On the Front Lines of War From an Anthropologist Infantryman

Justin Faulkner was a US Army infantryman in the initial assault during the first year of the second Gulf War in Iraq. He earned two Army Commendation medals in his three years of service. Prior to the war, Faulkner received his bachelor’s in anthropology from Purdue. Having been honorably discharged as a sergeant, he is currently a graduate student in the Northern Illinois University Department of Anthropology.

Since Faulkner entered graduate school he has had several conversations with Kendall Thu, an associate professor of anthropology at NIU, about his experiences. Excerpts from that conversation are provided below as a dialogue illustrating how a background in anthropology shaped Faulkner’s perspective on the war and interactions between the military and Iraqis.

Deciding to Enlist

Kendall Thu: Can you tell me a little bit about why you enlisted in the Army?

Justin Faulkner: I’ve been interested in the military since I was a kid. I guess it was connected to a kind of male-oriented attitude toward war while growing up. It was also a part of my general attitude that I don’t want to look back and think I should have done this, but didn’t. It was something I wanted to try. I felt indebted to the US; I’ve lived a very nice life here.

Thu: Some anthropologists may find it unusual that someone with anthropological training would enlist in the army, particularly on the eve of potential conflict in Iraq.

Faulkner: I went in about a year after 9/11. I didn’t think about the war or 9/11, it was something I wanted to do. At first, my anthropological training didn’t occur to me in conjunction with my decision to enlist. The war was going to continue regardless of my decision. In retrospect, my experience made me ten times a better anthropology graduate student.

Military Enculturation

Thu: Our conversations most often concern the cultural acuity your anthropological background brought to bear in observing events and experiences in the military and in Iraq. Can you describe a little bit of the military enculturation process prior to the initial assault in Iraq?

Faulkner: You can think of the military enculturation process as involving four steps: Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training (AIT), being assigned to your first unit and then war.

Iraqi children smile at the US soldier snapping their photo, as coloumns of military vehicles pass behind. Photo courtesy of Justin Faulkner

Basic Training is the first step in the transformation. You’re a civilian sponge that first must be squeezed out and then filled back up with basic soldiering skills and a military identity. You then enter AIT where you learn more refined training specific to your particular job. This is where qualifications begin to separate people and you begin to identify with a particular military role or occupation.

From there, you join your first unit where you start at the bottom again getting mentored under new leadership, having real responsibility and becoming trained for the unit’s goal. Our unit’s goal was to be ready for rapid deployment anywhere in the world within 72 hours.

Each of the first three training stages influences an individual’s general attitude and behavior, which shape the way you approach the Rules of Engagement (ROE) for actual combat. Units differ significantly in this enculturation process which results in missions being interpreted differently. All infantry are trained to close with the enemy and destroy, and hold territory with boots on the ground, which is funneled through ROE. However, the cultural identity is there before you join in the form of pre-existing unit symbols like cobras or bulldogs.

But a unit’s true identity is shaped by variations in leadership and how that leadership is projected and perceived both within and between units. You use this identity to compare yourself to other units and carry it with you when you’re on the ground. These cultural differences in units dramatically influence the amount of conflict between the military and civilians, which in turn influences levels of violence.

Rules of Engagement

Thu: How would you describe those first few days of the assault in Iraq and what was it like for you?

Faulkner: There was a lot of waiting in the beginning. The initial movement was really slow. But once we got going nothing could slow us down. It was like a giant green lumbering train. When it gets going you hold on and go with the flow. If you’re the enemy and you get in front of this huge train you won’t survive, it’s just so immense. Once our unit was in An Najaf (southern Iraq) the military train was cruising. In An Najaf, Charlie Company confronted Iraqi military opposition, but from there we only faced minor resistance in hitting all the major cities up the river valley. We really didn’t know what to expect, especially from the other side, since many of us, including leaders, didn’t have real world combat experience.

Thu: It’s interesting to hear you talk about the Rules of Engagement (ROE) provided to soldiers, how they are constantly changing, and how they provide both a military and cultural code of conduct. Can you describe how this works?

Faulkner: ROE are supposed to narrow the parameters of behavior provided in basic training and AIT. Differences in unit culture influence the interpretation and application of the ROE both from a combat and cultural engagement standpoint. For example, we were issued colored cards which were the ROE. The initial ROE provided visual cues of Iraqi behavior that are supposed to trigger your response. Much of it was quite broad, particularly as it relates to when you can engage the enemy, but as the war progressed it narrowed.

