Base Commander of CFB Trenton charged with murdering two women, raping two others

Why is it unbelievable? Because he's a "respected pillar of the community", a "senior member of the armed forces", a "nice married guy, kept to himself, worked hard"? I guess only lower class people are capable of murder. But remember the Ontario MLA and Justice Minister who murdered that bicyclist in Toronto last year? Hey, whatever happened to that anyway?

Cops and military only exist to oppress the lower classes. Cops do it all the time. Military not no much in canada, but haiti? How many people being opressed in haiti by the militaries right now?

Oh, for fuck's sake, E. Tamaran, I assume you're referring to Michael Bryant who didn't even allegedly "murder" anybody. He may have very well been driving recklessly, he may very well be criminally responsible and deserving of punishment but there's a huge difference between behaving recklessly during a traffic altercation and deliberate rape and murder.

Uh, no.  I never said that only lower class people are capable of murder.  That's not why I said it - I meant it as an expression of shock, not a statement about class.  But thanks for assuming the worst of me - you're a fabulous ally!

It's just that it's pretty big news in a small community when such a powerful person in such a high position of trust within the community is charged with murdering and raping a bunch of women.  It's bad when anyone does it, of course.

That said, while still shocking, it's not surprising that someone in the military is suspected.  Trained to kill, to see people as targets, a culture of sexism and misogyny...it isn't surprising that it's a breeding ground for violence against women and domestic violence.

Watch the the video. He deliberately runs the guy over. That's murder...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufM7zvX3-tM

Great! I'm sure the taxpayers of Ontario thank you for saving them the cost of a a trial with all that inconvenience of judge, jury and presumption of innocence...

OK I'm sorry. I just get pissed when people assume that cops and other armed people have higher standards and couldn't possibly do that because you know they're so much better than the rabble out there.

Here's a pic of the suspect chatting up the Minister of Defence last month:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/02/08/belleville-jessica-lloy...

We tend to associate serial killers with guys who live alone (except for the skeleton of their mother) - human heads in the freezer kind of thing.  Not a married guy in a high-end job.  It's not a class thing - it's the relative level of apparent social adjustment.

I don't know - since Bernardo, I haven't really pictured serial killers in that stereotypical way.  He was charming, handsome, employed (wasn't he a professional of some kind?) and high-functioning.

Same with Bundy.  Charm for days.  I think it's a bimodal distribution.

I dunno -- I associate CFB Trenton and the forces generally with a kind of working-class culture, if not the kind of working-class politics that takes people left. I think Michelle is right to say that this will come as a huge shock to the people of Quinte West, who are used to thinking of everything about Trenton in a particular way. It's very heart-on-sleeves stuff, and it's not politically sophisticated -- the people I'm thinking of don't like politicians much. But this will give them a jolt.

About class and the military: some of the brass, especially the ones who sit in offices in Ottawa, come from privileged backgrounds, but not all, and I don't think this guy was very far up the chain (except at Trenton). I'd like to know whether he was ever in the battlefield, eg. We're hearing a lot of horror stories, really a lot, from the U.S. these days, about Iraq vets with PTSD who do very strange things, or maybe just commit suicide. A dad who waterboards his own four-year-old daughter, eg?

There's just too much we don't know yet. Looking at the timeline of the assaults, I really wonder whether the police weren't close enough to stop the last one. They sure connected the dots very quickly afterwards.

Evan Solomon's show focused on this sory for the first fifteen minutes. I was so sickened I could hardly eat dinner, and had to change the channel.

It will be interesting to watch how quickly people will start talking about "one bad apple" with regards to this guy being in the military.  I mean, he IS a bad apple in that most military men don't go around raping and killing women.  (Well, at least not at home.  Who knows how many of them do it on missions?  It's no secret that women become the spoils of war everywhere war is fought.) 

What they won't say in the media is that domestic abuse and violence against women is on a continuum. On the one extreme end, you've got the "rape and kill women and bury them in the backyard" type of guy, like the murderer in this case.  And then way on the other end, you've got the guy who has sexist attitudes, tells sexist jokes, thinks women should be excluded from "male" roles, does the put-down artist routine with women in his life, and goes between feeling disdain for women (who don't conform to their idea of what women should be like) and feeling protective of women (in a patronizing way, as long as they're docile enough).  And you've got everything in between - and the low end of the spectrum contains the attitudes necessary to feed the high end.

