Voices of Third World Resistance
Editor's Note
Dr. King: The Trumpet of Conscience
Michael Simmons Interview
Pan-African Student Youth Movement
Young, Black, and in the Military
Allen Nelson: Crossing National Boundaries for Peace
Aimee Allison: Interview with a Gulf War Resister
Wounded Soldier: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You
STAMP Out Racism!
Who We Are
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Military Out of Our Schools Program
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Aimee Allison: Interview with a Gulf War Resister
We caught up with Aimee Allison during a very busy time: as the U.S. threatened hostilities against Iraq, she was speaking out along with other Gulf War resisters at rallies, speak-outs and showings of a new film about Gulf War conscientious objection, Blood Makes the Grass Grow. When we talked to her about this Objector's focus, she wanted to speak out - as she has to her students in high schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Whenever we talk to military COs,the first question is something like what the military must have asked you: why did you enlist in the first place?
You know, all the time I was in high school, I saw all those commercials, those ads for the GI Bill - but I never saw myself doing that. What I know now, thought I didn't then, is that I was falling prey to a central strategy of the military. I was the black community's best and brightest: student body president at Antioch High School, 3.9 GPA, knowing I didn't really have money for college.
In some ways, I was a victim of the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. I took the test and the recruiter said to me, Oh, you can have the premier job. You can be a combat medic!
That appealed to you?
Yeah I'd never seen myself as military, and then I thought oh, maybe I can at least help people. Back then I thought I wanted to be a doctor, so it all seemed kind of reasonable enough, My biggest priority was to get to college, and this was a way to do that!
So when did your doubts begin?
You know, there's nothing in my way of thinking that included practicing to kill people. I mean, I knew the military was about war, but when we were issued M-16s and taught to aim at human-shaped targets, I thought wait a minute, this is not about helping people. This is what I learned is wrong:
My second week of boot camp I had an experience that showed me a lot about the military. In boot camp you get 30 seconds to eat, all you do it follow orders . . . So we had this one drill sergeant who shouted "PARADE REST!" But because I did it incorrectly he made me get down into pushup position, and he asked "Where are you from?" I said San Francisco and he said "Oh, what are you, some gang member? I knew you looked like some sort of criminal."
Racism in the military, front and
center!
And there I am, at boot camp in South Carolina, who I am and who the military perceives me to be are two different things - am I in the wrong place!
But it was three years from there to conscientious objection. What was the rest of your path like?
In the military they did so much to make me like the group: you're forced to adopt another persona. I learned how to play their game, I was even given an award in boot camp, can you believe it? But I couldn't play that game inside. In order to survive I needed to hide that important part of me, but that piece of me that I tried to bury ended up surfacing.
The next step, it seems, was when I spent time at the VA Hospital and realized I didn't want to be a doctor.
Training to be a combat medic, that meant my training, my monthly drills were at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto. I saw quads and paraplegics who were veterans, whose lives were shattered by war. We couldn't wear our combat fatigues, because we might tip off their PTSD - it was obvious, here are men whose lives are destroyed. And where do they end up? An overcrowded under-served VA hospital! The two lessons of that experience were: the result of war is just more devastation, and hmm, maybe I don't want to be a doctor!
So your whole career path began to shift!
I became a history major, focusing on African-American history. I studied Martin Luther King, which led to studying the power of nonviolent resistance. I thought of Gandhi, and what he said to Jews in WWII: you don't put out a fire with fire, you put it out with water.
I remember being very inspired by that, and therefore having more and more problems going to my weekend drill.
I began having conversations with people in my unit, and it came clear that my unit was preparing to go to the Gulf. I had conversations with others in my unit about opposing war, and I felt stuck. I didn't know what to do about it.
I was also active in the United States Student Association, and the USSA was outspoken about Panama. I was invited to be a student delegate in the late 1980's, to see what was happening in Panama, what the military was doing there. Here I am a member of the military and I really want to go, but I didn't feel I could. I decided not to go - and three days later the U.S. invaded Panama.
And then came the Gulf war!
In November 1990 came the big deployment, Bush shipping 40,000 troops. My unit had to write wills, dig trenches to protect the hospital, requalifying on our M-16s . . . and I had had enough. I had a talk with my dad, and said Dad I can't do this. He turned around and gave me a booklet produced by CCCO, The Handbook for Conscientious Objectors. That was when I knew there was a name for what I was feeling - and that there was someone I could call.
So what was the actual CO process?
I decided to quietly go about my claim. Only my close friends and my dad knew about it, and my new friends at CCCO. Then I went to a rally at Stanford, and heard Erik Larsen speak. Erik was a Marine Corps reservist, traveling around the world in opposition to the war. Listening to him, I realized I had to be more open about my opposition, and that I had a moral imperative to go public.
Was it frightening, this decision to go public?
I was terrified! There I was a college senior, an RA on a floor full of freshmen; I was applying to grad school. I still had a sense of duty, I felt it as more to children and my community - which is both why I went public as a CO and why it was terrifying. You have to understand, people in the military never express political opinions!
Were people at school supportive?
I would love to say everybody supported me when I went public, but it's not true. My floor went door to door to get signatures in other dorms, to support me in my moral stance. They couldn't get anyone to support me - there was misunderstanding of the rights of conscientious objectors inside the military. To be frank, when people figured out there wasn't going to be a draft, student support for, their emotional investment in, protesting the war was lost.
Tell me about your hearing, the legal process that finally brought you CO status.
By the time the hearing was set, the war was over! My investigating officer was a woman at Oakland Army Base. I was there with two witnesses and my lawyer, who was taping the proceedings.
The officer was very brusque, and asked a battery of questions: she challenged my religion, and asked me questions like would you fight against Hitler? Then we took a break, and the IO said "Turn off the tape.". Once the tape recorder was off, she changed completely. She leaned over and said, I really think respect what you're doing. You're very brave. Then the tape went back on, her uniform was there, and the hearing went on. She recommended that my CO claim be approved; when the Defense Advisory Conscientious Objector Review Board turned me down, we prepared a writ of habeas corpus, and appealed the decision all the way to federal court. I'm one of the lucky few who had the resources to do that.
When you speak in public, you always mention that you taught high school and talked more than a few students out of joining the military.
Yeah! I taught 11th graders in US History -the most political class you can teach. When I could I used Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States as a textbook: my classes were challenging kids to think about their country, think about their government, and think about war. We always had a unit on Vietnam, I always brought veterans and peace activists in.
So many kids think the military is their only viable option. There was one student, she had problems at home; she wanted excitement, she wanted to get away from her family, wanted freedom. And she was really gung ho to join, she was talking to an Army recruiter. I said to her, "Jessica, you want freedom? You want independence? to do your own thing? The military's not the place for you! They don't talk about going way, leaving your family; they'll say you can be a medic and you end up in cooking school." She and I had a close connection in her junior year; at the end of senior year, she said "Ms. Allison, I'm so glad you convinced me not to join."
And now you're speaking out again, as the U.S. threatens new military action.
I have to speak out for nonviolence - for taking personal responsibility. To advocate simple refusal not to kill people. Not to participate in killing other people.
I think about what Clinton would do if Chelsea was in the military. Chelsea's the same age I was when I was trying to figure out how to go to school where she does! If Clinton thought his decisions about Iraq affected Chelsea, how would that be? When people feel responsible for their actions - when it personally affects them - they look at the world differently. As one who's been personally affected by the military, I feel a responsibility to speak out. |