At one point the ROE indicated that an orange and white car is part of the insurgency and should be fired on. But as it turns out virtually every car is orange and white which resulted in taxis being engaged. As the ROE changed and became narrower as the result of experience and better intelligence, they also became less aggressive and more self-defense oriented. The ROE are important, they are your cultural code of conduct. They include tenets of interaction before you meet Iraqis, and we knew little else about them before we met them.

Thu: It’s interesting to note how various military units differed in the way they embodied the cultural dimension of the ROE and how that affected Iraqi perceptions and attitudes. Can you describe that a little more?

Faulkner: The different attitudes and approaches of infantry units and their leaders resulted in different ways of interpreting ROE parameters. You come to embody the ROE, including the changes, through different experiences on the ground. For example, ROE initially allowed American military units almost unlimited access to public buildings, homes and businesses throughout Iraq.
As the war shifted to embody the idea of stability and reconstruction, the ROE changed to one of self-defense. For example, we began knocking on doors of civilian homes asking for individuals to present themselves prior to entering.

Leadership substantially influences a unit’s ROE culture. Some leaders were abusive and hated Iraqis, others were indifferent, while still others understood that interaction was important. And you could literally see the difference by which unit was responsible for various parts of cities. In some sections people would leer and throw rocks; others waved and greeted you.

Justin Faulkner on the front lines in Iraq. Photo courtesy of Justin Faulkner

Drawing on Anthropology

Thu: Can you share some of your experiences in drawing on your anthropological training in trying to bridge the divide between your ROE culture and the Iraqi people you encountered?

Faulkner: It’s changed now, but our minimal language training focused on learning commands, with no attention to notions of reciprocity or words conveying respect. I took the time to learn a little more Arabic and found the words that worked best were “don’t be afraid, everybody’s going to be ok.”

On one of the initial nights in southern Iraq we had one of our first unfettered encounters with Iraqis in a rural mining community. As we entered their tin homes, we came face-to-face with people we had previously seen only via media images. The atmosphere was initial shock followed by escalating tensions and unease between the Iraqis and the military. The people we encountered were clearly fearful of us as we brought them from their homes in the middle of a frigid night.

The encounter was enveloped in a growing sense of fear and anxiety fueled by a cultural divide involving military power. We later learned the Iraqi men were miners, having nothing to do with the military, and were resisting because they were scared.

I remember others in my unit recognizing the escalating tension and asking me to do something and talk to these people. I said in Arabic “don’t be scared, don’t be afraid, everything is going to be OK” to a screaming Iraqi woman surrounded by several recently awakened and crying half-naked kids. The air of fear and anxiety was visibly deflated when they understood my words and demeanor toward them.

The communication was not just linguistic, it was also a personal connection conveying who we were in stark contrast to our physical presence which to them must have looked like immense military spacemen. Even American soldiers were more at ease as they saw a general relaxation in the body language of the Iraqis, including less resistance.

Thu: Can you describe your departure from the military, your feelings toward your fellow soldiers and what you’re doing now?

Faulkner: My departure from the military was bittersweet. I had contemplated staying in and retiring. I enjoyed my time in the military and continue to question if I should have reenlisted. The military enculturation process is so strong that my logical decision-making process to leave in order to pursue education is continually enveloped in reflective questions about who I am as a soldier.
The people you meet in the military and serve side by side with are forever etched in your memory. The military community is intense and tightly woven whether we liked each other or not. In military culture you must actively deal with your community because there’s no space between people.

As I’m transitioning to a civilian community new social ties are more distant, less demanding and less visible. This creates a daily physical human divide and cultural gap in my civilian transition that I constantly have to deal with. By recognizing the importance of culture in this process we can better understand why soldiers behave the way they do in the military and consequently the troubles they experience in adjusting to civilian life.

Thu: Can you share with us what you’ve learned about the culture of war from your experiences in the military and your current study of anthropology?

Faulkner: My time in the military allowed me the opportunity to observe and participate in war firsthand. The knowledge I gained is unique because anthropologists have typically studied so-called primitive warfare or studied the reasons for contemporary conflicts from an etic perspective. These approaches have inherent limitations and inaccuracies because, as Anna Simons points out in her review article on the anthropology of warfare, anthropologists attend to the “why” behind the war or its aftermath.

What I am trying to understand is the “how” or the cultural process of contemporary warfare that includes an emic perspective. Hopefully the experiences I have had can bolster and elucidate our knowledge of the culture of war.

Justin Faulkner, a US Army infantryman in the initial assault during the first year of the 2nd Gulf War in Iraq, is an anthropology graduate student at Northern Illinois University. Kendall Thu, an associate professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University, is a past member of the AAA Committee on Policy.