What they also won't say in the media is that the military is a breeding ground for everything from that "mild" end of the continuum, where it's mostly attitude and sexism, to the "extreme" end, where women are considered "spoils of war", especially when they are dehumanized as "the enemy".  Does everyone in the military think like that?  Of course not.  I mean, hell, there's a culture of alcoholism in the military too (at least there used to be), and at one time, if you didn't go drinking with the boys at the mess, you didn't get promoted - but that doesn't mean all military men are drunks.  There are a lot of fine, upstanding men in the military.  But there is (or at least was) definitely a culture that encourages drinking, and there is definitely a culture of misogyny.

Domestic violence rates in the military are way higher than among civilians.  Same with cops, actually.  And at the root of domestic violence is the belief that women are inferior to men, that they deserve to be treated with contempt and disdain. And that's the kind of culture that is drummed into men in the military.  Don't be a pussy!  Take it like a man!  Men are superior, weakness is girly.  And when you see weakness, strike hard.  Hit where it hurts.  Violence is good, killing is good, as long as the person is different from you and you are told that the person is bad.  And guess what?  Being a woman is bad.  Because it's feminine and girly to be a woman.  No one likes a girly-man. No one likes a wimp, a pussy.

And who the hell let women into the military, anyhow?  They should be home barefoot and pregnant where they belong, not carrying guns with the real men.  Sexual assault of women in the military by their comrades is endemic.  (Let's not forget that one of the women the base commander is accused of killing was a corporal.)  Wife battering by soldiers on leave is endemic in the US, and I doubt it's all that different here.

But of course, no one can say that it's the military that normalizes violence and machismo and turns men into killing machines who are taught disdain for women and feminine qualities.  Because that wouldn't be "supporting our troops".

I'm not surprised that it was a military guy who is suspected of doing this.  I didn't think it would be the base commander, because I didn't think someone in such a visible position of trust would be stupid enough to think he could get away with it.  Although perhaps it might contribute to a feeling of invincibility, who knows?  But when you are taught to believe that might is right, womanhood is weakness, and weakness is despicable...then it's not surprising when the worst happens.  It's tragic and horrible, but not surprising.

You have to admire the guys who withstand that conditioning and don't hurt the women in their lives.  I sure do.

Where better for one to hide? Watch Dexter, it's all about that.

So.... this thread is about this piece of shit and his "respectable life, that showed he was allegedly so well adjusted socially" and not the 4 women, 2 of whom lives were taken, and 2 of whom it will take a good while to get their personal safety zones back.....?!

All the best to the LLoyd and Comeau families, my deepest sympathies and condolences.

May the 2 whom you have lost, have justice.

To the 2 women who survived, congratulations on your survival, it will get easier in time, take heart and all the best.

I'll be interested to see the results of the investigation into all the places he has been stationed, including the Middle East

It's often people in important positions who feel that they CAN get away with it.

Yes, that was my very next line after the ones you quoted:

Camp Mirage:

Combine a culture of supremecy with a culture of impunity, and this is the result. Perhaps he can do his perp walk down the Highway of Heroes, and the red t-shirt crowd can applaud him. Nah, he did it to white women, and that is unacceptable.

I wonder if he trained in the US?

This from a unindicted war criminal, who commanded people who raped and murdered their way across Iraq. 

I'm sure he's shocked, Shocked(!) that such a thing could happen.

More interesting to guess how quickly someone would take to go off on the military for an alleged crime that has nothing to do with the military itself.

The individual charged with these crimes has a masters degree and spent his career as a non-combatant pilot and administrator. One could compare him to any other high-stress civilian professional. I'm guessing typical alpha male control freak that runs throughout society, regardless of occupation. Using these awful crimes as an excuse to condemn the military as sexist and misogynistic does you no justice. Some men who strive for positions of authority tend to be highly wound control freaks and some of them do commit very serious crimes against women but, historically, many of these men were religious functionaries, not violent, macho types.

"Women become the spoils of war"? Try women are victimised by opportunistic individuals whenever possible and may be the abusers but there is a thriving market in procurement as well. The opportunistic procurers are just as guilty.

Peter MacKay is acting unusually quiet.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/08/interim-commander-trenton.html

And so he should be - it's not appropriate for him to comment on a criminal case.

