If I Were Drafted

As an English assignment, we were told to imagine that we were drafted into a war, and write about what we would do. We were to pretend that women could be drafted into combat positions (which they should be in real life) and that the imaginary war was in Iran. I thought this was an interesting supposition piece, and I feel that I did a good job of articulating the gist of my personal morality.

"If I Were Drafted"

Iran is a messy place. Like many Middle Eastern countries, it is a mass of political turmoil, social polarization, and imminent militarism. Hypothetically, if a war were to be fought there by an invading power, it would be vicious, bloody, and not easily ended. Easily we could be looking at another Afghanistan or Iraq, with abundant wasted money, collateral damage, and myriad vague enemies. Regardless of how ostensibly necessary or prudent a war would be, it would be a debacle. Soldiers and innocents would die by the droves; villages would be blown to bits; politicians would sling mud and nothing would get fixed. It would be a war, in short, where it would be very difficult to take sides.

Let's assume I get a letter in the mail. It's a standard envelope, very boring and bureaucratic looking, but on the inside – well. That's a different story. On the inside is a draft letter, summoning me to go fight in this war – this ambiguous, tumultuous war. It might as well have been a letter bomb, for the damage it does. The funny thing is, though, that there's no decision to make. My life near certainly be utterly destroyed from then on out. The question is not whether I go to the draft board or not, but where will I run.

I might be a coward. I might be a bad person, letting another mother's child die to protect America. One thing I am certain of, however, is that I cannot be a soldier. A simple truth. Not only would I be a terrible soldier physically, but mentally, I could not do it. I would be totally ineffectual at best and dead at the worst.

So I would run. It would be for the best.

I am not a soldier.

Looking only at life in boot camp, not even in a combat situation, I would be a miserable soldier. I am not physically strong, nor agile, nor inspired. I startle easily at loud noises. I like to read books, write stories, and knit scarves. I don't know anything about weaponry, or more importantly, people. Worse, I can't take orders. A great portion of my identity is based on being different and marching to my own idiomatic drum. In the military, any modes of expression would be severely limited, which would make things singularly miserable for me. It is part of my identity to stand out, directly in contrast to military uniformity. I also take great pride in thinking for myself and coming to my own conclusions. This cognitive habit is an obvious detriment in any highly structured environment with mandatory deference to authority. If my inability to follow orders didn't get me punished, it could get me killed. Questioning authority is not something smiled upon in the military, and questioning authority is something I do automatically.

I don't want to die. I don't fear death, but I do fear dying. Death is oblivion, but dying is full of pain and regrets and wasted potential. I am blessed and cursed with a cognizance of my own mortality, and am thus increasingly aware of how little time I have left and how much I have to do in that small window. I haven't planned my life (that would be dull and impractical) but I've tried to do away with silly mental restrictions and do what I need to do to make my life a good one. I have big dreams and not a lot of time. A reduction of that time...would be less than ideal.

Furthermore, I love to be alive. It may not always be a picnic, and sometimes you get drafted into the military, but it's so much better than being dead. Death is nothing. Life is everything, the good and the bad, and in this place, the good is pretty great. There are picnics and good books and good people and knitting and warm houses and cats and springtime, and it is beautiful. I love it here, on this tiny planet, in this great cosmos, with some mostly decent people. The place may need some fixing up, but as fixer-uppers go, it's pretty darn nice.

America's a great place, but I'm not willing to throw my life away for its sake. I'm not willing to die for that idea. ...Truthfully, I'm not willing to die at all.

The trouble with war, and I mean any war, not even a war openly stated to be ambiguous, is that if one takes a modicum of effort to examine each side thoroughly, it becomes increasingly hard to tell which side you should be fighting on. Both sides inevitably have similar rationalizations, grievances, and arguments. If one takes a second to think from the vantage of a soldier of the other side, one may realize that one is not different at all. Some people are able to rationalize this away with the usual trite jingoism - “I'm an American, and we stick up for our own,” or “I'm fighting to preserve democracy!” - but I have never been one for patriotism. It scares me. In elementary school, I always worried that the teachers had us say the pledge to brainwash us. In eighth grade, I read The Wave for an English assignment and realized just how easily ideas can spread. Inevitably, I couldn't help but see the parallels between the novel and the world, and ever since I've been even warier of patriotism. Therefore, I don't think even cerebrally I could find a way to dehumanize the enemy enough to rationalize killing them. In my head, they'll always be just another human, regardless of race or nationality or greater moral cause. Frankly, I do not want to think any other way.

