LOS ANGELES, May 16— “Marines, right?” a comrade asked.
“How’d you guess?” the young Marine responded.
“It’s the haircut,” the comrade responded. “I had one of those, back when I had hair. I was in the Army in Iraq, though, so it was a little less obvious. We’re from LA. We like to come down here to talk to Marines.”
We’ve been visiting Oceanside (near Camp Pendleton) for many years. Recently we have made the two-hour drive more consistently. We go with prepared ICWP literature folded into our pockets.
“What do you guys think of what’s going on?” the comrade continued.
“We don’t think about it that much,” said a second Marine. “We’ve got a job to do and we do it.”
“I get that,” said an older comrade who gives off good grandmotherly vibes. “And it’s true as far as it goes. And why should you share your innermost feelings with a couple of random people on the sidewalk? But you went through boot camp. You know the Nuremberg defense: ‘I was just following orders.’ And you know that didn’t wash. And ‘just doing my job’ is pretty close to that.
“You have your own brain and your own buddies,” she continued, “and I know you think about these things and probably talk about them with the folks you trust.”
“They told us in boot camp that US troops don’t kill women or children,” said a third Marine.
“Sometimes in real life it doesn’t turn out that way,” said the comrade veteran. He told a story about a protest at a base in Kirkuk (Iraq) because the guard had shot and killed a kid at the gate.
“The sergeant was reading from a script,” the second comrade added. Three Marines agreed.
We had conversations about refusing to follow orders. The comrade veteran’s unit was sent to search for IEDs, a very dangerous task. They collectively refused.
We talked about Hugh Thompson Jr.(1943-2006), the heroic warrant officer who stopped the My Lai massacre.
We told them about what Marine military historian Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., wrote in the Armed Forces Journal in 1971. “By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non- commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous.”
We talked about the contradictions of racism/patriotism. Boot camp functions to create multi-racial bonds. The groups of Marines we talk with are multiethnic. But boot camp also trains recruits to dehumanize “the enemy,” often with racist slurs.
We talked about imperialist war and how only the rich benefit.
And by the time we mention communism, the tone of our discussions is very friendly. After a conversation, most Marines take our literature. We reassure them that the Universal Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) states that the mere possession of unauthorized literature is not an infraction. This time, half the Marines immediately opened Red Flag and started to read it.
Ultimately, the common ground we all have at this time is imperialist war.
We encourage ICWP comrades and friends in the Los Angeles area to join our trips to Oceanside. We encourage all ICWP collectives to develop and report on plans to reach out to active-duty military personnel.
If you are in the military anywhere, we encourage you to share the ideas in this paper with your buddies. And send us your reactions, anonymously if you prefer.
Read Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Critical to a Communist Workers’ Revolution here