”Joe Glenton’s Soldier Box is one of the finest books I have read on the military and war by an insider. Bursting with insight, irony and humour, it’s in the exclusive league of Catch-22”
John Pilger
A brave, moving account of a soldier who refused to return to Afghanistan
“I looked around my cell and saw the sheet of paper taped to the door at chest height. It listed everything in the room, chair, bed, soldier box … For a moment I thought it meant the cell itself; a box to put soldiers in.”
When the War on Terror began, Briton Joe Glenton felt compelled to serve his nation. He passed through basic training and deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. What he saw overseas left him disillusioned, and he returned home increasingly political and manifesting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
When he refused to return for a second tour, he was denied his right to object and called “a coward and a malingerer.” He went absent without leave and left the country, returning later to the UK voluntarily to campaign against the wars. The military accused him of desertion and threatened years in prison.
Soldier Box tells the story of Glenton’s extraordinary journey from a promising soldier to a rebel against what he came to see as unjustified military action.
http://joeglenton.com/the-book/
Duty and the Conscientious Objector
Soldier Box, by Joe Glenton, Verso, 2013
Imagine, for a moment, an alternative version of Britain; a genuine democracy where the country is governed by and for the people, rather than by socio-economic elites and powerful institutions serving their interests at the public’s expense. In that society, the Ministry of Defence would not be a euphemistically titled ministry of war, but the arm of the state tasked with protecting the people’s democracy from external threat, and perhaps protecting the lives of our fellow human beings in other parts of the world in accordance with humanitarian values rather than geopolitical calculation. Under this scenario, to join the armed forces and risk life and limb in defence of one’s society and the principles upon which it was founded would be regarded as brave and heroic, almost by definition.
This is not to argue that under the current system, where wars are fought overwhelmingly in the narrow interests of power, the choice to join the armed forces should simply be seen in the opposite moral light. The willingness to endanger oneself in the service of a cause one sincerely believes in may well be regarded as brave and perhaps heroic, although we might ask ourselves how widely we would want to apply that principle before facing the question of whether the qualifying moral factor is the sincerity of the belief or the objective justness of the cause. At any rate, it is well understood that, even in the case of criminal wars, many of those fighting on the ground are good people whose good faith has been exploited by those in positions of authority. This, after all, is one of the great tragedies of armed conflict.
Nevertheless, the nature of the war must necessarily shape the moral status of the act of fighting. Empathising with soldiers who take part in unjust wars can be an expression of our humanity and so broadly apolitical. To hold up the act of fighting – the soldiers’ involvement in the war - as unambiguously heroic, on the other hand, cannot fail to have at least some political implications, particularly depending upon who is making the claim. When a politician who has helped start a war, or a right-wing newspaper that has campaigned for it, assert the heroism of the country’s servicemen and women in unequivocal terms, they are also - with conscious cynicism or otherwise - reflecting some of this noble light onto their own political stances (unless of course they believe that any physical involvement in any conflict on any side should be seen as necessarily and purely heroic, thus removing the political dimension).
In the case of unjust wars waged in the service of power, the rhetorical deployment of military personnel as symbols in the field of political discourse adds another level of exploitation to their deployment on the physical field of battle. On the physical side, soldiers are sent into harm’s way in wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan which, contrary to the state’s claims, have little or nothing to do with national self-defence. In terms of symbolic exploitation, what those soldiers then suffer in the theatre of combat – be it injury or death – is then drawn upon in order to imbue their involvement in the conflict with an air of unproblematic heroism which may in turn serve to ennoble the war itself, by association. First power puts the soldiers’ bodies to physical use, and then it puts the physical price they pay to rhetorical use.
This latter aspect is not unlike the insidious emotional blackmail of the slogan “support our troops” when recited not in the correct terms of human sympathy, but in a political context by the pro-war camp. To this, there is a clear and obvious response. Any meaningful support for the troops must involve energetic and committed opposition to their being sent to risk death, life-destroying injuries and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in wars that have no moral justification. It is that support which anti-war voices have consistently endevoured to provide. Whatever the militarists are committed to, it is plainly the opposite of supporting the troops.
Of course, soldiers are not simple, passive victims but people with free will and moral agency. However, this agency is exercised in the context of a power structure that consistently pushes them in a certain direction. In this context, to reject the state’s narrative, to reject the military’s means of coercion and enticement, to refuse to fight in an unjust war, undoubtedly constitutes an act of moral, intellectual and physical courage. That was the choice made by Joe Glenton, whose absorbing memoir “Soldier Box” recounts his experiences as a conscientious objector who refused a second tour of duty in Afghanistan and for a time faced the prospect of a enduring a lengthy sentence in prison as a result.