Apparently now they are following up on the places where this guy has been posted to check up on unsolved murders/sexual assaults.  As the investigation goes forward, I suspect we'll see that there were signs of a dark side to this "pillar of the community" for some time.

Agree.

Natynczyk was in Iraq?

I mean, I'm sure that's not impossible, but it would be news to moi, anyway.

I might write of Stanley McChrystal what you wrote of Natynczyk -- no, make that I would write of McChrystal what you have written there -- but I'd need some evidence about Natynczyk.

Oh, he sure did some dirty work in Iraq, skdadl.

ETA: I was looking for this, and I found it - another contribution to Canada by that disgusting creep Michaelle Jean:

From the Governor-General's website, no less

Oh, well, then. To hell with them both. I did not know this, and it is an outrage to the people of Canada.

ETA: Obviously, it's even more an outrage to the people of Iraq, and I should have said that on first reaction, but I was genuinely shocked. I knew that we were being strung along about Iraq, but I didn't know it was this blatant, and I don't think most Canadians do.

At the risk of bringing scorn upon myself, I will venture two things in Gen. Natynczyk's defense:

1. He issued the General Order to his subordinates to begin drawing plans and timetables for a general demob(ilization) (ie., withdrawal) from Afghanistan which (in addition to Torturegate, prorogation, declining Conservative Party popularity, etc.) has halted (temporarily at least) Harper's talk of some Canadian soldiers staying in Afghanistan beyond 2011.

2. In late November, early December 2009, when Harper, MacKay and Hillier were blah, blahing that bullshit about there being not one case where there was substantiating evidence that a prisoner handed over by the Canadian military to the Afghan authorities was subsequently tortured and abused, Natynczyk produced a field report written by a section commander (a Sergeant) that contradicted these claims and made the government look bad. Natynczyk has ordered a military investigation which will report its findings in March, to find, among other things, why the report was "deep sixed" (buried), how many other such reports are out there, and who "deep sixed" this/these reports.

As far as I'm concerned, the answer to that last question is narrowed down to former Gen. Rick Hillier, Peter MacKay and/or the PMO/Prime Minister.

Bloody hell. I've met this person. If memory serves from around five years ago, he was briefly seconded to Hillier's staff while I was there.

BTW canuquetoo.... 

That's always the excuse isn't it...stress made him do it...as in all around non-combatant kinda guy who just cracked under the burdens society expects him to bear.  Predatory killers and abusers exist at all levels.

The insurgency deserves at least some of the credit for this.

The training to kill thing. This guy is a soldier[or airman] however he is in the airforce and not only an officer but a base commander. At most once a year someone puts a rifle in his hands and he fires a few rounds into a paper target for his yearly qualification. Chances are he has probably even went a few years without touching a gun. I worked with one member of our navy who somehoe slipped through cracks and didn't touch a gun for 7 years.
To suggest his guy is trained to kill [hollywood style] is not very accurate at all. He is "trained to kill" about as much as the rest of rabble is. This guy is more akin to upper management at a buisness than a soldier.

Is there a recent stat published that indicates members of the military have a higher rate of domestic violence than non-military Canadians?
For obvious reasons it's more news worthy.

Most of the military are cooks, clerks, doctors, postal workers, welders, mechanics, pilots, map designers, IT types, drivers, police, weathermen, public affairs, builders, designers.
They are just like their civilian counter part except they are taught the basics of how to use a rifle. Your average hunter wil be more skilled with a gun and more comfortable with killing something than 90% of the soldiers out there IMO.

There are a few assholes and dinosaurs out there but I think all of you would be surprised at just how accepted women and homosexuals are accepted in the military.

Soldiers [And police] are infact held to a higher standard of behavior than your average walmart employee. In the military you can get fined $200 for not shaving. A coworker of mine a few years ago was fined $1200 [Half a months pay] for being late for the third time for work. Not many jobs out there can take $1200 of your paycheque for being late.
Even something as small as walking with your hands in your pocket chewying gum in public walking around with your coat half zippered up or what kind of toque you're wearing. Thats getting a little off topic though.

If he is guilty I hope they take away his freedom for a very long time. At the end of the day people who do this kind of stuff are monsters regardless where they show up for work.

Kewl. Women and homosexuals? Where do I sign up?

In terms of the news item, I don't have anything to add to the comments already made except to hope that justice will be served and this asshole goes to prison. I believe the systemic analysis has already been done. 

