Originally Posted by
Impartial Bias
From what most of my family has told me, it's that they attempt to brainwash you to a certain degree, in an attempt to kill off a portion of your individuality so that you will fit in better in a larger oragnization and unit. In short, they seek to alter your mind and mentality to better fit with their "image". It is important to remind yourself of what they are trying to do so as to maintain your individuality.
My Grandfather realized this after he got out of the military and started studying Psychology and Sociology. In Basic Training, everything is repetitive. You are told things over and over again, or do things over and over again. It is thought that if you are told something enough times, you will begin to believe it, regardless of what you thought before. Even more, you do things as a group. You PT as a group, you run in formation together, you sleep together, you eat together, you get yelled at together, and you get punished together. This is used to destroy any feelings of individuality, so that you associate more with a group and your "reinvented self" than you do with your pre-military self. You are given an authority figure who yells at, punishes, and berates you. This causes an effect similar to Stockholm syndrome where you feel sympathy or bondage with a person who mistreats you. It is also meant to further your commitment towards the people who lead you into battle (which is not always a bad thing, but if you have incompetent officers it may cause undeserving faith and respect towards them). When you enter BT, you immediately receive a haircut, and you are given standard issue everything from socks to uniforms (which everyone else has, and given a serial number identification number. These are used to further the loss of individuality, as after all this has happened, you go into formation where basically everyone looks the same (same haircut, same clothes, all in formation). This is used to initiate you into the slow loss of individuality, as everyone looks the same. On top of all this, stress, sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion and malnutrition are all used to make you more susceptible to what they try to implant within your mind. Granted, they are preparing you for war, but they are also making you more uniform and obedient. It is important to keep in your mind what they intend to do so that you will retain your individualist mind and identity.
Most people realize that they are very different people after having joined the military (most find it very hard to socialize with non-military back in civilian life, others have increased amounts of stress, while some lose interest in things they enjoyed before the military; this is true even for those who have not seen combat). Most of this change occurs in Basic Training and extended military service. Ultimately it is the individualist and social parts of the mind that are changed the most.
My sources for this are my grandfather, my uncles, my father, and my cousin, who all witnessed this when they joined the military. My grandfather realized this as he went through basic training in 1944, and kept it in the back of his mind that they were attempting to brainwash him, and so retained his individuality and his pre military outlook on life. He served during the pacific campaign and by the end of the war he was made a Sergeant Major because of his independent thought and actions. He went on to serve in Korea. At the end of the war he retired from the military at the rank of Captain in charge of a infantry company, again because of his independence in thought and actions.
After the war he became a Professor in both Sociology and Psychology. When writing his doctoral thesis for Psychology, he used Basic Training indoctrination as his subject.
The reason I type all this is because my Grandfather knows I intend to join the military, and wanted to teach me early on how to deal with the experience. Many go in clueless and are the most exposed to the loss of individuality. It is important to go in to the military expecting them to alter the way your mind works, and that you keep it in mind to resist the psychological attacks made on the mind. That way, you can retain who you truly are.
I hope you found this helpful. Good luck there, and wherever else they may send you.
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