by David Masciotra

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and
Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait,
of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active
military members and police officers as heroes. The rhetorical
sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a
reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement
betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism,
authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest
and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and
enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
It has become impossible to go a week without reading a story
about police brutality, abuse of power and misuse of authority.
Michael Browns murder represents the tip of a body pile, and in
just the past month, several videos have emerged of police
assaulting people, including pregnant women, for reasons
justifiable only to the insane.
It is equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning
in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality, to stop saluting, and
look at the servicemen of the American military with criticism
and skepticism. There is a sexual assault epidemic in the
military. In 2003, a Department of Defense study found that onethird of women seeking medical care in the VA system reported
experiencing rape or sexual violence while in the military.
Internal and external studies demonstrate that since the official
study, numbers of sexual assaults within the military have only
increased, especially with male victims. According to the
Pentagon, 38 men are sexually assaulted every single day in the
U.S. military. Given that rape and sexual assault are,
traditionally, the most underreported crimes, the horrific
statistics likely fail to capture the reality of the sexual
dungeon that has become the United States military.
Chelsea Manning, now serving time in prison as a whistle-blower,
uncovered multiple incidents of fellow soldiers laughing as they
murdered civilians. Keith Gentry, a former Navy man, wrote that
when he and his division were bored they preferred passing the
time with the entertainment of YouTube videos capturing air
raids of Iraq and Afghanistan, often making jokes and mocking the
victims of American violence. If the murder of civilians, the
rape of brothers and sisters on base, and the relegation of
death and torture of strangers as fodder for amusement qualifies
as heroism, the world needs better villains.
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It is undeniable that there are police officers who heroically
uphold their motto and mission to serve and protect, just as it
is indisputable that there are members of the military who

valiantly sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. Reviewing

the research proving cruelty and mendacity within law enforcement
and the military, and reading the stories of trauma and tragedy
caused by officers and soldiers, does not mean that no cop or
troop qualifies as a hero, but it certainly means that many of
them are not heroes.
Acknowledging the spread of sadism across the ranks of military
also does not mean that the U.S. government should neglect
veterans, as they often do, by cutting their healthcare options,
delaying or denying treatment, and reducing psychiatric services.
On the contrary, if American politicians and pundits genuinely
believed that American military members are heroes, they would
not settle for sloganeering, and garish tributes. They would
insist that veterans receive the best healthcare possible.
Improving and universalizing high quality healthcare for all
Americans, including veterans, is a much better and truer way to
honor the risks soldiers and Marines accept on orders than
unofficially imposing a juvenile and dictatorial rule over speech
in which anything less than absolute and awed adulation for all
things military is treasonous.
One of the reasons that the American public so eagerly and
excitedly complies with the cultural code of lionizing every
soldier and cop is because of the physical risk-taking and
bravery many of them display on the foreign battleground and the
American street. Physical strength and courage is only useful and
laudable when invested in a cause that is noble and moral. The
causes of American foreign policy, especially at the present,
rarely qualify for either compliment. The troops are heroes
boosters of American life typically toss out clichs to defend
their generalization They defend our freedom, They fight so
we dont have to.
No American freedom is currently at stake in Afghanistan. It is
impossible to imagine an argument to the contrary, just as the
war in Iraq was clearly fought for the interests of empire, the
profits of defense contractors, and the edification of
neoconservative theorists. It had nothing to do with the safety
or freedom of the American people. The last time the U.S.
military deployed to fight for the protection of American life
was in World War II an inconvenient fact that reduces clichs
about thanking a soldier for free speech to rubble. If a
soldier deserves gratitude, so does the litigator who argued key
First Amendment cases in court, the legislators who voted for the
protection of free speech, and thousands of external agitators
who rallied for more speech rights, less censorship and broader
access to media.
Wars that are not heroic have no real heroes, except for the
people who oppose those wars. Far from being the heroes of recent
wars, American troops are among their victims. No rational person