And if he is found not guilty?

Then I'm sure we'd all agree he should be released.  Hands up anyone who disagrees, and thinks he should be jailed even if acquitted!

If he'd ever been a prisoner at GTMO, you'd see a lot of hands going up, Snert, beginning with Obama, Holder, Harper, etc.

Maysie I hope i didn't put my foot in my mouth!

That's the thing. People have already written him off as guilty as charged. [I'm guilty of that myself]

If he is found not guilty how many people will turn around and say the justice system sucks he is guilty but the army is just covering up for itself?

Don't really think they would be laying charges against him unless there was a significant body of evidence against him.

Nor would they be starting to conduct investigation of unsolved murders and rapes where he was stationed prior.

Moreover, never hear this "if proven guilty" stuff when it is someone who is not publically high profile.

And it is too cute the military persons here trying to discount his military profile and military reality..... :rolleyes:

He was base commander....

Also P4 there is several threads at babble on military spousal abuse that you can do a site search on if you are interested in the stats and dimensions of  the military spousal abuse, that actually also has been reported in the news.

I think that woul all depend on the evidence and on what grounds he would be acquitted. Besides that, you missed the point.

I think I've been pretty careful NOT to say he is guilty, actually.  I recognize, and believe in, innocent until proven guilty.

No, each individual soldier is not trained to be a killing machine personally.  But they are all trained to be part of The Killing Machine that is the military when on offensive missions, and trained to support those who are the killing machines.  They may not be taught how to do it, but they're taught to adopt the attitude that it's necessary and good to be done.  They all go through basic training, where they're taught that being a wimp or girly is bad. 

Luckily, some continue to think for themselves.  But when you realize that domestic violence is way higher among the "authoritarian" professions like military, policing, security, etc., then you've got to wonder whether there is a systemic problem.

The jobs P4 describes as safe jobs weren't so safe for the guys stationed in Iraq. Not to mention the constant and never-ending tours. They are there to kill, and that's what a lot of them do.

well, remind, i need to be honest. This is a hot button topic for me, so my rhetoric may be a tad over the top. And I do NOT have faith in the police system. 

But I know that when charges like this are compiled against a white man who is, shall we say, in a significant position of authority, in a profession that is regarded as very high on the "good man doing good work" scale (mainstream standards of course), then it takes a lot to bring charges in the first place.

And yes, of course he's innocent until bla bla. But he's a white guy. He'll be fine. The police and the "justice" system do far worse to far more people who have done nothing or very little. With no media attention.

I wonder if the police could have charged him earlier - but maybe they wanted their evidence in this case to be absolutely ironclad?

I thought I heard on the news that they hadn't looked in his direction until they got a tip recently during a roadblock where they stopped and talked to every car that passed, hoping to get some information.

I'm not defending this guy. Considering the investigation and whats going on I'm pretty confident he is guilty. I'm just trying to make an effort to consider everyone innocent until proven guilty.

I'm not trying to discount his military profile just that someone in his rank and position is more of a buisness man than someone you would find shooting at people.

Not accurate, even officers have gone through basic training of some sort and participate in war games and strategic training expeditiions, even if they have moved on to "paper pushing" and do not do so any longer.

Learning how to kill is not something one loses over time, much like once you learn to ride a bike, you always know how, even if you have not ridden for 20 years. The will to, or not to, is what is occuring, and nothing more.

People have to  really start realizing, the objectification of women and girls is an issue in our society, and it is one that literally is killing us women.

Dehumanization of people its what makes it allowable for crimes against humanity to occur...history has shown us this is so.

Once non-human status is achieved, towards an identifable group, any type of abuse or act of violence, is possible on the sliding scale of things, just as Michelle indicated above.

It's a chicken and egg thing - do these professions turn men into abusers, or are your "alpha male" types more attracted to these professions in the 1st place?  I tend to think the latter - people's personalities are shaped at a very early age.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. 

That could be.  Either way, the point stands, that the military is a breeding ground for violence against women.

Breeding ground or safe haven, perhaps the distinction doesn't matter.

I think it's both ... and those that don't 'fit in' are pushed out or opt out.

Save haven, yes, but it also legitimizes and reinforces it through the attitudes it encourages.