The act of killing also does not fit into my (albeit arbitrary) morality. My code of ethics is crafted around making the world a better place for myself and others, with “do unto others” as the rule of thumb. Basically, the ultimate goal of my actions and life is to improve human quality of life in a tangible way, be it by doing charity work, or furthering scientific research, or just making art. Killing people does not fit in this plan. “Shouldn't we all be working to fight death?” the thought goes. Of course, there is the greater moral question of sacrificing the few for the many, but in a war as contrived as this, it is impossible to justify this sacrifice. Our time, resources, and lives would be better spent on peace efforts. This death and destruction is another step backward for the world, and I do not want to be part of that.

Of course, if I were in a war, there's a high probability that I would have to kill people. War is death, as they say, and if I were ever in a combat situation, I would have to kill someone. That would be bad. For whatever reason or cause the action was committed, I would still be left with some kind of psychological scarring. There are three ways that I could mentally cope with this action, and all are singularly terrifying. The first is that I accept what I did and wallow in shame, guilt, and self-loathing. I've explained that I don't want to rationalize away my atrocious action, and if I were to be morally straight and honest with myself, I would hate myself. Human empathy and societal conscience could not allow for this action to be accepted. Objectively or emotionally, there is no silver lining to death. If I were to judge myself honestly by my personal ethics and code of conduct*, I would not accept this behavior from myself, and would fall into spirals of guilt. This has the potential to cause some serious psychological trauma.

The second option would eliminate this guilt, but is no more desirable. If I were to force myself to stop caring about human life or morality, I would be able to feel better about killing people. However, there are some obvious issues with this proposition, namely that abandoning morals and respect for human life is bad. Furthermore, and in this option we're assuming that I was internally logically consistent, I would likely apply this amorality across the board. If it's okay to shoot an Iranian, say, why is it not okay to shoot an American? I likely wouldn't follow through on this reasoning without a cause, but such moral apathy would make me a much more unpleasant, misanthropic person.

The last option is superficially better but, ultimately, the more terrifying of the three. This option is that I accept what I did, and then repress the emotions and rationalize the action away. While this may be healthier and more beneficial long term, it brings with it some scary implications. It requires intellectual dishonesty. As a skeptic, I place a lot of value on being honest with myself and removing my own delusions. Purposefully lying to myself with some rationalization, like, “They were enemies, ergo they were bad,” or “They were a threat to America,” or any kind of thought to make them seem less human or to make the action acceptable, is repugnant to me. Even so, I've spent so long trying to prevent self-deception that I don't even know if I could hide what I'd done from myself. My deeply-ingrained thought patterns would almost definitely weed out such lies, and would have to be actively repressed. This course of action is not only repellent to my values, but not necessarily possible.

I cannot kill people. I will not kill people.

I am a bad soldier. I proudly march out of step, I do not believe what they say, I do not want to die, and I cannot kill. I would be a detriment and a liability to any troop, and I would be singularly miserable in military life. No one would benefit. Everyone would suffer.

I may be a bad person, a coward, and a bad American, but it is certain that I am a bad soldier. So I would run. I would tell my parents (one of whom would be disappointed, and the other accepting) and say good-bye. I would pack a bag, and I would flee the country. Skip over the border to Canada, try not to think of everything I left behind. Perhaps I could hike up to Ottawa and find work in writing, or retail, or something. I could make a decent salary, find an apartment, if I'm lucky. Gone, of course, are dreams of university or getting a PhD. Gone is science and success and fixing the world. No, I'll just live a quiet, bitter life in exile. That's fine, America. I'll get over it eventually. Canadians are very friendly, and I didn't need those dreams anyway.

Nice job breaking it, hero.

*This isn't relevant in context, but I would like to clarify that I do not hate soldiers, or regard them as evil or immoral based on their job description (true acts of barbarity are different from standard combat). My personal code of ethics is not the same for others, and I could support a soldier who killed an enemy combatant because they believed it was the right thing to do, or because they had no choice. I merely expect higher standards from myself, as someone who values honesty with oneself, uniform or merit-based empathy, and pacifism.  

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So, what did you think? Does my writing need work? Did I express myself clearly? And what do you think about my code of ethics? Is it internally logically consistent? Are there any glaring flaws or situations in which it is not applicable? Feedback is good! 

For those who have not been able to post comments - I have no idea why! Can you comment as anonymous until I figure it out? :D Thank you for being amazing.