stumbling into formation.He expects their formation to have the precision of a chessboard: pawns evenly spaced, a perfectly stitched seam of camouflage.It is so familiar from movies, from TV shows, from childhood games, from our own experiences, that we know what comes next: fury.He was the one whose breath was the steadiest as he ran alongside the troops, singing cadences, correcting broken strides, yelling at puffing, panting privates who were slowing down the run and ruining the beautiful clip-clop sound of shoes hitting pavement in unison.Order means there has been subjugation of the individual, which allows for teamwork, which allows for unity, which allows for fighting- machine dominance.Lining up straight is the beginning of this, absolutely necessary for everything that is to follow, like crawling to walking, and if these soldiers, these fatboys, these slackers, these losers, these morons, these sloths, these spoiled crybabies can't even line up straight, then there goes the Army, there goes the nation, there goes democracy, there goes everything, and so the time has come for Gourie to get in their faces and be furious, just as his drill sergeant was to him and drill sergeants have been forever.They cannot slap, hit, kick, punch or call privates names anymore.They cannot deny their soldiers meals or water as punishment, make them roll in the mud or assume the infamous roach position, in which a private lies on his back and shakes his legs and arms in the air like a dying cockroach.And then he searches deep inside himself for one more thing to say, something that will punctuate his exasperation and emphasize his rage and motivate his soldiers and save the democracy and meanwhile not violate the rules, and it is those words, carefully chosen, intended as fists, that now rain down upon the soldiers.Sean Polwort, drill sergeant of the year at Fort Benning in Georgia, home of the Army infantry, says: "Would you like to be shoved up against a wall and shouted at?In the old Army, the chain of command was seen as tacitly, if not directly, endorsing such shoving and shouting.All of which is to say that there is a profound and consequential shift underway in the Army about the meaning of power in a changing society.Just as the old stereotype of a drill sergeant is familiar, so, now, is Aberdeen: from the first allegations of rape late last year to the acknowledgment by the Army that something had indeed gone terribly wrong.To the national hot line set up that recorded 1,288 complaints of abuse in its seven months in operation, 353 of which resulted in criminal investigations.To, most of all, the trial this spring of Delmar Simpson, an Aberdeen drill sergeant who was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping six female soldiers under his command.Drill sergeants tell their soldiers when to sleep, when to eat, what to wear, how to think.The Army has long recognized the kind of immense power that is established under those conditions.There have been several inquiries conducted since Aberdeen -- some by the Army, one by an independent congressional review panel -- and among the general findings has been the inescapable conclusion that the system needs to be changed.For instance, the Army has never routinely conducted criminal background checks on drill sergeant candidates.Also, only a small percentage of the candidates are subjected to evaluation, by either a psychologist or their direct superiors.Abuse is no longer tolerated anywhere in the Army, including training facilities where there are no women.It has to do with good business: The modern Army sweats to get recruits, so why be abusive toward them once they get in?Anthony Houzah, who teaches a class in sexual harassment and trainee abuse at the U.S.
Edward R. Forte
Author
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