Glenton’s book is primarily a personal account of his own experiences rather than an in-depth political critique of the war. He describes his relatively modest upbringing in semi-rural England, his decision to join the Army in his early twenties at the start of the ‘War on Terror’, and his deployment to Afghanistan in 2006, giving logistical support to soldiers on the front line. He seems to have thrived both in his initial basic training, and then in discharging his professional duties once deployed on his first tour, earning the respect of his peers and the praise of his superior offiers, who clearly regarded him as a promising soldier. During his time in Afghanistan however, he began to question the nature and purpose of the war, gradually becoming disillusioned with the mission he had signed up to:
“I had joined the army half meaning to help people, to do something to improve the conditions of other people’s lives, not to occupy other people’s countries under the pretence of securing my own. Perhaps I had been stupid to believe that there was anything moral driving the war. But that’s what they sold to us along with the economic argument: three meals a day, job security, maybe some education”.
Glenton’s growing moral and political objections to the mission were accompanied by the realisation that his time in a war zone had taken a psychological toll, leaving him suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For these two reasons he felt unable to return to Afghanistan when called upon to undertake a second tour, but was given short shrift by his superior officers. One of the most disturbing aspects of Glenton’s account is the apparent institutional indifference to the psychological effects of the situation that his employers had placed him in; a chilling abrogation of the army’s basic duty of care. Again, so much for “support our troops”.
Rather than go back to Afghanistan, Glenton instead went AWOL, meandering through South East Asia in a daze before reaching Australia where he met his future wife, gathered his thoughts, braced himself, and decided to return to Britain to face the army, now as an unrepentant and vocal anti-war activist. This is where the courage comes in. Glenton at this point was facing a substantial period behind bars. The army were refusing to acknowledge him for what he was, a contientious objector, accusing him instead of straightforward desertion. The easy thing would have been to say and do whatever it took to placate the military and minimise the costs of his actions. Instead, Glenton went into battle, speaking at demonstrations and appearing in interviews with the media explaining his opposition to the occupation. As far as he was concerned, “I had a duty to expose and try and hinder the war effort”, and his determination to discharge that duty, no matter the costs to his personal well-being, is truly remarkable.
Throughout the narrative, from his early childhood through his time in the army to his eventual vindication and release from prison, Glenton tells his story in an engaging, conversational style, laced with dry wit and vivid observational touches. His personal trials, his struggles with authority, are described in a matter of fact way, as no more than challenges which needed to be faced at the time. There is little sign of any of the bitterness and anger that would be entirely justified, given his treatment by the army, whom he seems to regard with little more than amused contempt. There are moments of real humour, and others from which many activists will draw inspiration and encouragement. We see his political consciousness growing and developing (he spends his time in prison reading Eric Hobsbawm, amongst others) even as it is put into action in his confrontation with the state. And we see the authorities gradually give up and back down, having taken on one of their own soldiers, and ended up blinking first.
During an appearance at one anti-war rally, the Afghan activist Malalai Joya tells Glenton: “You should not apologise, Joe. It is your government who should apologise to you”. Any such apology would need to join an extensive list, covering millions of Afghans and Iraqis, and many thousands of soldiers and their families and loved ones, all of whom have paid a severe emotional and physical cost for wars waged in pursuit of power and geopolitical advantage. Official contrition may be unlikely, let alone justice. But the wider the popular comprehension of state crimes, the smaller the chances of their being repeated. In that sense, Gleton stands alongside the likes of Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Katherine Gun and Daniel Ellsberg, as genuine examples of bravery in public service, and in defence of democracy.
David Wearing is a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, researching British relations with the states of the Gulf Co-operation Council. He writes regularly for sites such as The Guardian, New Statesman, Al Jazeera and openDemocracy. He is a co-editor of New Left Project.
Read an extract from Soldier Box here.
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/duty_and_the_conscientious_objector
Soldier Box
an extract from Soldier Box
It’s December 2009. I’ve been put in prison for opposing the war in Afghanistan. Lots of other people disagree with it, lots of people think it is variously a stupid or illegal or unjustified or doomed war. The problem is that I am not supposed to say these things because I am a soldier; and yet I keep saying them.
Remand is when you are held in prison awaiting trial. Sometimes it is for those considered a flight risk and at other times it is for those not yet tried and convicted but considered too dangerous to be out in the world – I belong to the latter category. What I have said damages the ‘war effort’ and I have said it with that intention. Remand is purgatory.
They tell us it’s not a prison, but we can’t go out. We’re held in a centre for corrections. I find irony in that idea and in the idea that the individuals who’ve sent me here actually believe it is me who needs adjustment. The Military Correctional training Centre (MCtC) claims to improve soldiers or discharge them as good citizens. To me it’s a funny idea – funny ha-ha, and funny strange.
