A few Good Men Want Out of the Military

LH: What did it do to your beliefs?

MP: In the long run it strengthened them — immensely. I had no place to go but to God with my beliefs. Within a week after reporting to boot camp I had been called a conscientious objector, something I had not heard myself called before. I took it like in shock: "Me, a conscientious objector? I guess so." Very early in my career in the Marine Corps, I ran up against a wall of opposition to the whole idea.

Within a week, I had talked to a chaplain about my beliefs, believing the chaplain to be the big spiritual leader. He had gone to seminary and had had all this theological training; he would know, if anybody would, whether or not I was a conscientious objector. He showed me some regulations concerning it, and asked me a few questions that were very difficult for me to deal with at the time: "What would you do if somebody was attacking your mother?" "What would you do if the Russians landed in San Diego and were hell-bent on raping your wife?" Those kinds of questions. I had just solidified my thinking to the point that I knew it was wrong, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. It was very, very new to me. He determined that I was not a conscientious objector because I felt that I would use force, I would defend somebody in a particular situation.

This was in boot camp where my head had been shaved, where I was being yelled at and threatened, where I was told that if I messed up in any way I would be going to jail. My whole image of the Marine Corps and the government and the United States was shattered totally by my first week in boot camp. It was all a big facade, a big front. Now that they had me, they could do whatever they wanted to with me. It was horrifying. I was scared to death talking to this chaplain who was a big authority figure. He told me, no, I was not a conscientious objector, and I was inclined to believe him. He had dealt with this before and he was a big authority figure, so I trusted him.

I told the chaplain that I would go back to my unit and try to deal with it as best I could; I would try to become a Marine. He told me also that I was having problems adjusting to the change in lifestyle and things. So I tried to adjust; I tried to be a good Marine and do what I was told, to the best of my ability, I think. Yet at the same time there was always that digging, "What you’re doing is wrong. What you’re doing is wrong." I couldn’t rid myself of it. I couldn’t cast if off and say "Well, now I’m a Marine, and it doesn’t matter if I’m trained to kill people." My very basic job as an infantryman was to kill people.

LH: Were there any others that you noticed in boot camp who were having these feelings?

MP: There were quite a few. Probably five I remember who had the same attitude. We were always doing things like planning escapes. "How can we escape from this prison?" It is a fenced-in, guarded area, and people are constantly trying to escape. I was a big instigator in talking to people about escaping. "All we have to do is run and jump over this fence, shoot across this runway where 727s are landing all day long, get different clothes and a wig or something, and we’re scot free!"

LH: Do people actually escape from boot camp?

MP: Oh, yeah, yeah. Usually they’re picked up out in town and brought back. The people who pick them up are given a reward. I believe it’s something like $25 or $50. You’re very obvious when you escape from Marine boot camp because you’re wearing a camouflage uniform and you have no hair. Everybody knows there’s a boot camp here and that Marines are constantly trying to escape. And they bring you back. You get into a taxi and the taxi is not going where you want him to go, he’s returning to the main gate — to deposit you into the hands of the waiting M.P.s.

LH: So there’s really no escape?

MP: Very few people successfully escape from San Diego. Even fewer escape from Parris Island. A big thing for them to do at Parris Island is to take you very early in your stay there and show you the crocodiles and sharks that inhabit the waters and swamps around the island. It’s a pretty effective measure of control.

I tried the whole time I was in boot camp to allow a piece of me to survive, and it did. It grew into the rebellious extremist that I was labeled, later on, as a conscientious objector.

LH: Did you discover any channels for protest or any way to challenge the system in the Marines?

MP: No. You’re conditioned in basic training not to fight the system; you’re told that the system is so immense that you as one little person cannot do anything against it. Everybody is so conditioned that, even now, the friends that I have in the Marine Corps still believe that there’s nothing they can do to protest, to become involved in changing the system.

There are ways to protest. I did things like put posters up in my room.

LH: That was unusual?

MP: That was unheard of. But many people came in and saw the posters and thought, "Wow, that’s a really good idea." I designed a poster with a big nuclear mushroom cloud over the earth. It said something to the effect of IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE NUCLEAR WAR, YOU’VE SEEN THEM ALL. I had a poster of Marines with pugil sticks, which is what you’re taught bayonet training with, beating each other. It said, real official- looking, THE MARINES ARE LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD MEN TO BEAT EACH OTHER TO DEATH WITH PUGIL STICKS. I had a very anti-military wall in my room, subtle ways of doing things like that.

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