Take your garden-variety sexist jerk who thinks women are inferior.  I know a few guys like that who have never laid a hands on a woman.  Now, put sexist jerk guy into a uniform, put him through basic training where he's told that any show of weakness is female and despicable, and that the military is always right, and that he is part of that military that is always right.  Surround him with messages that violence is good, killing people they tell you to hate and see as your enemy (and don't forget - weakness and being a pussy or a "girl" is hateful) is a good thing, and what do you get?

I'm betting someone who is a hell of a lot more likely to act physically on their sexist attitudes than before they entered that kind of atmosphere.  And certainly someone who thinks that being controlling and emotionally manipulative with their "inferiors" is a-okay.

Having been through basic training (twice - once in the ranks and once as an officer), I think it's even more subtle than that, Michelle.  That's why it's so hard to see when you're still in the middle of it.  Take a step back, and it jumps out at you (or at least it did for me).

Interestingly, if you google "serial killer profession", the two professions that jump out (and for which some evidence is provided as to frequency) are the medial profession, and truck drivers.

I also think that this personality type is specifically recruited by the military especially for their Officer corp. If you don't absolutely believe in the hierarchical model then you can never be a good officer.

Then after you've trained this misogynist you tell him he is a defender of women and children and anyone who questions the military is a supporter of the Taliban attack on women.  I think the effect is compounded by this training to kill and the believe that they are righteous killers.

___________________________________________

Soothsayers had a better record of prediction than economists

Great honesty maysie! ;)

Oh now I remember what I had been going to say before I got distracted.....

I love over-the-top rhetoric, in today's world of careful speech it soothes the soul.......

The culture of the military, which dehumanizes the individual into unquestioned subservience, systemically cultivates and magnifies what already exists in the broader society. When military officials speak of looking after people within the organization, which they often do when questions of how individuals are treated internally surface, what they really mean is the priority of ensuring compliance and discipline among the ranks, and the importance of ensuring all policies affecting personnel are devised to ensure that the best interests of the system are paramount. It is an overwhelming patriarchal structure, one where an individual has no opinion that could be offered without asking permission first, where only thoughts that relay how wonderfully effective everything is are allowed to be voiced. A typically abusive personal relationship is but a microcosm of what exists on a much larger scale within such an institution. Some individuals naturally gravitate towards it as best representing their beliefs, and excel while doing so, others discover the reality afterward and either leave or continue to exist, while others attempt to subvert the harmful effects upon individuals.

Agree with this notation, but IMV, it also becomes more blatent once your in the middle of it, and desensitized.

ETA:  Good words Slumberjack.....

I'm trying to decide if I agree with this or not.  There is a big "don't be such a girl" culture that's common enough.  I remember once tiltingmy head when I over heard a female coworker of mine telling a guy to stop crying like a girl.

Michelle do you think the military is more of a breeding ground for violence against woman than say rap music or video games like grand Theft Auto where you pay sex workers then either rob or kill them after?  There is a big distinction in the "group behavior" of different groups in the military from the grunts to officers and from combat soldiers and support soldiers.

It's interesting what Snert pointed out regarding Truckers and people in the medical profession.

oops

Why is it interesting?

It is not even factual, did you do a google/search engine search for "serial killers" yourself regarding his claims?

I did.

Hmm so did I. And the articles did point out a prevalence of medical professions "Some people with a pathological interest in the power of life and death tend to be attracted to medical professions."

(Wikipedia).

But they left out truck drivers.

I just thought it was interesting, not really sure why? Never expected people in the medical profession to be identified as major offenders.

When you googled it what top 3 did you find Remind?

Listening to rap music and/or playing video games only takes up a small percentage of our lives. Being in the military is a full time occupation "we are working hard to chip away all individuality and humanity". Big difference.

did anyone else watch the press conference yesterday on the cbc with the guy's commander? He was asked outright if the accused had every had a psych evaluation and he said that it was not common and that he had not been tested.

Not that psych evaulations are perfect and infalliable, but doesn't this ring an alarm bell for anyone else? I mean really? Not only are these men (used men purposely here as they are the main leaders) in positions of tremendous power, but they are also engaged in what has been described in this thread as macho culture... shouldn't someone be paying attention to attitudes. If not, does that mean the military simply doesn't give a shit about what these men (and some women too i think) are actually getting out of the experience and how it plays a role in their own lives?

On the issue of past or possible other crimes, I don't think we'd hear about the ones committed anywhere outside of Canada, rape, murder and general mistreatment of women is too common a theme on the part of the military outside of our gloriously benevolent state...