I share my room in the remand wing with three others. It is here that we play cards at a table in the centre of the room. The others are regularly distracted by reality television, which they love and I hate equally. Summers comes from a Scottish regiment. I knew him briefly at the Defence School of transport when he had been a trainee vehicle mechanic. He later switched trades to the infantry and now he has an Afghan medal, three counts of AWOL (five, eight and 133 days) and post-traumatic stress disorder. In line with unofficial tri-service policy, it would not be diagnosed, treated or taken into account for his court martial, despite his history and symptoms. After returning from a harrowing six months in Helmand he drowned himself in drink and drugs. His teenage girlfriend and his parents had posted him as a missing person when he disappeared for several days, sleeping off some chemical stupor. His unit posted him AWOL. Returning to duty, he claims, his sergeant major told him not to go sick with his condition because mental illness ruins careers.
Tommy is an ulsterman. He has an English father and an ulster-born mother and claims he is a militant. He talks passionately about flute bands – which he pronounces flute ‘bohnds’ – and paramilitaries like Johnny Adair and ‘top Gun’ McKeag. He is heavily tattooed and has a star inked underneath one eye that signifies an illicit deed carried out for the paramilitaries. He is in the logistics corps, like me. Tommy has attracted charges for ABh, AWOL, Drunkenness and Stealing a German Army General’s Bicycle While Drunk. In between playing hands of Shithead, tommy draws vibrant loyalist images on the back of a notepad: A5 sectarian murals, like the sides of tiny Irish houses. He flips it over occasionally to tally scores.
Trevor is the final player. He is small, muscular and loud. He argues with the screws at every opportunity and is the serial door-kicker during lockdown. He is a Kingsman (a private in the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment), and is in for AWOL and GBh, which he hopes will be dropped to Affray. He and Summers have shaved their heads completely, and for this crime they have been given extra duties, mopping and buffering the floors with an ancient, unwieldy buffing machine. Regulations say that a grade 2 is the shortest cut allowed without a medical chit.
Summers was a veteran of Afghanistan, tommy has been there twice and Trevor has done Iraq. Two of them have young children, but these men drift from mature and robust to infantile and mischievous, always irreverent. They talk about shots fired in anger, IEDs, RPGs, ambushes, natives and mortars that missed them and sometimes hit someone else. Near misses and drunken brawling are favourite topics. They laugh often.
They are veterans, sons, parents and thugs. They represent the collected scum of three British nations and their average age is twenty-one. Now they are prisoners on remand. Waiting to be forgiven or reconditioned with or without dis- charge at the end of it. They are problems to be solved. Men reduced to Ministry of Defence forms.
Life in the military is transient. I will meet Summers briefly again after I am sentenced and sent back here to the prison as a DuS – a detainee under sentence – a convict. The others have become just names and fragmented memories to me. But here for a short time we are still soldiers and so we treat each other in a soldierly fashion. We share tobacco, play cards, nominate people to get the brews and abuse each other verbally. Abuse between soldiers is most often an expression of solidarity; in fact, it’s the main expression of solidarity. Soldiers cannot always guarantee an opportunity to die for each other, but they can always rip into each other and this process rein- forces the bonds that the army wants to see: men who can say anything to each other and still coexist. The trick is to never bite at someone’s abuse, just have a go back or shrug it off. Any other response is weakness and will be rounded upon and must be rounded upon and should be. Never, ever bite when you are baited. This is our culture; the only stable thing in our unsettled lives is that ours is an abusive, masculine and transient world.
I was sent here to be silenced, having performed my own small acts of dissent. My incarceration was malicious revenge from my bumbling superiors for having dragged them through the mud. I have outed them in public, a taboo that breaks all the rules. I have questioned what is going on in Afghanistan and this is my punishment. The military is meant to be a silent leviathan but they have bitten. The ripples my actions have caused ruin the illusion of efficiency, strength and account- ability, and of grim-faced adherence to duty at any cost.
The problem is that as much as they would like to think it, I don’t work for them anymore. Nevertheless, I am afraid, as they want to send me down for years – my own officers have assured me of this with confidence. I have a life and I want to get it back. This time on remand will come off any later sentence. But what, I ask myself, if it is years? The charges against me indicate a punishment, which may stretch for tens of years, if they have the balls. The only thing that keeps me playing cards, and not giving in, is my view that I am right to defy them. I am right, they are wrong – fuck them, fuck the toffs and the politicians and the army.
When my fellow prisoners ask me what I’m here for I tell them. Brows furrow. ‘talking to the media? Can you get done for that? that’s bullshit, mate, you’ve been stitched up!’ And it’s true, this has never happened with regards to Afghanistan: my protest was public and my detention rests within a legal grey area. I argue it is unlawful. But the law here is solely interpreted by my captors to suit their immediate needs. There were once two charges for disobeying orders but these were dropped weeks ago, a judge confirming they were removed in a hearing. There are five more charges being considered. These charges are either dead or not yet born. They don’t know what to do with me, because I am attacking them with all the bloody-mindedness they instilled in me and I am doing it well. ‘They don’t like the sunlight,’ my legal man said of the coverage. ‘It makes their slime dry up.’
- taken from Soldier Box: Why I Won’t Return to the War on Terror by Joe Glenton, published by Verso, this month.
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/soldier_box