can blame the soldier, the Marine, the airman, or the Navy man
for the stupid and destructive foreign policy of the U.S.
government, but calling them heroes, and settling for nothing
less, makes honest and critical conversations about American
foreign policy less likely to happen. If all troops are heroes,
it doesnt make much sense to call their mission unnecessary and
unjust. It also makes conversations about the sexual assault
epidemic, or the killing of innocent civilians, impossible. If
all troops are heroes, it doesnt make any sense to acknowledge
that some are rapists and sadists.
The same principle of clear-eyed scrutiny applies to law
enforcement agencies. Police departments everywhere need
extensive investigation of their training methods, qualifications
for getting on the job, and psychological evaluation. None of
that will happen as long as the culture calls cops heroes,
regardless of their behavior.
An understandable reason for calling all troops heroes, even on
the left, is to honor the sacrifice they make after they die or
endure a life-altering injury in one of Americas foolish acts of
aggression. A more helpful and productive act of citizenship, and
sign of solidarity with the military, is the enlistment in an
antiwar movement that would prevent the government from using its
volunteer Army as a plaything for the financial advancement and
political cover of the state-corporate nexus and the militaryindustrial complex of Dwight Eishenhowers nightmares.
Given the dubious and dangerous nature of American foreign
policy, and the neglect and abuse veterans often suffer when
returning home wounded or traumatized, Americans, especially
those who oppose war, should do everything they can to discourage
young, poor and working-class men and women from joining the
military. Part of the campaign against enlistment requires
removing the glory of the hero label from those who do enlist.
Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of divinity studies at Duke whom
Time called Americas best theologian, has suggested that,
given the radical pacifism of Jesus Christ, American churches
should do all they can to discourage its young congregants from
joining the military. Haurwas brand of intellectual courage is
necessary, even among non-Christians, to combat the hysterical
sycophancy toward the military in a culture where even saluting a
Marine, while holding a coffee cup, is tantamount to terrorism.
The men and women who do enlist deserve better than to die in the
dirt and come home in a bag, or spend their lives in wheelchairs,
and their parents should not have to drown in tears and suffer
the heartbreak of burying their children. The catastrophes become
less common when fewer people join the military.
Calling all cops and troops heroes insults those who actually are
heroic the soldier who runs into the line of fire to protect

his division, the police officer who works tirelessly to find a

missing child by placing them alongside the cops who shoot
unarmed teenagers who have their hands in the air, or the soldier
who rapes his subordinate.
It also degrades the collective understanding of heroism to the
fantasies of high-budget, cheap-story action movies. The American
conception of heroism seems inextricably linked to violence; not
yet graduated from third-grade games of cops and robbers.
Explosions and smoking guns might make for entertaining
television, but they are not necessary, and more and more in
modern society, not even helpful in determining what makes a
hero.
A social worker who commits to the care and advocacy of adults
with developmental disabilities helping them find employment,
group home placement and medical care, and just treating them
with love and kindness is a hero. A hospice worker in a poor
neighborhood, providing precious comfort and consolation to
someone dying on the ugly edges of American healthcare, is a
hero. An inner-city teacher, working hard to give essential
education and meaningful affirmation to children living in
neighborhoods where bullets fly and families fall apart, is a
hero.
Not all teachers, hospice workers or social workers are heroes,
but emphasizing the heroism of those who do commit to their
clients, patients and students with love and service would cause
a shift of Americas fundamental values. It would place the
spotlight on tender and selfless acts of solidarity and empathy
for the poor. Calling all cops heroes too often leads to pathetic
deference to authority, even when the results are fatal, and
insisting all members of the military are heroes too often
reinforces the American values of militarism and exceptionalism.
The assignment of heroism, exactly like the literary construct,
might have more to do with the assignment of villainy than the
actual honoring of heroes. Every hero needs a villain. If the
only heroes are armed men fighting the countrys wars on drugs
and wars in the Middle East, Americas only villains are
criminals and terrorists. If servants of the poor, sick and
oppressed are the heroes, then the villains are those who
oppress, profit from inequality and poverty, and neglect the
sick. If that is the real battle of heroism versus villainy,
everyone is implicated, and everyone has a far greater role than
repeating slogans, tying ribbons and placing stickers on bumpers.