I think that the militaries Bomb Villages on the Other Side of the World video game is the  worst of all worlds.  The bad news is that the military understands that making their weapons systems similar to video games gives them a large pool of people to draw on who are already acclimatized to murdering on screen.  Sitting in Arizona and bombing a wedding party in Pakistan is just like playing Grand Theft Auto.  I wonder what new version they will be playing next week.  Many people are betting on Iran as the next edition but Yemen is clearly in the running.  

Thanks for post #55 Slumberjack.

I disagree Stargazer. Kids, teenagers and adults today can spend a lot of time on video games. It's common for kids to get home from school hop on the Xbox etc.. and stay on their until bed time. World of Warcraft, Everquest [So addictive it picked up the name crack-quest]. It may be a small part of your world but I'd say a lot of people "live eat and breath" video games. I also find some use stuff like rap music [or any kind of music] to identify who they are.

I've read a book that went on to point out how some kids going on shooting rampages at schools [never touching a firearm before] have better accuracy than police officers and the author believed it was from first-person shooter games.

The video game I'm playing currently had a very disturbing scene. You're an undercover soldier who infultrates a Russian gang. You and the russian gang casually stroll through a russian airport graphically murdering unarmed men and women. You don't have to shoot anyone, you can pass the level without following a shot but I've read that all of the gamers during the testing of the game shot into the crowd. Both my wife and I found it disturbing. Called No russian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Call_of_Duty:_Mod...

Video games are getting scarry.

There's really not enough facts for all this, yet.  

The Toronto Star had an article today, from some FBI "profiler".  While it all seems to be logical, it's really just speculation. And it's handy to remember that an FBI "profiler" had a lot to do with starting the OPP down the wrong path in the Guy Paul Morin wrongfull conviction.

Which is not to say I'm building a point of view one way or another.  There's just a vaccum of facts right now, and we're all eager to understand, to whatever degree we can understand, what happened so we can reconstruct the crystal latice illusion of control in our lives.

When I was in basic training we had a female Master Corporal who'd gleefully ask us recruits, "What's the spirit of the bayonet?" to which we were supposed to holler, "To kill!"

I felt like saying, "I dunno, I'm still working on the spirit of the ironing board," but I didn't bother.  I received enough heat for constantly being an individual as it was.

Ha!  That would've been hilarious.  Probably worth whatever punishment you got.

Well, now it would be, anyhow.  Perhaps not at the time.  And I guess it makes a good story either way.  Although I'm not sure why it matters whether the Master Corporal was male or female.

In general, the women were way more gung ho than the males, especially among the instructors.

It's a solitary quest for the most part, where understanding its subtle essence is further hindered when inquiries about what one is doing when ironing generally elicits the same response..as in..'you don't want to know.'

Not surprising, al-Q.  They probably had a lot more to prove, and it was probably a lot harder for them than the male instructors to get respect in such a macho environment.  Also, considering how many women get raped by their comrades in the military (at least in the US - do they track it in Canada?), it's not surprising that they would protect themselves with a "don't fuck with me, asshole" kind of attitude.

Al'Q doubt they were more "gung ho" (interesting choice of words on several fronts), but they were perhaps reacting as they were/are taught, that they had to be me more unsensitive than the men in order to prove themselves in said man's world.

And perhaps the male instructors said the same things or simalr, except it did not seem to be abnormal, and thus sticks out memory wise.

War video games make good military recruits, eh!

Female soldiers died of dehydration rather than risk sexual assault

The situation in Canada one short decade ago

Some of the quotes in the article were interesting - instead of being dismayed at all the stories of sexual assault they were dealing with, the men were instead feeling "resentful" that "suspicion was being cast on every man in a Canadian Forces uniform."  It was still all about them and their feelings.

From the same article:

I think that's often the case in a lot of situations where you have a group of men who are prepared to all give each other permission to behave badly - it doesn't just happen in the military.

I guess what is special about the military is the special training in extreme violence coupled with a methodical desensitization to violence.

