Chicanos and the military:
Uncle Sam's wars are not our wars!

|By Moisés Montoya|Freedom Socialist|February 2006|

IN 1953, FOUR YEARS after coming to the United States from Mexico, my father worked in a cement plant in California when he received a draft letter from the Army. Though he hardly spoke English, he left his job and freedom behind and entered basic training. As a foot soldier in Korea, side by side with workingclass Puerto Rican, African American and white soldiers, Gabriel Montoya was among the post-combat troops guarding
and maintaining armaments and supplies for about two years.

My father tells me today that he never believed in the idea of “dying for one's country,” whether in Mexico or the U.S. His binational reality strengthened his opposition to war based on nationalism and jingoism. “It's wrong,” he says, “for one country to attack another one-sidedly, whether it's Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan.”

His distaste for serving was only fortified because he had no choice in the matter. He withstood the psychological control of basic training; when ordered to shoot and kill, it was for him “a question of self-preservation, not patriotism.” That self-preservation included avoiding being considered treasonous and court-martialed.

He left the Army with no illusions about what he'd gone through and with his skepticism about U.S. foreign policy and the military reinforced.

Less than a decade later, the U.S. invaded Vietnam and began its long, brutal campaign against the Vietnamese people, again in the name of “rolling back communism.” Many thousands of Chicanos and Latinos, including two cousins of mine, were drafted.

My cousins were lucky, relatively speaking - they came back alive. Over 47,000 troops never came home; another 153,000 were seriously wounded. Like most returning combat troops, my cousins both suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and syndromes related to chemicals like Agent Orange.

Thanks in no small part to massive GI resistance from inside the military machine, Washington was forced to end the war in January 1973. The same day the government signed the Paris Peace Accord, it replaced the draft with voluntary enlistment, hedging its bets on a leaner, meaner killing machine in future wars. From this time onward, the Defense Department has “sold” military service to prospective recruits.

MY GENERATION reached service age after Vietnam. As a teen, I wanted to enlist in the Air Force. It sounded exciting, and Uncle Sam dangled opportunities - college money, job training and travel - that my parents couldn't provide. Of course, no recruiter will tell you that war is horrific, that the “ideal” you'll be fighting for is corporate profits, and that those promised benefits may never materialize if you survive.

In the end, I didn't join. I decided the risk wasn't worth it. And, like my father before me, I didn't really believe that killing for the U.S. was the right thing to do. And I had another option. In those days, after affirmative action and equal opportunity programs were won, there were college scholarships for low-income students - grants that are uncommon today.

NOW EARLIER gains are gone and times are tougher, making the job of the recruiters easier. The Pentagon spends millions to sign up low-income young people and youth of color - who then fill high-risk, high-casualty jobs on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A prime target for recruiters are Latinos like my nieces and nephews, one of whom has joined the Navy. Latinos make up a fast-growing 16 percent of the population between the ages of 17 and 21 and are increasingly central to the ability of the U.S. to wage war.

The military has historically been the institution where Chicanos, and other racial minorities, have demonstrated their valor and allegiance to Uncle Sam. Besides the training and leadership skills, Latinos have gained social recognition and even citizenship for serving. Even so, over generations the sacrifice has been too great.

And Uncle Sam's wars are not our wars.

My colleague Norma here in San Francisco has Chicano friends deployed in Iraq; they enlisted in the Army in the hope that the military service will provide a road to college. They may disagree with what the Army requires them to do, but, they tell her, “It's just a job.”

One of her buddies is conducting house searches in Mosul; these raids are a key component of the U.S. effort to stamp out the wholly justified Iraqi resistance against the foreign occupiers. In a recent exchange, Norma told him, “I hope an Iraqi woman hits you over the head with a pan!”

IN SAN FRANCISCO this past November, voters passed a city measure halting military recruitment in public schools and calling for education scholarships and training alternatives to military service. The movement against recruitment is growing.

Young people are part of it. Scores of Latino youth are rejecting the slogan “Yo soy el Army” (I am the Army) in favor of “Yo estoy en contra del Army” (I am against the Army). They need and deserve the support of the rest of the Latino community.

So do the troops currently serving. Today's soldiers, sailors, and Marines, like their predecessors in Vietnam, will inevitably come to realize that U.S. occupation of another people's land is wrong. They will see that they have more in common with the darker-skinned people they are interrogating and shooting than they do with the politicians and officers leading a war based on lies and greed.

It is the job of those of us who have lived through many of Uncle Sam's wars to say to our young hermanas and hermanos: Gente, without you, the U.S. can't maim and drop its bombs around the world. Resist, and we will be beside you.

For more information, visit www.mfso.org, www.projectyano. org,
www.guerreroazteca.org, and www. traveling-soldier.org.