Of course it doesn't just happen in the military.  I don't think there's a feminist on the planet who thinks the military is the sole source of sexism in society. :)

My dad was in the military until he was injured in maneuvers in the UK during WWII, then he became a military archivist and author. Eventually he returned to Canada, and in the 1950s raised a family, and my mother also took a full time job as a statistican for the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Dad's close friends, all military men, would try to get away with all kinds of shitty comments in the early days, until me mudder made it clear they had to behave themselves or get the hell out of her house. They got the message.   (Jack Granatstein was a close personal friend of my dad's, worked together on a few books, along with Courtney C. J. Bond, another Ottawa author. Some Ottawa bigwigs also filled our living room, and they were well-behaved or they didn't get served drinks). None of that military macho crap was tolerated at our place.

My father was a veteran of WWII, serving with the 1st RCR.   And, he was active with the ANAF, both recreationally and as President of a couple of branches, and various other offices over the years.   My mother, served similarly.   

So, I was exposed to former military people all my formative years and into my twenties.   Of course, those people were not on the leading edge of second wave feminism at the time.   But by the same token, disrespect to women in the club room wasn't tollerated, nor did I hear from my father or his friends stupid macho sexist remarks concerning specific women or women in general.  Having said that, I don't believe every joke or every comment was an enlightened one for that or this age, either.    And, I don't doubt that in those marriages there wasn't incidences of spousal abuse and all the stuff that goes on society wide.

I guess what I mean to say is I never got the sense that there was something systemic coming from the military or association with it that seems indemic in today's military, judging from Michelle's links.

I don't think it is just the military either. I get the impression the feminist gains that have been made are in jeopardy over the place. Overall I don't think that much progress has been made since the seventies.

I'm not saying it isn't the military.   Maybe there's been a change over time; surely women joining the forces has created backlash from the knuckle dragging caucus in the military.    And, the other difference is that military policy is made by lifers and the people I knew were volunteers, veterans of WWII and Korea.  

My memories of my father and his squadron mates correspond to those of Boom Boom and Tommy Paine. While they weren't cutting-edge social theorists, they were respectful and even a little awkward around women. Perhaps the difference was that as veterans of WWII, they were part of a mass enlistment, rather than the cherry-picked volunteer army we have today. In those days the armed forces were perhaps more reflective of general social trends, where today many recruits will be at the edges of those trends.

If you want armed forces that truly reflect society's values, some form of draft may be necessary. Of course, professional soldiers hate the draft and all the rebelliousness, indiscipline and fragging that creates.

Some form of just cause to fight for, reflecting society's values, would also help.

Yes, there is an egalitarian democratic quality to a draft.

Guys, just a reminder that this is in the feminism forum and about a very decorated military guy that did some heinous shit and the last female post was about coverups of rape in the military.  Perhaps, one of you could open a thread somewhere else.  Just sayin'.

I hear tell the Taliban had a rather swift way of dealing with people like the Colonel.

My experience, brief though it was, was that we gave each other excuses to behave correctly.  I found that regular societal sexism was pretty foreign in my group.  We were all colleagues.

No, that isn't the case.

Well, there has been a quite extensive discussion of military culture in very general terms, so it seems fair to me for a few of us who are old enough to have known a structurally different one to make that point.

Both my parents and most of my aunts and uncles served in WWII. Some of the most interesting independent women I've ever known, a few of them still alive in their nineties, joined the RCAF in 1939, tasted independence during their years stationed in the UK, came home to take up offers of university education, and became trail-blazers for other women in a variety of careers.Just about everyone I've described in this paragraph was originally a farm kid who'd come of age during the Depression and known pretty tough times before the war.

The wider culture was different in many ways, as others have said, although the war years definitely helped to disrupt class and gender and race barriers in some progressive ways for some people. I knew these people. I suppose many of them (not all) were trained to kill, were at least willing to kill or willing to approve the killing. But once they were home, they just didn't fit the cultural profile that I've seen described above, and I wonder how true that is even now, with a very different kind of armed forces.

If anything, our armed forces might have regressed in class terms, the gap between an elite officer corps and working-class kids who join up for an education and a living much greater than it was in wartime. Williams certainly sounds like a guy with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and then beyond that he could just be psychopathic. Analysing him and analysing, say, a Clayton Matchee seem to me to require two quite different kinds of analysis.

PTSD affected many returning WWII vets but its nice that some posters families missed that experience. My favourite Uncle drank himself to death after serving in italy on the front lines for months. He was not alone.  My grandfather came back from the Great War with PTSD or shellshocked and died within a decade.  None of the women from his generation will even mention his name so there is a cloud over what he actually did to them when he returned.

My parents didn't talk about those broken colleagues and my Mom like others refused to have a bunch of drunk SOB's in her house either but nobody thought to give them mental health services to overcome the deep psychological wounds fighting a war caused in many.

My uncle, who barely if ever talked (if you got 10 words out of him in a row, you should have gotten a medal) came back from Dunkirk as a dispatch rider. He came home and my mother and her parents and siblings sat around him as he would not stop talking, even when eating or drinking he kept babbling about what he saw (Ive heard it, it was not nice). There came a knock on the door and there were 2 MPs there, telling them they were there to take my uncle to a rest camp in Scotland. They said all the dispatch riders were going and he was there for 3 months before returning to the war (with the Desert Rats in Africa)

My mother joined the RAF and was a extremely independant woman who took no shit from anyone. Woe betid any man from the legion that made a demeaning remark. He never did so again. She had a better war record than did my father

Considering the Taliban's views on woman as humans they would swiftly promote the Colonel to General.

Do you mean WW2 Era wartime?

If so I would disagree.  Today the lines between "eliete officer corps" and working-class are closer than ever. More and more you see working class "grunts" with college and University degrees either joining the CF as a non-commisioned member or getting their degree through one of the education programs.

The cultrual difference is closer too.  It's much more common for "the troops" to rub shoulders with their officer counter parts outside of the work place today.  Grunts are much more worldly than they were 50 years ago [Though they still often have  fairly narrow "world experience"].

Just my 2 cents.

That was very moving to read, kropotkin. One of my uncles died in WWI, smothered in the mud at Passchendaele. I've always thought that was why my father joined up instantly in 1939, although by then he was old enough that he could have ducked that.

It's worth remembering that many many of the returning WWI vets had been politically radicalized. They had seen real hell, and yet they came back to a Canada that hadn't reformed much at all. The Winnipeg General Strike was probably the most dramatic expression of that anger, the On-to-Ottawa Trek as well, but the anger seethed away, maybe not so much here as in, eg, Germany, but it was class anger.

Well, I'm interested to read that, and it gives me hope. I feel a lot for the kids who just wanted a job and an education, y'know? If you've read the stories of the U.S. resisters who came here hoping for sanctuary, you'll know those were the most powerful motives for so many in that much more troubled army.

To get back to the topic, though: I still know, as some wrote above, that every invading army of any kind has always raped and killed -- not all soldiers, but a lot of them, maybe a lot of them otherwise nice guys. Women live with that thought of what war can do. And I woke up early this morning thinking of Williams sneaking into my place when I was sleeping, and I just had to get up and turn on all the lights. Women live with that thought too. A lot of women around Belleville will be shuddering for some time to come.

Which faction of the Taliban do you mean and from what region of the area?

Are you talking about individual Taliban fighters or do you have access to the philosophical and religious believes that are considered dogma by the Taliban leadership?  This is the propaganda that justifies our troops occupation of this foreign country and it feeds the culture of violence.

The idea that anyone including someone fighting in the Taliban would be agreement with what this serial rapist and murderer did is disgusting.

Most resistance movements have had very strict rules of engagement that if breached resulted in immediate execution by your former comrades in arms so he would be likely be dealt with swiftly.

SOB"s = sons of bitches

Just sayin.......

Good catch remind.

Anything substantive remind or just drive by shootings.  I used her language in the context of the anecdote. 

I am so sorry I don't like everything the NDP does.

Meh, should be cool to disacknowledge acronyms like that.

I agree.  Although he was quoting his mother.  But still, yeah.  I also don't think it's a terrible thing to acknowledge that "SOB" is a sexist term in the feminism forum.

Personally, I think stating that SOB's is unacceptable here in the feminist forum  is substantive. Especially in a thread about  women being murdered and raped by  a man who most likely objectifies women, and obviously disregards them, to the max.

But then of course I am a poor feminist, as it seems only  men know what  feminism should be about, so perhaps you are correct kropotkin...it is acceptable, as you just wanted to use it in contextual value.

:huge rolleyes:

Indeed language matters and I actually didn't think about it at the time.   I apologize.

Don't forget the Northern Alliance warlords (the majority of MPs in the Karzai government belong to this group) and the Karzai government itself that we are propping up, are as mysogynistic as the "Taliban" - if not worse.

Maysie or old goat, hopefully you can close this thread shortly?

Would about now do?